USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > A history of Buffalo : delineating the evolution of the city > Part 10
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CULTURAL EVOLUTION
ladies, bought a house on Vermont Street, and gave the free use of it for a year. At the end of the year a larger house was needed, and secured on Virginia Street. Another year brought needs of a still larger home, and it came as a generous gift from Mr. George W. Tifft, who conveyed to the society a commodious building on Seneca Street, which had been used for a water-cure establishment, and was admirably fitted to all the purposes of the Ingleside Home for a number of years. Time, however, made unfavorable changes in the neighborhood, and in 1884 a fortunate opportunity occurred for securing what was known as the Alberger Homestead, at Cold Spring, No. 70 of what is now Harvard Place. There, in a roomy and convenient house, with ample and pleasant grounds, stocked with fruit, the Home has been established ever since. Several addi- tions to the house have been made, the latest, in 1904, ex- tending two large wings. Its capacity is for 70 inmates.
The Buffalo State Hospital, for the care and treatment of the insane, was established in pursuance of an Act of the Legislature passed April 23, 1870. The City bought 203 acres of land on Forest Avenue, adjoining Delaware Park, and gave it to the State for a site. The cornerstone of the building was laid with Masonic rites on the 18th of Septem- ber, 1872, the Hon. James O. Putnam delivering a notable address. The central structure, for administrative offices, and the long stretching east wing, containing eleven wards, were finished and opened in November, 1880. Between 1891 and 1895 the corresponding west wing was added. In 1897 a separate building on Elmwood Avenue for the acute and infirmary was finished and brought into use. The number of patients has risen steadily, and on the Ist of March, 1908, was 1,871, being 43 more than the calculated capacity of the institution. A training school for nurses
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THE HOMEOPATHIC HOSPITAL
was opened in 1884, and was the second to be established in this country in an institution for the insane.
The first superintendent of the hospital was Dr. Judson B. Andrews, who died in August, 1894, and was succeeded by Dr. Arthur W. Hurd.
The Homeopathic Hospital, incorporated in 1872 by the Buffalo Homeopathic Hospital Association, opened its doors to its first patients (two in number) in June of that year, in a building at the corner of Washington and North Division streets, equipped with three beds. It remained in that location two years, at the end of which time the property it now occupies, at the corner of Cottage and Maryland streets, was bought by the trustees, and the con- siderably large house included in the purchase was properly fitted up. It served fairly for ten years; then a wing was added, containing four wards, four private rooms, and a surgery. Subsequently, at successive times, a nurses' cottage of two stories, a children's and maternity cottage of two stories, and a building of twelve rooms for the hospital servants, were added. These are now entirely outgrown, and a scientifically perfected new building is being erected on a lot at the corner of Linwood and West Delevan avenues. A large fund for the building has been sub- scribed, and it is likely to be finished and in use by the time this writing goes into print. The need of it is being severely felt.
Mr. Jerome Fargo was the first president of the board of trustees. The first president of the board of associate man- agers was Mrs. Warner, wife of the physician who was called "the father of Homeopathy in Buffalo." Mrs. J. F. Ernst, Mrs. J. T. Cook, Mrs. Charles E. Selkirk and Mrs. C. J. North have held that executive post since.
The Buffalo Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
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CULTURAL EVOLUTION
Children, and to bring to justice those guilty of it, was or- ganized in 1874, and incorporated in 1879 as the Queen City Society. It aims also to rescue children from depraved and vicious surroundings, and to place them in good homes. Likewise, it gives temporary aid to children in need of it.
The Buffalo Eye and Ear Infirmary, incorporated in 1876, was conducted for some years in various temporary locations on Washington Street, but acquired a permanent establishment in its own building, at 673 Michigan Street, near Genesee, in 1893.
The Church Home of the German Evangelical Churches of Buffalo and vicinity, for old, feeble and homeless people, and for orphan children, was incorporated in 1877. Pastor Schelle, of St. Stephen's United Evangelical Church, appears to have been the leader in the undertaking. It was placed outside of the city limits, on twenty-five acres of land, where it has ample buildings, with orchards and gardens and many pleasant surroundings.
In a preceding account of the Charity Organization Society, mention has been made of the Fitch Crèche, or day nursery for the infant children of working mothers during the hours of their absence from home, which was founded by that society in 1880.
