USA > New York > New York and its institutions, 1609-1871. A library of information, pertaining to the great metropolis, past and present > Part 31
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481
THE FIVE-POINTS MISSION.
to their commodious rooms, the parsonage was furnished by members of the different Methodist churches, and everything assumed an aspect of thrift and progress.
The day school has been successfully conducted by compe- tent instructors through these twenty-one years, averaging from four hundred to five hundred scholars daily, affording the means of culture to many thousands who must otherwise have groped in profoundest ignorance. The usual per capita appropriation from the State educational fund is made to the Institution.
The Sunday school is also large. A visitor is constantly employed by the society to canvass the neighborhood and look after absentees. The children receive a lunch each day, which amounts to about one hundred and thirty thousand ra- tions per annum given to the hungry. The scholars are all clothed by the society, and many garments and bed-quilts, besides articles of food and fuel, are furnished to their indi- gent parents. A large congregation assembles morning and evening on the Sabbath to listen to preaching by the mission- ary ; a weekly prayer-meeting and a class-meeting are also well sustained. A " Free Library and Reading-room " has recently been opened. The number of converts remaining at the Mission is never large, as reformation is usually followed by improved business opportunities, when they unite with the regular churches in the city or elsewhere. Through the liber- ality of a friend who bequeathed the society $22,000, the Board has recently made a fine addition to the building, greatly improving the facilities of usefulness. The property of the society is now valued at about $100,000. The society has for the last ten years issued a small monthly paper, entitled "A Voice from the Old Brewery," which, besides acknowledging all receipts of money and goods, contains many spicy articles of general interest. It has a steady cir- culation of 4,000. The society. was duly incorporated in March, 1856. Over two thousand destitute children have been place in Christian homes, most of whom have risen to re- spectability and usefulness, and quite a number to wealth and distinction. Situations have also been furnished to many thousand adults. The work of the society is conducted at a cash expense of over $20,000 per annum, not mentioning the thousands of dollars' worth of clothing, produce, etc., re- ceived and distributed from churches and friends all over the land.
482
NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
During the twenty-one years of its operations, six different ministers have been successively employed by the society as resident missionaries or superintendents, a traveling financial agent having been also employed during most of the time. The present superintendent, Rev. J. N. Shaffer, a man of great prudence and perseverance, has now entered upon his tenth year of successful and unceasing toil in this critical field. Great credit is due the Ladies' Home Missionary Society for the marvelous change wrought in this locality during the last two decades, for though other vigorous organizations are now in the field, it must ever be remembered that this society wrought out the plan, furnished the stimulus, and trained the chief founders of those kindred Institutions in its own chosen field.
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483
VC POINTS HOUSE OF INDUSTRY
SReynolds:
FIVE-POINTS HOUSE OF INDUSTRY:
(No. 155 Worth street.)
The Five-Points House of Industry originated in an indi- vidual effort made by Rev. Lewis Morris Pease, in the summer of 1850, to obtain employment for a class of wretched females, who, with strong desire to escape from an abandoned life, were debarred from any other, through lack of employment. Mr. Pease was at first employed by the Ladies' Home Mission- ary Society of the M. E. Church at the Five Points, but, differ- ing in his views from those of the society as to the methods to be employed, and some unfortunate complications occur- ring, an alienation was produced which resulted in the sever- ance of his connection with the society, and the establishment of an independent enterprise. In the autumn of the same year he hired two houses, admitted fifty or sixty inmates whom he supplied with work; in February an additional
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484
NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
room was added ; and in May, 1851, four houses were taken. and the number of inmates increased to one hundred and twenty. In 1853 eight houses were taken, and five hundred persons supported either by their industry or the donations of the benevolent. Needle-work, basket-making, baking, straw- work, shoemaking, and ultimately farming, formed the chief employments.
Mr. Pease began the enterprise with great courage, but with scanty means, and must have soon failed if Providence had not raised up friends who early came to his assistance. After conducting the enterprise over three years, he succeeded in enlisting a number of gentlemen, who procured a charter and assumed the management of the Institution, Mr. Pease remaining the superintendent. The entire expenditures of the enterprise during the three years and a quarter, closing with the incorporation of the society in March, 1854, amounted to $48,981.87, inore than half of which was profit on the work of the inmates, the remainder being made up by donations.
