Annals of St. Michael's ; being the history of St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, for one hundred years 1807-1907 ;, Part 30

Author: Peters, John Punnett, 1852-1921, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New York, London, G. P. Putnam
Number of Pages: 578


USA > New York > New York City > Annals of St. Michael's ; being the history of St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, for one hundred years 1807-1907 ; > Part 30


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Blessed indeed is he who has left such a record wherefrom to weave a laurel wreath for his monument. And happy a transit such as his, in which was found no trace of the "pains of death."


That our departed brother was thoroughly conversant with the details of business, a distinctly practical person, might be inferred from the successful manner in which his affairs were conducted. Those who knew him most inti- mately knew best how even was his temper, how calmly and equably life flowed on for him. Up to the end all went on after that fashion, and the ending was in exact harmony with all that preceded.


He was taken away in the summertide, when days are long and the air is balmy and the sunshine is warm, and all nature is aglow. They who had the privilege of attend- ing his funeral may have remarked the singular character which invested the ceremonies; they may have felt as if they were at a bridal rather than at a burial. The chancel was a bower of fragrance and floral beauty, the music was bright and joyful, the body lay beneath a mass of roses; even the vestments of the clergy bespoke a festal character. The crowded church was filled in great measure with the working classes and the poor; women were there with little babies in their arms; detachments of children from


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the several charitable homes of which he was the head; clergymen in great numbers walked in procession; prelates of the Church, all personally devoted to him, conducted the services, and two of them laid his head in the ground of St. Michael's Cemetery. As the body was borne from the church, poor men, standing in double ranks, uncovered and tears were flowing fast. It was a tribute which many a worker in the Church might envy.


" Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!"


II. House of Mercy .- In the course of his ministra- tions among the outcasts of Blackwell's Island, Mr. Richmond found many young women and girls who had made but the first step in the road to temporal and eternal ruin. There were difficulties in the way of re- claiming these wanderers, which he thought would be in some measure overcome, or at least lessened, could he bring proper female influence to second his warnings and teachings. To accomplish this end, and aid in saving souls, in the year 1854, Mrs. Richmond offered herself for this work, to which were devoted the remaining eleven years of her life.I


She soon found that her work with the girls and women in the Penitentiary on Blackwell's Island was useless unless she could provide a home for them to go to in Manhattan when they were discharged. Ac- cordingly she rented a house on Jauncey's Lane, near Eighth Avenue; but scarcely had it been rented when the city condemned the land for the Park, and she had to vacate. Another house was rented in Man- hattanville,


1 Gradual Growth of Charities. Mrs. Richmond actually began her work as reader and visitor in the Penitentiary in the latter part of 1853.


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House of Mercy


and with the help of a few friends fitted conveniently for her purposes at considerable expense, with furnace, water. etc. When the alterations were nearly completed, the carelessness of the workmen set fire to the building, and left Mrs. Richmond not only without a house, but with the rent to pay for a whole year to come, for that which the flames had destroyed. Under such disaster and discour- agement probably few would have had the heart to try again. Mrs. Richmond had, however, faith in God. She believed He had called her to this work, and would reward her labors with success. She looked for the speedy coming of the Messenger to bid her go on, and speedily he came.


Admiration for her indomitable perseverance, and an interest in the proposed project of attempted reformation, prompted a servant of Christ to authorize her, at his cost, to rent the summer country-seat of one of our ex-mayors. As the mansion was more desirable both for itself and its location, and as the place had two small cottages and out- buildings, giving it further advantage over the former house, the mourned loss proved almost an immediate gain to her work.


By this time the House of Mercy, which had been incorporated in 1855, and placed by the Legislature on a peculiar footing, as an agency of reformation recognized by the State, had a board of trustees con- sisting of five gentlemen. In 1859 they purchased the mansion of a former vestryman of St. Michael's, Mr. Howland, on 86th Street and North River. This was supposed to be capable of receiving about 100 persons. Thither Mrs. Richmond transferred her pen- itents, with whom she had come to live after the death of her husband, and there for some years she dwelt with the lost whom she sought to save. Through those earlier years of its existence the institution depended almost entirely upon her exertions for its support.


