USA > Pennsylvania > Erie County > A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 83
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When the transition came that made Erie a city, there also came the demand for better courthouse accommodations, andin 1852, the year after the city had been incorporated, the county commissioners set about providing them. The county had acquired a piece of ground on
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West Sixth street. There had been a jail erected there some years previously. Upon this lot it was decided to build. Plans were pro- cured from a Mr. Porter of Philadelphia, and in 1852 contracts were awarded for the new building. John Hill of Erie was the master car- penter and supervising architect and William and James Hoskinson the master masons. The new courthouse differed from the old in the particular that offices for the commissioners, the prothonotary, sheriff and other officers were provided in the same building, and, remember- ing the serious loss by fire of 1823, the construction was made fireproof, the method still apparent in the vaulted ceilings of the first story of the original part. The building was completed and dedicated in May, 1855, and the cost was $60,000. The architecture is of the Corinthian order, and, barring the disfigurement of a tower, which seemed neces- sary to accommodate the courthouse bell and the town clock, was a fine example of the classical in art. All the material employed in the construction of the building was the product of the county. The lum- ber, the brick and the stone were all obtained here. The cut stone, in- cluding the tile floor of the first story, was obtained from the Howard stone quarry, in Franklin township; the other materials were found nearer at hand. In 1889-90 an addition was made to the building, which nearly doubled its size, providing an additional court room, a place for the law library, chambers for the judge and roomier offices for the clerk of courts and the prothonotary, while from time to time necessary changes have been made in the furnishing and equipment, the heating and ventilating system, the plumbing and the lighting, even the unsightly tower was removed. Judge John Galbraith presid- ed at the dedication in 1855, and his successors have been Hon. Rasse- las Brown of Warren, Hon. Samuel J. Johnson of Warren, Hon. Lan- sing D. Wetmore of Warren, Hon. John P. Vincent of Erie, Hon. W. A. Galbraith, Hon. Frank Gunnison, and Hon. Emory A. Walling
Quite in keeping with the courthouse architecturally is the Old Custom House on State street between Fourth and Fifth, which is of the Doric order of architecture, the columns, front and steps of white marble. It was built in 1837 for the Erie branch of the United States Bank, acquired by the United States Government, used as a postoffice and custom house, and now tenanted by the Grand Army of the Re- public, serves as well for a bonded warehouse, to which the basement is devoted. As a marker of time it stands for the period of the boom that visited Erie when the canal was projected and the prospects of the lake terminus of that big state enterprise were taken to be so rosy.
In 1867, Hon. Morrow B. Lowry, representing Erie in the State Senate, secured the passage of an act incorporating the Marine Hos-
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
pital Association, appropriating $90,000 for the purpose of building a hospital for the use and benefit of sick and disabled sailors of the great lakes, and transferring to the Marine Hospital Association the Garri- son tract, the property of the commonwealth. Work was begun at once and prosecuted for several years, additional appropriations being made for a number of years. At length work on the building was dis- continued and it remained unfinished for a long period, part of it oc- cupied for a time by the Home for the Friendless, and a keeper of the building being maintained by the state. It developed that the Marine Hospital was simply a political job. But out of the job good came in the end.
MAIN BUILDING, SOLDIERS AND SAILORS HOME.
On June 3, 1885, a bill was introduced in the State Legislature creating a commission to establish and maintain a Home for the disa- bled soldiers and sailors of Pennsylvania, and the Marine Hospital at Erie, being a property of the commonwealth, available for the purpose, the commission, consisting of Governor Pattison and ten other promi- nent citizens of the state, wisely decided to make it the Home which the act of the Legislature was designed to supply. Located in a most desirable spot, with a tract of more than 100 acres of ground about it, and, moreover, construction upon a really admirable plan having been carried well along, the commission promptly recognized its availabil- ity, and decided immediately upon looking the grounds and building over, to adopt it. The building was completed by the necessary aid of a liberal appropriation and under the direction of capable trustees, a single year being sufficient to make it ready to receive the veterans for which it was intended. Prominent among Erie men who exerted themselves in the work of bringing this institution to Erie were Ma-
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jor John W. Walker, representing in a sense the army, and Capt. John H. Welsh in the same way standing for the navy.
