USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Allegheny in Allegheny County > Recollections of seventy years and historical gleanings of Allegheny, Pennsylvania > Part 13
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In the re-organization of the institution on the plan familiarly
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known as the family system, which has been so eminently popular and successful in Ohio and other States, the Board of Managers believe they recognized, and acted in accordance with, natural laws.
The family is a divine institution, and is so arranged by the Creator, that every human being is influenced more for good by it than by any other thing in social life. This influence is inde- finable, and pervades the whole social organization : it appeals to our self-respect, and stimulates our hopes by opening to our view fair prospects in life. The nearer we approach to the home and family circle, the greater will be the influence for good felt in the hearts and lives of each individual member of society.
Impressed with these views, the Board of Managers deter- mined, in the erection of the new buildings, to ignore stone walls, bolts and bars, and all other prison appliances, and estab- lish, in the true meaning of the term, a school for the proper training and education of wayward and neglected children, so that the pupils can go out into the world fully educated for its duties and responsibilities, with no brand attached to their names, and be received with as much trust and confidence as any of those who go out from the public schools.
In accordance with this view, the inmates are divided into families of fifty each, occupying separate buildings, and governed by separate officers. In its local management, each family is distinct from the others, but, nevertheless, are united in govern- ment under one central head.
Each family building has a separate dormitory, schoolroom, dining-room, wash-room, and playground.
The government in all respects is parental, or such as would be adopted in any well-disciplined home : coercion is not to be resorted to until all moral means have failed.
This system evidently affords the best facilities for classifica- tion and individualization. Children as well as adults are sel- dom reformed in masses : reformation is mostly effected by well-directed effort acting upon the individual heart.
In carrying out the division of the inmates into families, the policy adopted does not depend so much upon age or charac- ter as upon adaptation ; although the very small children are
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placed in a family by themselves. Special qualifications of offi- cers in charge of the families are considered, as well as the peculiar habits and disposition of the child. Those that are more difficult to manage are placed in small families in charge of officers, who, by tact and executive ability, are enabled to exert the most effective influence. Care, however, is taken to limit this class of children in any one family. To associate together the incorrigible and vicious, and designate them as a dishonored class, give power to evil influence, and afford facilities for combination in concocting wickedness, rendering reformation almost hopeless.
In order to afford a better opportunity for determining char- acter and disposition, children, when first admitted to the insti- tution, are placed in one of the families occupying the main building, under the more direct observation of the superintend- ent, there to remain until a sufficient knowledge is obtained of them ; and from thence they are placed in the family where the association and discipline are adapted to exert the best influence.
By this means, the individual is never lost sight of in the crowd : his case is separately and carefully considered, and measures adopted to remedy defects in his character or pre- vious training.
To check the young in the commencement of their criminal course, is the primary object of the institution. The necessity of an institution of this character grows out of the fact that the ordinary checks of society, including our well-adjusted system of education, have been found inadequate for the purpose.
The youthful offender must be removed from the community and the sphere where he moves, only to corrupt and be cor- rupted, and placed where he will be subject to a new life and training, and his future demoralization carefully guarded against, where reliance on self is more externally sustained, and less dependent on its own self-determining power.
Remove from the schoolroom and out of the neighborhood the presiding genius of evil, the radiating point of demoraliza- tion, remove from the community these ulcers, and having lost their centre, the cause of irritation taken away, soon the sur- rounding parts will begin to feel a healthy action.
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To these outcasts of society, the doors of the institution open, and rescue him from a prison, and associations with others probably worse than himself, and save him from utter hopelessness and ruin, introducing him to new scenes, unfold- ing to him a new life, and inspiring him with higher notions and more exalted aspirations.
By a few years' detention in the institution of the youthful offender, even if his reformation proves incomplete, society will doubtless be the gainer. Removed from temptations, and his proneness to do evil curbed, his small villanies stopped, and higher crime prevented, even if he should relapse after release, still something is gained.