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She begged the money for its maintenance in counting houses, in the street, from door to door. Little by little, however, friends were raised up for it, the board of trustees was enlarged, and in 1860 an associate board of ladies was formed to help in raising funds. Finally, in 1863, Mrs. Richmond turned over the care of this institution to Dr. Peters, who placed it under the direction of the "Sisters." During all this period the rector of St. Michael's Church had been the chaplain of the institution. Mr. Richmond had conducted daily prayers at the House of Mercy as long as his strength permitted. In fact he regarded the institu- tion as a component part of his parish, and so reported it to Convention. After his death Dr. Peters continued to visit it almost daily, until his growing cares obliged him to resign the chaplaincy, in which, about 1869, he was succeeded by Dean Sey- mour, afterwards Bishop of Springfield. After this the institution as such has no further direct connection with St. Michael's Church or its clergy ; but St. Michael's has always continued to be represented on the Ladies' Committee of the institution.


III. St. Barnabas's House and Midnight Mission .- When Mrs. Richmond left the House of Mercy she did so only to undertake a further task in the same field.


Many who had sought her Home of penitence came from the streets of the distant City really desirous of reform. She thought, "There may be others left behind them, less determined to do well, but who would enter a home of refuge from sin, if it stood in their daily path, inviting their entrance in any short moment of disgust or remorse." There had by this time become associated with Mrs. Richmond many ladies, as well as a large Board of Trustees, and seeing her first charity-"The House of Mercy"-firmly established, she resigned her superintend-


THE RECTORY OF DR. T. M. PETERS House in which The Sheltering Arms was Founded


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St. Barnabas's House


ence of it, that she might be free to make a more direct attack upon the strongholds of Satan. She went down to the very haunts of sin and hired a house, and set its doors ever open, and trod the streets by night, to find guests to fill its chambers.


This she called the Home of the Homeless. Having begun the work, and shown both its practicability and its necessity, she turned it over, in 1865, to the recently established City Mission Society, which re- christened it St. Barnabas's House. It was soon found that there were multitudes in this city innocent of any crime but homelessness. These were brought to St. Barnabas's House by the police, or directed thither by friends. Women applied for admission when discharged from hospitals cured, but too feeble for work. It was obviously undesirable to mingle to- gether such persons and the women in need of moral reform, for whom the house at 304 Mulberry Street was originally established. In 1867, therefore, St. Bar- nabas's House was appropriated to those who were only homeless, and the Midnight Mission was opened, through the efforts of the Rev. Mr. Hilliard and Dr. Peters, at 260 Green Street, for the reception of the penitent Magdalens. The connection of St. Barnabas's House, now part of the City Mission Society's work, and of the Midnight Mission, later taken over by the Sisters of St. John Baptist, with St. Michael's Church is, of course, indirect, but both of them did, in fact, originate in the work of the rector and members of that parish.


IV. New York Infant Asylum .- When Mrs. Rich- mond turned St. Barnabas's House over to the City Mission Society, she undertook still a new work.


Her experience had shown her that there should be a home to receive the unwedded, expectant mother, not


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only and chiefly to save the child from abandonment or violent death, but for the mother's sake, that, through maternal love, she might be won to the heavenly love, and eternally saved.


She went to Albany, during the session of the Legislature, and by her persistence obtained from unconcerned men the admirable charter of the Infant Asylum. In the neighborhood of New York she hired a large house and grounds, and, with the hand of death upon her, began to gather in the intended occupants of this new home, and herself to beg, and give, the money required for its maintenance. In the remaining months of her life she received one hundred and fifty of these children, who would never know a father's care, and sheltered and prayed for, and strove with, as many of the mothers as she could induce to share this home with her.


Mrs. Richmond started the Infant Asylum in the colonial house then known as Woodlawn, a rambling old mansion, with various outbuildings, standing in a beautiful wood, fronting on what is now Broadway, at 106th and 107th streets, and stretching down to the river. She was at this time dying of cancer, and her heroism in undertaking this work in the pain of that sickness was beyond words. Suffering almost constantly she yet was able, by God's blessing, in the short time left to her, to place this, her last institu- tion, on so firm a foundation that others could take up and carry on the work after her death. She died in St. Luke's Hospital, January 1, 1866. Further history of this institution, the receiving and city de- partment of which is located at 6Ist Street and Tenth Avenue, is not a part of the annals of St. Michael's.