Soon after the incorporation of the society, the trustees resolved to relinquish the rented buildings and erect perman- ent ones of their own. A plot of ground on what is now Worth street was purchased, and in 1856 they completed a massive six-story brick edifice, with a front of fifty-four feet, covering nearly the entire depth of the lots, and seventy feet high. Much of the means necessary to complete the edifice was contributed by friends, and the remaining incumbrance on the property was removed several years later by a bequest of $20,000, received from Mr. Sickles. In 1864, Chauncey Rose, Esq., whose generosity extended to so many institutions, presented the board with the handsome sum of $10,000, which led to the purchase of several adjoining lots. Here they erected a large two-story building, the ground floor, ninety by forty-five feet, being devoted to a play-room for the children, while the upper was divided by sliding partitions into appropriate school-rooms, and thrown on the Sabbath into a large chapel. After a few years it became manifest that the growing wants of the Institution demanded more ample accommodations. The hospital department, confined to a single room, was far too small to accommodate the afflicted of the Institution and neighborhood. The chapel ceiling was too low. More dormitories were needed, and a better nursery. An article setting forth these wants, published in the " Monthly
485
FIVE-POINTS HOUSE OF INDUSTRY.
Record," the organ of the Institution, brought pledges in a short time to the amount of $10,000, to which one of the trustees generously added another $10,000.
Arrangement was also made with the City Mission and Tract Society, which loaned the House of Industry $20,000 without interest, for the privilege of using the chapel. The trustees then decided to erect on the site of the school-rooms a new and commodious building. The edifice was begun in August, 1869, completed and dedicated in February, 1870. The two buildings, though somewhat unlike in design, form an imposing pile about one hundred feet square. The stairs are fire-proof, the beams are of iron, water and gas are carried to every floor. The chapel, seventy by forty-five feet, is massively pillared, arched overhead, and has stained glass windows. The school-rooms afford accommodations for five hundred scholars, and the dormitories for over three hundred beds. The ground and buildings of the society have cost $125,000. .
The whole number received into the House during the six- teen years since its incorporation amounts to over nineteen thousand, and the names of twenty-one thousand children have in the same time been enrolled in the day school, with a daily attendance varying from two hundred and thirty to four hundred and twenty. During this period 4,135,218 meals have been furnished to the poor, and about nine thousand sent to situations.
486
WORKING WOMEN'S HOME, NO. 45 ELIZABETH STREET.
WOMAN'S BOARDING-HOUSE.
The trustees of the House of Industry, commiserating the fate of the many thousand females in the city toiling by the day or week, with no relatives or homes, resolved. in 1867, to open a Working Women's Home, where this class might find clean, well-ventilated rooms, wholesome food, and · facilities for self-improvement, under Christian influence, at moderate expense. An immense building, No. 45 Elizabeth street, was accordingly purchased, refitted, and furnished, at an expense of $120,000. The building extends from Mott to
487
WOMAN'S BOARDING-HOUSE.
Elizabeth streets, is fifty-six feet wide, two hundred feet deep, and six stories high, besides basement. It was dedicated September 26, 1867, and thrown open for boarders on the first day of the following month. The House at this writing has two hundred and sixty boarders, and has rooms for about one hundred more. Room-rent, gas, washing, use of parlor and bath-room, are furnished for the small sum of $1.25 per week. Meals are provided on the restaurant plan at such moderate rates, that the whole expense of living does not exceed three or four dollars per week .. This Home lias a separate superin- tendent, and is a distinct Institution, though managed by the same board of trustees. This eminently philanthropic move- ment has been very successful, though the largest expectations of the founders have not yet been fully realized.
The entire expenditures of the Board from 1855 to 1870, including both Institutions, amounted to $600,000. The or- ganization employs no travelling solicitor, but makes its appeal through the press, and depends upon the generosity of the pub- lic for the several thousand dollars necessary to defray its monthly expenses. The society, in 1857, commenced the is- sue of the " Monthly Record," which now has a circulation of 5,000 copies. It is sent to subscribers at $1.00 a year. Nearly all the shoes worn in the Institution and given away. in the neighborhood, amounting to fifteen or twenty hundred pairs every year, are received gratuitously at second hand, and are repaired in their own shop. At least ten thousand garments are given away annually. . Boxes of clothing and provision are received from all parts of the country, and from some of the large hotels in the city liberal donations of provision are sent daily. Since the organization of the society there have been five superintendents successively employed-Messrs. Pease, Talcott, Barlow, Halliday, and Barnard. Upon this officer is laid a heavier burden than is usually borne by similar officials in other institutions, as to his discretion is committed the whole matter of admissions, dismissals, and the dispensing of outside charities. That these officers have been wise and efficient, the present prosperous condition of the Institution attests.