In a financial point of view, it is infinitely better to keep all such in a reformatory during their natural lives, than leave them unrestrained to prey upon the community. It is less expensive to thus control them than to suffer them to run at large. To follow them in their career of crime, and take note of the amount of property they destroy, would afford abundant proof of this.
The worst of this class may be rescued. A Magdalen was reformed, and a thief on the cross saved. According to the records, fully three-fourths of the children committed to the institution since its opening have become respectable and useful members of society. Although the work is arduous, and requires constant and unremitting care, it is, nevertheless, a grand and noble charity. The price of a human being may be inferred by what it costs to reclaim him. Brought into the world in corruption, nurtured in crime, associated with vice, with a hardened conscience and benighted mind, in this institu- tion he is brought to realize the comforts of a quiet home, wholesome food, healthful and invigorating exercise, and harm- less amusement ; while to his ill-directed mind is unfolded the beneficial working of the Golden Rule, " Do to others as you would have them do unto you ;" and induced to look upon God as his Father, and heaven as his ultimate home.
Here he is instructed in the elementary principles of science, and such habits sought to be induced as will tend to make him an honest and useful member of society. When sufficiently
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educated, and character established for good, he is placed out of the institution in a position where he may acquire a knowledge of some good trade or employment.
Even then the guardianship of the institution does not for- sake him : it follows him, and spreads over him the wings of its protection, counsels, and care, until he is able to maintain the struggles of the new life he has commenced. If he falls, it still cares for him, and receives him back into the ark of his safety, and again essays to restore him to an honest life.
These children are scattered over the entire continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific : they are found engaged in various reputable employments, some of them are happy heads of families, who train up their little ones as they were trained in the Reform School.
By patient and persevering industry, some have become suc- cessful in acquiring a moderate share of this world's goods ; while others, pressed down by anxious cares, have not been so fortunate, yet in all their trials they still retain their integrity.
It is gratifying to observe the marked change that has been effected in a few short weeks in the appearance, habits, and sometimes even in the character, of the child committed to the care of the institution ; and it is difficult to recognize in the bright-eyed child, clothed in the neat uniform of the school, the demoralized little wretch brought from the streets and slums of the cities, by the police, whose general ragged appearance bore ample testimony of neglect, and inclination to vagrancy and crime. Relieved of his rags, and clad in clean clothes, he rises from wretchedness and shame, which even to his clouded per- ceptions were a grievous burden, and feels and realizes the cur- rent of a new life.
The mild and firm discipline of a few weeks has brought a won- derful change, under a judicious continuance of which the child may become corrigible, and make a good and useful citizen.
It must be borne in mind, that the Reform School is not simply a charitable institution, notwithstanding the absence of stone walls, bolts and bars, and the inauguration of a mild paternal discipline, to soften the asperities of confinement, by impressing upon the mind of the children that it is a home
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rather than a prison ; the fact remains, that it is correctional - a penal institution, as much connected with the administration of criminal law as any of our prisons. The Commonwealth, therefore, recognizes the Reform School as one of her penal institutions, and makes provision for its support as an imperative public necessity on the grounds that it is better to be taxed for the virtue of the child than to pay for the vices of the man.
The institution is in no sense sectarian. All religious de- nominations are recognized by its managers as having an equal right, through their teachers and ministers, to impart religious instruction to the inmates. The object of the managers has always been to invite the services of ministers of all denomina- tions, thus rendering the pulpit free to all of whatever creed.
The invariable practice is to permit ministers of any religious belief to visit the inmates at any time during health or sickness, to administer private religious instruction without the presence or interference of the officers of the institution ; and no restraint is permitted to be placed upon either minister or child, which could in the least interfere with free and private communication between them.
In cases of sickness, the parent, guardian, or friends are immediately summoned, who, in serious cases, remain in the institution, assisting in the care of the patient.
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PITTSBURG ALMSHOUSE.