Although the Children's Aid Society did not assume an organized and incorporated form until 1882, the beginning of interest and action which created it appears to date from a Thanksgiving Dinner to news-boys and boot-blacks, given in 1872 by the Y. M. A. of Grace M. E. Church. The final organization of this interest is ascribed to a published letter by William Pryor Letchworth, in which he urged the need of some provision of a home for many of the boys who win their own living from employments of the streets. The
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THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY
Aid Society was formed soon afterwards with this im- mediate object, and opened what has always been known as the News-Boys' and Boot-Blacks' Home, in a building at No. 29 Franklin Street, which was bought for the purpose and properly fitted up.
The original Home was maintained until 1908, when the Society had been enabled, by a generous bequest from Mrs. Helen Thornton Campbell, to erect and furnish a large and beautiful fireproof building, in a fine situation on Delaware Avenue, north of Chippewa Street. Here it offers hospi- tality to about one hundred boys, having 75 single rooms and three dormitories, with steam heat and electric light throughout, and with the perfection of all equipments for comfort and health. Dining hall, club room, gymnasium, library, play ground, and the apparatus for many indoor games, seem to afford every attraction that can operate to keep the young lodgers from harmful places of resort. They pay for their bed and board according to the amount they earn. All under fifteen years of age are required to attend school. The city has no wiser or more beneficent institution.
The building vacated by the Children's Aid Society, at 29 Franklin Street, was taken by the county and became the County Lodging House, where some thousands of homeless, but respectable, men have found temporary shelter and food since its doors were opened to them.
Fitch Provident Dispensary, for medical relief to the poor, was opened by the Charity Organization Society in 1883, and discontinued in 1901, when other similar agencies were appearing to satisfy the need.
In 1885 the District Nursing Association, to provide free nursing for indigent people in sickness, and to conduct a diet kitchen and a flower mission, was organized mainly by the efforts of the late Miss Elizabeth C. Marshall.
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CULTURAL EVOLUTION
Fitch Accident Hospital was opened, in the Fitch Insti- tute, by the Charity Organization Society, in 1886, but dis- continued in 1901, when the present Emergency Hospital was built.
A movement which gave rise to the Fresh Air Mission in Buffalo was started in the Sunday School of the Universalist Church of the Messiah, in 1888. It was taken up by the Christian Endeavor Society, which collected funds and took part in the work involved. The Charity Organization Society interested itself promptly in the undertaking, and its agencies found the children that needed most to have a summer week or two of country air. At first, the hospi- tality of farm houses and village homes, not far from Buffalo, was appealed to for the entertainment of such chil- dren, either as boarders or as guests, for short terms, and many were received in that way by good people in the sur- rounding towns. Then property was obtained at Angola, on the shore of the lake, and beginnings made in the estab- lishment of quarters for a summer colony of these boys and girls, to be taken to it in relays. This Angola summer resort was intended to be named Ga-ose-ha Beach; but somebody dubbed it more fittingly Cradle Beach, and so it is known.
The development of the Fresh Air Mission from small beginnings to an important organization of exceptionally benevolent work is said to have been due primarily "to the arduous pioneer service of Alice O. Moore and Paul Ransom." Too many to be named, however, have been earnest workers in it since, and it has had generous monetary support from many, though always less than it needs.
A hospital for cholera infantum was established tempo- rarily at Angola in 1893, and permanently at Athol Springs, on the lake shore, the next year, when the Athol Springs Hotel was bought and excellently fitted for that use. The Society for Christian Endeavor was a large contributor to
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FRESH AIR MISSION, ETC.
the fund which this new undertaking required. The Hospital is a separate organization, distinctly incorporated, but none the less identified with the Fresh Air Mission. It has been, from the first, under the medical direction of Drs. DeWitt H. Sherman and Irving M. Snow. Many beds in the hospital have been endowed.
An interesting agency connected with the raising of money for the support of the Fresh Air Mission has been that of the "Cradle Banks," originated and managed by Mr. William H. Wright, Jr. These little receptacles of small change, scattered everywhere through the city, in hotels, banks and stores, every summer, allow nobody to forget the little folk who need a taste of fresh air. In the first seven years of their silent begging they collected no less than $13,614.
