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 15
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7. 1807. It was allowed to hold real and personal estate to an amount not exceeding $100,000. This charter expired in 1829, and was renewed. It was again renewed in 1860 for twenty years.
At the first annual meeting, at the City Hotel. in the spring of 1807, about twenty of its wards were present. Then the society resolved to purchase lots and erect a building. On four lots in Greenwich the corner-stone of a building fifty feet square, to accommodate two hun- dred children, was laid. It was of brick, and the funds for its erection (815,000) was contributed by generous citizens. A bequest by Philip Jacobs in 1833 laid the foundation of the present prosperity of the society.
The accommodations at Greenwich being too limited, nine and a half acres of land were purchased at one of the most beautiful situations on the banks of the Hudson River, five miles from the City Hall. There the corner-stone of the new building was laid, in June, 1836. Within a year afterward it was opened for the entrance of the orphans. The building cost more than $15,000, all contributed by generous individ- uals, neither the State nor the city having given anything. During its life of little more than thirty years nearly a thousand orphans had enjoyed its sheltering care. Of these, four hundred and seven boys had been apprenticed to mechanies and farmers, and two hundred and seventy girls as servants in private families.
The grounds are beautifully laid out in lawns and gardens, and fur- nish ample pasture for cows to supply the little ones with milk. The inmates are educated, clothed, and boarded, and have moral and relig- ious advantages while they remain in the institution.
This most excellent retreat for orphans is managed by a board of directors and seventeen trustees, all women.# The schools are graded, and the elements of an English education are thoroughly taught. On April 1, 1882, there were one hundred and seventy-five orphans in the asylum, of whom one hundred and eight were boys.
In the half decade preceding the year 1530 there were in the city of New York a County Medical Society, a College of Physicians and Surgeons, and for a while an institution known as- Rutgers Medical College.
THE NEW YORK COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY was organized under a gen-
* The board of direction in 1882 consisted of : Mrs. Jonathan Odell, first directress ; Mrs. M. L. R. Satterlee, second directress ; Mrs. Janet T. Sherman, treasurer ; Mrs. R. M. Blatchford, recording secretary ; Mrs. J. G. Smedberg, financial secretary. Mr. and Mrs. George E. Dunlop are the superintendents, and John L. Campbell, M.D., physician.
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eral State law for the incorporation of medical societies, in the " front court-room" of the old City Hall, in Wall Street, on the first day of July, 1806. There were present at the meeting one hundred and four physicians and surgeons. Dr. Nicholas Romayne was appointed chair- man, and Dr. Valentine Seaman was chosen secretary. After having duly organized a society, Dr. Romayne was chosen its president, Dr. James Tillary vice-president, Dr. Edward Miller secretary, and Dr. Valentine Seaman treasurer." The society (now ninety-seven years of age) is composed of resident, non-resident, and honorary members. The governor of the State of New York and the mayor of the city of New York are honorary members er-officio.
The objects of the society are to aid in regulating the practice of medicine and surgery, and to contribute to the diffusion of true science, particularly the knowledge of the healing art. . The society has power to examine students and to grant a license to practice to such as may be found qualified.
In 1816 the society adopted a rate of charges, which possesses a curi- ous interest now. The charges for services in eighty-one specific cases were determined. The lowest charge for medical and surgical service was 81 ; the highest, 8200. An ordinary visit was $2 ; for verbal advice, $5 ; for letter of advice, $10 to $15 ; a night visit, $7 ; a visit to Staten Island in summer, $10, and in winter or stormy weather. $20. For vaccination, 85 to $10 ; operation for cataract, $150, and for carotid, subelavian, inguinal, and external iliac troubles, $200.
From the beginning the society took an exalted position as to profes- sional character, and has always maintained it. It also assumed a proper spirit of independence when the State Medical Society, at the outset, asserted its right to regulate the policy of the county societies. The influence of this society in pursuit of its avowed purposes has been wide and most salutary. At first the society had only one representa-
* A State Medical Society had been organized in a room of the City Hall on the even- ing of November 14, 1794, by Drs. John Charlton, Thomas Jones, Samuel Bard, Malachi Treat, Richard Bayley, S. Fougeras, James Tillary, Samuel Nicoll, A. Bainbridge, David Breeks, W. P. Smith, J. Gamage, William Hammersley, John Onderdonk, George Anthon, J. R. B. Rodgers, W. Post, and William Laramie. At a subsequent meeting it was unanimously agreed that Drs. Edward Stevens, Joseph Youle, and David Hosack b considered as original members of the society.