THE history of this institution may be briefly stated thus : Prior to the death of the late Col. James O'Hara, which oc- curred in 1819, the overseers of the poor of the city of Pitts- burg were in negotiation with him for the purchase of out-lot No. 256, containing ten acres, situated on the north side of Ohio Lane, in the Reserve Tract opposite Pittsburg, for the purpose of erecting thereon suitable buildings for the main- tenance of the poor of said city. The sale was consummated by his executors ; the deed, bearing date Feb. 10, 1821, recorded in Allegheny County, in vol. xxviii. p. 145 ; consideration, $750. This lot was patented, inter alia, to John Park in 1789, and conveyed by him to James O'Hara in 1796.
During 1821 and 1822 the overseers erected a large, two- story frame-building about three hundred feet from the line of Ohio Lane, midway from east to west, of sufficient dimensions to meet the present as well as the future wants. On the west- erly part of the lot, the cemetery was located.
The buildings were finished in the latter part of 1822, and the inmates removed from their then location on the west side of Virgin Alley, near the corner of Wood Street, Pittsburg, to the new quarters prepared for them. Here the poor were maintained and cared for until the latter part of 1848, when they were again removed to a new home provided for them on the south side of the Monongahela River, in Mifflin township ; the poor-authorities having purchased fifty acres with improve- ments in 1850, and subsequently one hundred acres adjoining, upon which they erected extensive and costly brick buildings, the corner-stone of which was laid in the latter part of 1850, and completed Jan. 9, 1852, and occupied immediately.
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PITTSBURG ALMSHOUSE.
The institution was chartered by Act of the General Assembly, approved in 1847, under the name of the "Guard- ians for the Relief and Employment of the Poor of the City of Pittsburg," and the board organized in February of the follow- ing year. Immediately after the removal, the land in Alle- gheny was laid out in building-lots, and sold, and the old buildings demolished.
The remains of the dead were disinterred, and removed to Mount Union Cemetery. Many of the graves were found empty, clearly indicating that the bodies had been removed, doubtless for scientific purposes.
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FIFTH WARD PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
By the Act of the Legislature approved March 12, 1867, the borough of Manchester was annexed to the city of Allegheny.
By an ordinance of the city councils passed subsequently, to wit, on the 9th of May, enlarging what was then the boundaries of the borough, so as to embrace the portions of the First and Second Wards lying between Fulton Street and Allegheny Avenue, the whole was divided into two wards. A line run- ning north and south through the centre of Allegheny Avenue, and east and west through the centre of Locust Street to the Ohio River, marked the division between them. All the terri- tory lying south of this line was designated the Fifth Ward; and all north, the Sixth Ward.
In consequence of this division, the greater portion of the school property belonging to the Manchester district fell into the Sixth Ward.
The number of children of school age in the Fifth Ward at the time was nearly six hundred ; whilst the only accommoda- tion for this large number was the two-story brick building, 35 by 63 feet, situate on the corner of Chartiers and Fayette Streets.
This building, by no means prepossessing in appearance, con- tained but four rooms, poorly furnished, and partitioned with unpainted boards, presented a striking contrast to the one afterwards erected in the ward.
There were but two legally authorized school directors re- siding within the limits of the ward at the time of its organiza- tion, - N. McClinton, a member of the Manchester board, and Samuel I. Kay of the Second Ward board.
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FIFTH WARD PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
In accordance with the instructions of the State Superintend- ent, these gentlemen met on the fourth day of October, 1867, and appointed four additional members, viz., Joseph Walton, Byron Painter, Alexander Patterson, and C. B. Shea; thus con- stituting a full board for the transaction of business. .
On the second day of November following, the first complete organization was effected. No effort was made towards the purchase of real estate and the erection of suitable buildings until after the election of school directors, and organization of the board, Jan. 20, 1868.
The earliest measure adopted by the newly elected board was the appointment of Messrs. Robert Lea, Joseph Walton, and John E. Parke, a committee to confer with a similar committee from the First, Second, and Sixth Wards, in regard to an equi- table adjustment of the school property.
