USA > Wisconsin > Waukesha County > The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources; an extensive and minute sketch of its cities, towns and villages etc > Part 60
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Those committed to its charge are largely unfortunates. Some of them are born with mal- formations of mental faculties, with vicious tempers and low, brutal tendencies. These are the most unfortunate class with which the school has to deal. They are not responsible for their vicious tempers and evil dispositions any more than for their existence or physical appear- ance. They have defects which no reformatory school, be it never so strict or liberal, kind or harsh in its course of training, can wipe out, or completely bring into subjugation. None of them, however, leave the institution in as deplorable a condition as that in which they entered, and many of them are so thoroughly taught in the art of self-government that they become the best of citizens ; but others, returning with their unfortunate natural viciousness to their old haunts, overcome and forget all the influence of the Industrial School, and rapidly fall to ruin or cells in the State Prison. Some are the victims of unfortunate marriages, quarreling, drink- ing, thieving, slothful parents ; others are merely bright, intelligent boys with an extra amount of spirit and mischievousness, and others are wandering orphans who come within the scope of the law governing the commitment of children to the institution. Of all such a good account can be given. They rapidly yield to the beneficial influences brought to bear in the schools, workshop and chapel, and become, in a reasonably short time, good boys, and ultimately the very best of citizens. In fact, the good, dispositioned boys of intelligence sent out from the Indus- trial School are, as a general thing, much better prepared to cope single-handed with the affairs of the world, than those of equal ability who have not received such training.
Having all these peculiarities of the subjects to be dealt with in view, and also the bene- ficial results to them and the community at large, the State Industrial School for Boys must be considered the most important of all the State institutions.
The existence of the Industrial School is due in a great measure to the labors of the Sentinel and Free Democrat newspapers, of Milwaukee, neither of which, for many months, lost any opportunity of urging the necessity and benefits of a reformatory institution of this character. The first law looking to its establishment was passed March 7, 1857, for " a house of refuge for juvenile delinquents in the State of Wisconsin." The buildings were to be erected under the supervision of three Commissioners, who should, on the completion of them, certify the fact to each County Clerk in the State. Under this law the Governor appointed W. D. Bacon, of Waukesha, Edwin Palmer, of Milwaukee, and Martin Mitchell, of Oshkosh, Commissioners to locate and erect a building suitable for such purpose.
The Commissioners at once organized and entered upon the discharge of their duties. Houses of refuge to reform youth, separate from prisoners, were then in their infancy. The first one erected in this country was built in New York City but thirty-two years before, and not until May, 1857, had the subject of juvenile reform elicited among its friends sufficient interest to cause them to meet in convention for consultation and discussion as to improved plans of build- ing, government and classification.
Such convention assembled in New York City on the 12th, 13th and 14th days of May, 1857. Seventeen institutions were represented, ten having the name and title of " House of
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Refuge;" three, "State Reform School ;" two, " Reform School ;" one, " Asylum and Farm School," and one, "State Industrial School for Girls."
The Commissioners sought the advice and experience of the most devoted philanthropists connected with this new work, and from William R. Lincoln, Superintendent of the Maine State Reform School, obtained the outlines of a plan of building which they adopted, having regard to the division of its inmates into families (of thirty-six boys in each), and so planned that each boy would have a separate room to himself. Each room, whether large or small, had separate ventilating flues, both for the admission of pure and escape of foul air.
The plan of the first buildings consisted of three detached parallel buildings, each fifty feet distant from the other, and united by a corridor nine feet wide, extending crosswise through the center of each building, adapting all, in their internal accommodation and external view, to one building.
But one building was erected, that being of sufficient capacity for the State at that time. Each building was planned to furnish complete accommodation for officers, schoolroom, hospital, living rooms for family of Superintendent, kitchen, dining-room, wash-room, and bedrooms for officers, servants and inmates, both boys and girls (the law at that time sent girls also to the House of Refuge), and eighty separate rooms for inmates. The three buildings, if built, would have furnished rooms for Superintendent and his family, officers and servants, and four hundred rooms for inmates.