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488
DESL.
FICAM P. 22
LODGINGS.
TUTTLE. N.Y .= =-
VIEW OF THE OLD ROOKERY THAT OCCUPIED THE SITE OF THE HOWARD MISSION. THE BLACK SEA OF SIN.
HOWARD MISSION AND HOME FOR LITTLE WANDERERS.
(No. 40 New Bowery.)
Some portions of the city of New York present as dismal moral deserts as can be found on the entire globe. A por- · tion of the Fourth Ward, with its narrow, crooked, filthy streets and dilapidated buildings, filled with a motley popula- tion collected from all countries, packed at the rate of 290,000 to the square mile, has long been noted as one of the princi- pal "nests " for fever, cholera, and other deadly malaria on the island. But the moral aspect of this locality is even worse than the sanitary. Nearly every second door is a rum-shop, dance-house, or sailors' lodging, where thieves and villains of both sexes and of every degree assemble, presenting a concen- tration of all the most appalling vices of which fallen human-
HOWARD MISSION AND HOME FOR LITTLE WANDERERS. 489
ity is capable.' The following statement from the superin- tendent, Rev. Mr. Van Meter, will afford our readers a con- cise view of this most important work.
" REV. J. F. RICHMOND-Dear Brother : In compliance with your request I forward to you a brief statement by the Board, of our work and the way we do it :"
This Mission was organized by the Rev. W. C. Van Meter, in May, 1861, and until 1864 was conducted by himself and an Advisory Committee; when, at his request, it was regu- larly incorporated and placed under the control of well-known citizens, who constitute the Board of Managers, by whom its finances are administered, and all disbursements regulated under a system of strict accountability.
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From the beginning the funds have passed through the hands of a responsible Treasurer, by whom full reports of receipts and expenditures have been made each year, and published in the daily papers and in the "Little Wanderer's Friend."
OBJECT .- The announcement at the beginning remains un- changed :
"Our object is to do all the good we can to the souls and bodies of all whom we can reach, and we cordially invite to an earnest co-operation with us all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."
NOT SECTARIAN .- The Constitution requires that "not more than three members of the Board shall be chosen from the same denomination."
THE FIELD cannot be fully described, for New York has become the almshouse for the poor of all nations, and the Fourth Ward (in which the Mission is located) is the very concentration of all evil and the head-quarters of the most desperate and degraded representatives of many nations. It swarms with poor little helpless victims, who are born in sin and shame, nursed in misery, want, and woe, and carefully trained to all manner of degradation, vice, and crime. The packing of these poor creatures is incredible. In this Ward there are less than two dwelling houses for each low rum hole, gambling house and den of infamy. Near us on a small lot, but 150 by 240 feet, are twenty tenant houses, 111 families, 5 stables, a soap and candle factory, and a tan-yard. On four blocks close to the Mission are 517 children, 318 Roman Catho- lic and 10 Protestant families, 35 rum-holes, and eighteen brothels. In No. 14 Baxter street, but three or four blocks-
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490
NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
· from us, are 92 families, consisting of 92 men, 81 women, 54 boys and 53 girls. Of these 151 are Italians, 92 Irish, 25 Chinese, 3 English, 2 Africans, 2 Jews, 1 German, and but 7 Americans.
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HOWARD MISSION (WHEN COMPLETED).
OUR WORK is chiefly with the children. These are divided into three classes, consisting of
1st. Those placed under our care to be sent to homes and situations. .
. . 2d. Those whom we are not authorized to send to homes, but who need a temporary shelter until their friends can pro- vide for them or surrender them to us.
NOTE .- These two classes remain day and night in the Mission.
3d. Those who have homes or places in which to sleep. These enjoy the benefits of the wardrobe, dining and school rooms, but do not sleep in the Mission.
Food, fuel, and clothing are giyen to the poor, after a careful inspection of their condition. Mothers leave their small chil-
HOWARD MISSION AND HOME FOR LITTLE WANDERERS. 491
dren in the day nursery during the day, while they go out to work. The sick are visited, assisted, and comforted. Work is sought for the unemployed. We help the poor to help them- selves."