Kindred in object to the Children's Aid Society Home for Boys is the Working Boys' Home, founded in 1888 by the late Bishop Ryan, under the direction of the Rev. Daniel Walsh. Until 1897 it was established in a purchased private residence. Then the present Home on Niagara Square, large and well-provided in every particular, was opened in October. The director is assisted in the conduct of the house by several Sisters of St. Joseph, and an auxil- iary Ladies' Aid Society affords help to the institution in various ways. The inmates of the Home receive religious and moral as well as industrial instruction.
A well-equipped Children's Hospital, promoted and maintained principally by Mrs. Gibson T. Williams, Mr. and Mrs. George H. Lewis, Miss Martha T. Williams, Mrs. C. W. Pardee, Mr. William A. Rogers and Mr. Frank Goodyear, was opened at 219 Bryant Street, in 1892. A new and much-enlarged building was erected on the same site in October, 1908, its cost being borne by Mrs. Pardee.
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CULTURAL EVOLUTION
The institution of the German Deaconess' Home and Hospital resulted from a meeting held in February, 1895, at the St. Paul's German United Evangelical Church. The Deaconess' Association was then organized, with the object of gathering and training young women and widows for works of Christian charity, and of founding and main- taining institutions for such work. A hospital was opened in a rented building, No. 27 Goodrich Street, and the first patient admitted on the 14th of November, 1895. Within the following twelve months a permanent building had been planned, located and completely erected on Kingsley Street, near Humboldt Parkway. It was dedicated and occupied on the 21st of November, 1896. This building provided centrally for the home of the deaconesses and working women of the institution, with a hospital in its east wing and a home in the west wing for aged and friendless men and women. Miss Ida Tobschall, formerly a teacher in the public schools of the city, was the sister superior in charge of the institution from its opening until her resigna- tion in 1908.
In 1896 several Lutheran Churches of the city and county united in establishing the Lutheran Church Home, for the aged and infirm of their congregations who need its shelter and support. The Home was first located at 390 Walden Avenue; but in 1906 a large, three-story fireproof brick building for it was erected at 217 East Delevan Avenue, at a cost of about $50,000, on a site covering three and a half acres of ground. The building is planned on the most approved sanitary lines. Mr. William F. Wendt is the president of its board, the other officers of which are the Rev. F. A. Kähler, Rev. T. H. Becker, Dr. Franklin C. Gram and F. W. H. Becker.
In 1896 the German Hospital, projected at a public meeting held in June of the previous year, at Schwable's
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BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS
Hall, was opened temporarily in a building at 621 Genesee Street. In 1901 it entered an excellent and well-equipped hospital building of its own, at 742 Jefferson Street, erected on ground given by the heirs of Gerhard Lang. A Free Dispensary is connected with the hospital.
The Prison Gate Mission was organized in 1896 by Mrs. Jonathan L. Slater, "to help discharged women prisoners, to look after their spiritual and temporal welfare, and to aid prison reform in the State of New York." From the Home first established for it the work was taken, in 1900, to the Salvation Army Rescue Home, on Humboldt Parkway. Since that time the prison visiting and caring for released homeless women has been performed by Salvation Army workers, supported by the Prison Gate Mission funds. The service of a woman probation officer, for adult women, has been added of late to the work of the Mission, and women are sentenced to its Home by the courts. This probation work is growing. The present location of the Home is at 69 Cottage Street.
The King's Daughters' Home, for temporary hospitality to friendless young women, especially those convalescent from hospitals, was opened at 134 Mariner Street in 1898.
A University of Buffalo Dispensary was opened in 1899.
In connection with the Church of the Immaculate Con- ception, and at the instance of Bishop Quigley, St. James Mission, for poor children, was established in 1902.
A second Crèche, or day nursery for infants whose mothers are called from home by their work, was opened in 1903, at 79 Goodell Street, by the Association of Collegiate Alumnae.
Under the name of the Day Nursery of the Infant Jesus, a third Crèche was founded in 1904 by Bishop Colton, in
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CULTURAL EVOLUTION
connection with St. Felix Home for Working Girls, and is conducted by the Felician Sisters, on Fillmore Avenue, near Broadway. A fourth is in contemplation by the Angel Guardian Mission Association, to be connected with the institution for which it is preparing to build on Eagle Street, overlooking Bennett Park.