The building erected was 57x94 feet, and three stories high above basement, which, from the window sills of the basement, was above ground. Its location was determined. after due examination of various places in the State, to be at Waukesha, the citizens of Waukesha voting to tax the town for $6,000, with which they purchased sixty acres of land for a site. The buildings were to be of stone. Stone being abundant at Waukesha, could be furnished much cheaper than at any other city desiring its location, and would save, in cost of building at Waukesha, several thousand dollars to the State in the price of stone. This more than overbalanced offers of a pecuniary consideration proposed by any other corporation. The act to establish a House of Refuge, required it to be "located where the citizens shall contri- bute the largest sum toward the erection," and "said Commissioners shall take into consideration any materials or money to aid in the erection thereof." Thus the matter of material alone would have secured the location of the institution at Waukesha.
But there were other things favorable to Waukesha. The soil of the site was a superior, rich garden mold, well watered, the Fox River flowing through diagonally. The original site also included the now famous Bethesda mineral spring, which the Commissioners reported "was of pure limpid water, discharging a large stream, forming a pond six rods in diameter, often full of pickerel, bass, and other fish common in Wisconsin streams." Before Bethesda was dis- covered to be medicinal, sixteen acres of land, of the original site, including the spring, were exchanged, by the State of Wisconsin, for an equal quantity. of other land.
After erecting one building, the Commissioners, according to the act providing for the " House of Refuge," certified to the fact, and the Governor issued a formal proclamation to the public.
The school was formally opened on Wednesday, July 23, 1860, by the various State officials, Board of Managers, and a large congregation of the inhabitants of the State. The dedicatory address was made by J. B. D. Cogswell, of Milwaukee. After giving a full history of the workings of reformatory schools in other States and countries, he closed as follows :
" With such cheering precedents to encourage us, we dedicate this building to the uses of the State Reform School of Wisconsin. No more eligible or attractive site could have been selected for the purpose. It is easy of access, yet sufficiently removed from the great town and the bustling village, full of temptations to the weak and unsettled boy. We are an agricultural community, and the institution is fitly established among these pleasant fields, suitable for suc- cessful tillage. The sturdy boy shall here learn the rudiments of agriculture, to be thereafter
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practiced for his own benefit upon the generous prairies or amid the virgin forests of Wisconsin. Here shall he be taught to love labor for its own sake, and in the pleasing alternative of toil and play, his wild spirit shall grow calm and peaceful. In these spacious and convenient halls he shall find everything necessary for his comfort and instruction. The site of his home is beautiful as well as eligible. Brought up yonder grassy slope at first a careless and wayward vagrant, he shall go away in due time, manly and free, self-reliant, yet impressed with a sense of moral responsibility. No longer the juvenile delinquent, he shall leave the reform school to assume and discharge the duties of an American freeman and citizen.
" Permit me, your Excellency [Gov. A. W. Randall], to congratulate you upon your good fortune, that you are enabled, during your administration, to inaugurate. so many useful and memorable charities of the State. Hereafter, doubtless, you will recur to such occasions as the present as among the most pleasing reminiscences of your official career. We congratulate you, gentlemen of the building commission, upon the auspicious termination of your faithful and protracted labors. Long as these firm walls shall stand, they shall bear witness of your patient skill, foresight and fidelity. Finally, fellow-citizens, philanthropists, fathers and mothers, who guard your little ones in cheerful homes with tender solicitude, let us felicitate each other that to-day we witness a home opened for orphaned and homeless children. * * * Here- after, upon this spot, shall be sown seed which shall ripen into a nobler fruitage than all the golden grain the husbandmen garner to-day. Some seed, it is true, shall fall by the wayside, and the unclean birds shall devour it up. * But other seed shall fall into good ground and bring forth fruit. Happy he who, in the providence of God, shall be privileged to plant and nourish the germ of goodness in the fruitful but desolate heart of the orphan and vagrant child. May he ever hope to hear, hereafter, those inspiring words of Divine commendation : 'For inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.'"