Dr. John Charlton was elected president of the society, Dr. Thomas Jones vice. president, Dr. William P. Smith treasurer, Dr. John R. B. Rodgers, secretary, and Drs. Sammuel Bard. Malachi Treat, Richard Bayley, and Samuel Nicoll, censors.
The original minutes of this society are in the custody of the New York Academy et Medicine.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
tive at the sessions of the State Medical Society ; it now (1883) has twenty-one representatives in that body.
THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS was founded in 1807. The institution received its charter from the regents of the University of the State of New York. pursuant to an act of the Legislature passed March 4, 1791. The charter is dated March 12, 1507. The officers were elected in May following, when Dr. Nicholas Romayne was chosen president .*
The first course of lectures in the college was begun on November 7, 1807, in a small building, two stories in height, on Robinson Street, in rear of the City Hospital. At about the close of the session the college received an endowment of $20,000, when a building on Pearl Street was purchased. It was formally opened for the reception of students in November, 1808. The whole number of students that attended the first year was fifty-three.
The institution soon began to experience vicissitudes. Its very existence was menaced with destruction. It was saved by the wisdom and energy of the regents of the University.
So early as the year 1811 there was such grave misunderstanding be- tween the president and the faculty that the regents were compelled to interfere. They made important changes in the faculty and in the internal arrangements of the college. President Romayne retired, and the venerable Dr. Samuel Bard, then nearly seventy years of age, became the head of the college. At about the same time power was granted to the college to confer medical degrees.
The first medical commencement was held on the 15th of May, 1811, when the degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred upon eight grad- uates. It was a greater number of degrees in medicine than had ever before been conferred at one time. Not more than twenty graduates of the medical school of Columbia College had received the degree in thirty years.
* Nicholas Romayne, M.D., was born in Hackensack, N. J., in September,- 1756, and studied medicine under Dr. Peter Wilson. He completed his medical education at Edinburgh in 1750, and became professor of the institutes of medicine and forensic medicine in Queen's (now Rutgers) College, New Jersey. Before he returned from Europe he spent two years in Paris, and also visited Leyden. He began his profes- sional career in New York after leaving Queen's College. He became professor of the practice of physic, anatomy, and chemistry in Columbia College on its reorganization in 1784, and gave private lectures on anatomy. Dr. Romayne was the first president of the New York City Medical Society 1806, president of the New York State Medical Society 1806-10, and in 1807 was chosen the first president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Romayne died in New York of apoplexy, in July, 1817.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
In 1813 the medical department of Columbia College was discon. tinued. The regents of the University, so early as 1811, had recom mended the union of the two schools. It was effected in March, 1-14. when the new organization took possession of a commodious building on the north side of Barclay Street. near Broadway.
This alliance was of short duration. Soon after the union some of the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons withdrew, and formed a new medical school under the authority of Queen's (now Rutgers) College, in New Jersey. It was called the New Medical Institution, but was generally known as Rutgers Medical College of New York. It took possession of a large building on Duane Street. It was short-lived, expiring in 1816.
At this crisis in its affairs the regents of the University reorganized the college under an entirely new charter, which gave the management to a board of twenty-five trustees, whose tenure of office was subject to the will of the regents themselves. Finally, dissensions between the Medical Society of the County of New York and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which had prevailed more or less from the beginning, became very exciting in 1821, and there was consequently such discord between the trustees and the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons that the latter all resigned in April, 1826, and soon afterward revived the " New Medical Institution" under the auspices of Queen's College. The leading professors in the revived institution were Drs. David Hosack, William J. Macneven, Valentine Mott, John W. Francis, John D. Godman, and John Griscom, LL. D. This, too, was short-lived. The faculty soon abandoned the contest. and the institution was closed.
