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 29
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* A new opera-house has just been built at Broadway and Seventh Avenue, Thirty- ninth and Fortieth streets, aml is the finest building of its kind in this country. It was built at a cost of $1,400,000, furnished by seventy men, who each contributed $20,000. It is said to be the safest public building ever constructed, having no less than seventeen ways of exit to the street. It is built of brick and iron.
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Laura Keene became the energetic manager of the Metropolitan Theatre late in 1855. She, and Strakosch at the Academy of Music, Matilda Heron at Wallack's, Charles Matthews the younger at the Broadway, and Edwin Booth at Burton's, divided the patronage of the theatres in New York during the last half of the third decade. At near the close of the decade the Metropolitan took the name of Winter Garden, and was opened with Boueicault's version of "The Cricket on the Hearth," called Dot.
Edwin Booth was first introduced to a New York audience by his father, Junius Brutus Booth, in the play of the Iron Chest, his father taking the part of Sir Edward Mortimer. He was then about sixteen years of age. Ile afterward went to California, the Sandwich Islands, and Australia on a professional tour. When he returned to New York, in 1857, he " burst upon the town" with great brilliancy at Burton's Theatre, in his father's great character of Richard III. He made a professional tour in England in 1861, and studied his art on the conti- nent. At the Winter Garden in New York he played Hamlet one hundred nights consecutively to full houses. It was a great triumph. His course in his profession has been steadily upward, and now he ranks as the first American tragic actor. In 1882-83 Mr. Booth made a professional tour in Europe, and won unbounded applause every- where.
One of the most important educational institutions in a commercial city is a school in which the best methods of conducting business of every kind and of keeping accounts may be thoroughly learned, theo- retically and practically. Such an institution was founded in the city of New York toward the close of this decade, twenty-five years ago, by Silas S. Packard, one of the most energetie of men and successful organizers.
Having had some experience as a teacher of writing and bookkeep- ing, Mr. Packard became associated with Bryant & Stratton, in the fall of 1856, in the management of a business school in Buffalo. From that city he went to Chicago, where, with the help of Mr. Stratton. he established the Bryant & Stratton Business College. In May, 1858. in connection with Mr. Stratton, he founded in the city of New York the institution so widely and favorably known as Packard's Business College. He soon afterward prepared the Bryant & Stratton series of text-books for instruction in bookkeeping, which became very popular at once, and are still more extensively used than any other text-books on the same subject in our country.
In the management of his college Mr. Packard seems to have had
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two things constantly in view-namely, to meet the real wants of the business community in the matter of well-trained clerks, and to render his institution worthy the name of college. The perfecting of his system of instruction has since been the chief business of his life.
The Packard Business College occupies a large portion of the five- story building on the corner of Broadway and Eleventh Street, where is fitted up a suite of elegant and commodious rooms with every appliance for instruction in the various departments. To each graduate a diploma is given, which is a sure passport to employment. He says : " Their diplomas do not recommend them as bank cashiers or presi- dents, or as managers of large or small enterprises, but simply as having a knowledge of the duties of accountantship. They rarely fail to fulfil reasonable expectations, and they are not responsible for unrea- sonable ones."
In 1853 there was an average daily attendance at the college of two hundred and fifty pupils, of whom thirty were young women, who, he says, as readily as young men acquire business knowledge, become excellent bookkeepers, and in matters of short-hand and type-writing they excel. The young women take the same instruction as the young men, both go into the same classes, are subject to the same restrictions, and they hold an even hand in all their work.
During the twenty-five years of its existence Packard's Business College has had fully six thousand pupils, and it is represented by its graduates in the business houses in every city and large town in the Republic, and in many cities abroad. And they are found, also, in every profession .*
# Silas S. Packard is a native of Cummington. Mass., where he was born in April, 1826. His ancestors were among the earliest settlers of the town, more than a century ago. They were of English nativity, and came from Windham, England. Chester Packard, the father of Silas, with his five boys, emigrated to Ohio in 1833, and settled about ten miles from Newark, in the interior of the State. The subject of this sketch was the fourth son. He received an academic education, and at the age of sixteen years began to teach penmanship in district schools. In 1815 he went to Kentneky, where, having a genius for art, he taught school and painted portraits, preparing his own colors and canvas, and making his own brushes for his art work. In 1818 Mr. Packard went to Cincinnati, where he was employed as a teacher of penmanship in Bartlett's Commercial College. There he remained two years. In the summer of 1850 he married Miss Marion H. Crocker, of New York, and removed, first to Michigan, and afterward to Lockport, New York, teaching writing, bookkeeping, and drawing. He established a weekly news- paper at Tonawanda, N. Y., which he conducted with ability and fair snecess until he became associated with Bryant and Stratton in the management of their commercial college at Buffalo. There it was that Mr. Packard " found his vocation," and entered upon what has been the chief pursuit of his life, with what success has been revealed in the text.
