USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884, Volume I > Part 12
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At that period, and even so early as when Halleck wrote of the father of his " Fanny," Wall Street seems to have had some features of its ethics to-day. The poet wrote :
" For Rumor (she's a famons liar yet --- 'Tis wonderful how easy we believe her !) Had whispered he was rich, and all he met In Wall Street nodded, smiled, and tipped the beaver ; All from Mr. Gelston, the collector, Down to the broker and the bank director.
" A few brief years passed over, and his rank Among the worthies of that street was fix'd ;
He had become director of a bank And six insurance offices, and mix'd Familiarly, as one among his peers, With grocers, dry-goods merchants, auctioneers,
" Brokers of all grades-stock and pawn-and Jews Of all religions, who, at noonday, form,
On 'Change, that brotherhood my moral muse Delights in, when the heart is pure and warm, , And each exerts his intellectual force To cheat his neighbor-honestly, of course."
At the period we are considering transactions in securities were few and insignificant, mainly for investment. "The greed for specula- tion," says Mr. Dayton, " had not tainted the plodding habits of busi- ness men, wrapped up as they were in their peculiar calling, satisfied with limited credit, and contented with moderate gains. The railway and mining mania was unborn. The stocks and mortgage bonds. which now form the staple of the gigantic operations which daily, nay hourly, make and unmake scores of desperate speculators, were not in existence : they had not drawn into the seething caldron of Wall Street wealth from every corner of the civilized globe. Thou- sands of well-to-do men lived and died without ever puzzling their brains about the ups and downs of the stock list."
CHAPTER IV.
B EFORE the year 1830 New York had acquired the character of being the leading city in the Republic in all that constitutes desirable metropolitan life. Hardie wrote in 1827 :
" The city of New York, from its rapid growth, commercial charac- ter, and unrivalled prosperity, has justly been called the London of America. But it is now high time to change the appellation. The extensive patronage extended to the liberal arts and works of taste, the unexampled increase of public amusements, with the consequent prog- ress of morals and refinement, have at length rendered New York the Paris of America. Like that gay and splendid emporium of fashion and literature, New York is constantly filled with strangers, who are drawn hither by the celebrity of our institutions, our commerce, opu- lence, and multiplied sources of rational pleasure. Our fame in these respects has gone abroad to the remotest corners of the Western hemi- sphere, and is rapidly spreading through every part of Christendom." *
The staid inhabitants of New York, especially the Knickerbocker element. may not have considered every point of this view as compli- mentary to the city, yet it was undoubtedly true. Society in almost every feature was changing its tone and hue in many things, from causes already alluded to. Existing institutions-benevolent, charitable. scientific, literary, artistic, and religious-were feeling the electric thrill of new life, and in this inspiration commerce and manufactures, and all the varied industrial interests of the rapidly growing city, participated. Let us briefly consider the public institutions in the city of New York which were in existence in the half decade before the year 1830.
Those institutions which most largely minister to the physical well- being of society are regarded as most worthy earliest and grateful recognition. To provide for the wants of the poor and destitute, who suffer most from misfortunes, accidents, and diseases, is the prime object of a larger portion of the public benevolent institutions of the city.
The hospital is the rich fruit of the teachings of Jesus the Christ.
" The Description of the City of New York," by James Hardie, A. M., p. 339.
*
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Ilis great lesson of the Good Samaritan prefigured the divine mission of the hospital, the influence of which is permeating human society every- where.
The pagan nations looked with contempt upon physical weakness. and made no provision for the care of the wounded, the sick, and the infirm. With the dawn of the new era began the practical observance of the Golden Rule, and provision for the weary and worn first ap- peared as places of refreshment for travellers. These finally became transformed into refuges for invalids.
At the period we are considering, the city of New York was provided with two hospitals (the City Hospital and the Bellevue Alms- house and Asylum) ; also a city dispensary, an asylum for the insane. an eye infirmary, a lying-in hospital, an institution for the instruc- tion of the deaf and dumb, so called, and several minor charitable associations. These institutions-those fountains of untold blessings- are all in active operation now in the midst of scores of others engaged in the same holy cause.