By a new provision in the constitution, the faculty of the college were excluded from seats in the board of trustees. In November, 1837. the college removed from Barclay Street to Crosby Street, where its sessions were held until the inauguration of its present home, on the north-east corner of Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue, January 22, 1856. In June, 1860, the institution was constituted the medical department of Columbia College. and now (1883) bears the title of " The College of Physicians and Surgeons in the City of New York- Medical Department of Columbia College. "# Much of the instruction in this college is given in different large hospitals in the city.
* The officers of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1883 were : Alonzo Clark, M.D., LL. D., president : Willard Parker, M. D., L.L. D., vice-president ; Ellsworth Eliot. M.D., registrar ; John Sherwood, treasurer. There are twenty-two trustees. Its medi- cal faculty consists of twenty-five physicians.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
In the year 1802 an association was formed in New York for the purpose of substituting the kine-pox for the small-pox by vaccination, as a safeguard against the ravages of the latter. The preventive method had already become quite popular in Boston, where the indom- itable Dr. Waterhouse, professor in Harvard College, satisfied with the utility and consequent blessings of Jenner's discovery, had urged the practice so vigorously and persistently that he was styled the Ameri- can Jenner.
During the first year after the establishment of the kine-pox insti- tution in New York fully five hundred children were vaccinated. Very early in the history of vaccination in the city it was placed under the direction of the City Dispensary, and all applicants were gratui- tously vaccinated. The corporation appropriated $600 a year for that purpose.
CHAPTER VI.
T THE most prominent institutions existing in the city of New York about the year 1830, which had been established for the promo- tion of intellectual and moral cultivation-literary, scientific, and artistic-were Columbia College. New York Society Library, General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, New York Historical Society. New York Typographical Society, New York Mercantile Library Asso- ciation, Lyceum of Natural History, New York Athenaeum, Literary and Philosophical Society, American Academy of Fine Arts, and the National Academy of the Arts of Design.
The germ of Columbia College may be found in the records of Trinity Church at the beginning of the last century. At what time the first movement in that direction by the vestry of the church had taken place cannot be determined. In 1703 the rector and wardens were directed to wait on the governor of the province, Lord Corn- bury, " to know what part of the King's Farm then vested in Trinity Church had been intended for the college which he designed to have built."
When Bishop Berkeley was in this country, nearly thirty years after- ward, the project of a college at New York, which had slumbered all that time, was revived. Berkeley was disappointed in regard to the establishment of an institution of learning in the Bermudas, and resolved to transfer his intended establishment to " some place on the American continent, which would probably have been New York." "
In 1746 the Colonial Assembly authorized the collection of money, by lottery or otherwise, for the purpose of founding a college in the city of New York. About $17,500 was raised, chiefly in England. This sum was vested, in 1751. in ten trustees, seven of whom were members of the Anglican Church, and some of thein vestrymen of Trinity Church. Two of them were of the Dutch Reformed Church, and one a Presby- terian. A lot west of Broadway, bounded by Barclay, Church, and Murray streets and the Hudson River, was given from the "Church
Chandler's " Life of Johnson. "
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
Farm" for the use of the college, and on October 31, 1754, it was in- corporated under the title of King's College.