Remarks were also made by Lieut. Gov. Butler G. Noble, Secretary of State Louis P. Harvey, and others, after which Gov. Alexander W. Randall, a citizen of Waukesha, formally proclaimed the institution open for the purposes contemplated in the act creating it. He further said :
"I will not attempt to add anything to what has been said as to the objects of these build- ings, but will simply say that this is an institution which has long been needed by the State. That we have it now, is mainly due to the efforts of a few men who have long since pressed its necessity. Among the newspapers of the State which have urged its establishment, I may name the Milwaukee Sentinel and Free Democrat, and their editors, who, in the columns of their papers, lost no occasion of urging the utility of an institution of this character. I desire par- ticularly at this time to speak of the services of a humble man in this connection, who labored efficiently, in season and out of season, to this end. I refer to John W. Hinton, of Milwaukee, formerly connected with the reportorial corps of the Milwaukee Sentinel. I will say only one word more. It is hoped that this school will be productive of great good ; that it will make the boys who are sent here good men ; that they will learn here that utility is the great object of life, and that it is better to be very good, than very wise or very great. If they learn these things here, they will have learned what it is the object of this school to inculcate."
The school was now open to receive inmates, according to law, as follows :
SEC. 12. The said managers and Superintendent shall receive and take into said House of Refuge all male children under the age of eighteen years, and all female children under the age of seventeen, who shall be legally committed to said House of Refuge as vagrants, or on conviction of any criminal offense by any court having author- ity to make such commitments ; and the said managers shall have power to place the said children committed to their care during the minority of said children, at such employments and cause them to be instructed in snch branches of useful knowledge as shall be suited to their years and capacities ; and they shall have power, in their discretion, to bind ont said children. with their consent or the consent of their parents or guardians, if they have any, as apprentices or servants, during their minority, to such persons and at such places, to learn such proper trades and employments as, in their judgment, will be most for their information and amendment and the future benefit and advantage of such children ; Provided, That the charge and power of said managers upon and over the said children shall not extend, in the case of females, beyond the age of twenty-one years : and provided, also, that the religions opinions of the inmates shall not be interfered with.
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The law also required the managers to publish the names of the inmates; but this was never done, their first report declaring that, in their opinion, " good policy and the interests of the inmates forbade such publication." The managers furnished this reason for disobeying that portion of the enactment: "If that was the intention of the law, it was certainly, we think, a mistake; for, while more or less of a stigma will, in the public mind, attach to those who are inmates of the Reform School, there should be as little publicity as possible of their names in that connection. They should be taught to look forward to the future with hope; to blot out, as much as possible, the past, which is beyond their control ; and when reformed, as we trust many of them will be, and become useful citizens, far from the scenes of their early errors, they ought not to be confronted by their names in a report like this, to cause them injury and good to none."
The Legislature did not compel the managers to obey the clause referred to, and afterward amended it.
The first inmates were three juveniles from the city of Milwaukee, who were committed, or received at the institution, August 1, 1860. Several girls were also committed that year- nearly all from Milwaukee-and female delinquents continued to be sent until 1871; but the plan was not a good one, as will be seen by the first report, which said :
" Of the seven girls committed, five had been connected with low dance-houses, or "houses of ill-fame. The chapter of our statutes on the subject of vagrancy, in my opinion, needs a careful review. Surely, it was never intended that this school should be the receptacle of abandoned females, nor that the denizens of every low brothel should be thrown into our family circle. Vice is a contagion of the most terrible virulence, and when concentrated in minds matured in the pathway of criminal indulgence, it will overleap all barriers and fasten its deadly fangs upon the comparatively innocent and unsuspecting. No human efforts can control the contaminating influence."
From that time, fewer abandoned females were received, and finally, in 1871, only boys were committed to the institution.