The dedication of the Home occurred on February 22, 1887, when the principal address was made by Gen. J. P. S. Gobin of Lebanon, and speeches were made by Governor Pattison and others. Major W. W. Tyson was appointed commander, and a short time afterward Capt. Noah W. Lowell was installed as quartermaster and Dr. S. F. Chapin. surgeon. Major Tyson was a most efficient director of affairs. There were many additions and improvements to be made. A residence for the commander, an infirmary, barns and stabling, a conservatory, and important changes in the building, including additions, were made during Major Tyson's administration, while improvements to the grounds, the laying out and bringing into profitable cultivation of a large vegetable garden, the locating on a quiet hillside of a burial plot for the members of the Home who had answered the last roll-call, and the general embellishment of the surroundings of the Home, all re- ceived his intelligent attention and under his able direction were suc- cessfully carried out. Failing health compelled his retirement, Richard S. Collum succeeding him in 1900, when he was appointed quarter- master, and resigned in 1906. In 1908 he returned to the Home as a member of the family of comrades, but died the same year. Com- mander Collum served until 1904, when Commander N. J. Maxwell was installed and continued in charge until January 1, 1906, when Sylvester H. Martin was commissioned, and continued the direction of the Home on the high plane which has distinguished it from the be- ginning. Charles C. Shirk of Erie, was appointed quartermaster in 1907. The institution is an admirably conducted home for 450 veter- ans, who are designated members and not "inmates," for all are com- rades.
There has been a Federal building in Erie since 1849, and, architec- turally handsome though it has ever been, it did not meet nor ade- quately supply either the necessities of the case or the demands of the people of Erie. The "Old Custom House," besides being too small to accommodate the rapidly growing business of the Erie postoffice. had the misfortune to be located in the rear of the march of progress. In its steady advance the city had grown away from that section of town, and though in the period of the war for the Union the Parks and be- low were the business center the period of activity that set in about that time rapidly swept business toward the south. Soon after the Noble Block was built, in 1867, the postoffice was moved into the store room at the corner of State and Eighth streets, and, though it was later established in a store of the Reed House block, that change was attributed more to private influence than public demand. There orig- inated early a movement in favor of obtaining a Federal building for
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
Erie, that more than once threatened to become an "issue," and was something of that nature in the end. It had its result in the fulness of time. In 1882 Congressman Watson secured an appropriation of $150,- 000 for a Federal building in Erie, and his successor, Hon S. M. Brain- erd, procured an increase in the amount to $250,000. The commission to choose a site selected the Reed property at the corner of South Park and State street. It contained at that time the old Rufus Seth Reed mansion and a building originally erected for a banking house, but then occupied by the Dispatch printing office. This property was
POSTOFFICE, ERIE.
bought for $36,000, and a contract for the building was awarded to Henry Shenk, Jacob Bootz being appointed superintendent for the Government. The work proceeded steadily and in 1887 it was com- pleted and ready for occupancy, and was assigned, the first floor to the postoffice; the second to the custom house, the collector of internal revenue, and the government engineer ; the third story to the United States courts, and the fourth to the weather office. The postmaster at the time the new building was taken possession of was Henry Shan- non, and his successors have been John C. Hilton, Charles S. Clarke Vol. 1-49
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and Isador Sobel, the present incumbent. The collectors of customs, who each serve as custodians of the building, were, in succession, R. H. Arbuckle, John M. Glazier, Nelson Baldwin and B. B. Brown.
Nothing in Erie has been of a more itinerant character than the meeting place of the city councils. From Buehler's village inn near the foot of French street, to the city hall, had been a devions path, hard to travel and unsatisfactory. For a long time the city offices were widely
C.cy Hall, Eric, Pa.
separated, the treasurer having accommodations squares away from where the legislative business of the city was transacted, the police sta- tion still farther away, the water office apart, and the mayor without an office at all. It was generally contrived that the city engineer and the controller should be handy by, but the other departments, not so numerous then as later, had to be otherwise cared for. With the be- ginning of the decade of the eighties, however, there was inaugurated a movement to erect a city hall, and it quickly crystallized. Philip A.