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Thirty years ago the name of business college was unknown in this country ; now (1583) there are over two hundred distinct schools, with an average daily attendance of between thirty and forty thousand pupils. They constitute immense forces in the educational institutions of our country.
Possessed of varied talents, Professor Packard has bent all his energies for a quarter of a century to the work of imparting a thorough business education to young men and women, with remarkable success. His business college in New York is warmly cherished by the best citizens in the metropolis as a most valuable institution. The celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its establishment, in March, 1883, at the Academy of Music, was a most gratifying demonstration of the public appreciation of its worth. Chief-Justice Noah Davis presided on the occasion, and fifty pupils were graduated. Enlogistic addresses were given by distinguished speakers to a large assembly, among whom were many enterprising and successful business men of the city who were gradu- ates of the college.
CHAPTER VII.
A MONG the public charities founded during this decade, THE NEW YORK JUVENILE ASYLUM appears conspicuous. It was incorpo- rated in June, 1851.# It is the outgrowth and enlargement of an association of benevolent ladies formed in the autumn of 1850, who called their sheltering arrangements the Asylum for Friendless Boys. The Juvenile Asylum was founded on the same basis of intentions, but included both sexes. Its prime objeet was and is to provide a refuge for neglected children between the age of seven and fourteen years. and to procure good homes for them. When it was founded it was the only institution of the kind in the city. Indeed the whole subject of juvenile reform was then in its infancy in this country. This associa- tion led, by a few months, the more extended efforts in the same direc- tion of the Children's Aid Society.
The class of children for which, under its charter, the asylum was founded, is designated as " truant, disobedient to parents or guardians, keeping bad company, pilfering, found in the streets or public places in circumstances of want, suffering, abandonment, exposure, or neglect, or of begging." Such children may be committed by an order from a police magistrate. Children who have no friends to care for them, or whose friends choose to give them up wholly to the care of the asylum, are pro- vided with homes in the country. They are taken to the House of Re- ception, where they are kept a few weeks, and then sent to the asylum. where they remain until finally discharged. While in the asylum they attend school daily.
Provision was made in the charter for the board to ask of the city Authorities the sum of $50.000, so soon as the association should raise a like sum by voluntary subscriptions. This sum was secured very
* The corporators named in the charter were : Robert B. Minturn, Myndort Van Schaick, Robert M. Stratton, Solomon Jenner, Albert Gilbert, Stewart Brown, Francis R. Tilton, David S. Kennedy, Joseph B. Collins, Benjamin F. Butler, Isaac T. Hopper, Charles Partridge. Luther Bradish, Christopher Y. Wemple. Charles O'Conor, Jo'in D. Ross, John Duer, Peter Cooper. Apollos R. Wetmore, Frederick S. Winston, James Kelley, Silas C. Herring, Rensselaer N. Havens, and John W. Edmonds.
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speedily. The remaining sum of $50,000 was appropriated by the public authorities. By this action the asylum was vested with the right of claiming from the city or from the commissioners of emigration the sum of $40 annually for every pupil kept and instructed by it, thereby placing it among the permanent institutions in the city.
The asylum first opened its sheltering arms in a building in Bank Street on January 1, 1553, and to its care the children of the Asylum for Friendless Boys was transferred. Luther Bradish was appointed its first president, and John D. Russ secretary. From its inception until now (1883) the society has pursued its objects with faithfulness and untiring vigor. It immediately proceeded to erect suitable build- ings at One Hundred and Seventy-sixth Street and Tenth Avenue (on Washington Heights, opposite High Bridge), where it has accommoda- tions for eight hundred children. The building is spacious, being four stories in height. The grounds contain about twenty acres of land, of which twelve acres are devoted to farm and garden purposes. There is a fine oak grove of four acres, and the remaining four acres are occupied by the buiklings and yards, which are inclosed on three sides by a brick wall eight feet in height.
