USA > New York > New York and its institutions, 1609-1871. A library of information, pertaining to the great metropolis, past and present > Part 18
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NEW YORK MAGDALEN BENEVOLENT SOCIETY.
(Fifth avenue and Eighty-eighth street.)
EN the year 1828, several Christian ladies, representing different religious denominations, established a Sun- day school in the female penitentiary at Bellevue among those committed for variouscrimes, and others who required medical treatment. Interesting facts resulting from these efforts were communicated to the public, and such an interest awakened in the community that on the first day of January, 1830, the New York Magdalen Society was organ- ized.
Two years later the society was for some cause disbanded. The interest awakened, however, did not decline, for on the extinction of the old organization three new ones sprang up, one in Laight, one in Spring, and one in the Carmine Street Churches. About the same time a society of gentlemen was organized, called the "Benevolent Society of the City of New. York." In January, 1833, these societies were all again dis-
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
banded, and the "New York Female Benevolent Society" was organized, its officers and members being largely composed of persons who had given inspiration to the earlier organiza- tions. Subsequently the term "Female" was stricken out, and "Magdalen " inserted. The object of the society is the promotion of moral purity, by affording an asylum to erring females, who manifest a desire to return to the paths of virtue, and by procuring employment for their future support. This society issued its first report in January, 1834, and among its list of members stands the name of Mrs. Thomas Hastings, whose life has been largely devoted to the success of this enter- prise, and who, in this, the thirty-ninth year of its operation, is its first directress. The present society began its benevolent work in a hired upper floor in Carmine street, near Bleecker. The inmates did not exceed ten in number at any time pre- vious to 1836. The society early arranged for the permanent establishment of the Institution, and a plot of ground, contain- ing twelve city lots and an old frame building, was purchased at Eighty-eighth street and Fifth avenue, for the sum of $4,000. This location thirty years ago was far removed from the city, but is now becoming a very attractive part of it, and its streets will soon be lined with costly palaces. After occu- pying the old wooden building nearly twenty years, the enter- prising managers (all ladies) resolved to erect a new building, though at that meeting there was not a dollar in the treasury to defray the expenditures of such an undertaking.
Trusting in the overruling providence of Him who had hitherto directed their efforts, they arranged their plan, and erected a fine three-story brick edifice, the means being pro- vided from time to time by the generous public, to which they have never appealed in vain. Additions have since been made, and the buildings, which can now accommodate nearly a hundred inmates, have cost over thirty thousand dollars. Property has so appreciated in this locality that the Asylum and its six remaining lots are valued at near $100,000. The yard fronting on Eighty-eighth street has a high brick wall, the other parts of the ground being enclosed with a strong board fence. The first floor of the Asylum contains rooms for the matron and assistant matron, a parlor, a large work-room, and a neat chapel, with an organ and seating for a hundred persons. The two upper stories contain the sleeping apart- ments. The girls are not locked in their own private apart- ments, as in the Steenbeck Asylum of Pastor Heldring, in
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NEW YORK MAGDALEN BENEVOLENT SOCIETY.