V. The Sheltering Arms .- In connection with the work of the City Mission Society, committees of ladies were organized to visit the City Prison and various


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Need for a New Asylum


city institutions in concert with the missionaries. In the City Prison


they found from time to time mothers committed for drunkenness, who were sent to Blackwell's Island. Some of these women had children, who, by the removal of their mothers, were deprived of all care. Even in their degradation, these unhappy mothers had some human- ity left, and were concerned for their children's welfare. "They literally lay their children at our feet," said one of the visiting ladies, "imploring us to find them a home." At about the same time, there was brought to the notice of another lady of the same Society a little blind girl, deserted by her parents, without friends, and not of an age to be received at the Blind Asylum. Shortly after, a home was sought, by a working man, for an incurable, motherless, crippled boy. As there was no hope of his restoration, no then existing Hospital or Institution would receive him. Further inquiry resulted in the unexpected discovery that there were in the City of New York, and out of it, large numbers of children, who, though surrounded by many Asylums, were yet without a home, because needing some necessary qualification for admission to Institutions al- ready established. It was also ascertained in the course of these inquiries, that there were many cases of neglect of children, owing to the usual requirements of our char- itable Institutions that their inmates should be formally surrendered to the Trustees.


Asylums for the blind and the deaf mutes received inmates only after a certain age. Where were the poor homeless children to spend their earlier years? There were hospitals for sick and crippled children, if curable, but incurables could not be admitted. Some institutions received half-orphans or poor children free, on condition that they be surrendered to the institution, but many parents in pressing need of


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Annals of St. Michael's


temporary assistance were unwilling to surrender their children irrevocably. Moreover a half-orphan asylum could not receive children of a father deserted by his wife, nor of a mother abandoned by her husband, nor of parents who were both sick and in the hospital. There were hundreds of cases in which the family was abandoned by the father, thus throwing the support of the children upon the mother and obliging her, perhaps, to break up the household and go out herself to service.


If she could place her children for a few months or a year in good hands and under Christian training she would gladly do so, provided that when able she might claim them again; "but I cannot," said one of those deserted mothers, "sign away my own flesh and blood."


His work in the City Mission Society brought Dr. Peters directly into contact with all those cases. It became clear to him that, in spite of his objection to multiplying institutions, it was necessary to establish a new institution to care for the children for whom no other institution would provide, making its rules sufficiently broad to enable it to supplement the work of all other institutions for children. Accordingly, in 1864, he called together, in his own house in Bloom- ingdale a little company of those who he thought would be interested in such an enterprise, and pro- posed to them the establishment of an institution where "the only qualification for the admission of a child shall be, that it is not entitled to recep- tion elsewhere, and that, in the Institution there is a vacant bed: the children cared for there belong to their parents, not to the Institution, and can be claimed by parents at will: by the introduction of the Cottage system the children are to be distributed into separate


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The Sheltering Arms Opened


families with a responsible head over each." He had already conferred with the "Sisters," who were willing and ready to undertake charge of this work; and to make this charity possible he offered his own house free of rent for a term of ten years. A board of trustees was at once formed, and on October 6, 1864, The Shel- tering Arms, the origin of the name of which institution is related elsewhere, was opened with all its 40 beds taken up, and Sister Sarah in immediate charge of the institution. In 1866 another building was erected by the trustees, at an expense of $10,000, and the num- ber of children increased to 90, the annual expenses of the institution being at this time about $11,000.