THE NEW YORK CITY HOSPITAL was the generous offspring of the active brain and sympathetic heart of Dr. John Bard,# an eminent New York physician. At the first medical graduation at King's (now Columbia) College in the city of New York, in May, 1769, Dr. Bard delivered an address, in which he so pathetically and earnestly set forth the necessity and utility of a public infirmary that Sir Henry Moore, then governor of the province, who was present, immediately started a subscription for that purpose, to which he and most of the gentlemen present liberally contributed. The sum of $3500 was soon obtained, and the governor (who died the next autumn) warmly urged the Provincial Assembly to render the proposed institution liberal pecuniary aid. The corporation of the city soon afterward appropri- ated $15,552. Contributions were also received from London and
* John Bard, MI.D., an eminent physician, was born at Burlington, N. J., in February, 1716. His family was of the Huguenot refugees who fled from persecution in France. His father was a privy councillor and judge in New Jersey. John was educated in Phil. adelphia, where he was a surgeon's apprentice seven years, and formed a lasting friend- ship with Dr. Franklin. Bard established himself as a physician in New York in 1746, and very soon took a front rank in the profession. In 1750 he assisted Dr. Middleton in the first recorded dissection of the human body in America. During a portion of the British occupation of New York he withdrew from the city, but returned after the Revo- lution. Bard was the first president of the New York Medical Society in 17SS. When, in 1795, yellow fever raged in New York, Bard, though eighty years of age, remained at his post. He give up practice in 1795, and died at his country-seat at Hyde Park. Dutchess County, N. Y., in March, 1799.
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other parts of Great Britain, on the earnest solicitations of Drs. Fother- gill and Sir William Duncan.
The following year (1770) Drs. Bard, Middleton, and Jones peti- tioned Lieutenant-Governor Colden to grant a charter for a hospital. This was done the following year by Lord Dunmore, then governor of the province. That charter, dated June 13, 1771, bears the names of the mayor of New York, the recorder, aldermen and assistants, the rector of Trinity Church, one minister of each religious denomination in the city, the president of King's (now Columbia) College, and a number of the most respectable citizens as members. They were incorporated with the title of The Society of the Hospital in the City of New York, in America. This title was altered by the Legislature, in March, 1810, to that of The Society of the New York Hospital."
The charter limited the number of governors to twenty-six. In 1772 the Legislature granted the institution an annuity of 82000 for twenty years, and the building was soon afterward begun on five acres of ground on the west side of Broadway, between (present) Duane and Worth streets, which the governors had purchased. The corner-stone was laid on July 27, 1773. Just as the building was completed, a fire accidentally lighted laid the most of it in ashes. That was in Feb- ruary, 1775. It inflicted upon the society a loss of $17,500. The Legislature generously came to their relief, and gave the governors $10,000 toward repairing their loss.
Another and more discouraging calamity now fell upon the institu- tion. The war for independence began, and filled the land with con- fusion. The repairs of the building were nearly completed, when it was required for the use of sick and wounded Continental soldiers. When the British took possession of the city, in 1776, their troops oc- cupied it for the same purpose, and wounded British and Hessian sol- diers filled it.
It was over four years after the British forces left the city. in 1783. before the society were able to resume work on the building. The Legislature of the State of New York directed (March 1, 1788) $2000 annually to be given them for four years, but such was the dreadful state of affairs in the city for several years after the war that the building was not ready to receive patients until 1791.
In 1792 the Legislature granted the hospital $5000 a year for five vears. This act was suspended, in 1795, by another granting $10,000
* The first hospital on Manhattan Island was established by the Dutch. It had the capacity, it is said, of "five houses," and stood near the fort, at the southern extremity of the island. It was demolished after the English took possession of the country.
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a year for five years. In 1795 an additional grant of $2500 a year was made, making the whole annual sum $12,500.
The governors now appropriated the sum of $500 for the founding of a medical library for the use of the hospital. To this generous dona- tions were made, and in 1830 the library contained over six thousand volumes. The hospital continually enjoyed the bounty of the State Legislature and of the citizens of New York.
