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 38
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The managers became early impressed with the importance of more ample hospital accommodations. The cause commended itself strongly to the benevolent. Liberal contributions were soon made for a build- ing, notably $70.000 by Chauncey and Henry Rose, and subsequently $50,000 by John C. Green and $15,000 by J. C. Baldwin, while many persons gave 85000 each, and there were numerous contributions of 81000 and under.
In 1872 the present spacious and elegant home of the institution. five stories in height including the basement, was completed and occupied. It is on the corner of Forty-second Street and Lexington Avenue, is
* Robert B. Minturn, John C. Green, Stewart Brown, A. R. Wetmore, William .A. Booth, Robert M. Hartley, Joseph B. Collins, Jonathan Sturges, James W. Beekman. George Griswold, John D. Wolfe. Enoch L. Fancher. James Knight, Thomas Donny. Luther R. Marsh, Charles N. Talbot, J. F. Sheate, Henry S. Terbell, Nathan Bishop. Julin W. Quiney.
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FOURTH DECADE, 1860-1870.
free of debt, and has accommodations for fully 200 patients. It is free to indigent residents of New York City and its vicinity and crippled United States soldiers. A moderate charge is made to other patients. Children from four to fourteen years of age are admitted as in-door patients, and receive the elements of an English education. Crippled patients are sent to it from all other charitable institutions, public and private.
This institution --- the avowed objects of which are " to apply skilfully constructed surgico-mechanical appliances for the treatment of in- and out-door patients, and those requiring trusses, spring supports, bandages. laced stockings, and apparatus for the cure of cripples, both adults and children, on such conditions as will make these benefits available, so far as possible, to the poorest in the city, free of charge"-has always attracted not only to its support but to its management leading philan- thropists of New York, such as Samuel Willets, its president at the time of his death. in 1:53 : William II. Macy, " who succeeded Mr.
* William H. Macy is a native of Nantucket, where he was born November 4, 1805. He was the oldest child of Josiah Maey, a member of the Society of Friends. He came to New York City in 1523, and entered the counting-house of Samnel Hicks. At the age of twenty-one he began the business of a commission merchant on his own account. His father joined him in business, and the firm was Josiah Maey & Son. In 1834, when twenty-nine years of age, he became a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and later be was elected vice-president of that body. In 1815 he was elected a director of the Leather Manufacturers' Bank, an I ten years afterward he was chosen its president. The directors voted him a silver vase as a token of their esteem and friendship.
At the beginning of ISIS Mr. Macy was elected a trustee of the Seamen's Bank for Savings. He had always taken great interest in that class of men, and was ever ready with kind words and a free hand to help them. He was elected vice-president of that institution in 1851, and in 1863 was chosen its president, which office he still holds. When he became president of the bank in relingnished other business, in order to devote his whole time to that institution. Its business was then large, having $9,000,000 on deposit. That sum was increased in 16-3 to $31.000.000. On January Ist of that year it had 60,961 accounts .* In 1899 Mr. Maer was elected one of the governors of the New York Hospital, and is now President of that institution. Mr. Macy has also held the office of vice-president of the United States Trust Company. He has been connected with the management of several insurance and railroad companies. Because of his high sense of honor, his unflinching integrity, and great business capacity, he has been w.Ivoted ns the executor of many estates. He has always been an active friend of some of the most important benevolent and charitable institutions in the city, and from these as well as from business institutions he has received many expressions of high esteem for his many admirable qualities. In his domestic relations Mr. Macy's virtues shine most conspicuously as a husband, a father, a protector and friend.
* The Seamen's Bank for Savings, of which Mr. Macy is the president, was meorporated in 1999, in order · to provide a safe and advantageon- deposit for the surplus earnings of seafaring men, who have ever been wwwcted to fraud- and in !! A - a class they are confiding and un-u-picions. Thus ! . k uf deposit for their `Wessing to thousands of families.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Willets as President ; William E. Dodge, Robert Hoe, Jonathan Sturges, and others. From 1863 to 1882 no less than $8, 787 patients have been treated in this hospital. Of these over 34,000 were children under fourteen years of age .*
One of the noblest charities in the city of New York is the HOME FOR INCURABLES. Early in 1866 a few prominent clergymen and several laymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church met at the house of the bishop of the diocese to consider the necessity of a hospital for indigent persons incurably ill. The meeting recognized the necessity, and appointed a committee of five gentlemen -- the Rev. Drs. Muhlenberg. Vinton, Montgomery, and Gallaudet and Mr. Franklin Randolph-a committee to find suitable accommodations for such a purpose. A commodious edifice, formerly known as the Temperance House, at West Farms, Westchester County, was leased. and there. after the organization of a board of trustees,+ early in April (1866), the good work began, with Benjamin II. Field as its first president; Martin E. Greene, vice-president : Henry J. Camman, treasurer : R. A. MeCurdy. secretary, and Washington Rodman, pastor and superintendent.