The predominance of Episcopalians in the board of trustees of King's College, and the opposition to any church establishment in the prov- ince, evoked the strong displeasure of the dissenting churches in the city, and for a long time the college had a severe struggle for existence. The Rev. Samuel Johnson. D.D., of Connecticut, was chosen president, with an assistant, and in July, 1754, he opened the school with eight pupils,# in the vestry-room of the schoolhouse belonging to Trinity Church. The college was not really organized before May, 1755, when at a meeting of more than twenty of the gentlemen who had been named in the charter as governors, the deputy secretary of the province (Goldsbrow Banyar) attending with the charter, Lieutenant- Governor James De Lancey, after a suitable address, delivered it to these gentlemen. Then Mr. Horsmanden, one of the judges of the Supreme Court, administered to them the oath required by law to be taken. The governors named in the charter were : the Archbishop of Canterbury and the first Land Commissioner for Trade and Planta- tions, who were empowered to act by proxy ; the lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief of the Province of New York, the eldest coun- cillor of the province, the secretary, attorney-general, speaker of the General Assembly and treasurer of the province, the mayor of the city of New York, the rector of Trinity Church, the senior minister of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, the ministers of the Ancient Lutheran Church, of the French Church, of the Presbyterian Congrega- tion of the Presbyterian Church, and the president of the college-all these ex officio. Twenty-four principal gentlemen of the city were also named as governors. These were Archibald Kennedy, Joseph Murray, Josiah Martin, Paul Richard, Henry Cruger, William Walton, John Watts, Henry Beekman, Philip Verplanck, Frederick Philipse. Joseph Robinson, John Cruger, Oliver De Lancey, James Livingston. Benjamin Nicoll, William Livingston, Joseph Read, Nathaniel Marston. Joseph Haynes, John Livingston, Abraham Lodge, David Clarkson, Leonard Lispenard, and James De Lancey.
The conditions of the gift of land by Trinity Church required that the president of the college should be forever, at the time being. in communion with the Church of England, and that morning and even-
* Samuel Verplanck, Rudolph Ritzema, Philip Van Cortlandt, Robert Bayard, Samuel Provoost, Thomas Martin. Henry Cruger, and Joshua Bloom. Several of these were after- ward distinguished in the history of New York City.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
ing service in the college should be the liturgy of that church, or a collection of prayers from that liturgy. These restrictions excited the most furious opposition, especially among those who wished to have
" A church without a bishop, A state without a king."
But the liberal policy of the college soon allayed these prejudices in a degree. A professorship in divinity, " according to the doctrine, disci pline, and worship established by the National Synod of Dort, " was almost immediately established.
College buildings were begun in 1756, and completed in 1760. They stood on the brow of an eminence overlooking the Hudson River, at the foot of (present) Park Place. at Church Street.
A grammar school was established in 1763. The same year, on the resignation of Dr. Johnson, the Rev. Myles Cooper, of Oxford, Eng- land, took his place. Meanwhile the annual commencements had been held in St. George's Chapel in Beekman Street.
In 1767 the province granted the college twenty-four thousand acres of land on the east side of Lake Champlain, but being within the bounds of what was afterward Vermont, this property was lost.
In the summer of 1767 a medical school was established, at the sug- gestion of Dr. Clossy, a learned tutor of the institution from Dublin. Ilis views were warmly seconded by Drs. Middleton, Jones, Smith, Bard, and Tennent, and these were all appointed to professorships in the school.
When the quarrel between the British Government and the American colonies waxed warm, Dr. Cooper took a very active part, by speech and pen, in favor of the crown. The war of words was fierce. The doctor wielded a keen blade. His competitors were strong, but he was worsted in argument by an anonymous competitor, who proved to be one of his own pupils, Alexander Hamilton, one of the younger students.
Dr. Cooper's course greatly offended the patriots, and the college was regarded as a focus of Toryism. Finally the public exasperation culminated in a mob, which broke into the college on the night of May 10, 1775, and sought his room. Fortunately for him, he had been fore- warned, and, half dressed, he escaped. over the college fence and found refuge with a friend in the suburbs of the city. The next day he reached permanent safety on board the Kingfisher, a British ship-of- war, and finally sailed for England, when the Rev. Benjamin Moore, an alumnus of the college in 1501 (afterward bishop). took his place as president.
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FIRST DECADE, 1830-1840.
In the spring of 1776 the Committee of Safety took possession of the college and converted it into a hospital for the use of American troops. The pupils, the apparatus, and the library were dispersed. About one hundred students had been educated at this college before it was so violently broken up. Among the earlier graduates were Robert R. Livingston, Gouverneur Morris, and John Jay.
From 1776 to 1784 the college was in a state of suspended animation. The war over, and peace and independence secured, measures were taken for its resuscitation. In 1784 the Legislature of the State of New York granted it a new charter, under the name of Columbia College. The regents of the University of the State of New York, appointed by the same act, took it under their control. The property of the old corporation was handed over to the new corporation. It started on its new career with De Witt Clinton as its first student -- a junior.