Holland ; but the door leading from each floor is locked every night, and it would perhaps be an advantage if noisy and mischievous ones were always compelled to spend the night in their own apartments. Girls are taken at from ten to thirty years of age, and remain a longer or shorter period, according to circumstances. None are detained against their will, unless consigned to the Asylum by their parents or the magistrates. A Bible-reader visits the Tombs and other prisons, and encourages young women who express a desire to reform to enter the Asylum. Most of them have been ruined by intemperance, or want of early culture. The most hope- less among fallen women are those who have lived as mis- tresses. Many of these have spent years in idleness, affluence, and fashion, holding for their own convenience the threat of exposure over the heads of their guilty paramours, and have thus developed all the worst traits of fallen humanity. Not a few of these have been thoroughly restored to a virtuous life by this society. . Industry is one of the first lessons of the Asy- lum, without which there can be no abiding reformation. A pure literature is afforded, with the assistance of an instructor, for those whose education has been neglected. When the inmate gives evidence that true womanhood is really return- ing, a situation is procured for her in a Christian family in the city or country, the managers greatly preferring the latter. The chaplain, Rev. Charles C. Darling, has been connected with the Institution over thirty years, and has re -. joiced over the hopeful conversion of mnany of its inmates. Every Sabbath morning the family assembles for preaching, a Bible class is conducted by the chaplain in the afternoon, and again on Thursday afternoon, unless there is unusual religious interest among the inmates, when the service is de- voted to preaching, exhortation, and prayer. The inmates often weep convulsively under the appeals of truth ; a score at times rise or kneel for prayer, at a single service. With some, it is deep and lasting, but with others it passes away like the morning cloud. At times, they hold prayer-meetings among themselves, with good results, and on other occasions their assemblies are broken up with bickerings and conten- tions. Many of them are talented and well favored, formed for more than an ordinary sphere in human life. They have recently formed themselves into a benevolent society, desig- nated "The Willing Hearts," and have sent several remit- tances of clothing to a devoted missionary in Michigan. The
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matron, Mrs. Ireland, an esteemed Christian lady, has pre- sided for years with great skill over the Institution. This is the pioneer asylum of its kind in New York; the numerous · similar societies now in operation have grown up through its example, and many of their managers were once associated with the Magdalen Society. The society has nobly breasted the tide of early prejudice, and conquered it. It has met with discouragements, as might have been expected, in every phase of its history, yet these have been of the kind that add momentum to the general movement, and make success the more triumphant.
The statistics presented at its thirty-eighth anniversary are more than ordinarily interesting. During the last year, 188 had been in the Institution, with an average family of nearly fifty. It was also stated that during the last thirty-five years 2,000 inmates had been registered, 600 of whom had been placed in private families, 400 returned to relatives, 400 had left the Asylum at their own request, 300, weary of restraint, had left without permission, 100 had been expelled, 300 had been temporarily transferred to the hospitals, 24 had been known to unite with evangelical churches, 20 had been legally married, and 41 had died. More than six thousand religious . services had been held. But figures cannot express the amount of good done. Every fallen woman, while at large, is a firebrand inflaming others; an enemy sowing tares in the great field of the world. Her recovery is, therefore, not only a source of good to herself but of prevention to others.
The Asylum is maintained at an expense of about eight thousand dollars per annum. A permanent fund is being raised for the support of the chaplaincy.
The Legislature recently donated $3,000 to the society.
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SOCIETY FOR THE RELIEF OF HALF-ORPHANS.
SOCIETY FOR THE RELIEF OF HALF-ORPHANS AND DESTITUTE CHILDREN.
(No. 67 West Tenth street.)
RPHAN children have always been considered suit- able objects of compassion and aid ; hence, asylums for their protection and instruction have throughout modern times been favorite establishments of the benevolent. In many cases the condition of the half-orphan is quite as pitiable as the orphan, and has an equal claim on our charity .. Its mother may have been left in great destitu- tion or debility, or the father, the only surviving parent, may be insane or crippled. Many children whose parents are still living, but dissipated and reckless, are as badly off as either class before mentioned. No institution in New York opened its doors for the reception of half-orphans until January 14, 1836. An affecting circumstance led to the founding of this charity. A young widow of Protestant sentiments, unable to take her two children with her to her place of service, con- signed them to a Roman Catholic asylum, and for a time paid all her earnings for their board. Unwilling to have them trained in a Romish institution, and unable to provide for herself and them in the city, she took them from the asylum and went into the country. The lady with whom she had lived was Mrs. William A. Tomlinson, and the courageous departure of her excellent servant, from whom she never afterwards heard, produced a deep and salutary impression on her thoughtful and pious mind. The relation of the story to several benevolent ladies excited sympathy, and on the 16th of December, 1835, seven of them assembled to mature a plan for organizing a society. On the same night the most disastrous fire ever known in the city occurred. The First Ward, east of Broadway and about Wall street, was almost entirely destroyed. The Merchants' Exchange and six hundred and forty-eight of the most valuable stores in the city, and considerable church property, were consumed, inflicting a loss upon the community, besides the suspension of business, of $18,000,000. The society faltered amid these forbidding sur- roundings, but soon rallied, collected a little money, and began its operations. On the fourteenth day of January, 1836, a
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
basement having been hired in Whitehall street, the directors threw open their door, and announced themselves ready to admit twenty children, and four were at once received. The conditions of acceptance were these : 1. The death of one parent. 2. Freedom from contagious disease. 3. A promise from the parent to pay fifty cents per week for board, unless satisfactory reasons were given why it should not be required. 4. No child received under four nor over ten years of age. The apartments being wholly unsuited, a house in Twelfth street was taken and the children removed to it in May, 1836, and at the end of the first year 74 had been received. The entire expense of the first year, including rent, furniture, salaries, medicine, one funeral, and all other household requis- ites, amounted to $2,759.06. At the close of the second year 114 had been received. The act of incorporation passed the Legislature April 27, 1837, vesting the corporate powers of the society in a self perpetuating board of nine male trustees, who were empowered to receive bequests, and hold property to any amount, the annual income of which should not exceed fifty dollars for every child received ; and the appropriation of the income and the internal and domestic management of the Institution were committed to a board of female managers, consisting of a first and a second directress, a secretary, a treasurer, and twenty-six others, residing at the time of their election in the city of New York.