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Becker was elected Mayor in February, 1883. He was one of the lead- ers in the effort to build for the city, and forwarded the work with such effect that the corner stone of the new city hall was laid during his ad- ministration-on July 31, 1884. The building was not finished im- mediately. After a portion had been rendered serviceable, providing passable accommodations for the councils and the city departments, work was interrupted, to be resumed in time to complete the second floor in anticipation of Erie's centennial in 1895. In that year it was dedicated. The building, which is in area 124 feet on Peach street, by 64 feet on South Park Row and on Seventh street, is from plans furn- ished by David K. Dean, and the cost of the building in its still incom- plete state (for the third floor is still unfinished) has been $200,000.
Erie, at an early day, felt the need of a hospital for contagious dis- eases. During its borough days there were feeble efforts made to es- tablish a hospital, but so long as the old block house remained on the peninsula (it was a relic of Wayne's soldiers under Capt. Russell Bis- sell) there was a place to which smallpox patients could be banished. Soon after the city was incorporated, however, a building for a hospital was erected on a corner of the Garrison tract, at the foot of Ash street. It was a plain structure of the plan of a dwelling, and it was leased as a dwelling with the condition attached that the tenant was to serve as caretaker if it became necessary to use it for hospital purposes. There were several visitations of small-pox, one during the administration of Mayor Scott, when the capacity of the hospital was severely taxed. The situation of the hospital, when it was built, was remote and long continued so. However, with the transformation of the Marine Hos- pital into the Soldiers' Home, the "Pest House," as it was best known, had to be abandoned and destroyed. No acceptable site could be found for a hospital to take its place until 1890, when a suitable frame build- ing was erected at the corner of the extension of Twelfth street and the Fagan road in Millcreek township. There were good reasons for desiring a change, and Dr. Wright, as health officer, at length secured the adoption of a site north of "Kingtown," and east of the Cedars, at about Third and Perry streets where, in 1902, a brick hospital building, modern in design and equipment, was erected.
For general hospital service the pioneer institution of Erie was St. Vincent's, and enterprise of the Roman Catholic church, from the first, however, undenominational in all but the management of its financial affairs, as patients of all religious faiths were admitted for treatment. It was organized in 1875 and opened for patients in September of that year. Mother Agnes Spencer and her sister companions were the or- ganizers, and Bishop Tobias Mullen donated the ground on Twenty- fourth street between Sassafras and Myrtle. It continued to be an in- stitution of the Catholic church until December, 1894, when it was incorporated, a reorganization having been effected so as to include
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citizens of various faiths among the corporators. A brick building three stories high was erected in 1875 at a cost of $7,000, but in the course of time it proved entirely inadequate to the demands upon the institution, and a new building was decided upon by the corporators which was completed and taken possession of in June, 1900. It is lo- cated on Sassafras street, and its grounds occupy one half of the square between that street and Myrtle, extending from Twenty-fourth to Twenty-fifth. It will accommodate more than one hundred patients, is equipped with all the modern appliances, is beautifully situated, perfectly ventilated, and heated with steam. The late William L. Scott, shortly before his death, donated $10,000 to the fund for the en-
HAMOT HOSPITAL, DRIE.
largement of St. Vincent's whenever it should be undertaken. The re- port for 1908 showed that for the year there had been 1,176 patients to receive hospital care, and 499 operations, 266 of them surgical, had been performed.
Hamot Hospital owes its existence to Rev. John T. Franklin, rec- tor of St. Paul's church, who, after months of work upon the enter- prise, called upon the owners of the old P. S. V. Hamot homestead, to ascertain if it could be bought or leased for a term of years. Situated on the high bluff at the foot of State street it appeared to be an ideal location. After a careful consideration of Mr. Franklin's plans the owners made a proposition to convey a two-thirds interest in the prop- erty to a corporation on certain conditions. It was acceptable to all parties and a deed of conveyance by Mrs. Mary A. Starr, Charles H. Strong and Kate Strong of their two-thirds interest in the property
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
was made to the Hamot Hospital Association, George W. Starr joining in the deed of conveyance. The conditions of the deed were solely for the purpose of ensuring the firm establishment and perpetuity of the hospital and met the approval of the association from the beginning. The Hamot Hospital Association was chartered February 7, 1881, and the corporators of the first year were: Henry Souther, William Spen- cer, W. L. Cleveland, W. W. Reed, J. W. Reynolds, G. W. Starr, George Selden, W. S. Warner, C. C. Shirk, F. F. Adams, G. V. Maus and R. T. Williams. The property was accepted at the first meeting, April 5, 1881, by-laws were adopted May 21, and the work of alteration and changes begun immediately, so as to fit the building for hospital purposes. On August 4, Miss Irene Sutliff was made superintendent and during the first year 56 patients received hospital care. In 1887-8 an addition was made which doubled the capacity of the institution ; in 1890 a training school for nurses was established; in 1894 the char- ter was amended to provide a board of thirty-one corporators selected from the city and county, vacancies to be filled by the remaining cor- porators, forming a permanent and continuous body, and J. S. Richards was elected the first president. In 1895 two important additions were made, the Selden Memorial Hospital, from a bequest of George Selden, and the WV. L. Scott Memorial, by the family of Mr. Scott. These were finished during 1896.
