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 II > Part 18
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At the same time and place, Isaac T. Hopper, one of the most active philanthropists in the city, offered the following resolutions, which were adopted :
" Resolved, That to sustain and encourage discharged convicts who give satisfactory evidence of repentance and reformation in their endeavors to lead honest lives, by affording them employment and guarding them against temptation, is demanded of us, not only by the interests of society, but by every dietate of humanity.
" Resolved, That in the formation of such a society it would be proper to have a female department, to be especially regardful of the interest and welfare of prisoners of that sex."
An association was formed, but it soon embraced the whole State in its organization, having a committee of correspondence in every county. It is therefore not a city institution, though most of its ex- ecutive officers reside in the metropolis, and its headquarters are there.
Mr. Hopper was one of the most efficient members of the Prison Society, and although then seventy-four years of age, he accepted and performed the duties of agent of the association with great energy and acceptance, in which he was essentially aided by his daughter, Mrs. Abby Gibbons. In all the meetings in public his voice was always eloquent and impressive in its utterances.
The formation of a woman's association was a project that more deeply concerned the mind and heart of Mr. Hopper, for he well knew how superior would be women's work in the enterprise. Simultane- ously with the organization of the other prison association, he formed. at his own house, the WOMAN'S PRISON ASSOCIATION OF THE CITY OF NEW
yers said to him in sharp tones, " Were you ever transported ?" The witness turned pale, and with quivering lips replied, "Yes, forty-three years ago, under circumstances which I can --- "
" Never mind the circumstances, sir," replied the lawyer. " The fact is all I want to know. I have no further questions to ask this witness, my lord."
The witness left that court-room a ruined man. Society, which had just conrted him. shunned him. His credit and business were ruined, and in three months he died broken-hearted.
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YORK (yet in active operation), with the same objects in view. An act of incorporation was passed in the spring of 1845, and in June they took a house, appointed matrons, and organized a committee of ladies for the management of the concerns of the society. In honor of the founder the asylum was called the ISAAC T. HOPPER HOME, which name it still bears.
The society began its labors with great zeal and vigor, in the face of many difficulties, for the salvation of unfortunates of their sex, by giving them shelter when discharged from prison, by leading them to a better life, and finding means for them to gain an honest livelihood. They established a sewing department and a school, and later a laundry, and so made the institution partially self-supporting. They visited the prisons, sought out those who were desirous of leading better lives, and offered them shelter and aid when they should be dis- charged. At the close of the first thirty years of their labors (1876) the society reported that they had given shelter to 7229 women, sent to service 3857, while others had been employed by the day or week as seamstresses or in household work. According to the report of the association for 1882, the number admitted to the home during the year was 386, of whom 219 were sent to service. Who can estimate the vast benefits to society of an institution like this, which stood alone in its benevolent work for many years ?"
The Woman's Prison Association has never received aid from the State. The city authorities have from time to time made small dona-
* An illustration has been given of the sad effects of social ostracism on a discharged convict. Victor Hugo, in his " Les Miserables," gives, in a picture of the meeting of Jean Valjean and the bishop, an illustration of the effects of kindness toward the unfort- unates, which the Woman's Prison Association exercises.
Valjean stole a loaf of bread to appease hunger, and was sent to prison for five years. Several times he attempted to escape, and was resentenced until he had been confined nineteen years. When he was discharged he was given a passport that stigmatized him as a discharged convict, and every honest man's door was closed against him until a good old bishop, to his great surprise, gave him welcome, food, and shelter. The bishop's silver plate tempted him, and he stole this treasure from his benefactor and fled. He was captured and led into the presence of the bishop, when the old prelate greeted him kindly, and said :
" Ah ! Valjean, I'm glad to see you. But I gave you the candlesticks too, which are also of silver. Why did you not take them with the rest ?"
The bishop then bade the officers to retire, for they had made a mistake, and address- ing the trembling thief while he laid his hand on his shoulder, said :
" Jean Valjean, my brother ! you no longer belong to evil, but to good. I withdraw your soul from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition and give it to God. Never forget that you are to employ this silver-your silver now-in becoming an honest man !"