In the year 1808 the first building ever devoted to the care of the insane in the State of New York was erected on the hospital grounds. and opened with sixty-seven patients. For the accommodation of the increasing number of such patients, a new asylum was established at Bloomingdale, a remote suburb of the city, in 1821. Then the old quarters were remodelled as a hospital for seamen, and called the " Marine Building." and in 1825 it was devoted exclusively to their use. It was so occupied for a quarter of a century, when it was demolished, and a more commodious building was erected on its site. and first occupied by them in 1855. The Marine Building, which had been furnished with wings, had also been remodelled, and was much improved in 1850.
At an early date in its history the hospital became known at home and abroad as an almost unrivalled school for teaching the practice of medicine and surgery. In his history of the institution, published in 1856, Gulian C. Verplanck, who had served as one of its governors thirty-five years, said : " The New York Hospital has now become the most extensive school of practice in the country."
The annual grants of the State Legislature had been increased to the sum of $22,000. The term of this grant expired in 1855, and was not renewed, yet some aid was given to the hospital by the Legislature from time to time. Owing to various causes the institution became crippled with debt during the Civil War, notwithstanding the gov- ernors had paid out of their own pockets 872,000 to support its vitality. They were compelled to restrict the admission of charity patients. That service was supplemented, in a degree, by Bellevue, and by other institutions which had sprung up.
An attempt was made to relieve the society of debt, but failed, and in 1868 it was resolved to lease the whole or a part of the Broadway lots. This proved to be a fortunate measure, for the property finally vielded an annual income of $150,000, which was allowed to accumu- late. The modest old building of gray stone, its green lawn shaded with stately olm trees, was demolished in 1869, and commercial estab- lishments soon occupied the space.
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Resolved to establish a hospital within the city limits, the governors purchased lots on West Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets in 1874, and the next year the governors resumed charitable work by opening a House of Relief on Chambers Street, to which place the library was then removed. The new building was begun in the spring of 1875, and was completed and formally opened in March, 1877.
The hospital building is probably the most luxurious and best equipped in the world. It is seven stories in height, including the basement ; has a frontage on Fifteenth Street of one hundred and seventy-five feet, and a Mansard roof ; extends through the block to Sixteenth Street, and is heated and ventilated scientifically. The front of the hospital faces the south, admitting the full light of the sun through its numerous and generous windows. Two steam elevators give ease to the internal travellers from basement to roof, and it has a capacity of one hundred and sixty-three beds, exclusive of the chil- dren's wards.
"At the top of the building is a spacious hall, separated from the sky only by a translucent canopy of glass. This room is sixty-four feet in width, ninety feet in length, and of an average height of eighteen feet. There the convalescents may enjoy an invigorating sun-bath, in a temperature of summer heat or upward, at any season of the year. The room is furnished with native and exotic shrubs and flowering plants, little gurgling fountains, and curious aquariums with salt and fresh water. In this Elysium the poorest patient may enjoy luxuries seldom vouchsafed to the rich.
The number of patients treated in the hospital during 1882 was 3083. The number treated in the House of Relief, or Chambers Street Hos- pital, the same year, was 1828. The number of out-patients treated by the hospital staff was 4499, and the number of visits was 25, 71S. In the corresponding department at the House of Relief the number of patients treated was 9659.
These statistics show the immense benefits bestowed upon the poor and unfortunate by the New York Hospital and its annex. the House of Relief in Chambers Street.
THE BLOOMINGDALE ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE was opened for the reception of patients in June, 1821. It was the result of a communica- tion to the governors of the New York Hospital by Thomas Eddy, a well-known philanthropist, in April, 1815, in which he set forth the advantages of moral treatment for the insane patients in that institu- tion, and proposing that a number of acres near the city should be purchased and suitable buildings be erected for the purpose. The gov-
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
ernors acted promptly on the suggestion, and the Legislature of New York granted the hospital an additional sum of $10,000 a year until 1857. The governors first bought a little more than seven aeres front- ing on the Bloomingdale Road (now One Hundred and Seventeenth Street, between Tenth and Eleventh avenues), seven miles north-west of the City Hall. It is on elevated ground, commanding beautiful and extensive views in every direction, and the buildings are about a fourth of a mile from the Hudson River, which it overlooks. More ground was purchased, and the domain now includes between forty and fifty acres. The farm is highly cultivated, chiefly for the production of vegetables and hay, and also ornamental shrubbery. It has many noble shade-trees.