As a result of this conference, the Fifth Ward retained the building on the corner of Chartiers and Fayette Streets at a valuation of $4,000, and received from the First Ward, $5,000, in three annual instalments of $1,666.66 each; from the Second Ward, $5,200, in four annual instalments of $1,300 each ; and from the Sixth Ward, $7,000, payable in three annual in- stalments of $2,333.33 each, all the above payments without interest.
As a step towards securing better school accommodations, which were felt to be imperatively demanded, a site was pur- chased in March, 1868, on the corner of Fulton and Page Streets, containing an area of 132 feet on Fulton, and 2242 feet on Page.
Plans and specifications having been adopted, Messrs. Trim- ble and McIntyre were awarded the contract. On the first day of May, 1868, ground was broken; and on the first Monday of September in the following year, the entire structure was com- pleted, and ready for occupancy.
The building, a substantial brick, with all the modern ap- pliances then in vogue, is 134 feet in front on Page Street, by 68 feet on Fulton Street, three stories in height, and is divided into eighteen rooms, having on the third story a large and com- modious auditorium 35 by 68 feet, with a gallery on each side.
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Nearly all the schoolrooms are provided with ample cloak- rooms.
The building is heated by low-pressure steam, and lighted throughout with gas ; the surroundings paved with brick, and neatly enclosed on the Fulton and Page Streets fronts by an iron fence.
The cost of the building is $47,786.39; improvements, $19,- 460.01 ; eleven lots of ground, $10,400; in all, $77,646.40.
During the construction of the new building, the large in- crease of the number of applicants for admission made it neces- sary to make other arrangements for the accommodation of the pupils than that afforded by the building on the corner of Chartiers and Fayette Streets. Union Hall, on the corner of Beaver Avenue and Sheffield Street, was, therefore, leased and occupied as a grammar school.
On the evening of the 2d of September, 1869, the new school- house was formally dedicated, being complete in all its arrange- ments, and lighted up throughout with gas, for the inspection of the citizens. Its appearance seemed to meet the approval of every one present. After all parts of the building had been visited, a meeting was organized in the auditorium, by calling the late Rev. J. B. Clarke to officiate as chairman. The report of the board was then read, and a number of congratulatory addresses delivered, after which a vote of thanks was unani- mously tendered to the board of directors for their zeal and success in providing a school-building so ample in dimensions, and so well adapted to its educational wants. Schools were opened on the 6th of September following, with a total enrol- ment of six hundred and twelve pupils. On the evening of the 2Ist of December, a disastrous fire occurred, which, for a time, threatened to lay the entire structure in ashes. The second and third stories were entirely destroyed, nothing remaining except the bare walls. The first story suffered considerably from the water used in extinguishing the flames.
The estimated loss, thirty thousand dollars, was fully covered by insurance. The fire was evidently the result of a want of proper care in the construction of the smoke-flues : it origi- nated near the roof, where the flue was carried over a win-
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dow. Prompt measures were at once adopted to repair the damage. The contract was awarded to Messrs. William Boyd & Son.
In the mean time, the grammar and medium schools occupied the building on the corner of Fayette and Chartiers Streets ; the high school, Union Hall; while the little folks conned over their primary lessons in the building on Market Street, near Greenwood, formerly used as the M. E. Church. In August, 1870, the building was again completed, and in the following month re-occupied.
On the morning following the fire, large crowds assembled to view the ruins. It was deemed unsafe to permit persons within or near the building ; and every effort was made by the directors to induce the people to keep away, but without effect. A storm of wind and rain occurring at the time, a rush was made towards the ruins in order to avoid the storm as much as possible. At this moment the part of the front wall between the towers was blown over, seriously injuring two children of Mr. Jekel of the Fifth Ward, one of whom subsequently died from the effects of the injury received.
An incident connected with the burning of the building is related by one of the directors, which, had it not been for the timely warning given, might have resulted in a loss of life. In the evening, shortly after the fire had commenced, it was deemed absolutely necessary to keep the outside doors closed, in order to shut off the draught : otherwise the fierce wind rushed with terrible fury through the halls and stairways, add- ing additional fierceness to the mad flames.
