Joint Select Committee to Investigate the Charities 
and Reformatory Institutions in the 
District of Columbia. 
James McMielan, of Michigan, 
Charles J. Faulkner, of West Virginia, 
Thomas S. Martin, of Virginia, 
From the Senate. 
Mahlon Pitney, of New Jersey, 
Stephen A. Northway, of Ohio, 
Alexander M. Dockery, of Missouri, 
From the House of Representatives. 
Charles Moore, of Michigan, 
Clerk. JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE 
TO INVESTIGATE THE 
CHARITIES AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS 
IN THE 
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
PART III- HISTORICAL SKETCHES OP THE CHARITIES AND REFORMATORY 
' INSTITUTIONS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
EDITED AND COMPILED BY 
CHARLES MOORE. 
CLERK OF THE JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE. 
WASHINGTON: 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
18 9 8. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
MARCH 28, 1898.-Ordered to be printed. 
Mr. McMillan, from the Joint Select Committee to Investigate the Charities 
and Reformatory Institutions in the District of Columbia, submitted the following 
Supplemental Report. PREFACE. 
I^IIE joint select committee created by the Act of June 11, 1896, was 
directed "to make investigation of the charities and reformatory 
institutions of the District of Columbia, and especially of those for 
which appropriations are made by this act, as respects their relations 
to the government of the District of Columbia and to the United States, 
whether by special charter or otherwise, their efficiency, their manage- 
ment and resources, whether by appropriations or otherwise; and also 
what portion, if any, of appropriations heretofore made to them have 
been used for the purpose of maintaining or aiding, by payment for 
services, expenses, or otherwise, any church or religious denomination 
or any institution or society which is under sectarian or ecclesiastical 
control." 
These questions involved an inquiry into the origin and subsequent 
history of the various charitable and reformatory institutions of the 
District. In the time allotted to the committee for its work, the required 
information had to be gathered somewhat hastily; and the task was 
rendered the more difficult from the fact that in most instances, and 
even in the case of some of the most important institutions, the records 
were both meager and scattered. So frequent have changes occurred 
in the management of the charities that those now in control often 
have little knowledge of their predecessors. Consequently errors will 
be found in the following pages; and perhaps credit is not always 
given where credit is due. Wherever it could be done, however, the 
sketches of the various institutions have been submitted to the respec- 
tive authorities and have been corrected by them. 
The sketches have been written from the standpoint of the institu- 
tions; but where there have been controversies, reference is made to the 
criticisms. The reason for this course is that, for the most part, the man- 
agement of the various charities has been in the hands of persons who 
served the public without reward, and in many instances at decided 
inconvenience to themselves. Certainly it can serve no good purpose 
to bring up here matters of dispute now happily in the past. Questions 
as to present management and efficiency are treated in the report of 
the joint committee. 
The one fact that will be apparent to every reader of these pages is 
that the District of Columbia has contained, and still contains, a sur- 
prisingly large number of benevolent people who have given freely of 
time, of professional skill, and of money for charity. 
III IV 
PREFACE. 
The editor is under obligations to the many officers of charitable 
institutions and associations for aid in gathering data and for furnish- 
ing information; and especially he would acknowledge the assistance 
given by Dr. Samuel C. Busey, president of the Medical Society of 
the District of Columbia; and to Dr. C. B. Purvis, for many years the 
surgeon-in-chief of Freedmen's Hospital, and also the physician of the 
Association for the Belief of Destitute Colored Women and Children. 
Since the report of the joint select committee was made to Con- 
gress the following changes in District charities have occurred: A 
permanent central committee for the relief of the poor, consisting of 
thirty persons, has been appointed by the Commissioners of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. The committee will become an incorporated body, 
and will administer the inaugural and other funds for the relief of the 
poor. The detail of a police officer as agent of the Humane Society 
has been withdrawn in accordance with the joint committee's report. 
The Garfield Memorial Hospital has consented to have an isolating- 
building constructed on its grounds, and a second such building will 
be built at the Providence Hospital. The Columbia Hospital has taken 
steps to allow physicians not on the hospital staff to attend patients in 
pay rooms, and also to limit the admission of free patients to persons 
actually dependent. 
Washington, April 26,1898. CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER I. 
THE FIRST GENERAL HOSPITAL. 
Page. 
Healthfulness of the District of Columbia 1 
Early contagions and disorders 1 
Health of Washington during the rebellion 1 
President Jefferson has White House inmates vaccinated 2 
President Jackson acts as nurse in a smallpox case 2 
The board of health of Washington City 2 
The Washington Poorhouse 2 
Dr. Alexander McWilliams 3 
Need of a public hospital 3 
Dr. Thomas Ewell's plan 3 
The name Columbia Hospital suggested 3 
The plan fails 3 
Hospitals during the war of 1812 3 
Cholera epidemic of 1832 4 
Location of cholera hospitals 4 
Committees appointed to interest Congress in a hospital 4 
The Washington Infirmary 5 
Appropriation for an insane asylum 5 
Building turned over to Columbian Medical College 5 
Appropriations for support of the hospital 6 
Specific payments for specific services 6 
Enlargement of the hospital 6 
The United States occupies the infirmary as a war hospital 7 
The building burned 7 
CHAPTER II. 
THE GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE. 
The pauper problem 8 
Poorhouses in the District of Columbia 8 
Provisions for the insane 8 
Insane asylums in the various States 8 
First action by Congress as to the insane 8 
Caleb Cushing's inquiry 9 
Provision for the District insane at Baltimore 9 
The "old jail" to be fitted as an asylum 9 
Failure of the project 10 
V VI 
CONTEXTS. 
. age. 
Reform in the management of insane asylums 10 
Work of Piuel and Tuke 10 
Mechanical restraint abolished in England 10 
Four insane asylums in the United States in 1800 10 
Introduction of the reform ideas into this country 11 
Dorothea Lynde Dix 11 
Beginning of Miss Dix's work in Massachusetts 11 
Founding of the asylums at Trenton, N. J., and Harrisburg, Pa 12 
Sketch of Miss Dix 12 
The "Five Million Acres" bill 13 
The bill vetoed by President Pierce 14 
A Government hospital for the insane started 14 
A portion of the St. Elizabeth grant favored for a location 14 
Reluctance of Thomas Blagden to sell 15 
Beginning of the work 15 
Organization of the asylum 15 
Dr. Miller's claims 16 
Regulation of admissions 16 
Membership of the first board of visitors 17 
The hospital during the rebellion 18 
Then first known as "St. Elizabeth '' 18 
Dr. Charles H. Nichols 18 
Dr. W. W. Godding 19 
Dr. J. M. Toner 20 
CHAPTER III. 
THE COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
Deaf and dumb children brought from New York City 21 
A deaf and dumb school started 21 
Hon. Amos Kendall 22 
Story of his interest in the deaf and dumb 22 
Sketch of his life 23 
Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind 23 
Edward Miner Gallaudet appointed superintendent 23 
Other instructors and officers 23 
Provisions for the admission of pupils 23 
The Washington Manual Labor School and Male Orphan Asylum 24 
Industrial education provided for 24 
Board of directors of the Columbian Institution to grant degrees 24 
National Deaf-Mute College 24 
Mr. Kendall succeeded by Dr. Gallaudet as president 25 
Successes of graduates 25 
Free scholarships . 26 
The blind children transferred to the Maryland Asylum 26 
Course of study for the blind 27 
Enlargement of the Columbia Institution 27 
Contributors to the fund 27 
The gymnasium 28 
The Gallaudet College 28 
Action of the alumni 28 
Address of President Welling 28 
The Kendall School 29 
The French statue of Dr. Thomas Gallaudet 29 
The normal department 30 
Representation by Congress on the board of trustees 30 CONTENTS. 
VII 
CHAPTER IV. 
GOVERNMENT HOSPITALS AND ASYLUMS. 
Page- 
Charities before the war of the rebellion 31 
Washington during the war 31 
Influx of camp followers 31 
War hospitals 32 
Churches and schoolhouses turned into hospitals 32 
List of army hospitals in the District of Columbia during the war 32 
The Army Medical Museum 36 
Ford's Theater 36 
Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion 36 
Index to the Library of the Surgeon-Geueral's Office 36 
The Soldiers' Home 36 
Funds for support 37 
Located by Gen. Winfield Scott 37 
Officers of the Home 37 
Amusements 37 
Societies 37 
Expenses 37 
Accommodations 38 
Hospital facilities 39 
The Naval Hospital 39 
Work of the hospital 39 
Improvements suggested . 40 
CHAPTER V. 
GENERAL HOSPITALS. 
The Providence Hospital 41 
Dr. Toner's efforts to establish a hospital 41 
A hospital opened by the Sisters of Charity of Emmitsburg,Md 41 
First public announcement 42 
Interest of Thaddeus Stevens, Samuel J. Randall, and James A. Garfield. 42 
Appropriations for the support of the indigent sick 42 
Appropriations for building 42 
The hospital and equipment 43 
Sister Beatrice 43 
Physicians of the District may take patients 44 
Persons receiving treatment 44 
The medical staff 44 
Movement for a new hospital 45 
The situation stated 45 
Dr. Ashford's memorial 46 
Original suggestion for a memorial hospital 46 
A public meeting called 47 
The general committee formed 47 
The Garfield Memorial Hospital 47 
Secretary Blaine's circular 47 
Secretary Frelinghuysen's appeal 48 
Resolutions of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia 49 
The hospital incorporated 49 
The Ladies' Aid Association organized 49 
The first report 50 
Transfer of the property of the National Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' 
Home 50 
Congressman Blount's opposition 50 VIII 
CONTENTS. 
The Garfield Memorial Hospital-Continued. Page. 
Protest of twenty-six physicians 50 
The "Wirt House" 52 
Plan of organization 52 
The "Haw Mansion" purchased 53 
The hospital opened 53 
Gifts to the hospital 54 
The first patient 55 
Struggles with the finances ; 55 
The mite box 55 
Congressional aid lacking 56 
Dr. Toner succeeds Dr. May 57 
Death of Mr. Justice Miller 57 
Mr. Justice Harlan becomes president 58 
Mrs. Garfield at the hospital 58 
The V ictoria room 58 
Work of the Ladies' Aid Association 59 
The buildings 59 
The General Government and the hospital 60 
Official character of the enterprise 60 
Royal subscribers to the fund 60 
Failure of the Windom bill 61 
Emancipation and colonization 61 
Appropriations to purchase stoves 61 
Failure of the colonization plan 62 
The Freedmen's Bureau 62 
Extent and character of the work 62 
Refugees ponr into Washington 63 
Necessity for a hospital 63 
Camp Barker 64 
The Freedmen's Hospital 64 
Dr. Robert Reyburn 64 
Hospitals of the Freedmen's Bureau.... 64 
Consolidation of the hospitals 65 
Number of persons under treatment 65 
Rations issued to the Freedmen's Hospital 65 
Buildings leased from Howard University 66 
Dr. George S. Palmer as surgeon in charge 66 
Instructions from the Interior Department 66 
Dr. C. B. Purvis succeeds Dr. Palmer 67 
Freedmen's Hospital under the War Department 67 
Dr. Daniel H. Williams, as surgeon in charge 67 
Control of admissions 68 
Training school for nurses 68 
The National Homeopathic Hospital 68 
Early efforts to establish the hospital 69 
Project for consolidation with the Garfield Memorial Hospital 69 
The aid of Congress invoked 69 
Chief Justice Waite as president 69 
Increase in the number of homeopathic physicians 70 
Early officers 70 
Training school for nurses 70 
Bequest of Mrs. Nancy B. Scudder 71 
Questions of finance and management 72 
The St. Felicitas Guild 73 
The Washington Asylum Hospital 73 
The smallpox hospital 73 CONTENTS. 