The opening of the Boulevard compelled the removal of The Sheltering Arms, in 1869, to its present site at 129th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. By this time the institution had attained considerable popularity as meeting a much-felt want, and a great bazaar was organized, to provide and equip new buildings adapted to its needs, the principal promoter being Col. James Montgomery, brother of one of the trustees, Rev. Dr. Montgomery, Rector of the Church of the Incarnation. Almost all of the churches in the city became interested in this bazaar, which was with one exception the largest ever undertaken in the city of New York, realiz- ing something like $40,000 for the institution, besides bringing it prominently before the attention of the community. This had, however, one unfortunate result. The Sisters had become, since the organiza- tion of the Sisterhood, very ritualistic. The pub- licity given to The Sheltering Arms called attention to this fact. Inquisitive and gossipy people circu- lated all sorts of stories regarding them and their doings, which found their way shortly into the


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Annals of St. Michael's


public press. Finally matters reached such a pass that the rectors of several of the most prominent churches in the city asked the trustees to make an investigation, with a view to the removal of the Sisters. The president and trustees of the institution stood by the Sisters in spite of the threatened and to some extent actual withdrawal of financial support, but the Sisters, at this juncture, apparently through some mis- conception of the situation, by advice of their spiritual head, suddenly withdrew from the institution, almost without notice, at Easter of 1870. The result was, for the moment, chaos in the internal administration of the institution, which was relieved by the kindly aid of some Sisters of St. John who came on from Washington to help out in the emergency. Dr. Peters had for some time felt that some such catastrophe was impending, and made such arrangements in advance that within a short time Miss Sarah S. Richmond, daughter of the Rev. James C. Richmond, a former rector of this parish, was put in charge of the institu_ tion, of which she continued superintendent until her death, December 21, 1906, when she was succeeded by her sister, Miss Katharine Richmond.


Of all his work, The Sheltering Arms was probably the nearest to the heart of Dr. Peters. It was also very close to the life of the parish. Two of the vestrymen of St. Michael's Church, James Punnett and Dr. D. T. Brown, were among the incorporators, and the list of its trustees includes not a few who have been or still are on the vestry of this parish. The institution itself was an integral part of the parochial work of this church, so continuing even after its removal to Manhattanville.


The removal to Manhattanville, and the erection of


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An Uninstitutional Institution


the new buildings, which now house almost 200 children, rendered possible the introduction of the so-called cottage plan, first adopted by Wichern, in the famous Rauhes Haus, at Hamburg. The Sheltering Arms was one of the first institutions in this country, if not the first, to adopt and adapt this system, and in this and other particulars, including its name, it has been widely imitated. Aiming to make The Shel- tering Arms as uninstitutional as possible, in order to counteract the de-individualizing effects of institu- tional life, Dr. Peters and the trustees not only adopted the cottage plan, of smaller groups living in families under the care of their own house-mothers, but also did away with uniforms, sent the children to the Public Schools, encouraged frequent visits from and free intercourse with parents and friends, and in every way sought to maintain normal relations between the children under their care and the outside world. In 1874 Dr. Peters established The Sheltering Arms Paper, which continued to be published until 1900, as a means of reporting the affairs of the institution to its numer- ous friends and securing continually new supporters, and also of spreading general charitable information and attracting attention to the charitable needs of the city at large. He himself contributed numerous sketches and letters to this paper, which was edited by one of his daughters, Miss L. Peters. One feature of the paper was its charity list, compiled by Rev. C. T. Ward, assistant at St. Michael's, which was the first attempt at a systematic reporting of the charities and charitable interests of New York City.


At Dr. Peters's death, in 1893, he was succeeded in the presidency of the institution by Mr. William Alexander Smith, who had not only been concerned with him in


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Annals of St. Michael's


the founding of The Sheltering Arms, but who had also from the outset been a fellow-worker with him in the Mission to Public Institutions and the City Mission Society. Ten years later Mr. Smith resigned and was succeeded by Dr. Peters's eldest son, William Richmond Peters, Senior Warden of St. Michael's Church.