Much of the success of the early working of the institution was due to the exertions and influence of Mr. Field, its president, and to the faithfulness and devotion of Mr. Rodman, the pastor and superinten- dent, both having an earnest faith and deep interest in the undertaking. Mr. Field has served as president from the beginning until now.+
# The officers of the institution for 1882-83 were : Samuel Willets, president ; William H. Macy, Robert Colgate, Robert Hoe, Henry S. Terbell, William H. Osborn, vice-presi- dents ; Frederick Sturges, treasurer ; John P. Townsend, recording secretary ; William A. W. Stewart, corresponding secretary, and a board of eleven managers. Dr. James Knight is the surgeon-in-chief.
+ The board consisted of the Hon. John T. Hoffman, Edward Haight, W. H. Guion. Benjamin H. Field, Henry J. Camman, Franklin F. Randolph, George R. Jackson, Lloyd Aspinwall, John H. Pool, Frederic Goodridge, William E. Curtis, Stephen Cambreling. Benjamin B. Sherman. Richard A. MeCurdy, Archibald Russell, Livingston Satterlee. Martin E. Greene, George T. M. Davies, Henry M. McLaren, E. A. Quintard, D. D. Jones. W. A. Muhlenberg. W. Rodman, and T. Gallaudet. .
# The name of Benjamin Hazard Field is prominently connected with very many of the most active and best social and beneficent institutions of the city and of public enterprises. Whenever his name appears as a manager of an institution, in whatever capacity, his faithful personal participation in its duties may be expected. A man of wealth and of leisure, he makes the promotion of every good work for the benefit of society one of the chief pursuits of his life.
Mr. Field is of English lineage, tracing his ancestry far back in British history, even to the time of the Norman conquest in the twelfth century, when Hubertus de la Field came with William the Conqueror and was made a land-owner in Lancashire by his sovereign. His descendant. Robert Field, was the first of this name who appeared in
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FOURTH DECADE, 1860-1870.
Twelve acres of land at Fordham were purchased, and in 1873 the corner-stone of the present edifice was laid. The price paid for the property was generously contributed by Miss Catharine L. Wolfe, her father, John D. Wolfe, having expressed before his death his intention to contribute the amount of the purchase money. The society had
America, coming to Massachusetts about 1630, in company with Sir Richard Saltonstall. In 1645 he became one of the patentees of the Flushing Manor, Long Island, and settled there. One of his family purchased lands in Westchester County, not far from Peekskill. The region is known as Yorktown, and there the subject of our sketch was born, May 2, 1814. He received his primary education under the parental roof, and finished his school- life at the North Salem Academy, of which the late Rev. Hiram Jelliff, a learned Episcopal clergyman, was then the principal. He chose the mercantile profession as his business vocation, and entered the counting-room of his uncle, Hickson W. Field, then one of the " merchant princes" of New York.
In 1832 Mr. Field became the business partner of his uncle. He was then only eighteen years of age. When, six years afterward, his uncle retired from active business life, the management of the immense concerns of the house fell upon the shoulders of this junior partner. He was equal to the task, and for many years he conducted the business with great skill and success, and ranked among the best and most prosperous merchants of the city.
In the same year when the burdens of the business fell upon him (1838), Mr. Field married Miss Catharine M. Van Cortlandt de Peyster, sister of the late Frederic de Peyster, LL. D. She is connected by lineage with many of the oldest and most distin- guished families of the Colony and State of New York, and has ever been conspicuous in the social life of the city for her Christian virtues, her active benevolence, and her open- handed charities.