IX 
CHAPTER VI. 
HOSPITALS FOR SPECIAL CLASSES. 
Paga. 
The Columbia Hospital for Women 74 
Dr. J. Harry Thompson's reports 74 
Need of a hospital for women 74 
Secretary of War Stanton sends supplies 75 
The hospital opened in the Hill mansion 75 
First Congressional appropriation 75 
Management of the hospital 76 
A dispensary established 76 
A permanent Government institution 77 
Misapplication of charities 77 
Financial tangles as to the site 77 
Dr. Thompson succeeded by Dr. Patrick J. Murphy 79 
Board of lady visitors 79 
Cost of hospital work 79 
A visiting committee 80 
Board of visiting physicians 81 
A reorganization effected 81 
The Stone-Thompson report 81 
The Bov^e-King report 82 
The training school for nurses 82 
The Children's Hospital 83 
Dr. S. C. Busey starts the project for a children's hospital 83 
Incorporation 84 
Dr. James C. Hall's bequest 84 
The first home of the hospital 85 
The management 85 
Gifts and endowments 86 
Reports of President S. V. Niles 86 
Board of lady visitors 87 
Amendments to the by-laws 88 
Training school for nurses 88 
Contributions to the hospital 89 
Central Dispensary and Emergency Hospital 90 
Beginning of the dispensary work 91 
First medical staff 91 
Connection with Georgetown University 92 
First patient admitted for operation and treatment 93 
Need of an accident hospital 93 
Removal to new quarters 94 
Scanty equipment 94 
Changes among the officers 95 
Purchase of a building 96 
Memorial rooms 97 
Washington Home for Incurables 99 
Early struggles 99 
Work of the hospital 100 
Dispensaries and church charities 100 
Children's Country Home 101 
Diet Kitchen 101 
CHAPTER VII. 
FOUNDLING ASYLUMS. 
St. Ann's Infant Asylum 102 
A lying-in department established 102 X 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
Washington Hospital for Foundlings 103 
Bequest of Joshua Pierce 104 
Plans prepared by Surgeon John S. Billings, U. S. A 104 
Government appropriations 105 
Regulation of admissions 105 
Directors 105 
The Pierce Guild 105 
A country home 106 
CHAPTER VIII. 
ORPHAN ASYLUMS. 
Washington City Orphan Asylum 107 
Needs created by the war of 1812 107 
Meeting in the Hall of Representatives 107 
Mrs. James Madison, first directress 108 
Meeting at Wesley Chapel 108 
Mrs. James Monroe elected first directress, but resigns 109 
Mrs. John P. Van Ness selected , 109 
Sacrifices her life during Asiatic cholera 109 
Gifts of Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Monroe 109 
The institution incorporated 110 
Donation of city lots 110 
Schools started 110 
W. W. Corcoran gives the site for a new building Ill 
Laying of the corner stone Ill 
The State Department uses the building Ill 
Mrs. S. P. Lee, first directress Ill 
Bequest of Dr. Hall Ill 
Gift of a site by Mr. Corcoran 112 
Number of inmates in 1867 112 
Plans for a new building drawn by J. C. Harkness 112 
State Department takes the building 112 
Mrs. S. P. Lee elected first directress 113 
"The Laurie fund" 113 
Outbreak of diphtheria Ill 
Utermehle and Thompson gifts 114 
St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum 115 
Established by Rev. Father Matthews in 1825 115 
A gift of lots 115 
St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum 116 
The incorporators 116 
Limitations on the value of property... 116 
The National Soldiers and Sailors' Orphan Home 117 
Mrs. U. S. Grant, president 117 
Appropriations 117 
Property transferred to the Garfield Memorial Hospital 118 
The Church Orphanage of St. John's Parish 118 
Desirability of religious instruction 119 
Invested funds 120 
A branch home for boys 121 
CHAPTER IX. 
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 
The Industrial Home School 122 
Success of industrial schools elsewhere 123 CONTENTS. 
XI 
The Industrial Home School-Continued. Page. 
Reports of the District Commissioners 124 
School sustained by private benevolence 124 
The St. Rose Industrial School 125 
Congressional appropriations 125 
Places found for girls in other cities 126 
The National Association for Destitute Colored Women and Children 126 
Charter provisions 126 
Secretary Stanton furnishes a house and grounds 127 
Death of the original promoters 127 
Teacher sent by the Worcester Freedmen's Aid Society 128 
Senator Pomeroy's interest 128 
Richard S. Cox appeals to President Johnson 128 
Confiscation proceedings 129 
Mrs. Abraham Lincoln's gifts 129 
Report for 1897 130 
The Newsboys and Children's Aid Society 130 
Interest of Chief Justice Waite and Justice Miller 130 
George Maulsby Memorial Home 131 
Wards of the Board of Children's Guardians 132 
German Orphan Asylum 133 
Defect in the title 133 
A new building 134 
Legacies 134 
Connection with the Humane Society 135 
Present management 136 
CHAPTER X. 
INSTITUTIONS FOR WOMEN. 
The Woman's Christian Association 137 
A Congressional appropriation lor a building 137 
A "Women's Exchange" 138 
The foster home 138 
W ork in 1897 139 
The Young. Women's Christian Home 139 
Gift of Miss Kibbie 140 
Work and officers in 1897 140 
The House of the Good Shepherd 141 
Congressional appropriations 141 
Reformatory and the preservation class 141 
The Florence Crittenton Hope and Help Mission 141 
Homes in other cities 142 
Mr. Charles N. Crittenton 142 
The Women's Union Christian Association 143 
Home for Friendless Colored Girls 143 
Gift of Miss Maria Stoddard 143 
Death of Miss Caroline Taylor 143 
The Association for Works of Mercy 143 
The Bruen Home 143 
CHAPTER XI. 
HOMES FOR THE AGED. 
The Louise Home 144 
William Wilson Corcoran, sketch of 144 
Business successes 145 XII 
CONTENTS. 
The Louise Home-Continued. Page. 
The Corcoran Art Gallery 145 
Trustees of the Louise Home appointed 145 
Board of directresses 146 
Endowment and terms of admission 147 
The Methodist Home 148 
Requirements for admission 149 
Supported by the churches 149 
The Home for the Aged 149 
Congressional gifts 150 
CHAPTER XII. 
TEMPORARY REFUGES FOR MEN. 
The Temporary Home for ex-Union Soldiers and Sailors 151 
Reasons for its establishment 151 
Number accommodated 151 
Management ' 151 
Municipal Lodging House 152 
The Washington Night Lodging House 152 
Placed under municipal control 152 
Central Union Mission 153 
Branches 153 
Industrial department 153 
Difficulties of disposing of the product 153 
The religious work 153 
CHAPTER XIII. 
REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS. 
The Reform School for Boys 154 
The Guardian Society 154 
Supported by Washington and Georgetown jointly 155 
First admissions 155 
An unhealthy site 156 
A new locatiou 156 
Financial difficulties 156 
The buildings 157 
Transfer of management to the Department of Justice 159 
Control of expenses with the District Commissioners 160 
The Reform School for Girls 160 
Timothy Lubey's recommendations 160 
George A. Caswell's plea 161 
The police reports as to the need of an asylum 162 
The school incorporated 162 
The first appropriation 162 
Beginnings of the school 163 
Crowded condition of the school 164 
Cooperation with the Board of Children's Guardians 165 
CHAPTER XIV. 
THE RELIEF OF THE POOR. 
The first appropriation 167 
The arsenal explosion 167 
The Washington Market Company 167 
Operations of the board of health 168 CONTENTS. 
XIII 
The health office 168 
Dr. Townsend reports a lack of medical attendance 168 
Colored population of Washington 168 
Physicians to the poor 169 
Volunteer physicians 170 
Who are worthy objects of charity? 170 
The sanitary office 171 
Insane found in the streets 171 
Transportation of paupers 171 
Fund for the relief of the poor 171 
Willard Hall meeting of 1881 172 
Distribution by the police 172 
Subsequent work 172 
The Associated Charities 174 
Washington Humane Society 176 
CHAPTER XV. 
THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITIES. 
The subject broached 177 
Col. Timothy Lubey's report 177 
Unification of charities desired by the Commissioners 177 
District charities fragmentary and incomplete 178 
An inspector of charities suggested 179 
Inspections by the police surgeons 179 
Sanitary condition of charitable institutions 179 
A second examination 180 
Ch anges suggested ■ 181 
Report of W. S. Matthews 182 
Duplication of charities 182 
Commissioners without means to correct the evil 183 
A superintendent of charities 183 
Reports of Mr. Amos G. Warner 183 
CHAPTER XVI. 
THE HOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
The care of dependent children 185 
Report of the superintendent of charities 185 
Act creating the Board of Children's Guardians 188 
The first board 189 
Temporary organization 190 
Administrative expenses 191 
Changes in appropriations 192 
A policy adopted 193 
Children committed to the board 194 
Action of the courts 194 
Work of the first year 195 
Changes in membership 195 
Appropriations reduced 196 
Visitation of placed-out children 197 
Increase in the number of dependents 198 
Records of children 199 
A farm school established 200 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
Facing 
page. 