Isaac T. Hopper was the good bishop to many a poor shivering soul.
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tions. The society has depended for support on private annual sub- scriptions and gifts. In 1865 the Home received a legacy of $50,000 trom Mr. Charles Burrall, of Hoboken, New Jersey .*
There was a wide field of labor open to the Woman's Prison Asso- ciation at near the close of this decade, for in the Tombs and in the Penitentiary of Blackwell's Island there were, in 1848, 1040 convicts, of whom over 400 were women.
* The officers of the association for 1882 were : Mrs. James S. Gibbons, first direct- ress ; Mrs. Frederick Billings, second directress ; Mrs. A. M. Powell, corresponding secretary ; Mrs. William Evans, Jr., recording secretary ; Mrs. James MI. Halstead, treas- urer, and nineteen ladies comprising an executive committee.
CHAPTER VIII.
MIIE late Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg, rector of the Church of the Holy T' Communion, lamenting the neglect of the Protestant Episcopal Church to make adequate provision for its sick poor, said to his con- gregation, on the Festival of St. Luke, in 1846, that, with their per- mission, he would appropriate a portion of their offerings on that day to the beginning of a hospital that would afford medical and surgical aid and nursing to sick and disabled persons; also to provide them while in the establishment with Gospel ministrations according to the ritual of the Protestant Episcopal Church ; also to provide for the instruc- tion and training of persons in the art of nursing and attending upon the sick. Thirty dollars of the collection on that day were laid aside for the purpose.
For three or four years nothing more was contemplated than a parochial institution, but when its purpose became generally known, its appeals were so generously responded to that the managers deter- mined to enlarge its sphere. It had received a charter of incorporation in the spring of 1850, with the title of St. Luke's Hospital. The man- agers asked for a subscription of $100,000. A meeting of Episcopalians was held at the Stuyvesant Institute, when a committee on subscrip- tions was appointed. The desired sum was soon raised. Ground was procured on Fifth Avenue, between Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth streets, and thereon the corner-stone of the present buildings was laid in May, 1854. A further subscription of $100,000 was obtained. The chapel was first opened in May, 1857, and on Ascension day (May 13th), 1S58, the hospital was dedicated and opened for patients.
So early as 1545 some ladies had associated themselves as a Church Sisterhood, and were formally organized as such in 1851. It was simply an association of Protestant Christian women for comforting the sick. No vows of any kind bound the Sisters to their work or to each other, but after a trial of six months they engaged for three years, after which they might renew the engagement or not at their pleasure.
On the opening of the hospital the managers requested the Sisters attached to the mfirmary of the Church of the Holy Communion to
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take charge of the wards. This they did, and very soon the charge of the entire house was committed to them, under the advice and direction of the founder. This sisterhood, however, is entirely independent of the hospital, both as regards its organization and its means of support. A separate home was provided for them. This was done through the liberality of John II. Swift. The ground on which it stands was given by Mrs. Mary Ann Rogers. Sostrong were the prejudices against this sisterhood, which was regarded as an imitation of Roman Catholic conventual life, that no money could have been collected for the purpose of building them a home. They had established an infirmary with fifteen beds, in a hired house near by. so early as 1854, and this was the real beginning of St. Luke's Hospital. The infirmary was transferred to St. Luke's in 1858.
Dr. Muhlenberg, the founder of St. Luke's Hospital, was its pastor and superintendent, and lived in the hospital as the house-father until his death .*
The general plan of St. Luke's Hospital building is an oblong paral- lelograin, with wings at cach end. It is three stories in height. No institution in the world is better adapted and equipped for its work than St. Luke's Hospital.+ It administers relief to sufferers
* William Augustus Muhlenberg, D.D., was born in Philadelphia in 1796, and died in New York in 1877. He graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1814, and was ordained a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1817. From that time until 1821 he was assistant rector of Christ Church in Philadelphia, under Bishop White. From 1821 to 1828 he was rector of St. James's Church, Lancaster, where he took an active part in establishing the first public school in the State outside of Philadelphia. He founded St. Paul's School at Flushing, L. I., in 1828, of which he was principal until 1846, when he was called to the rectorship of the Church of the Holy Communion in New York City. It was the earliest free Episcopal Church in the city. He had organized the year before the first Protestant sisterhood in the United States. In the latter years of his life he was instrumental in founding an industrial Christian settlement at St. John- land, L. I., not far from New York, which is still flourishing with most beneficent results. Liberal in his views, he was an earnest advocate of Christian union. He mingled prac- tical philanthropy with earnest piety and devotion. Dr. Muhlenberg was the author of several popular hymns -" I would not live alway," " Like Noah's Weary Dove," "Shout the Glad Tidings," and " Saviour who Thy Flock art Feeding." His noblest monument is the hospital which he founded.