The asylum consists of the asylum proper, and its two branches- the House of Reception, in West Thirteenth Street, and a West- ern agency, near Bloomington, Ilinois, where homes are pro- vided for children sent to the West. At the close of the year 1882 there were at the asylum 640 boys and 172 girls, at the House of Reception 111 boys, making the total $$3. The total number cared for since the institution was opened was 22,809. One of the most active managers of this important institution is the Hon. Clarkson Crolius, who obtained its charter while he was in the State Senate, and who has been connected with it from its foundation .* Of the children received during 1882 there were committed 367 for dis- obedience to parents and for truancy, 32 for pilfering, 14 for vagrancy, 251 for destitution, and S for begging.
It was deemed advisable, after long years of trial, to have the sexes separated, and when a new building for girls was completed, in 1881. this was done. In addition to the daily instruction in the schools, in
* The officers of the New York Juvenile Asylum for 1883 were : Ezra M. Kingsley, president ; Peter Cooper and Benjamin B. Sherman, vice-presidents ; Peter Carter, seere- tary, and Henry Tallmadge, treasurer. It has a board of twenty-four chosen directors and three or-officio directors. The latter are : Franklin Edson, mayor ; John Reilley, president of the board of aldermen, and Henry H. Porter, president of the board of charities and correction. The superintendent of the asylum is Elisha M. Carpenter ; of the House of Reception, E. D. Carpenter.
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the ordinary English branches, the children are carefully drilled in vocal music. The boys are employed in making and mending shoes and garments, so that they become quite expert shoemakers and tailors. They also work on the farm and in the garden, while the girls are taught sewing and the making of feminine garments. These employments are made profitable in furnishing supplies for the in- stitution.
THE DEMILT DISPENSARY was established in 1851, to meet the wants of the sick poor in the eastern part of the city above Fourteenth Street. Temporary medical relief had been given by the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor for two or three years, but that society was compelled to withhold it in 1831, where- upon an effort was put forth to establish a dispensary in that district. Meetings were held. and finally, at a gathering at the church on Fourth Avenue, corner of Twenty-second Street, in March, 1851, it was resolved to take measures to establish " a medical dispensary for the north- eastern part of the city." A committee was appointed to carry out the measure.
There were two maiden sisters in the city, named Elizabeth and Sarah Demilt, who were friends of medical charities. They both died in 1849, and left to the three dispensaries then in the city 820,000. After the above-named committee had perfected the arrangements for establishing a dispensary, Mr. George T. Trimble, a friend of the Demilt sisters, called on the committee. told them he was the residuary legatee of the deceased women, and that what he received from the estate he intended to devote to some charity such as they would approve if living. Having profound respect for their memory, he desired that some worthy charity should perpetuate it, and proposed to give $5000 to the new institution if they would name it the Demilt Dispensary. The offer was accepted with its conditions, and so the dis- pensary received its name. A lot was purchased. a building erected, and in it the managers held their first meeting on March 21, 1853.
The dispensary building is situated on the corner of Second Avenue and Twenty-third Street. It is four stories in height, with a high base- ment. For two years the subject of dietetic regimen for its patients engaged the attention of its managers. In 1873 some benevolent ladies established the New York Dietetic Kitchen as an adjunct to the Demilt, thereby securing the co-operation of its house and visiting phy- sicians. The two organizations work in harmony with great success.
During the year 1>>2 the number of new patients treated in the Demilt Dispensary was 22,496, of whom >156 were children. Of the
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whole number, 18, 428 were treated at the dispensary, and 4068 at their homes. The number of persons treated since the opening of the dis- pensary (thirty years ago) to the close of 1882 was 759,134, and the whole number of prescriptions furnished during that time was 1,569, 1s2 .*
All of the city of New York south of a line from the North River through Eightieth Street to Fifth Avenue, and through that avenue to Seventy-fourth Street, and through that street to the East River, and comprising a population exceeding 850,000 at the census of 1880, is divided into six dispensary districts, of which one is occupied and cared for by each of the following dispensaries : The New York, incorpo- rated in 1795 ; the Northern, in 1827 ; the Eastern, in 1832 ; the De- Inilt, in 1851 ; the North-western, in 1852 ; the North-eastern, in 1862.