Government Hospital for the Insane, origi- 
nal sketch 2 
Main entrance 4 
West Lodge for colored males 4 
Atkins Hall 6 
Home and Relief buildings 6 
East Lodge (for colored insane women) 
and Dix Building 8 
Gate house at entrance 8 
Howard Hall for criminal insane 10 
Toner Building 10 
Borrows Cottage 12 
Godding Croft, manor house 12 
Steamer house and clock house 14 
The Oaks, main epileptic building 14 
Retreat and main wing of the hospital. 15 
"The Rest" (pathological building).... 15 
Dining hall for detached buildings 16 
Dining hall for detached buildings (in- 
terior) 16 
Assembly room 18 
Borrows Hall (interior) 18 
Barns and piggery 19 
Herd of Holsteins 19 
Columbia Institution for the Deaf and 
Dumb 21 
Group of buildings 22 
Chapel 24 
Dormitory for females 25 
Gallaudet statue 26 
Gymnasium 28 
Boys' dormitory 29 
The Soldiers' Home 34 
United States Naval Hospital (front and 
rear views) 36 
The Providence Hospital 41 
Operating room 42 
Public ward 43 
Private room 44 
Corridor 45 
Garfield Memorial Hospital 50 
Plan of grounds 54 
Public ward 56 
Stable and mortuary 58 
Freedmen's Hospital, Howard University 
school and medical building 62 
Entrance 64 
National Homeopathic Hospital 68 
Washington Asylum Hospital 73 
Columbia Hospital for Women 76 
The Children's Hospital 82 
Rearview 84 
Facing 
page. 
The Children's Hospital-Continued. 
Reception room 84 
Surgical white ward 86 
Surgical colored ward 86 
Medical white ward 88 
Medical colored ward 88 
Babies' ward 89 
Galt room 89 
Central Dispensary and Emergency Hos- 
pital 90 
Dispensary room 92 
Washington Home for Incurables 100 
St. Ann's Infant Asylum 102 
Washington Hospital for Foundlings 104 
Washington City Orphan Asylum 108 
St. Vincent's Female Orphan Asylum 116 
St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum 116 
Church Orphanage of St. John's Parish.... 118 
Industrial Home School (front and side 
views) * 122 
St. Rose Industrial School 126 
National Association for the Relief of Des- 
titute Colored Women and Children 128 
Newsboys and Childrens' Aid Society 130 
German Orphan Asylum (front and side 
views) 134 
Women's Christian Association 137 
Young Women's Christian Home 138 
House of the Good Shepherd 141 
Florence Crittenton Mission 142 
House of Mercy 143 
Louise Home 146 
Home for the Aged of the Little Sisters of 
the Poor 149 
Temporary Home forex-Union Soldiers and 
Sailors 152 
Municipal Lodging House 152 
Reform School for Boys, main building .... 154 
A, family building 156 
B, family building 157 
D, family building 158 
Greenhouses and spring ..... 159 
Manual training school and bakery .... 160 
Old farm building 162 
The barn 163 
Reform School for Girls 164 
Hart Farm School, rear view and barns 186 
Farmhouse and log house 188 
Interior of log house 194 
Officers and teachers 194 
Potomac inlet 200 
Kentucky thoroughbred "Phalas" .... 200 
XIV CHAPTER I. 
THE FIRST GENERAL HOSPITAL. 
IN the District of Columbia public charities and reformatory institu- 
tions had late beginnings and slow growth. Indeed, it was not 
until the war of the rebellion had enlarged, centralized and vitalized 
every municipal function that the capital city put away village things 
and began to be in reality what it was in name. 
So much has been written by early statesmen and travelers about 
theunhealthfulness of Washington in bygone days, that it would almost 
seem as if the Commissioners charged with laying out the Federal 
city had purposely selected swamps and morasses for the seat of 
government. Such, however, was not the fact. In 1797, Washington, 
then a city of 2,000 inhabitants, had not one fatal case of fever, nor 
any contagious or epidemic disorder; nor was the influenza that trav- 
eled from South to North in 1789-90 and returned from the Northeast 
to the South and West in 1807 any more severe in the District of Colum- 
bia than it was elsewhere. The bilious dysentery and yellow fever of 
1793 were common to all seacoast cities as far north as Providence, 
R. I.; and when the latter scourge, in 1798, carried off over three 
hundred residents of Alexandria, its origin was traced to tenement 
houses along the wharves, and its ravages were confined to the Virginia 
portion of the District.1 
The most striking proof, however, of the natural healthfulness of the 
District of Columbia is cited by Dr. Toner. Speaking at the close of 
the war of the rebellion, he says: 
There is scarcely another city in the United States or the world where the same 
amount of crowding of men and animals within the same compass, including military 
camps, hospitals, hotels, and slaughterhouses, would not have produced some terri- 
ble and devastating epidemic. Not even in the numerous hospitals established 
here, liable at all times to certain epidemics, did any disease prevail unfavorable to 
the general health.2 
Although public institutions were wanting in the early days, the 
highest officials were not lacking in public spirit. One day in the 
1 Anniversary oration delivered before the Medical Society of the District of 
Columbia, September 26, 1866. By J. M. Toner, M. D., Washington, D. C., 1869, p. 75. 
The death rate from 1820 to 1829 was 1 in 53. See Elliot's Historical Sketches of the 
Ten Miles Square. 1830. p. 200. 
2 Toner's Anniversary Orativn, p. 74. 
1 
72G0 1 2 
THE FIRST GENERAL HOSPITAL. 
spring of 1801, President Jefferson received in his mail, from Monticello, 
two specimens of vaccine lymph, the gift of Benjamin Waterhouse, of 
Boston. One of these specimens came from Dr. Jenner, the discoverer 
of its virtues; the other Dr. Waterhouse had cultivated. Placed in 
the hands of Dr. Edward Gantt, of Georgetown, the supply sufficed to 
vaccinate over three hundred persons connected with the Executive 
Mansion or in the families of the President's neighbors.1 
Again, in 1833, when the smallpox prevailed in Washington, Presi- 
dent Jackson's coachman, Charles, was seized with the disease in its 
severest form. The other servants of the White House were so badly 
frightened that they would not nurse him, and no competent nurse was 
to be had from the outside. Now, Jackson was much attached to Charles, 
who had been his body servant during his southern campaigns; so he 
made an isolated ward in the Executive Mansion and installed himself 
as nurse, remaining on duty until his servant was out of danger.2 
Smallpox was prevalent in Washington in 1828, 1833, and 1846. 
From the first the Medical Society of the District of Columbia con- 
sulted and labored to arrest the spread of the scourge. Gratuitous 
vaccinations were proffered both by the corporation and by the physi- 
cians generally. The official body that appears as the moving force in 
arousing and shaping public sentiment was the board of health of 
Washington City, organized by the corporation, by the act of August 
14, 1819, and presided over for fourteen years by Dr. Henry Huntt.3 
II. 
The first charitable institution in the District of Columbia was the 
poorhouse, established by a law of the corporation passed October 31, 
1806. At that time $2,000 was appropriated to buy a lot and to erect 
suitable buildings, "the more effectually to provide for the poor, dis- 
abled, and infirm persons." The euphonious name of Washington 
1 Jefferson's letter to John R. Coxe. See North Carolina Medical Journal, January, 
1881. Also State Department MSS. letters from Jefferson to J. R. Coxe aud Dr. 
Waterhouse. 
2 Related by Dr. Toner, on the authority of President Jackson's family physician, 
Dr. J. C. Hall. See Anniversary Oration, p. 77. 
3The members of the first board were: First Ward, Drs. Thomas Sim, Charles W. 
Goldsborough; Second Ward, Drs. Henry Huntt, Thomas H. Gillies; Third Ward, 
Drs. Thomas Sewall, Thomas Hughes; Fourth Ward, Drs. Frederick May, Elias B. 
Caldwell; Fifth Ward, Drs. John Rodgers, Samuel N. Smallwood; Sixth Ward, Drs. 
Charles B. Hamilton, Edward Semmes. The board of health continued until tire 
permanent form of government was adopted in 1878, when the duties of the board 
were vested in the health office. 
The Medical Society of the District of Columbia was incorporated by act of Con- 
gress approved February 16, 1819. The leading members of the Medical Society 
were also members of the board of health. Thus, Dr. Huntt was corresponding sec- 
retary of the Medical Society, and Thomas Sim and Frederick May were members 
of the board of examiners. Dr. Charles Worthington was the first president of the 
society. The society forfeited its charter in 1834, and a new charter was granted 
by the act of July 7, 1838. Dr. S. C. Busey's Reminiscences aud his Addresses and 
Communications contain much information in regard to the Medical Society. HOSPITAL™ THE INSANE or THE ARMY AND NAVY ano the DISTRICTor COLUMBIA THE WASHINGTON ASYLUM. 
3 
Infirmary was the official title of the institution; but in those days of 
plain things the place was always known as the poorhouse. It was 
located on the square between M and N and Sixth and Seventh streets, 
where it continued until about 1816, when it was merged into the 
Washington Asylum, built upon the site, on the banks of the Anacos- 
tia, given by the Government in 1843.1 Although not a hospital in the 
modern sense of the word, for thirty-live years the Washington poor- 
house had for its medical officer Dr. Alexander McWilliams, who there 
used with uniform success the mode of making extension in fractures 
by the application of strips of adhesive plaster, an application in sur- 
gery that he first brought to the notice of the medical profession.2 
The need of a public hospital grew with the growth of the cities of 
Washington and Georgetown; and in 1820 Dr. Thomas Ewell, one of 
the leading physicians of Washington, proposed, in the National Intel- 
ligencer of September 2, that the corporations of the two municipalities 
establish the Columbia Hospital, to be supported by annual appropria- 
tions based on their respective populations. The two cities at the time 
had about 20,000 people. The object of the hospital as set forth by Dr. 
Ewell throws a strong light on the then existing situation. The indi- 
gent sick were placed with the old and infirm, with the usual results on 
both sides of such a blending. The management of the institution was 
to consist of all the clergymen and all the members of the corporations 
of Washington and Georgetown; the medical department was to be 
exclusively under the control of the regularly qualified physicians of 
the two corporations, each in succession sharing the duties and each 
having the right to witness the practice of the others; all members of 
the corporation and all contributors were to have the right to send such 
patients as they deemed worthy, excepting only that those sending 
slaves should pay the cost of their accommodation. 
With a rare foresight, Dr. Ewell suggested that the hospital consist 
of small buildings of the plainest kind, detached from each other to 
prevent the propagation of infectious diseases and maniacs from being 
made more mad by hearing each others'cries; each house to contain 
not more than six or eight persons, except a center building for resi- 
dent officers, an apothecary shop, and a room for teaching women the 
duties they should perform to each other in childbed, or for other pur- 
poses of lecturing. Here in embryo were the contagious ward and the 
clinic not yet realized, and the training school for nurses but lately 
established. Unfortunately the times were not then ripe for the enter- 
prise,3 and nothing came of the plan. 
'For the inadequacy of the relief furnished see report of Mr. Powers to House of 
Representatives, March 3, 1830, quoted in Elliot's Historical Sketches, p. 519. 
2 Toner's Anniversary Oration, p. 77. 
3 During the war of 1812 the Government maintained one military hospital on 
Greenleafs Point, on P street south, fronting the Arsenal Grounds; probably another 
on the corner of Vermont avenue and H street, and possibly one on Capitol Hill. 
