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 23
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THE FIVE POINTS HOUSE OF INDUSTRY is an early outgrowth of the efforts of the New York Ladies' Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church to establish a mission at the Five Points. As we have observed, the Rev. L. M. Pease was appointed the first missionary by the New York Annual Conference. He entered upon the task with great energy and zeal, but soon differing with the origi-
* The officers for the year 1882 were : Mrs. Joseph A. Wright, first directress ; Mrs. John A. Kennedy, second directress ; Mrs. William Ryer, third directress ; Mrs. F. Holsten, fourth directress ; Mrs. William B. Skidmore, treasurer ; Mrs. J. Grayden, corresponding secretary ; Miss. E. Burling, recording secretary ; Mrs. E. B. Heydecker. assistant recording secretary. The board of managers consist of members of the forty Methodist churches in the city. The Rev. S. I. Ferguson is the superintendent, and editor of a monthly publication called Voice from the Old Brewery.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
nators of the enterprise as to the principles upon which it should be carried on, an unfortunate controversy arose. The result was an alien- ation, and Mr. Pease severed his connection with the society with a determination to prosecute the work according to his own views, rely. ing upon the religious community to sustain him.
With characteristic energy Mr. Pease, no longer connected with any association, and assisted by his devoted wife, hired two houses at the Five Points, on his own responsibility, for $700 a year. With the aid of the police he soon cleared them of their depraved inmates, and with his family took up his abode in them. He believed that the wretched creatures he wished to serve, the outcast women of the Five Points. were not so from choice, but from the force of circumstances. He be- lieved that as a rule they desired to escape from their mode of life, but were debarred by the ban of society. The world did not believe as he did, and this was the kernel of the controversy to which allusion has been made. But he had heard from their lips the cry, " Don't tell us how innocent and happy we once were, and how wicked and miserable and infamous we now are ; don't talk to us of death and retribution and perdition before us ; we want no preacher to tell us that : but tell us, oh, tell us some way of escape ! Give us work and wages ! Do but give us some other master than the Devil, and we will serve him."
In response to that pitiful cry Mr. Pease acted. He sought to relieve their moral and bodily wants, but was not unmindful of their intellectual and spiritual needs. He took them at their word. Ile first became their employer and then their father. He became a man- ufacturer, and gave them shirts to make. Next he gave them a home, and became the head of a family. He began in July with thirty or forty women sewing by day in the Methodist Mission Chapel. He took a house near by in August. In September a day-school was started. It was taken under the patronage of Mr. James Donaldson and Mrs. Bedell, the mother of Dr. Bedell (now Bishop of Ohio), rector of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Ascension and the members of that communion. In October another house was taken, and the inmates were increased to about sixty. In February, 1851, another house was taken, and in May four houses more, the whole accommodating about one hundred and twenty.
For ten months the enterprise came under the control of the National Temperance Society. A bakery and coarse basket-making had been added to its industries. The control reverted to Mr. Pease in May. 1552, and the next spring three more houses were added to the number.
THIRD DECADE, 1850-1860.
Finally a house was taken in Broome Street, and appropriated a> a home for very small children, invalids, and others.
According to a report in April, 1854, the establishment had, during the past six months supported. in doors and out, a daily average of at least five hundred persons by their labor there and by the bonefaction of the charitable. At that time the average number of inmates was abont three hundred, of whom one half were children. There wer .. twenty-five men. Two hundred children were in the school.
Through the spontaneous liberality of ten individuals, a farm was purchased in Westchester County, sixteen miles from the city, in 1-33. To this healthful spot and labor many were sent, and efforts were always made to assist suffering families without impairing their domes- tic ties or responsibilities. The grand object of the managers of the Five Points House of Industry was the temporal, social, and moral improvement of outcasts, and the cultivation of their spiritual natures. The institution was incorporated in 1854, on the application of thirty conspicuous citizens of New York. The trustees for the first year were : Charles Ely, Henry R. Reisen, George Bird, Edward G Bradbury, Archibald Russell, Thomas L. Eells, Charles B. Tatham. William W. Cornell, and George G. Waters.