In 1861 Mr. Field associated with himself in business his son, Cortlandt de Peyster Field. Four years later the firm name was changed to Cortlandt de Peyster Field & Co., the father remaining as the company, and retiring from active business with an ample fortune and an unsullied reputation as a merchant and a citizen.
Our limited space will allow only a brief allusion to a few of the many associations and publie enterprises with which Mr. Field has been and is now connected. In 1835 he became a member of the St. Nicholas Society, and an active manager ; in 1844 he was elected_a life member of the New York Historical Society, served many years as one of its executive committee, for more than twenty years as its treasurer, and is now (1883) its vice-president ; an efficient trustee of the New York Society Library, a member of the Century Club for more than thirty years, a fellow of the American Geographical Society, and member of several other learned societies, one of the founders of the St. Nicholas ('Inb, an honorary member of the Mercantile Library Association, one of the founders and patrons of the Free Circulating Library, a manager of the Museum of Natural His- tory, vice-president of the first bank of savings established in the city, a director of banking and insurance institutions, president of the Home for Incurables since its or- ganization, and a large contributor to its support : trustee of the New York Dispensary, vice-president of the Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb for twenty- five years, a trustee of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, now (1583) its vice-presi- dent, and of minor charitable societies, and of the Working Women's Protective Union.
Mr. Field has spent large sums of money and much time in the cause of education. He was one of the most active and liberal citizens in procuring the erection of the statue of Washington at Union Square, and of Farragut in Madison Square, and was a liberal
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
already received, so early as November, 1867, from Chauncey and Henry Rose, the munificent sum of $30,000, and from time to time generous contributions were made by members of the board of man- agers and others. The building, which is very spacious and pleasant. was completed in 1875. Recently the president of the institution (Benjamin II. Field) and his wife, Mrs. C. M. Van Cortlandt de Peyster Field, have paid into the treasury a sum sufficient to build on the grounds a chapel that will accommodate three hundred or four hundred persons, for the benefit of the inmates of the Home.
The institution is conducted on entirely unsectarian principles. The services in the chapel are in accordance with the usages of the Protes- tant Episcopal Church. Its support is derived from interest on invest- ments, paying patients, and regular and occasional contributions. No aid from the State has ever been asked or desired. The institution is free from debt. It receives annually a small amount in the distribu- tion of the excise fund, to which it seems to be specially entitled, for most of its incurable epileptic inmates are the victims of the indulgence in intoxicating drinks. There is an association of ladies connected with the institution, twenty-three in number,# of whom two visit the hospital each month once a week. They undertake to keep the linen- room supplied, and furnish many articles of clothing for the poorer inmates, besides books, pictures, fruit, and other comforts. +
There is a free CHURCH HOME FOR INCURABLES among Protestant women and female children of the better class, who are without means or friends to support and care for them. It is situated at No. 54 West Eleventh Street. It was started in 1879 by the efforts of Misses Louise Gardner Hall and A. M. Palmer. The former, who died in March.
contributor to funds for the erection of the statues of several distinguished persons in Central Park.
In person Mr. Field is a man of fine presence and of cordial and gentle manners. Thor- onghly educated, conversant with general literature, a lover and patron of the fine arts. he is an honored and welcome companion in every refined social circle.
* This association in 1883 consisted of Mrs. A. Newbold Morris, H. V. C. Phelps. Richard M. Hoe, Martin E. Greene, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jacob D. Vermilye, John W. Munro, Henry A. Coster, Charles H. Nichols, Dudley S. Gregory, Samuel Filley, William II. Tailer. R. S. Emmet. C. O.D. Iselin, John S. Foster, Matthew Clarkson, Henry Rose. and Nathaniel Bradford, and, Misses Evans, Van Cortlandt, Gwynne, and Filley. Ther- is a board of clerical and lay managers. Of the former, the bishop of the diocese is the head : of the latter, Mr. Field.
The officers of the Home in 1883 were : Benjamin H. Field, president ; Martin E. Greene and William H. Guion, vice-presidents ; J. D. Vermilye, treasurer ; Henry M. MeLaren, secretary ; Israel C. Jones, superintendent and resident physician. and Mr .. Jane E. White, mnatron.
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FOURTHI DECADE, 1860-1870.