These hospitals were under the direction of Dr. Janies Heigbe Blake, who was 
appointed by President Madison. Dr. Blake was mayor of Washington from 1813 
to 1818, and at the time of his death (1819) was Register of Wills. 4 
THE FIRST GENERAL HOSPITAL. 
III. 
The cholera epidemic of 1832 developed three temporary hospitals in 
Washington, one in Georgetown, and one in Alexandria.' The medical 
staffs of these hospitals were appointed by the board of health on 
August 7, 1832; and after the subsidence of the disease the board of 
health took the lead in a series of meetings designed to arouse public 
sentiment on the subject of a general hospital. Indeed, matters went 
so far as the appointment of a committee to select a site for the new 
institution, and the committee performed its task by recommending 
two sites, with a preference for the Church Reservation, so called, 
whereon the Interior Department building now stands. The board of 
health also appointed committees to present to Congress the need of a 
general hospital for the capital city, and from 1832 to 1837 this com- 
mittee conscientiously fulfilled its duty of memorializing Congress. 
The arguments of the memorial of the board of health and the medical 
society were embodied in a report made to the Senate by Mr. Williams 
on January 12, 1838. It appears that even in those days aged and 
infirm soldiers and sailors from every part of the United States were 
accustomed to visit Washington to prosecute their pension and other 
claims, and too often became a charge upon the public; and also that 
great suffering and loss of life were the consequences-as during the 
cholera epidemic of 1832-of having no regular hospital. The debt of 
the city of Washington being then $825,000, and the rate of interest 6 
per cent per annum, the tax of more than 75 cents upon every $100 of 
property liable to taxation was so great a burden as to preclude the 
supporting a hospital by general taxation. Moreover, a large portion 
of the property in the city belonged to the Government, and paid 
nothing toward the necessary expenditures of the city; otherwise, there 
would be no need for such a call on Congress. The bill was reported 
with an amendment limiting to $75,000 the entire expenditure for a 
hospital to accommodate between 30 and 40 insane and about 100 indi- 
gent sick. The bill, however, failed, and after six years of appealing 
1 Of the Washington hospitals, the Western was located on the south side of M 
street north, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets, in a double brick house 
belonging to Alexander Clements. The attending physicians were Drs. N. W. 
Waters and R. Brisco. The latter gave way to Dr. W. B. Magruder. The consult- 
ing physicians were Drs. Thomas Sims, J. M. Thomas, and Richmond Johnson. The 
Central hospital was located first at 447 Tenth street, and afterwards was removed 
to the house of W. J. Stone, corner Eleventh street and Pennsylvania avenue. The 
attending physicians were Drs. A. McD. Davis, T. R. Miller, Janies Waring, B. Mil- 
ler, and Joseph Borrows. The consulting physicians were Drs. Henry Huntt, N. I'. 
Causin, and Thomas Sewall. The Eastern hospital was located on the west side 
of Fourteenth street east, between K street and Georgia avenue. The attending 
physicians were Drs. Noble Young, T. J. Boyd, and R. T. Barry. The consulting 
physicians were Drs. Frederick May and Alexander McWilliams. In Georgetown a 
hotel on the west side of High street, between Bridge and Water streets. The physi- 
cians in charge were Drs. Charles H. Lamb, N. W. Worthington, B. S. Bohrer, and 
Joshua Riley. The total number of deaths from cholera was 459. ST. ELIZABETH-MAIN ENTRANCE. 
ST. ELIZABETH-WEST LODGE (FOR COLORED MALES), 1853 AND 1873. PROVISION FOR THE INSANE. 
5 
to deaf ears, the board of health desisted for a time, only to renew the 
attack later, and with success. 
After struggling along for nearly half a century without any public 
hospital facilities, Washington obtained its first hospital through one 
of those blunders of impulse to which legislative bodies are subject. 
IV. 
The act of August 29, 1842, appropriated $10,000 to be spent in 
fitting up the old jail on Judiciary Square for use as an insane asylum. 
The movement that led Congress to make provision for the insane is 
discussed elsewhere. The repairs having been completed, it was found 
expedient to continue to send some insane patients to hospitals in other 
cities and to confine others in jails and almshouses. There being no 
use for the newly fitted asylum, Congress graciously passed the act of 
June 15, 1844, whereby the commissioner of public buildings was 
"directed to allow the medical faculty of Columbian College to occupy 
the insane hospital, with the adjoining grounds, situated in Judiciary 
Square, in Washington, for the purpose of an infirmary, for medical 
instruction, and for scientific purposes, on condition that they shall 
give satisfactory security to keep the said building in repair and return 
it, witii the grounds, to the Government in as good condition as they 
are now in, whenever required to do so."1 
On Friday, June 20, 1844, Drs. Thomas Sewall, Harvey Lindsly, 
Thomas Miller, John M. Thomas, William P. Johnston, and Charles G. 
Page-they being the medical faculty of the college at the time-met 
Commissioner of Public Buildings William Noland and jointly signed 
the lease and a bond of $10,000 conditioned on the faithful observance 
of the terms of the act of Congress. "These gentlemen," says Dr. 
Toner,2 "deserve the lasting gratitude of the community and the 
highest respect and admiration of their professional brethren for the 
tact, energy, and enterprise displayed in establishing the Washington 
Infirmary." 
•The medical department of Columbian College, the first medical school estab- 
lished in the District of Columbia, was completely organized on March 30, 1825, at 
No. 447 Tenth street. The introductory lecture on the history of medical colleges 
in the United States was delivered by Dr. Thomas Sewall. The third course of lec- 
tures was delivered in a new building on the corner of Tenth and E streets. From 
1834 to the first Monday in November, 1839, the school was in a state of suspended 
animation. In 1845 the college was removed to the Washington Infirmary, where it 
flourished under the new name of the National Medical College. When that build- 
ing was handed over to the Government, in April. 1861, the college occupied the Union 
Printing Office building, on E street, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets. From 
1863 until the autumn of 1865 lectures were suspended, and then were resumed in 
the law building of Columbian College, on Fifth street. In 1866 Mr. W. W. Corcoran 
furnished to the trustees of Columbian College the building on H street, between 
Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets, which is still used by the National Medical Col- 
lege. For a list of professors from 1821 to 1866 see Dr. Toner's Anniversary Oration, 
pp. 48, 49. 
2 Toner's Anniversary Oration, p. 55. 6 
THE FIRST GENERAL HOSPITAL. 
The faculty, at their own expense, proceeded to furnish the building 
and to make those improvements and alterations that were necessary 
to adapt it to hospital uses, and about the middle of July opened the 
first general hospital in Washington. Patients from the city or coun- 
try were admitted upon paying to the steward a small sum for board, 
the medical attendance of the faculty being furnished gratuitously. 
Clinical lectures were given daily, and the poor of Washington received 
advice and medicine without charge during an hour each morning.1 
From the beginning the institution found favor with the public, and 
in 1848 Congress, urged thereto by the faculty and by prominent citi- 
zens of the District, appropriated $2,000 "for the support, attention, 
and medical treatment of twelve transient paupers, medical or surgical 
patients, in the Washington Infirmary, to be expended under the super- 
vision of the commissioner of public buildings." The physicians and 
surgeons of the Infirmary were required to give bonds for the mainte- 
nance of twelve pauper patients during one year, if application be made 
for their reception, or bind themselves to keep rooms for the accommo- 
dation of twelve pauper patients weekly, on an average, during the year. 
Such was the amount appropriated and such were the conditions for 
six years from 1848 to 1853; and the amounts actually expended were 
$1,300 in 1849, $1,700 in 1850, $2,000 in each of the next three years, 
and $1,000 in 1854. 
Thus, at the very beginning of hospital appropriations, Congress 
established the principle of specific payments for specific service. 
So thoroughly did the institution commend itself to the public it 
served that when, on February 17, 1853, Representative Edward 
Stanley, of North Carolina, moved in Committee of the Whole an 
amendment to the general appropriation bill giving $20,000 to aid the 
directors of the Washington Infirmary to enlarge their accommoda- 
tions for the benefit of sick transient paupers, the House agreed to the 
motion, and four days later confirmed its action by a vote of 105 to 75. 
Thus the capacity of the hospital was more than doubled, and also the 
faculty gained a commodious lecture room. 
The enlarged building permitted, and the growth of the population 
demanded, increased appropriations. In 1854 and 1855 $3,000 was 
appropriated for the care of eighteen transient paupers, medical and 
surgical patients in Washington Infirmary; and a like amount was 
appropriated during each of the two succeeding years, the number of 
patients not being specified. From 1858 to 1861 the sum of $6,000 
a year was granted, to cover the cost of the care of forty patients. 
"The internal and domestic management of the Infirmary," says Dr. 
Toner, "was, after a short time, put under the direction of those excel- 
lent and humane nurses, the Sisters of Mercy. The institution was 
conducted with liberality to the poor, enlightened judgment, and pro- 
fessional ability, and was of incalculable usefulness in the relief of 
suffering, by the accommodation it afforded to strangers and others 
1 The free dispensary had been established as early as 1843.-Toner, p. 56. ST. ELIZABETH-ATKINS HALL, 1878. 
Home, 1883-84. 
Relief, 1879-80. 
ST. ELIZABETH THE WASHINGTON INFIRMARY. 
7 
compelled to resort to such an establishment. Its central position and 
large, airy rooms, with the assiduous attention given to patients by 
physicians and nurses, made it popular with the public and the 
profession."1 
While there could be no question as to the usefulness to the commu- 
nity of the Washington Infirmary, there was decided difference of opinion 
as to the advisability of the possession and occupation of a Government 
building and the management of a hospital deriving a considerable 
portion of its support from the General Government, in the exclusive 
interest of a medical school. No physician or student of medicine out- 
side Columbian College could gain official access to the hospital, and 
only a member of the college faculty could send there a private patient 
and still retain the management of the case. In 1854 Dr. Noble young 
endeavored to organize the opposition with a view to the separation of 
school and hospital, and later he tried to start a movement for a public 
general hospital. The first attempt failed because of the predominant 
influence of the college faculty; the second because of the lukewarm- 
ness of Congress. "With the abandonment of these projects," says 
Dr. Busey, "the controversy ceased, and the two schools, whether 
agreed or not, lived together in mutual but peaceful discontent."2 
Owing to the establishment of the Washington Infirmary, it hap- 
pened that when the war of the rebellion broke out the Government 
had at its command at the capital one hospital equipped for immediate 
work. The act of August 5, 1861, appropriated $5,BOO "for removing 
the stables and other obstructions around the Washington Infirmary, 
used as an army hospital, and grading said grounds to secure proper 
drainage of the same." What public sentiment was not strong enough 
to do war instantly accomplished. In April, 18G1, Columbian College, 
on demand, immediately relinquished the infirmary to the Government, 
and it was occupied as an army hospital until the night of November 
3,1861, when the building was totally destroyed by fire. That the Dis- 
trict patients were not turned out, however, is proved by the report of 
the commissioner of public buildings, who says that at the time of the 
fire he had in the building twenty patients, all of whom were safely 
taken out.3 The epitaph of the hospital is written in the act of June 
19,1862, which "authorizes and requires the Second Auditor of the 
Treasury to ascertain and determine the amount of property lost by 
each of the Sisters of Charity and female servants employed in the 
Washington Infirmary at the time of its conflagration, on the night of 
the 3d of November, 1861." The sum of $598 was found to be suffi- 
cient to cover the loss. 