VI. Sisterhood of St. Mary. As has been narrated in a previous chapter, after the dissolution of Dr. Muhlen- berg's Sisterhood of the Holy Communion, Dr. Peters put some of the former members of that Sisterhood in charge first of the House of Mercy and then of The Sheltering Arms, giving them, at the same time, work of a more parochial character, nursing and the like, in St. Michael's parish. Two years later five of these ladies were formally organized into the Sisterhood of St. Mary, and set apart for their work by the Rt. Rev. Horatio Potter, Bishop of New York, in St. Michael's Church, on the Feast of the Purification, February 2, 1865. By Dr. Peters's suggestion and advice the Rev. Dr. Dix, rector of Trinity Church, became the spiritual adviser of the Sisterhood. Dr. Peters continued to serve for some years as the chap- lain of the House of Mercy, and he was also both the spiritual and administrative head of The Sheltering Arms and St. Barnabas's House, which latter institution had been added to the other two institutions under the care of the Sisters in 1865. The Sisters rapidly de- veloped ritualistic tendencies, adopting a more elaborate dress, more rigid rules, and a more mediƦval con- ception of their vows. This led to criticism on the part of some of the directors of the City Mission Society, resulting in their withdrawal in 1867 from St. Bar- nabas's House, where they were replaced (until 1886) by the Sisterhood of the Good Shepherd, organized


THE PRESENT RECTORY House in which Bloomingdale Day Nursery was Founded Old Tavern Altered and Enlarged


-


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Reorganization of Clinic


on the same plan on which the Sisterhood of St. Mary was originally organized, so far as costumes and vows are concerned. In 1870 they withdrew from The Sheltering Arms, and the connection of the Sisterhood with St. Michael's Church, where it was originally organized and in which the first five Sisters were set apart, came to an end; only the Sisters are still laid to rest, when their earthly labors are ended in St. Michael's Cemetery. One sweet memento of the connection of the Sisterhood with St. Michael's re- mains to us in the shape of a spoon for the Communion service presented by Sister Sarah in 1864.


VII. Bloomingdale Clinic. In 1891 four physicians, Drs. TenEyck, Ware, Tracy, and Stevenson, practising in the general neighborhood of the church, organized a clinic and engaged a room on Amsterdam Avenue. Perceiving the benefit of such work for the poor of the parish, the Rector of St. Michael's Church joined with them, agreeing to pay one half of the rent. Later he gave the Clinic at a nominal rent a room in Lyceum Hall, on 99th Street, and when the church acquired that building for a temporary parish house, in 1893, it made the Clinic a free tenant. Other expenses the doctors paid out of their own pockets or begged from their friends. When the new Parish House was pro- jected, a fine clinic was contained in the plan. This attracted the attention of the late Mrs. Margaret Clendining Lawrence, of the Church of the Incarnation, a granddaughter of John Clendining and Margaret his wife, parishioners of St. Michael's Church in the first half of the nineteenth century, and as a memorial to her grandmother she gave $500 towards furnishing the Clinic. The rooms designed for the Clinic were not included in the first part of the Parish House, built


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Annals of St. Michael's


in 1897, and the Clinic was housed temporarily in the old choir room beneath the vestry room in the Church. In 1900 only two of the original four doctors remained, namely E. J. Ware and Thomas Stevenson, Jr. The Clinic was re-organized; Dr. John McBarron, Dr. McNeil, and Dr. J. L. Adams were added to the staff, eye, ear, and throat departments created, and a salaried attendant engaged. Up to that time the Clinic had treated every year from 900 to 1200 cases of very poor people. After the reorganization the number of cases increased considerably. Accordingly in 1902, when the remaining portion of the Parish House was built, clinic and consulting rooms very much more elaborate than originally planned were provided by the donor in the basement of that building, and the Clinic installed there. In the following year 1903, it reported 4679 cases of poor people treated.


While housed by St. Michael's the Clinic up to this time was merely a voluntary association of physicians whose work was recognized and assisted by St. Michael's Church on account of its value to the poor. With the passage of the new law govern- ing clinics and dispensaries, in 1905, it became necessary for the Church to assume direct respon- sibility, and since that date the Bloomingdale Clinic has been officially a part of the parish organization, with the rector of the parish as its corporate head. The physicians on the staff of the Clinic at the present time are Dr. E. J. Ware, Dr. John McBarron, and Dr. John L. Adams, Dr. E. J. Ware, a member of the Vestry, being the actual head of the Clinic.


VIII. Bloomingdale Day Nursery. For the sake of completeness, a few more institutions should be men- tioned here, whose connection with St. Michael's is




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