At first there was no provision for discharging inmates; that is, nothing could be done but open the doors of the institution and let those whose terms had expired wander whither they would, no funds being available to transport them home or to any place where employment could be obtained. This was soon after remedied, and now each one, on his discharge, is given a good suit of clothes and transportation to his former or any new home.
A system of manual labor was instituted at once, and all inmates in good health were required to devote a certain number of hours to whatever was necessary to be done. Farm labor and putting the grounds about the buildings into shape were first in order ; on the 1st of Sep- tember, 1860, the shoe-shop was opened ; in October, of the same year, the tailor-shop ; and the girls were at once put at sewing and knitting. These departments are still in active opera- tion and turn out all the shoes, boots, mittens, socks, pantaloons, coats, caps and all other wear- ing apparel necessary for the inmates. The "repairing room " turns out all necessary mending and repairing. The laundry, kitchen and carpenter-shop are necessary adjuncts of the institu- tion, but turn out no work that is a source of income to the State. They afford practical instruction to the boys connected with them. The business of manufacturing as a source of profit, and at the same time as a means of thorough instruction to the inmates, is in the boot and shoe shop and sock and mitten factory. The first year nothing of profit to the State was turned out, except 100 pairs of button shoes. The school then contained but comparatively few inmates and all of them were ragged and unskilled. Their own personal wants, therefore, demanded most of their attention. A broom-factory was run for about ten years, but was never a source of much profit, and has been discontinued. The same is true of the business of chairmaking. The manufacture of boots, shoes, socks, mittens and suspenders, however, not only is a means of teaching the boys useful trades, but is now a source of profit. During 1879, about 40,000 pairs of socks and mittens were knit, and the shoe-shop turns out fifty cases of the best quality of hand-made boots and shoes per week. These are of a superior quality, and
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therefore the demand still exceeds the supply, at good prices. In fact the demand exceeds the products in all the manufacturing departments of the Industrial School.
The C. M. & St. Paul Railway has provided a side-track near the school buildings, thus making shipping facilities of more than ordinary convenience.
On the farm, which consists of 233 acres of good land, are twenty-nine milch cows, twenty- one horses and numerous calves, poultry and pigs. Its products are oats, corn, beans, potatoes, and all the vegetables and other cereals (except wheat), common to the climate. These products, as food, are valued at $5,000 per year, or more, at wholesale rates.
The inmates have an abundance of good, wholesome food. Meats are generally served to them in limited quantities, but they may have all the bread and vegetables they desire. All food is of the best quality, purchased by the Superintendent at such favorable bargains as he can make. The report for 1879 shows some of the items of subsistence as follows: Flour, barrels, 860; beef, pounds, 35,500; potatoes, bushels, 1,175 ; cheese, pounds, 1,032; butter, pounds, 10,139 ; eggs, dozens, 1,429; sugar, pounds, 9,326 ; sirup, gallons, 1,165. This subsistence is furnished at a cost of 7 cents per day per capita for the inmates ; but as all employes have their subsistence from the common store, it would reduce the cost per inmate, per day, to about 5 cents. The total cost for salaries, fuel, subsistence, and all other items, is $100.86 per capita per year, for the inmates, or 27 3-5 cents per day per capita.
A complete history of each inmate is kept at the school in a book prepared for the purpose, as well as birthplace, age, occupation, habits, and conditions of parents. This record of the history of the parents nearly always discloses some good reason why a reformatory school of the kind under consideration is necessary ; and it is due to a majority of the boys confined in it to state that their parents are often actually more deserving of prison discipline than the children. As a general thing the parents of vicious and depraved boys are drunkards and loafers.
A most perfect system of labor record is in force, as well as a similar system of records of the conduct, health, proficiency, behavior and progress of each inmate. The Superintendent knows precisely where his watchmen were at any particular hour of any day or night, also where any particular inmate was ; knows how many pairs of socks have been washed during the year ; how many repaired, and the same with any and all other articles. He can tell, also, how many loaves of bread are baked, consumed or wasted; and has the same accurate knowledge of all other matters, even to the number of quarts of milk produced on the farm and how con- sumed.