So ended the first public hospital in Washington. 
1 Toner's Anniversary Oration, p. 57. 
2 Personal reminiscences and recollections of forty-six years'membership in the 
Medical Society of the District of Columbia and residence in this city, with bio- 
graphical sketches of many of the deceased members. By Samuel C. Busey, M. D., 
LL. D., president of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, 1877, 1894, and 
1895. Washington, 1895. 
3 Ex. Doc. No. 1, Thirty-seventh Congress, second session, p. 851. CHAPTER II. 
THE GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE. 
ON January 12, 1838, Mr. Williams, from the Senate Committee on the 
District of Columbia, reported a bill to authorize the erection of a 
hospital in the city of Washington. The measure originated in a peti- 
tion from the board of health and the Medical Society of the District 
of Columbia, in which petition it was shown that the establishment of 
a lunatic asylum in connection with a general hospital was greatly 
needed. With a population of 40,000 there were 180 paupers supported 
in three poorhouses (one in Washington, a second in Georgetown, and a 
third in Alexandria) at an annual expense of $10,000. These poor- 
houses were so full that many deserving cases had to be turned away; 
and even at that early date persons coming to the capital from distant 
parts of the Union, with real or imaginary claims, became a chargeon 
the community to such an extent that more than one half of the paupers 
were nonresidents. There were at this time 40 insane persons charged 
to the District, of whom 12 were sent to hospitals in distant States; 5 
were in common jails "among debtors, vagrants, and criminals of all 
colors and characters, in crowded, ill-ventilated apartments, where 
moral and medical treatment are not to be expected; and the balance 
are managed by their friends in the best way their means and inclina- 
tions may permit." 
It was noted in the report that the attention of the public, as well as 
of several State legislatures, within a few years past, had been much 
given to the highly interesting and humane subject of providing the 
best means and accommodations for the comfort as well as the restora- 
tion of the insane, and that important results had been realized in the 
construction of commodious hospitals in Maine, Massachusetts, Ver- 
mont, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, 
and other States, and the committee did not doubt that the nation 
would sanction any reasonable expenditure for a hospital at the seat 
of government.1 
The first Congressional provision for the separate care and treatment 
of the indigent insane of the District of Columbia is to be found in an 
1 Twenty-fifth Congress, second session, Senate Report No. 98. McKee's Compila- 
tion, vol. 2. 
8 East lodge (colored insane women), 1854 and 1887. 
Dix Building, 1 893 
(female epileptic insane). 
ST. ELIZABETH. 
ST, ELIZABETH -GATEHOUSE AT ENTRANCE, 1874. THE PROBLEM BEFOBE CONGBESS. 
9 
act approved February 2,1841, authorizing' the marshal for the District 
to send to the lunatic asylum in Baltimore all such lunatic persons as 
were confined in the jails of Washington and Alexandria counties, 
and all such as might be considered lunatics by the circuit or criminal 
courts; to pay for their removal and maintenance, and to be allowed 
for the same in his settlements with the Treasury.1 
In discussing the measure, Caleb Cushing inquired why, if the 
lunatics were paupers, they were confined in the common jail, instead 
of in the almshouse; to which Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, answered 
that it would not be safe to place among the paupers the twelve luna- 
tics then in prison with common criminals, and that the Baltimore 
asylum was willing to receive them at moderate prices. The debate 
developed the fact that these twelve lunatics were without the common 
necessaries of life; that they were obliged to lie on the prison floor; 
that they were supported by the corporation of the city at a cost of $2 
a week; that no provision was made for their treatment; and that, as 
Air. Reed remarked, the wretched accommodation in the jail was suffi- 
cient to make a man a lunatic, whether he was previously so or not.1 
Subsequently the marshal was authorized to place the insane in such 
hospital as he might select, consulting economy in the selection;2 also 
the amount to be paid was limited to $4 per week;3 and in 1851 it was 
given to the Secretary of the Interior to determine where insane 
paupers should be placed for support and medical treatment.4 The 
control of the, treatment of insane paupers is now with the District 
authorities. In 1845 an appropriation of $5,000 was made for the 
liquidation of the debt due to the Maryland hospital for the support 
of lunatic paupers of the District of Columbia; and subsequent appro- 
priations were made for the same object until September 30, 1850. 
Then for four years, or until August 4, 1854, sums varying from $8,000 
to $12,000 a year were expended under the direction of the Secretary 
of the Interior for the care of the insane. From 1851 to 1856 the 
amount expended for this purpose was $04,697.37.5 
II. 
The act of August 29,1842, provided that the commissioner of public 
buildings should cause alterations to be made in the "old jail" to 
adapt it for the reception and accommodation for the insane of the 
District of Columbia, and all such sick, disabled, and infirm seamen, 
soldiers, and others deemed proper to be received therein. When the 
building should be completed, the President was authorized to appoint 
three respectable persons, residents of the city of Washington, to be 
1 Congressional Globe, Twenty-sixth Congress, second session, p. 86. 
2 Act approved An gust 3, 1841. 
3 Acts of June 15, 1814; March 3, 1845; May 8, 1846. 
4 Act approved March 3, 1851. 
6 Ex. Doc. No. 84, Forty-fifth Congress, second session. 10 
THE GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE. 
a board of inspectors of the new institution, and to hold their offices for 
two years from the date of their appointment. To them was given a 
general supervision over the comforts of the hospital, with power to 
appoint the necessary subordinate officers thereof and to prescribe rules 
for the admission and the regulation of the patients therein. The sum 
of $10,000 was appropriated to carry out the provisions of the act. 
This was the beginning of the project for a combined hospital for the 
Army and Navy and for the District of Columbia. 
The building in question was originally the jail of Washington County, 
and was located on Judiciary Square. After it was refitted for the pur- 
poses of an insane asylum, Congress decided to continue the treatment 
of the insane at Baltimore; and, as has already been noted, the build- 
ing was turned over to the medical faculty of the Columbian College 
for the purposes of a public hospital.1 
Thus the first attempts to establish in the District of Columbia a 
hospital for the insane failed, and the old system of placing insane 
patients in the asylums of the States was continued. It is not at all 
surprising that such was the result, for at this time the modern ideas 
as to the treatment of this unfortunate class of persons had not begun 
to prevail. It was not until 1792 that Dr. Philippe Pinel, the superin- 
tendent of the Bicetre, the Paris asylum for incurable insane males, 
broke the iron chains and banished the cages that made a hundred 
madmen where they cured one. The idea of cultivating the germ of 
rationality that exists in every insane person was entirely novel; but 
once put into practice a revolution began. Four years after Pinel, 
William Take, a member of the Society of Friends, began at York, 
England, experiments that led him, entirely independently, to the same 
goal that the French physician had already reached. It was so late as 
1838, however, that Dr. Gardner Hill and Dr. Charlesworth, braving 
the opposition of both hospital authorities and medical men, abolished 
mechanical restraint at the Lincoln Asylum in England, and dared to 
treat insane persons who were not bound hand and foot, neck and 
waist. 
At the beginning of the present century there were four insane asy- 
lums in the United States: That at Philadelphia, established in 1752; 
one in Williamsburg, Va., founded in 1773, and notable as the first 
State insane asylum; one in New York, dating from 1791; and the one 
in Baltimore, established in 1797, which was used by the Washington 
authorities charged with the care of the insane. All of these institu- 
tions were conducted according to the old theory that an insane person 
was more dangerous than a wild beast, and was utterly devoid of 
human feelings. In 1817, Philadelphia Friends transplanted from Eng- 
land the vines whose slow but sure growth Take had watched over. 
The McLean Asylum at Somerville, Mass. (1818); the Retreat at Hart- 
1 For a racy discussion of the problem of the insane see the Washington Directory 
for 1813, p. 51. ST. ELIZABETH-HOWARD HALL (FOR CRIMINAL INSANE), 1887 AND 1892. 
ST. ELIZABETH-TONER BUILDING, 1889-1891 DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
11 
ford, Conn. (1824); ami the Worcester, Mass., Asylum (1830), were 
founded on the theories of Pinel and Tuke. These efforts, however, 
were but tentative. They were conducted privately by a few leaders 
who were far in advance of public sentiment. The people had yet to 
be aroused to the horrors of the madhouse as they existed in every 
community; and until they should be so aroused the authorities could 
not be forced to act. 
The wretched condition of the indigent insane in Washington, into 
which Caleb Cushing so casually inquired on the floor of the House, 
was similar to that of the indigent insane throughout the land; but in 
Mr. Cushing's own State a delicate girl was to be brought face to face 
with these horrors, and was to preach the gospel of reform with such 
persistence and tact that legislature after legislature was to yield to 
her persuasive eloquence, and even Congress was to be moved to begin 
the greatest charitable institution the nation has ever created. 
III. 
On March 28, 1841, Dorothea Lynde Dix, then a volunteer teacher 
in the Sunday school maintained by Harvard Divinity School students 
at the East Cambridge, Mass., house of correction, found among the 
prisoners a few insane persons, with whom she talked. She noticed 
that there was no stove in their room; and the keeper, on being 
appealed to, said it would not be safe to have a fire. Miss Dix appealed 
to the court, and warmth was provided. Miss Dix enlisted Dr. S. G. 
Howe and Charles Sumner, who were induced to visit the East Cam- 
bridge jail, where a raving, blaspheming maniac and a gentlewoman 
with mind but slightly obscured had been penned together for months 
in a jail poorly ventilated and noisome with filth.1 From the Berkshire 
Hills to the tip of Cape Cod Miss Dix pursued her investigations, until 
she had accumulated a tale of horrors. She proved that insane persons 
in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts were "confined in cages, clos- 
ets, cellars, stalls, pens; chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed 
into obedience.2 
A storm of vituperation followed the publication of this memorial. 