The children over whom we can get legal control are placed in carefully selected Christian families, chiefly in the country, either for adoption or as members of the families, where they are tenderly cared for in sickness and in health- sent to Sunday School and Church-receive a good Common. School education-trained to some useful business, trade or profession, and thus fitted for the great duties of mature life.
DAY AND SUNDAY SCHOOLS .- The attendance, neatness, order, cheerfulness enthusiasm, and rapid improvement in the Day and Sunday Schools are the best testimonials that our teachers can have of their fitness for their work.
CONCLUSION .- Since the commencement of the Mission more than 10,000 children have been received into its Day and Sunday Schools, hundreds of whom have been placed in care- fully selected Christian homes. Many of them have grown up to usefulness and comfort, and some to positions of influence and importance.
We know that our work prevents crime; keeps hundreds of children out of the streets, keeps boys out of bar-rooms, gambling houses and prisons, and girls out of concert saloons, dance-houses, and other avenues that lead down to death ; and that it makes hundreds of cellar and attic homes more cleanly, more healthy, more happy, and less wretched, wicked, and hopeless.
We never turn a homeless child from our door. From past experience we are warranted in saying that one dollar a week will keep a well-filled plate on our table for any little wanderer, and secure to it all the benefits of the Mission. Ten dollars will pay the average cost of placing a child in a good home." , Many apply at the Mission for a child. It is amusing to hear their inquiries and the replies of the superin- tendent. " Have you a nice little girl to send away into a good family?" said one of two well-dressed ladies, who entered the office while we there in quest of information for this chapter. "No, we have not-yes, we have one," said the superintendent, "a dear little girl who is just recovering from measles, and who has been exposed to scarlet fever and will probably be sick with it by to-morrow. She needs some good, kind mother to love her, and nurse her, and train her up. I
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492
NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
am afraid the angels will come for her soon, unless some of you mothers take her." They were not in search of such a child and turned toward the street. When a class of these children was taken West some years ago an old lady of wealth came to their lodgings and said, " If you have a crippled boy give him to me; my dear boy died with the spinal complaint." There was one little fellow in the group afflicted with this spinal difficulty, and she took him to her nice home, procured the best medical skill in that part of the State, and after years of good treatment he recovered, and is now a successful man.
In September, 1861, the "Little Wanderer's Friend," the organ of the Mission, a 16mo. now issued quarterly, was established. It contains the music sung in the Mission, the history of the Institution, and other selections and thought gems. It has now a circulation of five thousand copies. . The Institution is conducted at an annual expense of from $35,000 to $40,000, which is derived from voluntary contributions.
THE MIDNIGHT MISSION.
(No. 260 Greene street.)
HE Midnight Mission grew out of a conversation between the Rev. S. H. Hillyard, chaplain of St. Barnabas Mission, and Mr. Gustavus Stern, now a missionary, who had just arrived from England, where he had observed the operations of a mission among fallen women, established some ten years previous by Mr. Black- more, a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Mr. Hillyard had already given the subject some thought, and his mind being now more than ever awakened to its importance, he brought the matter before the St. Barnabas Missionary Association, at one of its regular meetings, rehearsed the account of the London movement, and read extracts from the biography of Lieutenant Blackmore. Two gentlemen of the Association volunteered their assistance in establishing a similar more- ment in New York, and the little band was soon strengthened by many additional members. A sermon by Dr. Peters, yield-
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493
THE MIDNIGHT MISSION.