The corner-stone of the Bloomingdale Asylum was laid May 7, 181S. and the main building was completed in 1821, after designs by Thomas C. Taylor. Extensive additions have since been made.
The system of moral treatment of the insane has ever been pursued with great success in the Bloomingdale Asylum. The patients are arranged in classes according to the form which their mental ailments have assumed, whether mania, monomania, dementia, idiotisin, or delirium à potu. Harsh treatment and all needless restraint are avoided, and even confinement to the rooms is seldom resorted to. Many patients are allowed to work on the farm or in the garden, are taken out to ride, and permitted to participate in social enjoyments. There is a library of several hundred volumes, an ample supply of magazines and newspapers, and the patients are diverted by lectures illustrated by the magic lantern, and other entertainments.
The estate and all its interests are under the care of six of the gov- ernors. A warden and matron have charge of the household depart- ment. None but pay patients are admitted, unless by express direction of the board of governors. According to the annual report of the Bloomingdale Asylum for 1882. the whole number of patients admitted since the spring of 1821 was 7500 ; whole number discharged and died. 7277 ; whole number recovered. 3121 ; whole number improved, 1869 ; whole number not improved. 1271 ; whole number died, 1008. The greatest average number in the institution during one year was 233 (in 1882), and the greatest number of recoveries was 46 (in 1881).
At this time (1853) the President of the board of governors of the hospital and Bloomingdale Asylum is William H. Macy ; vice-presi- dent, James M. Brown ; treasurer, George Cabot Ward : and secre- tary, David Colden Murray.
BELLEVUE HOSPITAL, the great pauper asylum of the city originally.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
wwes its existence chiefly to the exertions of that eminent physician, Dr. David Hosack. It is one of the noblest monuments of municipal Wwnovolence in the world. The story of its origin may be briefly told.
In the year 1820 Dr. Hosack was the resident physician of the Health Department of the city, and in that capacity he had been brought into contact with many of the sick poor, whose wretched con- dition excited his warmest sympathy and commiseration. He found several sick with typhus fever crowded in small, ill-ventilated apart- ments, and forming nurseries of infectious and contagious diseases. At his request an extraordinary meeting of the Board of Health was called, July 27, 1820, to whom he made a statement of the condition of the poor, and declared that humanity to the indigent as well as care for the health of the city imperatively required that some provision should be made for the removal of the sick poor from their unhealthy dwellings to some airy and well-ventilated place. At a subsequent meeting a committee, of which Hosack was one, was appointed to take into consideration the expediency of such an establishment, and to ascertain where a proper site might be found. A majority of the com- mittee opposed the measure, the chief objection being the expense.
Dr. Hosack, deeply impressed with the necessity of such an institu- tion, persevered. In the ensuing autumn he addressed the students of the Medical Society, in the presence of many citizens and members of the Board of Health, on the subject, urging the necessity of a fever hospital-a place where contagious fever patients might be received and find benefit. The lecture was published, and much interest was excited in the public mind. But apathy succeeded, and it was not until yellow fever, like a malignant demon, ravaged the city in 1822 that the city authorities were induced to approve the founding of a fever hospital. Stephen Allen was then mayor. The Legislature was appealed to, and granted 825,000 for the purpose. A beautiful and salubrious site on the banks of the East River belonging to the city was selected. and there a building one hundred and eighty feet long, fifty feet wide (excepting the centre, which is fifty-eight feet), and four stories in height, was completed in 1826. It was built of blue-stone, from a quarry on the premises. This building was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies in November, 1826. It has since been extended not only on the front, but in depth of wings, and is now three hundred and fifty feet in length. The grounds in front are laid out in beautiful lawns.