Miss Dix, however, knew that the facts she had printed could not be 
successfully contradicted. To her aid came Dr. William E. Channing, 
Horace Mann, John G. Palfrey, and especially Dr. Luther V. Bell, of 
the McLean Asylum, who was able to show by his own experience the 
good results of humane treatment of the insane. It was fortunate for 
Miss Dix-and more fortunate for Massachusetts-that Dr. Howe hap- 
pened to be a member of the legislature to which she appealed. Her 
memorial was referred to a committee of which he was the chairman, 
and the immediate result was the enlargement of the Worcester 
1 Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix, by Francis Tiffany, 1890, p. 73 et seq. The 
description is from Sumner's letter to Howe. 
2 Miss Dix's first memorial, January, 1843. 12 
THE GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE. 
Asylum so as to accommodate the insane that were scattered among 
the county jails. From Massachusetts Miss Dix went to Rhode Island, 
where from private sources she secured the money necessary to take 
the insane from local jails and place them in a well-equipped asylum. 
The crusade now became broader in its scope. Miss Dix saw that what 
was needed was to call in the power of public taxation to support and 
care for the insane in State institutions. Her next struggle was in New 
Jersey, and the asylum at Trenton was the first State insane asylum 
founded, in 1845, through her quiet, persistent investigations and her 
simple, direct, forcible presentation of facts that could not fail to create 
a revolution in public sentiment.1 While her friends in the New Jersey 
legislature were building on the foundations her investigations had 
laid, Miss Dix had been at work in Pennsylvania, and at Harrisburg 
had conducted a campaign no less effective than that at Trenton. An 
entirely new State institution for the insane at Harrisburg was the 
result. Thus the year 1845 brought her fourth success and placed the 
foundation of a second State institution to her credit. 
During the nine years from 1845 to 1854, Miss Dix was successful 
with the legislatures of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mis 
sonri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, 
and Maryland, and besides was instrumental in securing the building 
of new asylums at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and St. Johns, Newfoundland. 
The Rev. Francis Tiffany, in his comprehensive life of Miss Dix, has 
portrayed this remarkable woman, with her sweet, rich, low voice 
and perfect enunciation, in which love and power were blended; her 
quiet but always tasteful style of dress; her rich, wavy, dark-brown 
hair brought down over the cheek and carried back behind the ears; 
her face lit with alternately soft and brilliant blue-gray eyes, their 
pupils so large and dilating as to cause them often to be taken for 
black; a bright, almost hectic, glow of color on her cheeks, with her 
shapely head set on a neck so long, flexile, and graceful as to impart 
an air of distinction to her carriage. Personally she never cared to 
appear in public. She made no addresses, held no meetings. "To 
come to close quarters of eye, conscience, and heart with impressionable 
and influential minds, to deliver her burden as from the Lord to them, 
and let it work on their sensibility and reason-this was her invariable 
method." Everywhere the insane were neglected, abused, and beaten; 
so that when once the public was aroused by the presentation of the 
facts, and the results of the special investigations made by Miss Dix 
were placed in the hands of the real leaders in the legislatures, no 
legislative lethargy, no cheese paring parsimony were able to withstand 
*The Trenton Asylum was called Miss Dix's first-born child. Forty-two years 
after its establishment she returned to its friendly roof, and there, amid friends and 
in apartments set apart for her use by the trustees, she passed her last hours of 
weariness and pain. She died July 17, 1887. ST. ELIZABETH- BORROWS COTTAGE, 1891. 
ST. ELIZABETH-GODDING CROFT, MANOR HOUSE. THE FIVE MILLIONS ACHES BILL. 
13 
the onslaught. How severe was the task of making these investiga- 
tions from Canada to Florida, those who know the conditions of travel 
before the war can best appreciate.1 
IV. 
In 1848, Miss Dix sent to Congress a memorial for a grant of 5,000,000 
acres of the public domain, the proceeds of the sale of which were to 
be set apart as a perpetual fund for the care of the indigent insane. 
The fund so created was to be divided among the thirty States in pro- 
portion to their respective population.2 To secure the passage of the 
bill seemed to Miss Dix the crown to be struggled for. The project 
did not then seem so chimerical as it looks in the retrospect. Congress 
had distributed among the States moneys received from the sale of 
public lands; and in 1845, 134,704,982 acres had been given to the new 
States for purposes of education and internal improvement. In view 
of these facts, Miss Dix's request seems not over large. In the Senate 
the bill was referred to a committee consisting of Messrs. Benton, Dix, 
Hannegan, Bell, and Davis of Massachusetts. The rising tide of 
opposition to the giving away of the public domain made the politicians 
wary of the scheme, and the bill went but slowly. By the courtesy of 
Congress a special alcove in the Library of Congress was set apart for 
Miss Dix's especial use, and there she appeared daily to urge the cause 
of the more than nine thousand idiots, epileptics, and insane scattered 
throughout the United States in jails, poorhouses, and private dwellings, 
bound with chains, stormed at and beaten, and left in tilth and loneli- 
ness. In spite of President Polk's declaration that he would veto 
every land bill that did not provide for a provisional payment to the 
United States, Miss Dix relied on the friendship of Mrs. Polk and Vice- 
President Dallas for help in the last extremity. The bill, however, did 
not succeed at that session, and in 1850 Miss Dix was again on hand. 
This time she included the indigent blind and deaf and dumb, asking 
for 10,000,000 acres for the insane and a quarter of a million for the 
other unfortunates. A favorable report was made; the bill was passed 
in the House, and went over to the short session. On February 11, 
1851, the bill came up in the Senate, and after a short struggle was 
passed by a vote of 36 to 16. In the House, twice the rules were sus- 
pended io concur in the Senate amendments; but the Congress ended 
with a disagreement still pending. Meanwhile, in the Southern, West- 
ern, and Middle States, Miss Dix was obtaining legislative action that 
was denied by Congress. 
1 Dorothea Lynde Dix was born at Hampden, Me., April 4, 1802. Although Gen. 
John A. Dix always addressed her as sister, there was no relationship between them. 
At the age of 14 she began to teach school. She was frequently compelled to give 
up work by reason of ill health, and in 1836 she went to England to recover from a 
complete physical collapse. She was never strong. 
2 The amount asked for was afterwards increased to 12,225,000 acres. 14 
THE GOFEENMENT HOSPITAL FOP THE INSANE. 
On March 9, 1854, Miss Dix had the joy to see her bill pass the 
Senate; and in August similar action was taken by the House. Then 
President Franklin Pierce vetoed the act, on the ground that Congress 
had power to make provisions of an eleemosynary nature only within 
the District of Columbia, the single district that was under the special 
rule of government and so furnishes the one exception to an otherwise 
inflexible law. 
V. 
In a letter to Miss Heath, dated at Washington, August 28,1854, Miss 
Dix says: "My District Hospital Bill has also passed the Senate unani- 
mously, for $100,000 for the relief of the insane of the Army and Navy, 
and those of the District."1 The dates are confusing. The civil and 
diplomatic appropriation act of August 31,1852, appropriated $100,000 
to enable the Secretary of the Interior, under the direction of the Pres- 
ident of the United States, to purchase a site in the neighborhood of 
Washington, and for the erection, furnishing, and fitting up of an 
asylum for the insane of the District of Columbia, and of the Army and 
Navy. Dr. W. W. Godding, the present efficient Superintendent of the 
Government Hospital for the Insane, says: 
I am sorry that I cau not speak authoritatively in regard to the inception of the 
movement for the establishment of the Government Hospital for the Insane, but, 
while there was early some interest on the part of the Medical Society of the District 
of Columbia in favor of an asylum for the insane of the District, who were then 
lodged in the District jail, or sent to Mount Hope Asylum, at Baltimore, Md., I have 
no doubt that the Government hospital in its fuller scope and its entirety was the 
result of the efforts of Miss Dorothea Dix. As early as 1848, she memorialized Con- 
gress for a land grant of 5,000,000 acres of public lands, the proceeds of whose sales 
were to be be set apart as a perpetual fund for the benefit of the indigent insane of 
the whole country. From 1848 to 1854 she was in Washington devoting her energies 
to securing such land grant, and it was during this time that the Government Hos- 
pital for the Insane was created. For years she had an alcove and desk in the Con- 
gressional Library for her work. At her death, in 1887, she bequeathed this desk to 
the hospital as that on which the first draft of the law creating this hospital was 
written. Such statement I had previously had from her own lips. It is certain that 
she prevailed with Mr. Blagden, the owner of the farm on which the hospital is 
located, to part with it to the Government for this purpose. She always claimed 
St. Elizabeth as one of the homes that she had founded.2 
Of the amount set apart by Congress the sum of $25,000 was allotted 
for the purchase of a site, and, after very careful consideration, Dr. 
Charles II. Nichols, who had taken very great interest in the project, 
decided that the ideal location was a portion of the old royal grant of 
St. Elizabeth, situated on the highlands between the Potomac and the 
Anacostia, or Eastern Branch. These lands were owned by Mr. Thomas 
Blagden, who valued them because the exceptional beauty of the situ 
ation had endeared them to his family. Moreover the price available 
1 Tiffany's Life of Miss Dix, p. 189. 
2 MS. letter Dr. W. AV. Godding to Hon. James McMillan, June 28, 1897. See also 
an article by Dr. Godding in the Alienist and Neurologist, January, 1892. ST. ELIZABETH-STEAMER HOUSE AND CLOCK TOWER 1890. 
ST ELIZABETH-"THE OAKS" (MAIN EPILEPTIC BUILDING), 1895 ST. ELIZABETH-RETREAT WING OF MAIN HOSPITAL, 1884. ST. ELIZABETH-"THE REST " (PATHOLOGICAL BUILDING), 1884. THE HOSPITAL OPENED. 
15 
was too little by $15,000. Dr. Nichols was unable to move the owner 
and was equally unable to obtain an increase in the amount allotted for 
lands. Thereupon Miss Dix took up the matter. Seeking a personal 
interview with Mr. Blagdbn, so earnestly and so movingly did she reason 
with him to surrender for the future good of thousands of his suffering 
fellow-creatures what was so precious, indeed, to him and his family, 
but to one household only, that the appeal proved irresistible, and he 
gave her his promise of the estate for $25,000. That night he wrote to 
her this letter: 
Washington, November 13, 1852. 
Dear Madam: Since seeing you to-day I have had no other opinion (and Mrs. B. 
also) than that I must not stand between you and the beloved farm, regarding you, 
as I do, as the instrument in the hands of God to secure this very spot for the unfor- 
tunates whose best earthly friend you are, and believing sincerely that the Almighty's 
blessing will not rest on nor abide with those who may place obstacles in your way. 
With Mrs. Blagden's and my own most friendly regards, very respectfully, your 
obedient servant, 
Thomas Blagden. 