A subject that had long been discussed, namely, to provide a home for friendless children, resulted at length in a meeting at the residence of Mrs. J. C. Marshall on October 17, 1871, at which time it was de- cided to organize. A charter was applied for and granted by the Court of Common Pleas of Erie county, on November 29, 1871, incorporating the Erie Home for the Friendless, with the following corporators : Mrs. Gen. C. M. Reed, Mrs. M. B. Lowry, Mrs. I. B. Gara, Mrs. W. A. Brown, Mrs. W. W. Dinsmore, Miss A. C. Kilbourne, Mrs. W. S. Brown, Mrs. William Bell, Mrs. Henry Jarecki, Miss Laura G. San- ford, Mrs. W. L. Scott, Mrs. J. H. Neill, Mrs. S. P. Longstreet, Mrs. G. W. Starr, Mrs. W. A. Galbraith, Mrs. Bernard Hubley, Mrs. P. Metcalf, Mrs. S. S. Spencer, Mrs. I. W. Hart, Mrs. J. P. Vincent, Mrs. S. A. Davenport, Mrs. J. C. Marshall, Mrs. E. W. Pollock, Mrs. D. S. Clark, Mrs. L. W. Shirk, Mrs. P. Crouch, Mrs. Miles W. Caughey, Mrs. Robert Evans, Miss Parkinson, Miss Sarah Reed. The use of the old Rufus S. Reed mansion that stood on the site of the present post- office was tendered and accepted, until 1872, when the Marine Hospital building being offered the association moved there. In 1875, Hon. Mor- row B. Lowry presented the management with a handsome property on the corner of Twenty-second and Sassafras streets, that included the former residence of R. F. Gaggin. This soon proved too small for the family that had been acquired, whereupon an effort to secure funds with which to build larger was put forth by Mrs. Isaac B. Gara, as-
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sisted by Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Saltsman, Mrs. W. S. Brown, Miss Kate Mason and Miss Sarah Reed, and resulted most satisfactorily. The ad- dition, a three-story brick building, was finished in March, 1876, and was occupied at once free from debt. Special gifts to the institution were a lot of fifty feet in frontage on Sassafras street by Prescott Met- calf, and an endowment of $5,000 by William L. Scott.
In 1884, to provide a home for aged women, the residence of M. A. Dunning and the lot on which it stood, at the corner of Sassafras and Twenty-third street, was purchased, largely through the efforts of the late Col. F. H. Ellsworth, who secured funds by subscription sufficient to complete the payment on the purchase price. The alter- ations and improvements were completed in 1887, when the Old Ladies' Home was formally taken possession of. It proved inadequate to the demands, however, and in 1895 the lot on Twenty-third street west was bought and a brick addition erected soon afterwards. Even that enlargement was insufficient. In 1903 steps were taken to erect a new building. Plans were procured from C. P. Cody, a contract was awarded to Enoch Lininger, the work of renovating the old frame building was begun April 12, 1903, and the new structure fully com- plete was dedicated in May, 1904, the address of the occasion being by Rev. J. Franklin Spalding, of St. Paul's. The building cost $16,000 and was paid for by contributions of the citizens, a part of the fund, amounting to about $800, resulting from the sale of two books written by Miss Sarah Reed, the president of the association.