ing a collection to the society, and a public meeting in the Sunday-school room of Trinity Chapel, in which Bishop Potter, Drs. Dix, Tuttle, Montgomery, and others gave the movement their cordial support, led the managers to hire rooms and at once open an Institution. Rooms were taken for three months at the corner of Twelfth street and Broad- way. The plan of the society is to send out in the evening its members two and two upon the streets, with printed cards of invitation, which are given to young women supposed to belong to the suspicious class, and to such as seem inclined to hear some words of exhortation are added, and an appropri- ate tract given. In this way many are drawn into the mission building, where they are kindly received by Christian ladies, offered refreshments, drawn out in conversation until ten or eleven o'clock, when a hymn is given out and sung, which is followed by an earnest exhortation and a prayer. At their first reception seventeen were drawn in, at the second ten, though the night was stormy, and at the third twenty-six. On the first of May, 1867, the society removed to a fine, three-story brick house, No. 23 Amity street, which was rented at $2,500 per annum. This building was capable of well accommo- dating eighteen or twenty lodgers besides the officers, and was generally filled, while scores sought admission in vain for want of room. In May, 1870, the Institution was again re -. moved to a larger house, capable of accommodating thirty inmates. The trustees have recently purchased the large house, No. 260 Greene street, at a cost of $22,000. It is to be extensively improved and adapted to the use of forty-five or fifty inmates. All were taken at first who expressed a desire to reform, but. preference is now given to the younger class. Work is furnished the inmates, and half the earnings of each given for her own use.
During the four years, 592 have been received into the In- stitution. Of the 202 sheltered during the last year, 28 were sent to other institutions, 47 placed in good situations, 15 were returned to friends, and 49 returned to a life of sin. About fifty encouraging letters were received. during 1869, from those who had been placed in situations. The managers have sometimes been deceived by these artful creatures, whose ways are so "movable" that they succeed in deceiving the very elect. But with all the discouragements naturally at- tending an enterprise of this kind, the society has held stead- ilv on its way and gives promise of great usefulness.
T
(WILSON" MISSION HOUSE
WILSON MISSION HOUSE
WILSON
IT-FIELD SC.
WILSON'S INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. (Corner of Avenue A and St. Mark's place.)
The first industrial school established in this country was commenced some time in the year 1853. Its chief founder was Mrs. Wilson, wife of Rev. James P. Wilson, of the Pres- byterian church, who became its first directress, and served the society with great efficiency until her removal from the city, in consequence of her husband's accepting a call to serve a church in an adjoining State. The school began in a hired room in an upper story on Avenue D, between Eighth and . Ninth streets. On May 13th, 1854. the Legislature passed the act incorporating. the society as " Wilson's Industrial School for Girls," in honor of her who had been chiefly instrumental in its establishment.
In May, 1855, the society entered the previously purchased building, No. 137 Avenue A, Mrs. Wilson generously con- tributing $1,000 in securing the property.
It has never been the purpose of the society to rival or supplant our excellent Public School system, but to go into the lanes and streets, to gather in and benefit a class too poor
495
WILSON'S INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.
and filthy to enter the Ward schools. The children gathered here were for the most part barefooted, ragged street children, obliged to beg their daily bread, and so degraded in appear- . ance and morals that if many of them were admitted into a Public School another class would be soon withdrawn to avoid the unpleasant contact. IIere they were allowed to en- ter at all hours, in consequence of their vagrant habits, though punctuality was much encouraged-a rule that could not be tol- erated in the Public Schools without destroying all classifica- tion and order. None have been admitted unless too poor to attend anywhere else ; and as soon as their circumstances have sufficiently improved, they have been promptly transferred to the Public Schools.
The efforts of these Christian ladies, in going to the very lowest sinks of society, seeking with all the sanctified arts of kindness and culture to collect and polish these discolored fragments of our degraded humanity, are worthy of more than human commendation. The children are sought out by a visitor, and induced to attend the school. The exercises are opened in the morning with brief religious exercises ; after this they go to their books for two hours, after which general exercises and singing are continued until dinner. All are furnished with a simple but good dinner consisting of beef, vegetable soup, boiled hominy and molasses, codfish, bean soup, an ample supply of good bread, which the economical ma- tron manages to supply at the rate of three cents per child. A half-hour is given for play, after which they return to their rooms and are instructed for two hours in sewing and other handicraft. Attendance and good behavior are rewarded with tickets, which a prompt girl is able to accumulate to an amount representing ten cents per week. These are redeemed with new clothes, which she is allowed to make and carry home. All industrious girls earn some wages, and some who have become experts receive large pay. Custom work is taken in and prepared with great skill. A dress-making class was early formed, with a capable woman instructor. In 1855 a department was organized to instruct them in general house- work, and in 1866 a class for fine sewing, embroidery, etc. In 1854 they organized a Sabbath school, which has at pres- ent an average attendance of three hundred and twenty-five scholars. Like most mission schools, the managers have found it difficult to secure plenty of good teachers. If some of the many Christian people in our large churches, corroding
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