Nevertheless, next day when Dr. Nichols called on Mr. Blagden to 
sign the papers the doctor found that gentleman walking the room and 
wringing his hands in an hysterical fashion, saying, "I don't want to 
part with it; it is dear to me and dear to my family I But I won't break 
my word to Nliss Dix I I told her she should have it, and she shall 
have it!"1 
VI. 
In 1855, when the hospital was ready to enter upon its work, there 
were 20 insane persons belonging to the Army and Navy establishments 
and supported by the Government in various places and ways; 53 indi- 
gent insane in two Baltimore institutions, besides 11 insane persons 
detained in the United States jail, in Washington, and perhaps 10 
private patients. It was estimated that about one-half of the persons 
treated in well-organized public asylums recover, while but 10 per cent 
of those cared for privately or confined in jails and poorhouses cease to 
be public charges.2 
Congress having provided for the establishment of the hospital, it 
became necessary to adopt a method of organization, and in response 
to the resolution of the House of Representatives of December 19,1854, 
the Secretary of the Interior transmitted to Congress a report made by 
Dr. Charles II. Nichols, who had been appointed superintendent, accom- 
panied by a draft of a bill and a copy of the propositions of the Asso- 
ciation of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the 
Insane. Also he submitted suggestions made by Dr. Thomas Miller, 
"a resident physician of this city, who is understood to have manifested 
1 Tiffany, p. 154. 
2Report of Dr. C. H. Nicliols, superintendent, Thirty-third Congress, second ses- 
sion, Ex Doc., Vol. I, p. 622. 16 
THE GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE. 
much interest in this subject from its inception." In his letter Dr. 
Miller claimed that it was entirely through his instrumentality that 
the appropriation was made by Congress for the establishment of the 
asylum.1 
This report resulted in the act of March 3, 1855, which, with the 
amendments thereto, provides for admissions to the hospital as follows: 
Insane persons belonging to the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Revenue-Cutter 
Service are received on the order of the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, 
and of the Secretary of the Treasury, respectively. Civilians employed in the Quar- 
termaster's and Subsistence Department of the Army becoming insane while so 
employed are included in this provision. 
Persons without adequate means who have been admitted to the hospital from the 
Army, Navy, and Marine Corps and discharged as recovered who have within three 
years after discharge become again insane from causes existing at the time of such 
discharge. Indigent insane persons who have been in either branch of the service 
and been discharged therefrom on account of disability arising from such insanity. 
Indigent insane persons who have become insane within three years after their dis- 
charge from the service from causes which arose during and were produced by said 
service.2 
Inmates of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers who are insane are 
admitted to the hospital upon the order of the president of the Board of Managers 
of said Home.3 
Inmates of the Soldiers' Home at Washington, D. C., may be sent to the hospital 
on the order of the president of the Board of Commissioners of the Home.4 
These are all the classes belonging to or discharged from the service who are 
entitled to treatment in the hospital. There seems to be a widespread impression 
that any late volunteer or old pensioner who has become insane may be sent here, 
and hardly a month passes that application is not made to the officers of the hospital 
for papers to admit some old soldier who has become insane and has been placed in 
the almshouse, perhaps, of the very community in whose quota he rendered service. 
Persons charged with offenses against the United States and in the actual custody 
of its officers or convicted of any offense in a court of the United States and impris- 
oned in any State prison or penitentiary of any State or Territory found to be insane, 
on application of the Attorney-General are transferred by the Secretary of the Inte- 
rior to the hospital for treatment.5 
Persons charged with crime before the court of the District of Columbia, when 
found, in the court before which such charge is brought, to be insane, are certified 
1 Thirty-third Congress, second session, Ex. Doc. No. 24. Dr. Miller was born in 
Port Royal, Va., February 18, 1806, and died in Washington September 20, 1873. De 
was educated at the Washington Seminary, now Gonzaga College. For forty 
years he was connected with every movement looking to the advancement of the 
profession. In 1830 he was one of the founders of the Washington Medical Insti- 
tute, and was one of the physicians of the central cholera hospital In 1833 he 
was one of the originators of the Medical Association of the District of Columbia. 
He was professor of anatomy in the National Medical College ami emeritus professor 
and president of the faculty; was the first president of the Pathological Society in 
1841; was a member of the board of health and the board of aidermen, and was one 
of the consulting staff of Providence and of the Children's hospitals.-Crew's History 
of Washington, p. 601. 
2 U. S. Rev. Stat., sec. 4813. 
3Supp. U. S. Rev. Stat., Vol. I, 2d cd., p. 381, par. 14. 
4 Supp. U. S. Rev. Stat., Vol. I, 2d ed., p. 469, par. 5. 
6 Supp, U, S. Bev. Stat., Vol. I, 2d ed., p. 382, par. 14. ST. ELIZABETH-DINING HALL FOR DETACHED BUILDINGS, 1885 
ST, ELIZABETH-INTERIOR OF DINING HALL FOR DETACHED BUILDINGS. 1885. 17 
THE FIRST BOARD OF MANAGERS. 
by the court to the Secretary of the Interior and are sent to the hospital on his 
order.1 
The indigent insane of the District of Columbia and indigent insane persons who 
were temporarily in the District at the time they became insane may be sent to the 
hospital, this originally by order of the Secretary of the Interior, but in 1876 the 
committing power was transferred to the District authorities.2 
Independent or pay patients from the District were formerly received on payment 
of board and other expenses, but as the buildings have long been overcrowded this 
class is no longer admitted.3 
Under United States Revised Statutes, chapter 1, page 1, "Definition," the words 
"insane persons" and "lunatic" are held to include every idiot, non compos, luna- 
tic, and insane person. Accordingly, imbecile and weak-minded persons are often 
sent to the hospital from the District. 
Insane patients of the Marine-Hospital Service are admitted to the hospital on 
the order of the Secretary of the Treasury.4 
The act of March 3, 1855, gave to the Secretary of the Interior the 
appointment of the superintendent, and placed the entire management 
of the institution in the hands of a board of visitors, nine in number, 
to be appointed by the President from the citizens of the District of 
Columbia, to hold office for six years, one-third of the members retiring 
every two years, and to serve without compensation. The first board 
was made up of Dr. Benjamin S. Bohrer, president; William W. Cor- 
coran; Jacob Gideon; Prof, Grafton Tyler, M.D.; Daniel Ratcliff; Prof. 
Thomas Miller, M. D.; William Whelan, M. D., U. S. N.; Robert C. 
Wood, M. D., U. S. A., and Rev. P. D. Gurley, D. I). Dr. Charles H. 
Nichols was continued as superintendent and was ex officio secretary 
of the board, and Dr. William P. Young, of Washington, was elected 
assistant physician.5 
The hospital opened with 1 white male from the Army and 20 white 
males and 32 white females, 5 colored males and 2 colored females, from 
civil life. During the year the Army furnished 5 patients, the Navy 
11, and 31 came from civil life. At the end of the year there were 93 
patients. "The erection and occupancy of the lodge for colored 
patients," says the report, " marks the first and only special provision 
1 U. S. Rev. Stat., sec. 4851. 
2U. S. Rev. Stat., secs. 4844-1850; Supp. U. S. Rev. Stat., Vol. I, 2d ed., chap. 105, 
par. 2, p. 136. 
3U. S. Rev. Stat., secs. 4853-4854. 
4 Supp. U. S. Rev. Stat., Vol. I, 2d ed., chap. 156, sec. 5, p. 94. 
5 Dr. Bohrer was one of the founders of the Medical Society of the District of 
Columbia; he died in Georgetown in 1862 at the age of 77. In Dr. S. C. Busey's 
Personal Reminiscences, pp. 129-132, is a graphic sketch of Dr. Bohrer; a fragment 
of a letter there printed suggests that the first president of the hospital was also 
the originator of the project. Dr. Tyler was a member of the Medical Society for 
thirty-eight years; he died in 1884 at the age of 73. Dr. Young was succeeded in 
1858 by Dr. S. Preston Jones, who was in turn succeeded by Dr. Bela N. Stevens, of 
Harrisburg, Pa., in 1859; Dr. Bohrer was succeeded as president by Mr. W. W. Cor- 
coran in 1856; in 1857 Jacob Gideon became president, and in 1859 was succeeded by 
Rev. P. D. Gurley. 
7200 2 18 
THE GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE. 
made for the suitable care of the African when afflicted with insanity 
which has been made in any part of the world." 1 
The outbreak of the war of the rebellion placed a heavy strain upon 
the hospital. The number of patients admitted during the last three 
months of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1861, was four-fifths of the 
whole number admitted during the preceding twelve months. Not 
only was the number of insane patients largely increased, but also one 
of the buildings for colored patients was turned over for a naval hos- 
pital, accommodating as many as fifty persons at one time, and two 
wards of the main building became an army hospital.2 The number of 
admissions to the hospital increased from 95 in 1860-61 to 185 in 1861-62 
and to 357 in 1862-63, making this hospital the largest of its kind in 
the country. The cause of this increase was ascribed not to the excite- 
ments of war or the peril of battle, but to homesickness, and especially 
to the results of the low fevers incurred by volunteers drawn from high 
northern latitudes to serve in malarial regions.3 During the year 
1862-63, also, a manufactory of artificial limbs was set up in a building 
adjacent to the army hospital, now first known as St. Elizabeth, and 
soldiers and sailors needing such members were provided with them 
and were taught to use them. 
The Government Hospital for the Insane has had but two superin- 
tendents, Dr. Charles Henry Nichols and Dr. W. W. Godding. Dr. 
Nichols was 32 years old when, at the instance of Miss Dix, he was 
selected by President Fillmore to superintend the construction and to 
take charge of the new institution.4 
'This statement is somewhat too broad. There was an insane asylum at Fez, in 
Africa, early in the sixteenth century, and the care of the insane was a general form 
of charity in Mohammedan countries. Spain was the first Christian country to 
establish such hospitals, in the fifteenth century. The modern insane asylum owes 
its existence to Morgagni in Italy, Cullen in Scotland, and Pinel in France, who 
labored in the eighteenth century.-Lecky's History of European Morals, vol. 2, p. 88. 
" In this hospital [at Fez] likewise there is a place for franticke or distraught 
persons, where they are bound in strong iron chains; whereof the part next to their 
walks is strengthened by mighty beams of wood and iron. The governor of these 
distraught persons, when he bringeth them any sustenance, hath a whip of purpose 
to chastise those that offer to bite, strike, or play any mad part."-A Geographical 
History of Africa, by John Leo a More, London, 1600, p. 128. 
2In 1863 there were 60 bods in each the naval and the quarantine hospitals, and 
250 beds in the army hospital. 
'Hospital Report, October 1, 1863. 