A number of youths had assembled in the vestibule of the bell-tower : the director referred to, remonstrated with them, and quietly asked them to leave. They at first felt disposed to disobey ; but when told of the danger from the falling of the bell, which might occur at any moment, they acquiesced, and had scarcely left, when down it came, carrying every thing in its course to the basement.
The Act of the Legislature approved March 12, A.D. 1867, consolidating the borough of Manchester with the city of Alle- gheny, and the ordinance passed by councils of the said city,
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May 9, A.D. 1867, made no provision for the adjudication of the school property when the school district in said borough and in the old wards of the city were divided in arranging the sev- eral wards of said city after the passage of said Act and ordi- nance aforesaid.
In view of which, the Legislature, upon application, passed an Act approved March 18, A.D. 1869, setting forth the manner of making a division : to wit, "If the school directors in the several wards cannot agree in arriving at an equitable division of the school property, in that case application shall be made to the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, who shall deter- mine whether any such new ward has its proper and equitable proportion of the school property belonging to the old ward or wards out of which such new ward was created under the Act of Assembly and ordinance of the city."
By the Act of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth, approved March 6, A.D. 1868 (vide P. Laws, p. 278), the school directors of the ward were empowered to borrow the sum of $30,000, payable within ten years from the passage of the Act, at a rate of interest not exceeding 8 per cent. This amount not proving adequate to the object contemplated, a supple- mentary Act was passed, approved Feb. 10, A.D. 1869 (vide P. Laws, p. 134), authorizing the directors to borrow the addi- tional sum of $30,000, payable within twenty years from the passage of the Act, at a rate of interest not exceeding 8 per cent. In 1872 the bonded indebtedness had reached its highest point, the amount outstanding at the time being $58,240.40. Since then it has been steadily decreased ; the amount outstanding on the Ist of February, 1881, being $ 16,700.
In 1873, June 17, the school property situate on the corner of Chartiers and Fayette Streets was disposed of to Messrs. Wilson for $5,000, payable in six annual instalments, with in- terest added at the rate of 8 per cent.
HISTORY OF THE ALLEGHENY OBSERVATORY.
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HISTORY OF THE ALLEGHENY OBSERVATORY. 179
HISTORY OF THE ALLEGHENY OBSERVATORY. S. P. LANGLEY, DIRECTOR. (Prepared at the Request of Mr. Parke.)
THIS institution was founded in 1860 by the subscriptions of citizens, induced to promote the undertaking by the exertions of Mr. L. Bradley, to whom the inception of public interest in the plan was due. A building was erected, and a large equa- torial telescope procured, when pecuniary difficulties arose to hinder immediate farther progress. In 1866 the donation of a large sum by William Thaw, Esq., of Pittsburg, with aid from others, freed the Observatory from debt, and furnished means for a partial endowment, whose income should supply its more urgent future current needs. At the same time the original contributors were induced, at the solicitation of Dr. G. Woods, to convey their title in the property to the trustees of the Western University of Pennsylvania, conditionally upon this property being restricted to the uses of the Observatory, and on the appointment and maintenance of an observer. In consequence of this change, the trustees, in 1867, invited Pro- fessor S. P. Langley to assume the office of director; but it was not until 1869 that the equipment was in such a state of forwardness as to permit systematic observation, such as has since been uninterruptedly maintained. It is proper to state, that the considerable means for this equipment, procured by Professor Langley, were also due chiefly to the generous donor whose name has just been mentioned.
The Observatory is situated on the high ground just north of the most populous part of the city of Allegheny, about four
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hundred and fifty feet above the Ohio River, and eleven hun- dred and fifty feet above sea-level. The original building was seventy-two feet in length, and consisted of a principal story and basement, the façade looking toward the south, and being divided into a central dome with two wings. Additions have been made from time to time; and the newer part, which adjoins the eastern wing, extends in a northerly direction, eighty-eight feet. The material is brick, excepting the "dark room," or physical laboratory, for investigations in light and heat, which is of wood. The revolving dome (having an inter- nal diameter of twenty feet) is of wood and iron.
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