In a building adapted from a private residence on Tifft Street, the Sisters of Mercy opened a hospital in Sep- tember, 1904. The work of their order in Buffalo was begun in 1860, when several of the Sisters came from Pitts- burg, on the invitation of Bishop Timon, and took charge of the parochial school in St. Bridget's parish. Other schools were placed under their care in after years, and their sphere of labor had been educational until this hospital service was taken in hand. A Mercy Hospital Aid Society, having a large membership, gives financial and sympathetic support to the hospital, and it promises to become an im- portant addition to the humane institutions of the city. A new building, of brick, is already in contemplation. At once, on the opening of the hospital, a school of nurses was formed.
The City established a new Municipal Hospital in 1904, for the care of smallpox patients, replacing an old Quaran- tine Hospital which had become unfit for use.
The St. Felix Home, for working girls, on Fillmore Avenue near Broadway, and the St. Charles Home, for the same purpose, have both been established by Bishop Colton since he came to the administration of the Catholic diocese, in 1903.
In December, 1906, the Union Rescue Mission was estab- lished by Major B. A. Arnold and Mrs. Arnold. Its work includes the maintenance of a "Christian Home for
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HOSPITALS, ETC.
Women," at 387 Washington Street, and a "Relief Home and Industrial Department for Men," at 53-55 Broadway.
The Fitch Tuberculosis Dispensary, in the Fitch Institute, was opened by the Charity Organization Society in 1907.
At present the Poles of the city are preparing to establish a hospital on ground already bought for the purpose, at the corner of Fillmore Avenue and Stanislaus Street, to be under the care of Polish Sisters. The building contem- plated is expected to cost not less than $100,000.
An Act of Congress passed in 1902 provided for the erection of a Marine Hospital at Buffalo; but contracts for the building were not let until the spring of 1908, and it was not expected to be finished until the end of March, 1910. The selected site is on Main Street, near Robie Avenue. The building is to be of three stories, partly constructed of light-colored granite and partly of light-colored limestone or sandstone, and is planned for the latest improvements in every equipment.
There has been long discussion of the need in the city of special hospitals for contagious diseases and for the treat- ment of tuberculosis, as well as the need of some better public hospital of the general character than is supplied in connection with the County Almshouse. Action has been delayed by the troublesome question of sites, and by dis- agreements between city and county ; but at present the city, alone, seems likely to make provision for a large general institution that will satisfy all the public hospital require- ments at one place.
Of the many private hospitals, special and general, that have been and are being opened in the city, it is hardly necessary to speak.
CHAPTER V EDUCATION
A N interesting account of the first school house in Buf- falo, written by Mr. Crisfield Johnson, the historian of Erie County, was published in the Buffalo Com- mercial Advertiser, in 1875, and reprinted in the first vol- ume of the Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society. With less detail the story appears also in Mr. Johnson's History.
As early as 1801 the few inhabitants of the village secured from Mr. Ellicott, of the Holland Company, the assign- ment of a lot for a school house; but it was not till 1807 that the building of the house was taken in hand. On the 29th of March, that year, a meeting of the inhabitants was held "at Joseph Landon's Inn," "for the purpos to arect a School Hous in Sd Village by a Subscription of the Inhab- itance," says a minute of the meeting in a little book which the Buffalo Historical Society has the good fortune to pos- sess among its archives, and which it preserves with great care. The undertaking was voted, and subscriptions, dated the next day, are entered in the book. They number six- teen, pledging sums that range from eighty-seven and a half cents to $22, which largest contribution was made by Sam- uel Pratt. The total is $127.87.
Building accounts kept in the same little book show that work on the school house was begun at once; but, according to the same accounts, it cannot have been shingled till a year and a half later, and the building accounts were not closed till May, 1809. It had four years and a half of use, and then, with the rest of the village, it was burned by the British invaders of 1813. It did not go out of history, how- ever, for another twenty-five years, the indemnity paid for
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I3I
PRIMITIVE SCHOOLS
it by the United States having become the subject of litiga- tions which reached their decision in 1838, and which de- voured much more than the sum in dispute.