The trustees purchased a plot of ground in Anthony (now Worth Street, not far from Centre Street, on which they erected a building. completed in 1856. To this they were enabled, by generous donations and otherwise, to make additions of land and buildings comprising a chapel. The farm was placed under the management of Mr. Pease. where he endeavored to make a self-sustaining farm-school.
The establishment of the school of the Five Points House of Industry was an arduous task. The boys and girls, unaccustomed to disciplin". were extremely unruly. They were filthy in their habits and conver- sation, and profoundly ignorant. Mr. Pease allured them into the school by joining them in their plays and games, and retained them by giving them food. For three years Mr. Donaldson labored with him efficiently. When failing health compelled this good man to relinquish: his charge it was transferred to the Church of the Ascension. The rector appointed six members of the congregation to be a school com- mittee, who discharged their duty with zeal. This was before the in- corporation of the institution. When the new building was completed the schools, now become orderly, were transferred to it. But the church continued the responsibility of carrying on this reformatory work at the Five Points. In fifteen years (1-55-For over twenty that- sind four hundred children were taught in that school.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The children of the institution who receive its benefits are those chiefly who are abandoned by their parents or surrendered on account of their inability to support them. The Legislature has given the institu- tion power to indenture them as apprentices. The institution has gone on steadily and healthfully in its holy work under successive superin- tendents, and thousands of respectable young men and women scat- tered over the land can attest that what they are they owe to the fostering care of the Five Points House of Industry .*
Almost simultaneously with the establishment of the reformatory institutions at the Five Points just mentioned, there was organized in the city another public charity, far-reaching in its aims and since mar- vellous in its operations and influence. It appears more important as a minister of good than any other society in the social history of the city of New York during the last sixty years, because it stands as a preventive agency and a purifier at the sources of crime and pauperism -- the neglected children. It took hold of the bad or ignorant boy when he was a child, and, instead of waiting until he was mature to imprison or hang him, transformed him, by the gradual influences of education, labor, and religion, into an honest and industrious young man. This institution is THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY, founded in 1852, and which is still doing its holy work with increased vigor and effect under the guidance of its chief founder.
In the year 1833 the then chief of police, George W. Matsell, put forth a report concerning the street children of New York which created universal anxiety among thoughtful citizens, and called forth much compassion for the class described. At that time a young man. a graduate of Yale College who had recently completed his studies in Europe and was prepared for the Christian ministry, was laboring as a missionary of reform among the adult criminals on Blackwell's Island and the wretched denizens of the Five Points, where Mr. Pease was then grappling with the giant, " the social evil," with a mighty vet gentle hand. This young man was Charles L. Brace.+
* According to a report for 1882 there were remaining and admitted during the official vear 847 inmates. Of these, 144 women were sent to service, and 306 restored to their friends. Of the whole number, 386 were boys and 237 were girls. The total number admitted to the institution since its organization was 23, 729 ; whole number of children in the day-school during that time, 33,975 ; total sum of money spent in its support, $1.029,685. The officers for the year 1882 were : Morris K. Jesup, president ; George F. Betts, secretary ; Hugh N. Camp, treasurer, and Charles Elv, D. Lydig Suydam, William W. Astor. Charles Lanier, David S. Eggleston, Oliver Harriman, trustees. William F. Barnard is the superintendent.
+ Charles Loring Brace was born in Litchfield, Conn., in 1826. His father, John P. Brace, was a distinguished and successful teacher of youth.
*
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THIRD DECADE, 1850-1860.
While Mr. Brace was abroad he had studied the character of chari- table institutions founded for the benefit of neglected children. These studies and his personal observation in his then missionary work satis- fied him that a system of prevention would be more puissant than one of cure in the work of securing permanent social reform. Ile was satisfied too that the work must begin with the plastic child.
Mr. Brace was deeply impressed with the immense number of boys and girls floating and drifting about the streets of New York without apparent homes or occupations-the fruitful materials out of which
Mr. Brace is descended from Puritan stock on both his father's and his mother's side. On that of the latter are found some of the most distinguished families of New England, among them that of the eminent Rufus King.