The board is also vested with power to bind out, to proper persons, children who have been surrendered to the Institu- tion, and all those not known to have friends in the State legally authorized to make such surrender. The children are not kept after they reach their fourteenth year, all being either returned to their parents or sent out to service. Their food is simple, abundant, and nutritious, and though small- pox, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping-cough, and all the other diseases common to children, have occasion- ally crept into the Institution, but very few have died. Many of them have been vulgar and intractable at their entrance, but have soon yielded to wholesome discipline and example. In May, 1837, the family was removed to the Nicholson House, then No. 3 West Tenth street, which had been purchased by one of the trustees, and was sold to the society the following year. This building furnished accommodations for one hun- dred and twenty children, and was soon filled. During the summer of 1840 a house was rented in Morristown, New
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SOCIETY FOR THE RELIEF OF HALF-ORPHANS.
Jersey, and 47 of the children taken there to spend the hot season. In 1840, the society, having received several liberal donations, purchased some valuable lots on Sixth avenue, where a three-story brick edifice sixty-four feet wide was erected, the cost of all but a little exceeding $20,000. In May, 1841, the children were removed to it, and the number again much increased, some of the younger ones remaining in a part of the wood building on Tenth street, called at that time "the Nursery." This new building on Sixth ave- nue was occupied for sixteen years, though never equal to the demands, and after much discussion about removing the Institution out of the city, and other schemes for enlargement, more lots were finally secured adjoining those on Tenth street, the present building erected, and the children removed to it amid the financial panic in the fall of 1857. The edifice is substantially constructed of brick trimmed with brown stone, is four stories above the basement, has a front of ninety-five feet, and cost, exclusive of grounds, over $37,000. The base- . ment contains, besides wash-room and laundry, a fine play- room ; the first floor, a kitchen, dining-room, parlor. and rooms for the matron. The second floor is devoted to school-rooms, the third contains dormitories for the girls, and the fourth the dormitories for boys, and an infirmary. The society has dis- charged all its indebtedness, converted its buildings on Sixth avenue into stores which bring a fine income, and now ranks among the most successful and best-established institutions of New York.
Since its organization, three thousand and thirty-three half- orphan children have been admitted to share its advantages, between two hundred and three hundred being the average number for several years past. All are instructed in the rud- iments of English learning, under the inspection of the Board of Education, and the usual percentage of the school fund and the State orphan fund are paid to the Institution .: Public prayers are offered with the children every morning and even- ing ; a fine Sabbath-school is conducted in the building, and all attend church. Early rising, industrious habits, great cleanliness, intellectual, moral, and religious instruction, are the chief characteristics of the Asylum. The Institution is. Protestant, but not denominational. Mrs. Tomlinson, its chief foundress and promoter, continued its first director for twenty- seven years, and died in 1862. . During the year 1869 the only remaining one of the seven who first organized the soci-
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
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ety, Mrs. James Boorman, was also called to her reward. In May, 1870, Miss Mary Brasher, who had held a place of use- fulness in the board for more than twenty years, was also dis- charged by the great Master.