The Jews of the city of New York are doing much in the way of charity and benevolence in behalf of their people who suffer and are unfortunate. Their orphan asylum has already been noticed in these pages. They have, besides, a well-appointed hospital (Mount Sinai), a Relief Society, a Sheltering Arms Guardian Society, a Deborah Nursery, a Society for the Improvement of the Sanitary Condition of the Poor, and a Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.
MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL Was founded by Sampson Louison, a wealthy Hebrew, who donated ground in Twenty-eighth Street for the institu- tion. It was incorporated by the Legislature on February 12, 1852 (Adar 5612). A building was erected in Twenty-eighth Street, and was opened for patients in 1838. The first officers were : Samp- son Louison, president ; John J. Hart, vice-president ; Henry Hen- dricks, treasurer, and Benjamin Nathan, secretary. It was estab- lished for the " purpose of affording medical and surgical aid and comfort and protection in sickness to deserving and needy Israelites and others, and for all purposes pertaining to hospitals and dispen- saries." .
The sympathy of this hospital is wider than this definition of its purposes, for the directors have always opened their doors to persons of whatever creed. The superintendent is instructed to admit all sick or wounded persons, unless they have infectious or incurable diseases. There is also a ward set apart for lying-in women. They have a stock of clothing for the most destitute patients, and have a burial plot, and
* The officers of the Demilt Dispensary for 1883 were : Charles Tracy, president ; William Phelps and Joseph Gillet, vice-presidents : John W. Cochrane, treasurer, and Alfred R. Kimball. secretary. It has twenty-five managers, of whom Charles Tracy and Charles C. Savage have been in the board from the beginning.
,
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bury their dead without charge to the friends of the deceased. During the Civil War hundreds of soldiers were admitted and treated. and it has always done its full share of duty during the prevalence of any epidemic. The hospital occupies a spacious building of its own on the corner of Lexington Avenue and Sixty-sixth Street. It has a dispensary, in which, during the year 1882, there were 35,000 con- sultations, and 52.209 prescriptions were furnished. This is a pure charity, no pay having been received for medical advice, supplies, or drugs.
The number of patients admitted to the hospital since it was opened. to 1883, was over 21,000. In 18$1, at the instance of some ladies, a de- partment for training nurses was established. This new organization is styled the Mount Sinai Training School for Nurses. This is not a charity, but an opportunity for acquiring a knowledge of one of the most important functions of the practitioner of the healing art. The hospital has an excellent medical staff, and Drs. Parker and Markoe are consulting surgeons. It has a synagogue attached to it, but every patient may call for a minister of his own creed. It looks for its support principally to the Jewish community of New York. In 1853 a wealthy Hebrew citizen of New Orleans gave it 820,000, and it has been the recipient of smaller donations and bequests, some of them of considera- ble amount .*
THE ORPHANS' HOME AND AASYLUM OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL. CHURCH was founded by the Res. Drs. Wainwright and Hobart, at the request of some ladies of St. Paul's Chapel. to whom a dying father had intrusted his two children, with a request that they should be reared in the faith of the Episcopal Church, in which they had been baptized. An association was formed for the purpose of organizing a home, of which the first officers were : the Rt. Rev. J. M. Wainwright. D.D., president ; the Rev. Francis L. Hawks, D. D., vice-president ; the Rev. W. E. Eigenbrodt, secretary, and John Warren, treasurer. +
The Home began its work in a room in Robinson Street with two beneficiaries. After several removals and a considerable increase in the number of its inmates, it found a permanent place of residence in
* The officers of Mount Sinai Hospital in 1883 were : Hyman Blum, president ; Isaac Wallach, vice-president : Samuel M. Schafer, treasurer : L. M. Hornthal, secretary ; Joseph L. Scherer, assistant secretary, and Theodore Hadel, superintendent. There are fifteen directors.