All that can be known of the educational work which fol- lowed the building of this first school house is recounted in a paper prepared for the Buffalo Historical Society in 1863 by the late Oliver G. Steele. Mr. Steele had been, not quite the first superintendent of schools in Buffalo, after the village became a city, but the first who organized a public school system, in the proper sense of the term, and no one else of the last generation had so much personal knowledge of the early school history of the town. From an older in- habitant, Benjamin Hodge, he obtained the following de- scription of a school antedating that for which the house was built. It was kept by a Scotchman "born in Ireland," named Sturgeon, about 1807, in a house far out Main Street which had but one window, and that without glass. "Plenty of light, however, was admitted through the open- ings between the logs. A small pine table and three benches made of slabs constituted the whole furniture. Mr. Sturgeon at first taught only reading, but afterwards, at the urgent request of parents, added spelling. Some twenty scholars attended," and Mr. Hodge, who gives this description of the school, was one of them.
The first teacher of the school for which a better house was built was a Presbyterian minister, Samuel Whiting, and the next was Amos Callender, "whose name occurs," says Mr. Steele, "in nearly every movement connected with morals, education, religion and good order." "About 1810 or 1811, some of the inhabitants thought something more was wanted for their children, and Gamaliel St. John in- duced a Mr. Asaph Hall to open what was called a gram- mar school, in the court house. This was continued for some little time, but could not be sustained." After the
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CULTURAL EVOLUTION
war, and the partial resurrection of the village from its ashes, a school was started, and kept in such rooms as could be obtained. Deacon Callender again taught, and also a Mr. Pease. "A school was usually kept on the Lancasterian plan, with some success. At one time a vote was obtained for the district to raise $4,000 for a house and lot, but it was afterwards rescinded. About 1830 a tax was levied, with the proceeds of which the trustees bought the lot on Church Street, now [1863] occupied by school No. 8 [since re- moved]. Several efforts were made to build a house upon it; but nothing was accomplished until the new system was established." "I have heard," continues Mr. Steele, "of quite a number of private school teachers, who taught at sundry times and with varied success. Among the names I have heard mentioned, as being quite successful, was that of Mr. Wyatt Camp, a brother of Major John G. Camp, who is mentioned with much regard by his pupils."
Until 1821 the village was one school district; then it was divided into two, Court Street being, apparently, the divid- ing line. Of early school teaching in the upper district, which was No. 2, Mr. Steele speaks as follows: "A school was established in hired rooms, in various places. I cannot learn who were the first trustees, or the name of the first teacher. In 1822 a school was kept in a house on the west side of Main Street, between Mohawk and Genesee streets. Our fellow citizen, Mr. Fillmore, commenced his career as a public man as teacher of this school. He was, at the same time, a student with the law firm of Rice & Clary. I will here take occasion to state that Mr. Fillmore afterwards taught the school at Cold Spring for one winter, 1822-3. During that time he was also a deputy postmaster, and came in after school in the afternoon to make up the mails. When the stage left for Albany in the morning his practice was to ride out on the box, with the driver, to open his school at Cold Spring at the usual hour."
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EARLY PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
In 1830 a third school district was organized and a school established on the far eastern side of the town, in the neigh- borhood known as "the Hydraulics." Between that year and 1838 four others were created, with schools located re- spectively on Perry, Goodell, South Division and Louisiana streets. In that period, as we are told by Mr. Steele, a number of ambitious institutions sprang up and enjoyed a brief career. A high-school association, formed in 1827, went so far as to erect a fine building on what is now Pearl Place, and to maintain a school for some years; but it did not win an enduring support. It was succeeded by a mili- tary school, which flourished for a time, and disappeared. In the end, the school house became part of the old Hospital of the Sisters of Charity. In 1833 the University of Buf- falo was projected, but not realized even in its medical school until some years later.
Then came the financial catastrophe of 1837, by the effects of which, says Mr. Steele, the private schools of the city "were so paralyzed as to be of little service; and thoughtful men began to cast around for some general and effective system, which would bring the means of education within the reach of all." "Few people took any interest in the dis- trict schools, and few children except those of the poorer classes attended them." "It soon became the custom of the trustees to find some person who would take the school for the smallest rate of tuition, during the time required by law, to enable them to draw public money; giving them the public money and taking their own risk of collection from the pupils. This easy and slipshod way of doing business produced such results as might be expected. In some popu- lous districts the teacher could do very well, and would sustain a very fair school. In others it would be kept a few months to fulfill the requirements of the law, and then closed for the remainder of the year. The whole system was with-
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