The toils of these worthy ladies have sometimes appeared thankless. They have ever sought to strengthen the bond be- tween the parent and the child, by insisting on a small pay- ment for weekly board whenever possible, and thus have wisely prevented many parents from drowning their natural affection in idleness and dissipation. Yet their good works have not saved them from being occasionally covered with abuse by the dissolute and ungrateful .. Numbers of the chil- dren, however, have given evidence of genuine conversion while in the Institution, and many more after having gone to live in Christian families in the country. Some who had not. been heard from for years, when converted, have taken the earliest opportunity to write to the managers, breathing grate- ful emotion for those who had picked them from haunts of penury or dissipation, planted in their tender minds the seeds of truth, which were now developing into a holy life. Surely, He that went about doing good, and who took children in His arms, and blessed them, will not be unmindful of these toils, but in the day of final reckoning will say, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
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LEAKE AND WATTS ORPHAN HOUSE. ( West One Hundred and Tenth street.)
Many years ago, two young men were engaged in the study of law in the office of Judge James Duane, one of the early celebrities of the New York bar. Their ambitious and thor- ough bearing gave promise of more than ordinary success, to which they both ultimately attained. One was known as John George Leake, the other as John Watts. Mr. Leake in- herited a considerable estate from his father, and a long career as a legal adviser and a prudent business man, brought him at last to the possession of great wealth. He had no children ; and, after making a fruitless search through England and Scotland for some remaining kindred, he experienced the un- enviable sadness of knowing that he was the last of his race ; that, among all the scattered millions of earth, not one existed who was bound to him by ties of consanguinity. His later years were passed in comparative retirement in his own house at No. 32 Park row, visited and known only by several acquaint- ances of his earlier years, among whom was Mr. John Watts. Mr. Leake desired to perpetuate his family name in New York, and after his death, which occurred June 2d, 1827,
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
his will disclosed the fact that he had selected Robert Watts, the second son of his old friend, to inherit his estate, on con- dition that he and his descendants should take and forever bear the surname of Leake; but, in case of his refusal to ac- cept it on these conditions, or of his decease during his min- ority without lawful issue, then the entire estate was to be de- voted to an orphan house, of which he furnished the design, and appointed the seven ex-officio trustees. The last will and testament of Mr. Leake was found among his papers in his own handwriting, finely executed, with his full name at its commencement, but, unfortunately, he had neglected to add his signature at its close, and to secure the proper witnesses. He named four executors, only two of whom, however, Her- mon LeRoy, and his old friend, John Watts, survived him. The surrogate of the county refused to admit the will to pro- bate, on account of its imperfect execution, and a long and expensive litigation ensued. The authorities of New York claimed that Mr. Leake died intestate, and that his property fell to the city; but after a series of ably contested suits, in . which thirty thousand dollars of his savings were squandered, the highest judicatory decreed that the instrument was a valid testamentary document so far as his personal property was concerned, but that the landed estate, valued at seventy or eighty thousand dollars, escheated to the State.
Up to the period of this final decision, which occurred about the close of .1829, it was not known whether or not Robert would comply with the conditions, and receive the es- tate, which still amounted to about four hundred thousand dollars. He had waited quietly for the close of the litigation, and then decided to accept it. Application was made to the Legislature for the enabling act, but ere its. passage he died suddenly, to the great disappointment of his friends, leaving all his possessions to his father.
Mr. John Watts, who was also very wealthy, being now far advanced in years, and having no surviving sons, took a most sensible view of the situation, and immediately proceeded to carry out the design of his departed friend, namely, to estab- lish the Orphan House. On the 7th of March, 1831, an act passed the Legislature incorporating the Leake and Watts Orphan House in the city of New York. The testator wisely directed that the Orphan House should be erected from the income of the estate, so as to preserve the capital for a per- manent endowment; consequently, the structure was not
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LEAKE AND WATTS ORPHAN HOUSE.