+ The officers of St. Luke's Hospital in 1882 were : John II. Earle, president ; James M. Brown and Percy R. Pyne, vice-presidents ; Gordon Norrie, treasurer, and George Maccalloch Miller, secretary. There are twenty-five managers, besides six er-ufficio managers, namely : the mayor of the city, the president of each board of the common council, the British Consul, and one warden and one vestryman of the Church of St. George the Martyr. These er-officio managers may be accounted for from the fact that the land on which the hospital was erected was, for certain considerations on the part of Trinity Church, granted to the Church of St. George the Martyr, on the condition
OK. Mann
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
without distinction of race or creed, in the loving spirit of the Church which cherishes it. The motto on its seal-" CORPUS SANARE, ANIMAM SALVARE" (to cure the body, to save the soul)-declares its twofold object.
In 1882 there were treated in the hospital 1574 patients, of whom 1214 were charity patients.
In 1846 the late Archbishop Hughes invited Sisters of Mercy to come from Ireland and establish a HOUSE OF MERCY in New York. They came, and began their work in a small way at a temporary place of abode, No. 18 Washington Place, confining their duties to visiting the sick, the poor, and the dying, and instructing the ignorant. There were seven of them. They enlarged their sphere of action, and in 1850 a residence for them was built, and they have ever since carried on the benevolent work with efficiency and widespread usefulness. The institution was incorporated in 1854.
Another benevolent institution-another organization of Sisters of Charity under the control of the Roman Catholic Church-was founded in 1849. Early in that year a religious community of women was formed in New York, and was incorporated (January 23, 1849) under the legal title of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Their pattern and design were similar institutions existing in Paris and Dublin. Their primary object was the care of the sick and the abandoned poor, administering to all their wants, corporeal and spiritual, as far as possible ; to soothe them in their sufferings, and to comfort them in all their sorrows.
In November, 1840, these Sisters organized the HOSPITAL OF ST. VIN- CENT DE PAUL, at a three-story dwelling-house in Thirteenth Street. fitted up to accommodate thirty patients. Very soon patients flocked to it, not only from the city but from adjacent villages. The Sisters added the adjoining dwelling to the establishment, and thus secured accommodations for seventy patients. They remained in this locality until 1856, when they rented the building they now occupy, No. 195 West Eleventh Street, which had been occupied by a Roman Catholic Half-Orphan Asylum.
The first director of the Hospital of St. Vincent de Paul was the Rev. William Staris, Vicar-General of the Church in New York. Dr. Valentine Mott was the consulting surgeon and physician, Drs. W. H. Van Buren and Schmitz were visiting surgeons, and Drs. William
that there should be erected thereon a hospital and free chapel for British emigrants. That church conveyed the property to the corporation of St. Luke's Hospital on the con- ditions named.
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Murray and William Power were visiting physicians. Dr. Mott took a lively interest in the institution, and held the position he first assumed until his death, a period of sixteen years .*
Additions have been made to the building, until now (1883) it has accommodations for at least two hundred patients, having that number of beds. It also has private rooms wherein persons of either sex tem- porarily in the city and stricken with sickness may find accommoda- tions. Its principal means of support is the revenue derived from paying patients. Its doors are open to the afflicted of every creed and country, the only cause for exclusion being cases of violently contagious diseases. Patients suffering from severe accidents may be admitted at any hour during the day or night.