!< 63, was known to the world as Sister Louise. The enterprise had the sanction and commendation of Bishop Potter. This Home was incorporated with the Rev. George II. Houghton, D. D., rector of the Church of the Transfiguration, as president. At first the daily food of its inmates was begged at the public markets and adjacent business places. Finally contributions came in, and this most deserving institu- tion was removed to its present residence, No. 54 West Eleventh Street, where it has accommodations for about forty patients."
In 1865 a HOME FOR FALLEN AND FRIENDLESS GIRLS was founded, with the late Apollos R. Wetmore as president. Its benevolent object is indicated by its name-the protection of the young against the temp- tations which beset them, and rescuing them when they are led astray. Mr. Wetmore took a lively interest in the Home from the beginning. At the time of his sudden death, in January, 1881, about $10,000 had been collected, largely through his exertions, for the purpose of estab)- fishing a permanent place of residence. This sum, with other contribu- tions, enabled the managers to purchase and fit up a building at No. 49 Washington Square, which, out of respect to Mr. Wetmore, they call the Wetmore Home. Since the opening of the institution, in 1865, to the beginning of 1883, 1297 young women and girls (average age seventeen years), much the larger portion of whom had been rescued either from a life of sin or from temptation, have been admitted to its shelter.+
THE CHAPIN HOME is non-sectarian, though formed and conducted by members of the Universalist Church of the Divine Paternity, of which the late Edwin II. Chapin, D.D., was pastor for fully a quarter of a century.
The first movement toward establishing this Home for the needy was made at a meeting of a few of the ladies of the congregation in February, 1869. At that meeting an able paper was read by Mrs. George Hoffman. A society was soon afterward organized, and was named the Chapin Home for the Relief of the Aged and Infirm, both men and women. Mrs. E. HI. Chapin was chosen the first president. It was incorporated May 1. 1869.
Having secured a lease of lots on Lexington Avenue, between Sixty- sixth and Sixty-seventh streets, from the commissioners of the sinking
* The officers of the society at the time of the death of Miss Hall were : the Rev. Dr. Houghton, president ; the Rev. A. McMillan, secretary, and James Morris, treasurer.
t The officers of the Home for 1883 were : Z. S. Ely, president : G. W. Clarke, vice- president ; W. F. Barnard, secretary : S. Cutter, treasurer : Dr. S. T. Hubbard, phy- sieian, with a board of managers, consisting of four gentlemen aud cleven buddies.
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
fund, and obtained money for the purpose, the spacious building now occupied by the Home was erected. It was first occupied in 1872. At the time of the first annual report of the trustees, in 1874, there were thirty beneficiaries in the Home, composed of nine Universalists. eight Episcopalians, five Presbyterians, four Methodists, two Baptists, and two unknown.
Only respectable persons in reduced circumstances, and not under sixty-five years of age, are admitted. Each pays an entrance fee of 8300, which is held as a permanent fund until the beneficiary is no longer an inmate of the Home, when it is transferred to the general fund.
The constitution of the association provides that only " ladies of the Universalist denomination shall be eligible to election as trustees of the institution." Yet it is conducted on the broadest principles of love and charity. The question asked of applicants for shelter is not What is your creed ? but What is your need, my brother, or my sister ?
This Home is an appropriate monument to the memory of one of the most eloquent and most catholic in spirit of the pulpit teachers of the Golden Rule .*
THE FOUNDLING ASYLUM OF THE SISTERS OF CHARITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK was incorporated in October, 1869, and placed by the charter under the management of the Sisters of Charity of the Roman Catholic Church. The corporators were Mary Ann Ely, Catharine Fitzgibbon, Maria Wallace, Ann Obermeyer, Margaret Wightman, and Mary Hadden. The objects of the society were defined as the reception, care for, maintenance, and support of deserted children or foundlings. It was the first asylum exclusively for foundlings estab- lished in the United States, and its influence in suppressing the crime of infanticide and saving the lives of human beings has been incalcula- ble. Its usefulness was demonstrated during the first year of its existence, when over six hundred foundlings received its sheltering care. A crib is placed in the vestibule of the building, in which infants may be left. without injury or observation.