Owing to a lack of funds to pay the salary of a president, none was chosen until May, 1787, when William Samuel Johnson, son of the first president of King's College, was elected to fill the place." The scope of instruction in the institution continually widened, and in 1792 facili- ties for doing so were increased by a grant from the Legislature of New York of about $40.000 and an annual appropriation of $3750.
In 1814 the Legislature gave to Columbia College twenty acres of land on Manhattan Island, lying between Forty-seventh and Fifty-first streets, on Fifth Avenue, "with appurtenances." It included two hundred and sixty city lots. The tract was then known as the Elgin Botanic Garden, which had been established in 1801 by Dr. David ITosack for the uses of his classes in the college in the study of botany, he being one of the professors of that institution. This land had been recently conveyed to the State by Dr. Hosack, and reconveyed to the college in compensation for its loss of the land in Vermont. The gift was overburdened with restrictions, which imposed the necessity of
* William Samuel Johnson, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., first president of Columbia College, was born at Stratford, Connecticut, in October, 1727. and died there in November, 1819. He became a distinguished lawyer, and took part in the political movements that pre- ceded the Revolution of 1775-83. He was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress at New York in 1765, and was agent of Connecticut in England from 1766 to 1771. He was a judge of the Supreme Court of Connecticut from 1772 to 1774, and a commissioner for adjusting the controversy between Pennsylvania and the Susquehanna Company. From 1784 to 1787 he was a delegate in the Continental Congress, and was an active member of the convention that framed the National Constitution in the summer of 1787. The same year he was chosen president of Columbia College, and held that position until the year 1800. President Johnson was United States Senator from 1789 to 1791, and was one of the authors of the bill for establishing the judiciary system of the United States.
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keeping up the garden as a scientific educator, and the removal of tha college establishment, within twelve years, to these grounds or th vicinity. Non-compliance with these provisions would cause a forfeit. ure of the property, when it would revert to the State.
The estimated value of the Botanic Garden at that time was $75. 000. but the conditions made it a pecuniary burden instead of a source of income. Efforts were made to have these restrictions removed, and in 1819 their removal was accomplished.
About 1820 Columbia College for the first time had its chairs filled with its own alumni. It struggled on, under the disabilities of poverty and pecuniary embarrassments, for a quarter of a century longer, but still with hope, for its property both on the college site and the Botanic Garden was increasing amazingly in value .*
The semi-centennial anniversary of the reorganization of Columbia College was reached in 1837, and was celebrated with much parade and solemnity on the 13th of April. An imposing procession was formed at the college, composed of the trustees, the president, professors. tutors, alumni, and students, clergymen, public officers, and dignitaries from other seats of learning in the Republic. This procession was formed on the college green and proceeded to St. John's Chapel, where the Rev. Manton Eastburn pronounced an oration, in which he briefly reviewed the history of the institution. A poem was recited, and odes in several languages, composed and arranged to music for the occasion. were sung. The president (William A. Duer) conferred the honorary degree of Master of Arts upon Charles Fenno Hoffman, William Cullen Bryant, and Fitz-Greene Halleck ; of Doctor of Laws on John Duer. David B. Ogden, and George Griffin, and Doctor of Divinity on several prominent clergymen.
In the evening the president gave a reception at the college, which was brilliantly illuminated, and was profusely decorated with paintings loaned for the occasion. and rare plants from various conservatories. It was one of the most striking fetes New York had ever beheld.
* The carliest detailed statement of the financial condition of the college, after the year 1800, appears in the minutes of the trustees in 1805, when, from leases of a portion of the Church Farm given to the college, it derived an income of about $1400 ; also from benefactions about $4000, also from tuition fees about $9000, making an annual revenue of little more than $14,000. Its income met the expenses until 1821, when, year after year, there was a deficit of several hundred dollars, which produced an accumulating debt. Assessments for opening and regulating new streets became an added burden of expense, which, with taxes, amounted to $4000 in 1854. The Legislature refused to remit taxes on the property, and for several years the college was a sufferer from the increase in value of its own property.
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