commenced for several years. A plot of twenty acres of ground was selected at Bloomingdale, One Hundred and Tenth street, and on the 28th of April, 1838, the corner-stone of the building was laid in the presence of a large audience, several distinguished clergymen of New York taking part in the exercises. The edifice, completed November 1843, consists of a large central building and two wings; the front entrance is reached by a broad flight of sixteen granite steps, while the porticos, front and rear, are supported by six immense Ionic columns. The basement is of granite, the three succeeding stories of brick, well appropriated to school- rooms, dormitories, play-rooms, and all other needed apart- ments, capable of accommodating three hundred children, though the income from the endowment is not sufficient for so large a family. The eastern wing is devoted to the boys, the western to the girls; each story is provided with a wide veranda, skirted with a high, massive balustrade, and fur- nished with an outside stairway, affording excellent facilities for escape in case of fire. A one-story building in the rear, connected with the main building by a covered passage-way, has recently been added, and is used as the kitchen and dining-room. The schools are well conducted. The children are all dressed alike; are well taught in the principles of Protestant Christianity, and appear healthy and happy. Since the opening of the Institution, about one thousand orphan children have here found a happy home, the average number at present being about one hundred and twenty, and are supported at an annual expense of about $26,000. The cost per child has more than doubled during the last fifteen years. The original cost of the land and buildings was about $80,000, which has so wonderfully increased in value that the trustees have recently sold four acres for $130,000. The excellent Superintendent, Mr. W. H. Guest, has spent his whole life in public institutions. He was twenty years con- nected with the nursery department of our city charities, and has now closed his sixteenth year in the Orphan House.
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NEW YORK JUVENILE ASYLUM.
(One Hundred and Seventy-sixth street.)
Every great city contains a large floating population, whose indolence, prodigality, and intemperance are pro- verbial, culminating in great domestic and social evil. From these discordant circles spring an army of neglected or ill-trained children, devoted to vagrancy and crime; who early find their way into the almshouse or the prison, and continue a life-long burden upon the community. It be- comes the duty of the guardians of the public weal to search out methods for the relief of society from these intolerable burdens, and the recovery of the wayward as far as possible. That a necessity existed for the establishment of this Insti- tution, appears from the fact that two companies of distin- guished philanthropists, in ignorance of each other, arose in the autumn of 1849, to inaugurate some movement for the suppression of juvenile crime. Each company applying to the Mayor, they were happily united, and after careful dis- cussion, and repeated appeals to the Legislature, the New York Juvenile Asylum was incorporated June 30, 1851, with twenty-four managers, the Mayor, the Presidents of the
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NEW YORK JUVENILE ASYLUM.
Board of Aldermen and Assistants, and some other official .. being ex-officio members of its board. After the failure .i their first application to the Legislature for a charter, in 1-30. a number of Christian ladies formed an association, and opened an " Asylum for Friendless Boys," in a hired build- ing, No. 109 Bank street. They entered this inviting tield with considerable enthusiasm, and toiled with marked suc- cess until the chartering of the society, when they volun- tarily transferred their charge, consisting of fifty-seven boys, to the managers of the new Institution. The charter made it obligatory upon the board that the sum of $50,000 should be obtained from voluntary subscriptions, before it should be entitled to ask from the city authorities for a similar sum, or to call upon them to support its pupils. The board was per- manently organized November 14, 1851, and so vigorous were the exertions of its members, that, by the following October, the required $50,000 were pledged, and an appeal to the supervisors was responded to one month later with a similar sum, thus securing $100,000 for a permanent loca- tion and buildings. After taking possession of the building in Bank street, a House of Reception was, at the beginning of 1853, opened on the same premises, and soon after a building at the foot of Fifty-fifth street, East river, was leased, to be occupied temporarily as an Asylum. During the rear 626 children were received, and during 1854 no less than 1,051 were admitted, making a permanent family of two hundred. The buildings being uncomfortably crowded and illy adjusted for such an enterprise, the Institution se- riously suffered in all its branches. After much difficulty the board selected and purchased twenty-five acres of rocky land at One Hundred and Seventy-sixth street, near the ILigh Bridge, where very commodious buildings were erected of stone quarried from the premises, and made ready for occupa- tion in April, 1856, with accommodation for five hundred children. The buildings have been several times enlarged, and now consist of a central five-story, skirted by two vast wings of four stories each, supplemented with rear extensions, and appropriate outbuildings for shops, play, etc. A three-story brick, one hundred and eight by forty-two feet, has just been erected to supply some needed class-rooms, a better gymnasium, a swimming bath, and the appropriate industrial departments. The cost of these buildings has rx- ceeded $140,000. They stand on a lofty eminence, two points
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