The asylum is situated in Sixty-eighth Street, between Third and Lexington avenues. In 18$1 a Maternity Hospital was opened in cou- nection with the asylum. It is intended for those persons only who are special objects of care and solicitude, such as women in whose cases there is a desire and hope of preserving individual character or family
* The officers of the Home for 1882-83 were : Mrs. N. L. Cort, president ; Mrs. C. P'. Huntington, C. L. Stickney, and C. HI. Delamater, vice-presidents ; Mrs. D. D. T. Marshall, treasurer : Miss E. Cort, recording secretary ; Mrs. E. R. Holden, correspond- ing secretary, and Mrs. C. F. Wallace, matron.
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Joseph BA toys
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FOURTII DECADE, 1860-1870.
reputation, or married women who may receive all the care, attention. and professional services not otherwise at their command, such as strangers in the city who may not find conveniences at a hotel, or have in their own houses the necessary attention.
Since the opening of the asylum, late in 1869, to October 1, 1582, there had been received and cared for 13,840 infants and more than 4000 mothers. There is also a children's hospital. a kindergarten, and a regular school. This institution, intended primarily for the salvation and good of the unconscious babe, has expanded into a protector and saviour of the mother herself .*
THE NEW YORK CATHOLIC PROTECTORY, designed for the protection of destitute Roman Catholic children, was incorporated in 1863. It was founded by the Rev. L. Silliman Ives, D. D., formerly a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The functions of the institution are, in their nature, designs, and methods, similar to those of all other institu- tions of its class, differing chiefly in the greater number of industries carried on under the direction of the managers. It has excellent schools, and the various trades carried on are for the benefit of the children and of the institution.
The Protectory occupies a very large and elegant Gothic building, five stories in height, at Westchester, N. Y. It has a salesroom for its products, and a reception office at No. 415 Broome Street. Hundreds of benefited children of both sexes are annually sent out from its shel- tering fold to begin the battle of life with fair preparation. A large number of them find good homes among the farmers in the Western States and Territories. The Protectory receives pecuniary aid from the State and the city, and from charitable members of the Roman Catholic Church. +
THE NEW YORK INFANT ASYLUM was incorporated in 1865. Its objects are to receive and take charge of foundlings and other infant children, of the age of two years and under, which may be intrusted to their charge, and to provide for their support and moral, physical. intellectual, and industrial education ; also to provide such lying-in wards and methods of guidance and care as shall tend to prevent the
* The officers of the Foundling Asylum in 1882 were : Sister M. Irene, sister superior ; John O'Brien, treasurer ; John E. Develin, legal adviser, and Very Rev. T. S. Preston, V.G., spiritual director. It has a large board of associates and managers consisting of ladies, an advisory committee of gentlemen, and an efficient.corps of physicians and surgeons.
+ The officers of the Protectory in 1883 were : Henry L. Hoguet, president ; James R. Floyd and Jeremiah Devlin, vice presidents ; Eugene Kelly, treasurer ; Richard II. Clarke, secretary.
HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
maternal abandonment of homeless infants, and diminish the moral dangers and personal sufferings to which homeless mothers are exposed. To these purposes the institution has ever devoted its untiring energies with great efficiency.
The asylum has a House of Reception and lying-in department at the corner of Sixty-first Street and Tenth Avenue, and a country home at Mount Vernon, Westchester County .*
At No. 40 New Bowery, not far from Chatham Square, in the Fourth Ward, is situated the HOWARD MISSION AND HOME FOR LITTLE WANDERERS, which was established in 1861 and incorporated in 1564. Like other institutions founded for the purpose of affording aid and protection for the needy, this mission is performing a grand work in its fruitful field. It has been doing that work faithfully for about a quarter of a century. When it began, in 1861, there were in that ward 20,000 inhabitants, men, women, and children, who were desti- tute, in a large sense temporally, mentally, and religiously. The mission has been largely instrumental in changing the social aspect of that part of the city for the better. Over eight hundred poor and worthy families, and over three thousand children who are members of these families, look to this mission for help (and receive it) in time of trouble. +
There is a society in New York known as the ST. JOHN's GUILD. whose field of effort to help the poor is as wide as human needs. It has no special work in the sphere of human charity. Its object is " to relieve the deserving poor in the city of New York. " Its canon places no needy one beyond the society's practical benevolence, and it is enabled to do a vast amount of work for good by constant co-operation with other charitable institutions. If it has a special object it is tu extend help to persons placed so low in the social scale by circum- stances as to forbid the hope of improving their condition, and yet they are not low enough to be thrown upon the commissioners of charities and correction.
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