After Mr. Brace's graduation at Yale College in 1846. he studied theology in seminaries in New York and New Haven, and went abroad in 1550, where he remained two years to complete his edneation. He studied in Germany, and made a trip into Hungary in 1851. where he was arrested in Giroswardein by the Anstrian authorities on the suspicion of being an agent of the Hungarian exiles in America, seeking to arouse another revolution. He was confined for a month in a dungeon of the old castle in that city, and was tried twelve times by an Austrian court-martial. At length he succeeded in sending secret information of his arrest and imprisonment to the Hon. Charles J. McCurdy, the Ameri- can chargé d'affaires at Vienna, who demanded the immediate release of Mr. Brace. . This demand, being seconded by the arrival at that time of two American ships of war at Trieste, was instantly complied with. Mr. Brace was sent to Pesth, thence to Vienna, and thence to the Austrian frontier, escorted by Austrian government officials. That government subsequently apologized for the arrest, but made no pecuniary reparation.
After his return in 1851, Mr. Brace published a volume in New York and London entitled, " Hungary in 1851," and subsequently another volume entitled, " Home Life in Germany."
As we have observed, Mr. Brace became interested while in Europe in institutions devoted to the benefit of children, and on his return began labors in the city of New York in behalf of the unfortunate. Determined to attempt to purify the tide of vice sweeping over the city by working at the fountain of the polluted and polluting stream, he and others formed the Children's Aid Society in 1853. He was the origi- nator of the distinctive features of that society-the emigration plan, the boys' lodging- houses, and the industrial schools. In 1854 he founded the first boys' lodging-house. securing funds for the purpose from personal friends. This was subsequently accepted by the society and became a great part of the work of this charity. His time was constantly employed thereafter in speaking and writing for the society, managing its affairs, and laboring among the poor and in literary work. In 1554 he married Miss Letitia Neill, of Belfast, Ireland, by whom he has four children. In 1 ST be visited Norway and Sweden, and published a work on " The Norse Folk." He subsequently wrote and published " Short Sermons to Newsboys, " " Races of the Old World," and after a visit to California in 1867 he published " The New West." In 1872 he published "The Dangerous Classes of New York," revisited Hungary the same year, and in 1882 he published his " Gesti Christi, or History of Human Progress under Christianity." The Children's Aid Society, of which he has been the executive ofe -: and mainspring since it was formed, hasgrown to one of the grandest and most used charities in the United States, as its statistics, given in the text, demonstrate.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
were fashioned the multitude of criminals and lewd women who infested the city. With others he devised a plan, crude at first, for arresting the attention of these street wanderers, particularly the boys. and peradventure persuading them to better living. Boys' meetings were held. These were addressed by earnest men and women, some- times wisely, sometimes foolishly. These boys were keen and prac- tical, and were impatient of sentimentality. When a pious Sunday- school teacher asked :
" My dear boys, when your father and mother forsake you, who will take you up ?"
" The purlice, sir, the purlice !" was the prompt and sincere reply.
At first these street Arabs were irrepressible. Their coarse jests, their don't-care manners, and often indecent expressions were difficult to correct, but it was soon found that kind words which came up from the depths of the heart of a man or woman would touch some hidden chord in them. Pathos and simple eloquence, the expression of earnestness, always found in these ungoverned children of misfortune vibratory strings that gave back responsive tones of feeling.
The generous philanthropists persevered in the good work. They provided entertainments for the boys at their gatherings, such as magic- lantern exhibitions, and very soon these boys' meetings became quite orderly assemblages. But these could not be, in the nature of things, a permanent success. This was pioneer work only, a clearing away of the covering and a revealing of the fearful nature of the work to be done. It was seen that more heroic, organized work had to be done in order to secure permanent footing in the terrible conflict with the great evil.