On Seventh street a little west of Peach there stands hard by what was once a beautiful sylvan dell, a substantial brick building of mod- ernized colonial style of architecture. It was built before Erie was a chartered city, to be the residence of Hon. John H. Walker, and after- wards became the property of the Erie Club. In the year 1905, the title in the property passed to the Young Women's Christian Association, and as the home of this organization it now figures as a feature of the city. This association was organized and incorporated as the Wom- en's Christian Association in 1895, with these members named in the charter : Miss Elizabeth W. Pollock, Mrs. Conrad J. Brown, Mrs. Phineas Wheeler, Mrs. Henry Schabacker, Mrs. W. W. Harper, Mrs. O. E. Crouch, Mrs. L. D. Davis, Mrs. R. F. Gaggin, Mrs. J. C. Wilson, Mrs. W. Barry Smith and Mrs. Samuel Selden. It had a membership of 100, and was subdivided into numerous committees. Its principal purpose was to provide a boarding home for self-supporting women, and immediately a house at 918 French street was leased and fitted and furnished for the purpose. It grew, as all good things well tended will grow, and when larger quarters had become a necessity the old Walker residence, above referred to, was bought from the Erie Club. It required extensive alteration. Architect C. P. Cody was called in, and, saving what was excellent of the old building, provided the new
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with a fine auditorium, a gymnasium, a dining hall, kitchen, laundry, and all the facilities necessary, as well as a large number of sleeping apartments, rendering it very complete for the purposes desired. A contract was awarded to W. M. Graham, who had it completed in the fall and possession was taken October 5, 1905. Chartered as the W. C. A., in 1898 an amendment was approved by the court, changing the name to the Young Women's Christian Association, now an estab- lished institution in Erie, and influential beyond, as affiliated with it are these Circles: Corry, Waterford, Franklin, Union City, North East, Wattsburg and Cambridge Springs. The Y. W. C. A. building has become a center for women's activity, being the meeting place and headquarters of the Women's Club, the Women's Christian Temper- ance Union, the Women's Industrial Exchange and other kindred or- ganizations. In the beginning it organized a movement in behalf of erring women, called the Door of Hope, which grew into the Florence Crittenton Home, and a Boys' Reading Circle, which developed into the Boys' Club.
On Fifth street near Holland, north side, there is a brick building that is a landmark. It was the Brewster and the Kennedy home when Erie was young. Today at the western door will be found the sign, "William Brewster Industrial School for Girls." This it is; and be- sides the office of the Associated Charities is there to be found. There is a story here. One night in May, 1893, there came upon this region a rain storm of the character denominated a cloud-burst. Every stream was swollen to the proportions of a torrent, and Mill creek, previously regarded as trivial, became a river that carried everything before it, but, dammed by the bridges and culverts of the city against which the wreckage was thrust, spread out into a miniature sea. Houses were inundated and people in their night clothes were res- cued on rafts and boats procured for the purpose. Saved from the flood they were nevertheless in distress. At this juncture there was an organization effected at once. A number of ladies, headed by Mrs. William Brewster, formed what came to be known as the Bureau of Charities. A fund, at first intended for a contagious hos- pital, was diverted to the present pressing need. More money was raised and the suffering was relieved. But the bureau continued. For fifteen years it persevered in its efforts, doing an immense amount of good work by the bestowal of a discriminating and useful charity. Especially in the winter were the efforts of the bureau effective, through the labors of such leaders as Mrs. Wm. Brewster, Mrs. G. P. Griffith (who succeeded as president) Mrs. C. W. Brown, Miss Emma Carroll, and Mrs. F. H. Schutte. One of their most important works was the conducting of sewing schools in which seven teachers were employed every Saturday in as many of the public schools, given by the board of education for the purpose. When William Brewster
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY
died in 1903 he bequeathed the old family home, upon the death of his wife, to an association, to be converted into an industrial school for girls. Mrs. Brewster, however, took immediate steps to bring about a realization of her husband's desire, and, knowing the character and scope of the Bureau of Charities, of which she had been president, effected the transfer of the property to that organization. At once steps were taken to begin work. The new enterprise was provided with a generous start. G. W. Perkins, of New York, a connection of the Brewsters, made a donation of $600 a year for five years; L. M. Little, another connection, presented telephone bonds yielding $250 per year in interest. With the plans already adopted for the school its continued operation was assured. A superintendent was engaged, the school was opened, and soon there was an enrollment of 300 girls being educated in needlework, cooking and domestic science. The headquarters of the bureau were established with the Brewster school. In 1908 the Bureau of Charities was organized into the As- sociated Charities of Erie, with Frank H. Payne, president; Robert Spittal, secretary. and F. H. Schutte, treasurer, which organization took over the office of the bureau and the Brewster school.
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