* David Hosack, M.D., LL. D., a skilful and beneficent physician in New York nearly forty years, was born in that city in August, 1769. He was a son of a Scotch artillery
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
This institution was at first known as the Bellevue Ahnshouse. In 1848 the paupers were all transferred to Blackwell's Island, and the whole spacious building was appropriated to the uses of a hospital. with ample accommodations for twelve hundred patients. It has eight hundred beds. This hospital is a department of the City Almshouse. and is under the charge of the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction. Its support is derived from the city treasury.
Bellevue Hospital now holds a front rank as a school for medical and surgical instruction, and the number in daily attendance upon the clinical lectures, admitted free, is very large.
In 1866 two new features were added to Bellevue Hospital, namely : a bureau of medical and surgical relief for out-door poor, and a morgue. or a receptacle for the unknown dead. Patients who are able to pay are admitted at the maximum charge of $3.50 a week. The cost of sustaining the institution is about $100,000 a year.
Bellevue Hospital is not only a blessing to the suffering poor, but an efficient agency for diffusing widely over the land sound and scientific medical and surgical knowledge.
THE NEW YORK CITY DISPENSARY Was founded in 1791. At a meet- ing of the Medical Society of the City of New York, in October, 1790, a committee was appointed to digest and publish a plan for a dispensary for the medical relief of the sick poor, and to make an offer of the pro- fessional services of the members of the society to carry it into effect. Eloquent appeals were made to the public through the city newspapers. and on January 4, 1791, there was a meeting of a number of respect- able citizens at the City Hall convened to effect an organization. It was done, and Hon. Isaac Roosevelt was chosen president. and Drs. Richard Bayley and Samuel Bard were chosen senior physicians. The dispensary was then established on Tryon Street (afterward Tryon Row), which extended along the north-eastern side of the City Hall Park, between Chambers and Chatham streets.
officer at the capture of Louisburg, in 1758. He studied medicine and surgery with Dr. Richard Bayley, and completed his medical education under the most distinguished pro- fessors in Edinburgh and London. In 1794 he returned to America with the first collec- tion of minerals ever seen here ; also a collection of specimens of plants. The next venr he was appointed professor of botany in Colmabia College, and from 1796 to 1:00 he was a professional partner with Dr. Samuel Bard. In 1797, the chair of materia medica was also assigned to him, which, with that of botany, he held until 1807, when he accepted that of materia medica and midwifery in the College of Physicians and Sur- geons. Meanwhile he had established the Elgin Botanic Garden (the second founded in the United States), noticed in a future chapter. A catalogue of the plants he had brought together gave him a high position as a botanist. Dr. Hosack, in connection with Li.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
In 1796 the dispensary was incorporated by the Legislature of New York. In 1805 a union was effected between the dispensary and the " Kinepox Institution," which had been established three years pre- viously for the purpose of inoculating or vaccinating the poor with cow-pox instead of small-pox.
In 1810 the city corporation gave the dispensary a lot of land on Tryon Street, afterward Tryon Row. The number of patients so rapidly increased in 1828 (10,000 in that year) that the trustees were compelled to seek larger space. They procured from the city authori- ties the gift of a lot at the corner of Centre and White streets, and there was erected a brick building three stories in height, which was first occupied in 1829. The first floor was used by the dispensary ; the two upper floors and the basement were rented for business purposes. On that spot is still (1883) the home of the dispensary.
During the first year of the occupancy of the new building the num- ber of patients treated was nearly 18,000. The medical staff consisted of ten attending physicians and eight consulting physicians. These gentlemen were faithful and self-sacrificing. It is said that during the cholera season of 1832 the dispensary physicians " were found in every quarter of the widely extended city, breathing the atmosphere of death, and stopping, as far as they were able, the ravages of the all- (levouring element."
According to the ninety-second annual report of the New York Dispensary (January 1, 1882) the number of cases treated that year was 25,171. and the number of prescriptions furnished was 46,985. The number of persons treated from the organization of the dispensary to January, 1882, was 1,860,485.
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