At length, early in 1833, a society was organized. It was composed of earnest men then engaged in laboring for the reformation of the dangerous classes in the city. Though representing different religious denominations, and each ardently attached to his own, there was not at the beginning and never has been the slightest ripple of disturbance on account of views on sectarian topies.
The association happily adopted the comprehensive and significant title of the Children's Aid Society. They appointed Charles L. Brace as its chief executive officer, with the title of secretary, which position he has held for thirty consecutive years .* They hired a small room in
* The society issued an admirable circular letter, in which, after defining their objects and proposed methods, and allnding to the immense throng of wretched children to be benefited, most vividly set forth the condition and needs of the class for whose benefit the society had been founded. It declared its intention not to conflict with any exist-
THIRD DECADE, 1850-1860.
Amity Street for an office, and therein was begun by the secretary. with a small lad in attendance, the great work since accomplished. The association was incorporated in 1856.
ing institutions, but to render them a hearty co-operation. They proposed to give to the vagrant children of the city opportunities for receiving moral and religions instruction, and to afford them means preliminary to their earning a livelihood by honest labor by founding industrial schools. In fine, they proposed at the beginning to do precis ! what the society has done so nobly and with such good results.
In that circular was presented the following sad picture of the' condition of a class of boys and girls in the city : " For the most part the boys grow up utterly by themselves. No one cares for them, and they care for no one. . Some live by begging, by petty pilfer. ing, by bold robbery ; some earn an honest support by peddling matches, or apples, or newspapers ; others gather bones and rags in the streets to sell. They sleep on steps, in cellars, in old barns, and in markets, or they hire a bed in filthy and low lodging-houses. They cannot read ; they do not go to school or attend church. Many of them have never seen a Bible. Every cunning faculty is intensely stimulated. They are shrewd and oll in vice when other children are in leading-strings. Few influences which are kind and good ever reach the vagrant boy. And yet, among themselves, they show generous and honest traits. Kindness can always touch them.
" The girls, too often, grow up even more pitiable and deserted. Till of late no one has ever cared for them. They are the cross-walk sweepers, the little apple-peddlers and candy-sellers of our city ; or by more questionable means they earn their seanty bread. They traverse the low, vile streets alone, and live without mother or friends, or any share in what we should call a home. They also know little of God or Christ, except by name. They grow up passionate, ungoverned, with no love or kindness ever to soften the heart. We all know their short wild life, and the sad end. These boys and girls, it should be remembered, will soon form the great lower class of our city. They will intlu- ence elections ; they may shape the policy of the city ; they will, assuredly, if unre- claimed, poison society all around them. They will help to form the great multitude of robbers, thieves, vagrants, and prostitutes who are now such a burden upon the law. respecting community."
CHAPTER IV.
THE circular letter of the Children's Aid Society, widely distrib- uted, excited universal attention and sympathy, and called forth generous responses from the fortunate classes. The first considerable contribution was from Mrs. William B. Astor (a daughter of General Armstrong), wife of the principal property-holder in the city. She sent $50. It was the pioneer of ample funds which came in time to sustain the institution. The scenes at the office of the secretary soon after it was opened were exceedingly interesting.
'. Most touching of all," wrote Mr. Brace, " was the crowd of wandering little ones who immediately found their way to the office. Ragged young girls who had nowhere to lay their heads ; children driven from drunkards' homes ; orphans who slept where they could find a box or a stairway ; boys cast out by stepmothers or stepfathers ; news- boys whose innocent answer to our question, ' Where do you live ?' rang in our ears. ' Don't live nowhere ! ' little bootblacks, young peddlers, 'canawl-boys' who seemed to drift into the city every winter and live a vagabond life ; pickpockets and petty thieves trying to get honest work ; child-beggars and flower-sellers growing up to enter careers of crime --- all this motley throng of infantile misery and childish guilt passed through our doors, telling their simple stories of suffering, and loneliness, and temptation, until our hearts became sick."
The first special effort made by the society was the finding of work for the children. A workshop was established in Wooster Street. It was a failure. It was soon found that benevolence could not compete with selfishness in business. They could and did provide means for earning a livelihood for girls by sewing.