Late in this decade an important institution of learning was estab- lished in the city of New York which has performed service of incalcu- lable value in the promotion of public instruction of a higher order. It is the COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, of which General Alexander S. Webb, LL. D., is president. t
* Valentine Mott, M.D., LL.D., was born at Glen Cove, L. I., August 20, 1785, and died in New York City April 26, 1865. He graduated in medicine at Columbia College in 1806, and afterward studied in London and Edinburgh. His father was a distinguished phy- sician. Soon after his return from Europe he was appointed professor of surgery in Columbia College, which chair he filled with eminent ability until the medical department of that institution was united with the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1813, and from that time until 1826, when, with others, he founded the new Rutgers Medical Col- lege. At its demise, four years afterward, he became a lecturer in the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons and professor of surgery and relative anatomy in the medical department of the University of the City of New York, of which he was president for many years.
Dr. Mott became noted in his early manhood for his surgery. So early as 1818, when he was thirty-three years of age, he performed the bold surgical operation of placing a ligature around an artery within two inches of the heart, for aneurism. Not long after- ward he exsected the entire right collarbone for a malignant disease of that bone, apply- ing forty ligatures-the most difficult and dangerous operation that can be performed on the human frame. In all branches of operative surgery he was most skilful and success- ful. He was the first surgeon who tied the primitive iliac artery for aneurism, and the first who removed the lower jaw for necrosis. He performed the operation of lithotomy one hundred and sixty-five times, and amputated more than one thousand limbs. The great English surgeon, Sir Astley Cooper, said Dr. Mott had performed more of the great operations than any man, living or dead.
In 1835 Dr. Mott went abroad, and travelled in England, on the Continent, and in the East. In 1842 he published in one volume an account of this trip, entitled, " Travels in Europe and the East." He translated Velpean's " Operative Surgery," in four volumes. Dr. Mott was not a voluminous writer. His " Cliniques" were reported by Dr. Samuel W. Francis, now of Newport, R. I.
+ Alexander S. Webb, LL.D., is a son of General James Watson Webb. He was edu- cated at the Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1855 as a lieutenant of artil-
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Early in 1847 a committee of the board of education recommended that body to apply to the Legislature for a law authorizing the found- ing in the city of New York of a free college or academy for the benefit of pupils who had been educated in the common schools. The application was made, and on May 7, 1847, the Legislature passed an act as desired, to be submitted to the voice of the clectors of the city. That submission was made on June 9th. The result was 19,404 votes in favor of a free academy, to 3409 against it. Under that title it was incorporated.
A spacious building of brick, four stories in height, a peaked roof with dormer windows, and admirable internal arrangements, was erected on Twenty-third Street, corner of Lexington Avenue. It was opened and the first class entered in January, 1849, which completed its course in 1833 with such satisfactory results that thousands of citi- zens who had heretofore held aloof from all public schools now sent their children to them. Very soon it was found' necessary to erect three new public-school buildings, on a new order of structure and much greater in size than before. They were made to accommodate two thousand children in each.
The requisites for admission to the Free Academy were : that an applicant must be fourteen years of age and a resident of the city, should have attended the common schools in the city twelve months, and should pass a good examination in spelling, reading, writing, Eng- lish grammar, arithmetic, algebra, geography, history of the United States, Constitution of the United States, and elementary book- keeping. The pupils of the Free Academy had the advantages of instruction of the highest order in various branches of learning appli-
lery. He served against the Seminoles in Florida and on the frontier, and for four years (1857-61) he was assistant professor of mathematics at West Point. In May, 1861, he received the commission of captain in the Eleventh Infantry. He had reached the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers in 1863. At the beginning of the war he gave efficient aid in the defence of Fort Pickens, and served with distinction in the battle of Bull Run, in the Peninsula campaign of 1862, and was chief of staff in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. He was also in the battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. He led a brigade in the battle of Gettysburg, where he was wounded. In 1864 General Webb commanded a brigade in the battle of the Wilderness, where he was dangerously wounded. Returning to the service early in 1865, General Webb was made General Meade's chief of staff, and held that position until the close of the war. In March, 1865, he was breveted brigadier-general and major-general United States Army, and was dis- charged from service in December following.