A temperance society, called the Band of Hope, existed in the school for many years. It was not of any practical use in the institution, as the boys have neither liquors nor tobacco ; but they took a strong pledge and were taught that when they left the school the obligation was to go with them all through life.
A cornet band, with good instruments, is maintained in the school, and once each week a good teacher furnishes them with instruction. To belong to this band a good record in the school is necessary, as well as some musical genius. The boys take great pride in their band, and frequently make proficient musicians. Applications to become members of the band are frequent, thus showing their appreciation of it.
The first main building was destroyed by fire on the night of the 10th of January, 1866. Although of stone, every part of the building was so intimately connected with every other part, that it was wrapt in flames in an almost incredibly short space of time. The fire was set by an inmate who had in some manner obtained a match with which he lighted shavings cut from his bedstead, starting the blaze in the opening of the ventilator in his room. All the inmates and employes escaped unharmed, though with little time to spare.
His object was to escape, but he failed. He was sent to the county jail, to which he set fire for the same purpose, a few days later, and had it not been for the accidental and fortunate discovery of the fire at 2 o'clock in the morning, by Mrs. Dewey K. Warren, wife of the Sheriff, he would have burned the jail also. Later, he was sent to the State Prison.
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A small wooden building, used as a boot and shoe shop, and the wooden portion of what is now " No. 10," did not burn. Into these and some board barracks, hastily built for the pur- pose, the inmates were crowded. The weather was severe and these barracks, consisting only of inch boards, afforded but little protection, and for the balance of the winter all connected with the school had a hard time of it.
In the spring of 1866, the present main building (which was enlarged to twice its original size in 1873), and Nos. 1 and 2, all of Waukesha limestone, were erected. Afterward as the number of inmates increased, other buildings were erected as follows: No. 3, in 1868 ; No. 4, in 1871; Nos. 5, 7 and 10, in 1873; No. 6, in 1875; Nos. 8 and 9, in 1879 ; the shoe factory in 1871, and the crrection house in 1877. These are all of the splendid Waukesha limestone, three and four stories high, except the upper stories of the two which escaped the fire of 1866, which are wood. The stone for Nos. 8 and 9, for the large correction house and for the horse-barn and two or three additions, were all dressed by inmates, and make by far the best-looking buildings of the group. All have slate roofs, good ventilation and ample furnaces. The different build- ings not used for shops, kitchen, laundry and similar purposes, are called " family buildings," and are used as schoolrooms, playrooms, sleeping dormitories, dining and bath rooms for the several "families," into which all the inmates are divided. Each family is in charge of a man and woman whoare, to a certain extent, responsible for the conduct and progress of those under their charge. In these buildings, all the branches usually taught in common schools are thoroughly pursued under competent teachers ; light, innocent games and amusements are permitted, and every Saturday bathing and a change of clothing are required.
Boys are required to aid in cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning the rooms and doing all the work necessary about an institution of this kind and size. They thus learn to do all kinds of labor in the best possible manner.
The chapel exercises on Sunday are exceedingly interesting. All inmates assemble to listen to regular services by some of the local ministers, who serve free of charge, at 3 o'clock. The reform school choir, composed of rich, melodious and well-trained voices, furnishes the music, though every inmate is provided with a song-book, and a majority of the school join in the singing with apparent earnestness and pleasure. Behavior on these occasions is better, no doubt, than it would be on the part of the same number of boys taken at random from the wealthiest community in the State.
A good library is provided in the main building, which contains 800 volumes of books and various Wisconsin newspapers and other periodicals. Books can be taken from the library on Saturday and kept one week. The reading-room contains 275 volumes of books and various newspapers. All inmates are allowed to receive papers, books and letters from their friends, after careful inspection, to see that nothing objectionable enters. They are allowed to write once each month to parents or friends at the expense of the State, and also once each month at their own expense.
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