The newsboys of the city soon attracted their special attention. As a class they were shrewd, reckless, jolly, and heathenish ; social Ishmaelites, for their hands were against every man's pocket, and every one considered a newsboy his natural enemy, intent only on plunder. Their life was extremely hard. They slept in boxes, alleys. doorways, under stairways, on hay-barges, in the coldest weather, so as to be near the printing-offices early in the morning. As a rule they did not " live nowhere." They were pushed about by the police, and
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THIRD DECADE, 1830-1860.
there was not a single door in the city open to welcome them or give them food and shelter. Mr. Brace frequently saw ten or a dozen on a cold night piled together to keep warm under a printing-office stairs. Ilis heart was touched, and he resolved to help the poor souls, and with the pecuniary aid of some personal friends he established the first lodg- ing-house for newsboys ever known in this country. A loft in the old Sun building was secured and fitted up, in March, 1854, and placed in charge of C. C. Tracy, a carpenter. There they were furnished with a supper for five cents, and a bed for six cents, and a bath thrown in. For six cents they had a breakfast in the morning.
The experience of the first night established the popularity of the Newsboys' Lodging-House. The boys were too much excited to sleep much. "I say, Jim," cried one, " this is rayther better 'an bummin' -eh ?" " My eyes ! what soft beds these is !" said another. " Tom, it's 'most as good as a steam-gratin', and there ain't no M. P.'s to poke, nuther !" said a third.
Very soon an evening school was opened, and Sunday meetings were regularly held. Gradually these " institutions" had a powerful effect. The Lodging-House, taken in charge by the society, is now one of its chief engines of reform. In the course of a year the population of a large town, in numbers, passed through it. In 1872 the Shakespeare Hotel, on the corner of Duane and Chambers strects, was purchased and fitted up as a permanent Lodging-House for Homeless Boys.
At an early period in the history of this society Mr. Brace founded an Industrial School for Girls, the first institution of the kind ever established. That first seed is now the Wilson Industrial Schoo !. Similar schools have been established by the society, and now number twenty-one. These have proved to be among the best preventives of crime among children. Girls' lodging-houses were subsequently provided, with incalculable benefit, and at the very beginning the cmigration plan-the sending of children of both sexes to good homes remote from the city-was instituted. In a special manner this plan has succeeded in the Western States, to which thousands of poor children have been sent and blessed.
Such, in brief, is the history of the origin and pioneer work of this great charity, which has done so much for the elevation and salvation of neglected children in the city of New York, and thereby conferred an inestimable boon on society there. Let us glance at the results.
The annual report of the society (November 1, 1882) showed that in the lodging-houses of the society, now six in number, during twenty-nine years, more than 250,000 different boys and girls had
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
been sheltered and partly fed and instructed. In the industrial schools probably over 100,000 poor little girls had been instructed, and of these it is not known that even a score have entered on criminal courses of life, or have been drunkards or beggars, though four fifths were children of drunkards. Among the 187,952 boys who had been, during twenty-nine years, in the Newsboys' Lodging-House, there has been no case of any contagious or foul-air diseases, not even ophthalmia, and only one death had occurred.
During the year ending November 1, 1882, 14, 122 different boys and girls had been sheltered, fed, and taught in the six lodging-houses. these having supplied 305,524 meals and 230,968 lodgings. In the twenty-one day and thirteen evening schools of the society, 13,966, chil- dren were taught and partly fed and clothed, 3937 were sent to homes, mainly in the West, and 2340 were aided with food, medicine, etc .. through the sick children's mission. In the Girls' Lodging-House and in the industrial schools 484 girls were taught the use of the sewing- machine. In the lodging-houses during the year were 7613 orphans. A penny savings-bank had been established, and in it $10,380.84 were deposited during the year. The total number of children in charge of the society during the year was 36,971. Among the 14,122 boys and girls in the lodging-houses no death had occurred during the year. This healthful state was secured mainly by watchfulness, scrupulous cleanliness, proper ventilation, and wholesome food.
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