In 1869 General Webb was appointed president of the College of the City of New York. Under his management it has attained a high rank as one of the most important semi- maries of learning in the country.
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SECOND DECADE, 1840-1850.
cable to the most important affairs in life, omitted altogether or not practically taught in the colleges.
In the year 1834 the Legislature passed a law endowing the Free Academy with collegiate powers and privileges, so far as pertained to the conferring upon its graduates the usual collegiate degrees and diplomas in the arts and sciences. Another step forward was made by the institution in 1866, when, on the recommendation of the board of education, the Legislature changed the name to that of the College of the City of New York, and conferred on the institution all the powers and privileges of a college pursuant to the Revised Statutes of the State, making it subject to the visitation of the regents of the Univer- sity in like manner with other colleges of the State, and making the members of the board of education ex-officio the trustees of the college. Finally the Legislature in 1882 repealed so much of the statutes relat- ing to the college as' had made one year's attendance at the public schools of the city a requisite for admission, thus opening the college to all young men of the city of proper age and sufficient preparation. Instruction is free, so is the use of text-books, and there is no expense whatever to be borne by the students. There is a post-graduate course in engineering, occupying two additional years.
The College of New York possesses about 20,000 volumes of selected works, valued at $45,000, and is the repository of 15,400 volumes for issue, and 1900 not issued, valued at $13,500. It has a fine cabinet of natural history, and the scientific department is equipped with appa- ratus valued at about $18,000. The value of the buildings is estimated at $190,000. The institution is maintained at an annual cost to the city of $140,000.
The wise and liberal designs of the sagacious founders of the Free Academy are carried out in its curriculum and practices to-day more broadly, liberally, and efficiently than at the beginning, and the College of New York exhibits the matured strength and puissance of the young institution started on its course thirty-six years ago in the presence of Mayor Havemeyer and under the care, government, and management of some of the best men of the city .*
* The board of trustees for 1882-83 are : Stephen A. Walker, LL.D., chairman ; Rnfus G. Beardslee, William Wood, LL.D., James Flynn, Bernard Amend, Henry P. West, Frederick R. Coudert, Gilbert H. Crawford, Isaac Bell, Edward Patterson, Jacob H. Schiff, Engene Kelly, Hubbard G. Stone, Joseph W. Drexel, David Wetmore, Ferdinand Traud, Frederick W. Devoe, William Dowd, William Belden, J. Edward Simmons, W. J. Welch, and Alexander S. Webb, LL.D. (ex-officio). Lawrence D. Kiernan. A.M., LL.B., is secretary. Dr. Webb is the president of the faculty or officers of instruction and govern-
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
At about the time of the founding of the Free Academy in New York the first publishing house devoted exclusively to the issue of school-books was established in that city, and is now (1883) one of the most extensive establishments of the kind in the world. Its publica- tions are sold by the million, and in every State and Territory in the Union, in the Dominion of Canada, and even in China and Japan. Reference is made to the house of Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co., of New York and Chicago.
This great school-book publishing house was founded essentially by Henry Ivison, who retired from business in January, 1883, leaving his name in the firm in the person of his son, David B. Ivison. Be- ginning in a small way at No. 199 Broadway, in 1847, the firm now occupies two stores in one (753-755) on Broadway, and two stores in one (117-119) in State Street, Chicago. Their catalogue contains the titles of one hundred and eighty-seven distinct elementary books published by them for use in schools.
ment, assisted by fourteen professors and sixteen tutors. The whole number of students was five hundred and ninety-four.
* Mr. Ivison is a native of Glasgow, Scotland, where he was born in 1808. Receiving an academic education, he came to this country in early life (1820), learned the business of a bookseller with William Williams in Utica, N. Y., and at the age of twenty-two began that business on his own account in Auburn, N. Y., in 1830. Honest, industrions, plodding, of keen judgment and vigorous physical constitution, he began business life without a dollar of his own, but was successful from the beginning, for he deserved and Lever lacked friends.
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