+ The board of managers consisted of these officers and the following-named gentle- men : the Revs. J. H. Price, D.D., J. H. Tuttle. D.D., J. HI. Hobart, D.D., E. Neville, D. D., T. A. Eaton : Messrs. William Kent, Clarkson Crolius, Jr .. Henry K. Bogert, Adam Norrie, and Stephen Cambreling, and a committee of eighteen ladies.
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Forty-ninth Street, near Lexington Avenue. At first it was managed by a board of directors consisting of gentlemen, but after a while this trust was transferred to a board of lady managers, representatives of all the larger parishes in the city. Its simple name, Orphans' Home, was changed when it was incorporated, in June, 1859, to Orphans' Home and Asylum of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The present site of the Home was leased at a nominal rate from the city corporation. Funds were raised, and the present fine and commodious building was soon crected. The Home is supported by annual subscriptions, life memberships, donations, collections in churches, etc.
Children are admitted into this institution only between three and eight years of age, and may be retained, the boys until they are twelve, and the girls until they are fourteen years old. Only full or half orphans are received, and no child is received unless absolute control of it is given to the board. The asylum is not the private enterprise of a few individuals, but is a foster institution of the Church."
ST. VINCENT DE PAUL ORPHAN ASYLUM (Roman Catholic) was organ- ized in 1858, under the auspices of the Rev. A. La Fond, pastor of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, and the Ladies Patronesses of the church. The institution began with only two children. The objects of the institution are to provide for destitute and unprotected orphan and half-orphan children of both sexes. of French birth or parentage, and others, and to educate them in the Roman Catholic faith.
The asylum occupies a building of its own at No. 219 West Thirty- ninth Street. The institution is under the charge of the Sisters Marianites of the Holy Cross, a religious order whose mother-house is at Mans, in France. Their aim is to inculcate, with a good moral, Catholic education, a knowledge of the French and English languages, and all that pertains to the practical knowledge of the useful pursuits . of life, such as sewing, laundrying, cooking, etc. There were in the asylum, at the beginning of 1853, 54 boys and 107 girls. The managers contemplate adding to their benevolent work a day nursery for the care of babies while their mothers are out at work.+
, # The officers of the Home for 1882 were : Mrs. Eugene Dutilh, first director ; Miss Anna Potter, second director ; Miss Anna I. Peck, secretary ; Mrs. Elisha A. Packer, treasurer. There is a board of twelve lady trustees beside the board of lady managers, and a committee of advice, consisting of the Rt. Rev. Horatio Potter, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L. ; the Revs. John Henry Hobart, D.D., Isaac H. Tuttle, D.D., Thomas Gallaudet, D. D., Theodore Eaton. D.D., Morgan Dix, D.D., and 'Messrs. Alexander Smith, Stephen P. Nash, Frederick W. Stevens, and Gordon Norrie.
+ The officers of the asylum for 1883 were : the Rev. Gaston Septic .. president ; L. B. Blusse, secretary . H. L Hoguet, treasurer, and a board of nine trustees, The institu-
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An effective and successful instrumentality in the work of benefi- cence and social reform in the city of New York is THE NURSERY AND CHILD's HospirAL, at the corner of Lexington Avenue and Fifty-first Street.
Early in 1854 Messrs. Mott and Halliday exposed through the news- papers the horrors of "baby farming," and also showed that the mortality among infants sent to the almshouse was over ninety per cent. It was alleged, without contradiction, that nearly all the infants committed to the care of wet-nurses died, and of those sent to the almshouse, few survived many weeks. It was also shown that many cruelties were inflicted on these unfortunate infants by heartless or ignorant nurses.
Mrs. Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet related to some friends the story of a most pitiful event which had come under her own observation. It was the suffering and exposure to disease, starvation, and death of the baby of a wet-nurse, who was compelled to " farm out" her own infant while she served another. The story was told to Mrs. Cornelius Dubois, and it awakened in her such a desire to do something for infants deprived of the constant care of a mother that she immediately interested others, and in less than a month a Nursery for the Children of Poor Women was organized (March 1, 1854), and $10,000 were subscribed by generous friends. These women procured a charter, and bogan their work vigorously and hopefully in a building in St. Mark's Place, on the first of May following. The nursery was very soon overcrowded. Want of experience brought with it many unlooked-for troubles and discouragements, but these generous women, with sublime faith, persevered and triumphed.
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