4 Charles Henry Nichols, M. I)., LL. D., was born in Maine in 1820. His academic 
education was in the Maine and Providence, R. I., public schools; he studied medi- 
cine in the Universities of New York and of Pennsylvania, graduating from the last- 
named institution in 1843. In 1847 he was medical assistant, under Dr. Amariah 
Brigham, at the New York State Asylum at Utica. In 1849 he was appointed phy- 
sician at the Bloomingdale Asylum in New York City, which position he resigned to 
come to Washington in 1852. In 1877 Dr. Nichols resigned his position at St. Eliza- 
beth to accept the place of medical superintendent at the Bloomingdale Asylum, 
which had been created for him. He died on December 16, 1889, and was buried 
in Washington, Portrait of Dr. Nichols 
Portrait of Miss Dix 
ST. ELIZABETH-ASSEMBLY ROOM 
ST. ELIZABETH-BORROWS HALL, INTERIOR OF DAY ROOM. 1878. ST. ELIZABETH-BARNS AND PIGGERY. 
ST. ELIZABETH-HERD OF HOLSTEINS. DE. WILLIAM WHITNEY GODDING. 
19 
The editor of the Journal of Insanity, in summing up the results of 
Dr. Nichols's labors, says his plan of the new asylum was twenty-five 
years in advance of its time, and that the echelon plan, or receding 
front,was as great an improvement on the linear or Kirkbride plan as 
that was on the quadrangular. He organized and supervised the entire 
work, eking out the scanty appropriation by making bricks out of the 
very ground on which the building stood. He took up his own quar- 
ters in an unfinished bathroom of one of the wards, and set himself to 
cure the insane and to entertain visitors. The building was finished 
within the appropriation, a result that commended the superintendent 
to Congressional committees, and the plans were so excellent that they 
were copied not only in State institutions but also in Australia and 
in Newfoundland. During the quarter of a century that he spent at 
the head of St. Elizabeth he kept the institution abreast of the most 
enlightened curative treatment of the times.1 
On the resignation of Dr. Nichols, in 1877, Dr. Godding returned to 
St. Elizabeth as superintendent, and took the place of executive and 
medical head of the institution, which he still holds.2 
Dr. Nichols, writing in the American Journal of Insanity3 of his 
successor, says that Dr. Godding entered upon his work at Washington 
with a harmonious staff, and with buildings in good order, but much 
crowded. During the twelve years he had been there [up to 1890] he 
had nearly doubled the capacity of the institution by the erection of 
four large buildings, one of them a separate hospital for the criminal 
insane, and by extending several old buildings, and making many ben- 
eficial changes and renovations in others. He established an efficiently 
working pathological laboratory; created an entirely new system of 
water supply from artesian wells; erected several important buildings 
for the economical and agricultural uses of the establishment. 44 It can 
not be said," continues Dr. Nichols, "that the Government Hospital for 
the Insane is perfect, or that it embraces every material agency for the 
care of the insane, but it may be questioned if there is any institution 
at home or abroad that is, at the present moment, better equipped for 
the exceedingly varied and extensive asylum service." 
One other name well known and highly honored in Washington is 
1 The American Journal of Insanity, vol. 45, contains a portrait and a sketch of 
Dr. Nichols, by Dr. Godding. See also the same publication, vol. 46, p. 410, and 
vol. 47, p. 231. 
2 Dr. William Whitney Godding was born in Winchendon, Mass., in 1831; received 
the degree of bachelor of arts from Dartmouth College in 1845, and the degree of 
doctor of medicine from Castleton's Medical College, Vermont, in 1857. In about 
1860 he became assistant physician in the New Hampshire State Asylum for the 
insane at Concord, under the elder Bancroft, when he resigned to engage in private 
practice in Fitchburg, Mass. In 1863 he became assistant physician at the Govern- 
ment Hospital for the Insane, serving seven years, when he was called to the super- 
intendency of the Massachusetts Hospital for the Insane at Taunton, where he 
remained until he came to Washington, in 1877. 
3 Vol. 46, p. 408. 20 
Till: GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE, 
connected preeminently with the Government Hospital for the Insane. 
Without making any invidious comparisons it may be said that next 
to the two superintendents, St. Elizabeth is most indebted to the late 
Dr. Joseph Meredith Toner. Dr. Toner's connection with Providence, 
Garfield, and Columbia hospitals has been mentioned elsewhere. He 
inspired the founding of St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum, and also 
the St. Vincent's and St. Ann's, and for more than twenty years he was 
on the board of visitors at St. Elizabeth. Dr. Toner's connection with 
the board antedated the return of Dr. Godding by one year, and in 
speaking of Dr. Toner's work the present superintendent says: 
I found him ever ready to uphold my hands in every movement looking to more 
liberal provision or more enlightened hospital service. As president of my board, 
during the last ten years, it was often my privilege to consult with him, and he 
seemed always to hail my coming with delight. He was interested in every detail 
of management and construction. He took pains to inform himself of the purpose, 
the sites, the plans of all new buildings. He seemed fully to comprehend the ulti- 
mate aims of our hospital work, its magnitude and its inevitable growth. Our 
number of patients was below 800 when we began; it was more than 1,700 when we 
went away. I think the extent of the work and the possibilities of the hospital of 
the future grew upon both of us as the years went on. There was ever the urgent 
need of the present with its daily work crowding upon us, but more and more the 
study came to be, not what would answer and be an evidence of progress in the 
present, but how broad foundations we might now be laying for that hospital for 
the future, of which we began to catch glimpses, and dimly to apprehend the work, 
that would be still going forward there, when Dr. Toner and the present superin- 
tendent were only fading outlines in the past. Often when I took to him the rough 
drafts of plans in their inception, he would enter heartily upon their study, and, 
not by officious suggestion but by tentative query, he would make known the trend 
of his own thought, which was always well worth considering. "Could you add a 
few feet here? Build as large as you can for we shall need it," he would say, and I 
often profited by the prompting, even while waiting for another year's appropria- 
tion to complete it. It was his wont to come often to St. Elizabeth, not alone that 
he might satisfy himself of the integrity of the work being done there, but because 
he wanted to see for himself and felt a personal interest in the inmates and their 
life within those inclosures, inmates to whose appeals he was tender as a father.1 
1 Dr. Joseph Meredith Toner was born in Pittsburg, Pa., April 30,1825. He received 
a classical education at the Western Pennsylvania University and at St. Mary's Col- 
lege; and a medical education at the Vermont Academy of Medicine and the Jeffer- 
son Medical College, at which latter institution he received his degree in 1853. He 
came to Washington in 1855, from Harpers Ferry. In 1873 he was president of the 
American Medical Association and in 1874 was president of the American Public 
Health Association. In 1871 he endowed the Toner Medical Lectures, consisting of 
two lectures annually on some new fact valuable to medical science. In 1882 lie pre- 
sented his valuable library of 28,000 books and 18,000 pamphlets to the Government, 
and it now forms, the Toner Collection in the Library of Congress.-Washington 
Evening Star, August 1, 1896. 
The National Medical Eeview for December, 1896, contains the proceedings of the 
memorial meeting of the Medioal Society of the District of Columbia in honor of 
Joseph Meredith Toner, M. D., held October 21, 1896. The president of the society, 
Dr. S. C. Busey, spoke briefly of Dr. Toner's work. Remarks were made by Dr. 
Godding, Dr. C. II. A. Kleinschmidt, and Dr. J. Dudley Morgan. COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMI CHAPTER III. 
THE COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
EARLY in the year 1856 a man whose name wisely has been allowed 
to be forgotten came to Washington with five deaf and dumb 
children whom he had taken from the streets and almshouses of New 
York, and who were bound to him legally as apprentices. Claiming to 
be conversant with the methods of instructing deaf-mutes, he started a 
private school in which he gathered a dozen or more of the deaf and 
dumb or blind children of the District of Columbia besides the child- 
ren he had brought with him. Having announced his intention to stait 
an institution for the education of the deaf and blind, he appealed to 
the benevolent to aid him and with distinct success. Among those 
who joined in the enterprise was the Hon. Amos Kendall, whose inter- 
est in the work was so great that, even before there was any proper 
organization, he placed a house and lot at the disposal of the school. 
It has already been related that a bill making a grant of Government 
lands for the benefit of the insane and the deaf and dumb and the 
blind had passed Congress and been vetoed. The Government Asylum 
for the Insane, however, had been founded on a liberal basis, and Mr. 
Kendall argued that the deaf and blind of the District had as well- 
founded claims on the bounty of the general Government as had the 
insane. He therefore framed a bill and secured the passage of an act 
incorporating the proposed institution and making some provision 
for the support and instruction of the indigent blind and deaf children 
of the District of Columbia.1 
Within a short time after the passage of the act suspicions were 
aroused as to the fitness of the proposed head of the institution. On 
investigation, these suspicions were found to be only too correct, and 
the case being brought before the orphans court of the District of 
Columbia, the indentured children were removed from the control of 
their inhuman master, and Mr. Kendall was made their legal guardian. 
He accepted the trust, and with all the energy of bis energetic nature 
1 Eulogy by President Gallaudet delivered at a meeting of the board of directors 
of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, January, 1870. 
21 22 
THE COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOB THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
lie set about completing the organization of which Congress had made 
him president.1 
Hon. Amos Kendall was born in Dunstable, Mass., August 16,1789, and 
died at Washington, November 12,1869. About the year 1844, when the 
'At a special meeting of the board of directors of the Columbia Institution, on 
Tuesday, November 16, 1869, called to take action on the death of Mr. Kendall, at 
which there were present President Gallaudet, Kev. Dr. Sunderland, George W. 
Riggs, Hon. B. B. French, Henry D. Cooke, James C. McGuire, and David A. Hall, 
Mr. McGuire related the incident of the cruelty to the children and the origin of the 
institution, as follows: 
"It happened that circumstances associated me with him in connection with an 
incident that first excited his sympathy in behalf of that disabled class for which 
this institution was established. A despicable wretch, in wandering over the earth, 
had fortunately, as it turned out, made Washington his home, where he got posses- 
sion of a building in the First Ward, and fenced it in like a sort of prison, with a 
high board fence. He then hunted up all the deaf and dumb children in the com- 
munity, got them in his possession, and took them to his building, pretending to 
call it a school for them. He would then take them about the city and exhibit them 
for money. A washerwoman from Georgetown, engaged in my household, informed 
some of ray family that her son was a pupil of this man, and that in visiting him 
she said that the children in this so-ealled school were treated with cruelty, almost 
starved to death at all times, and thrown aside with neglect and brutal inhumanity 
when they were sick. 
"Happening to meet Mr. Kendall a day or two after hearing of the account given 
of this establishment, I stated to him what I had learned, and he at once, with his 
prompt and characteristic decision of purpose, said: ' Let us go and see how this is.' 
On this suggestion, we went at once, and finding the gate at the entrance locked and 
barred we broke it open and entered the building. The miserable sight can not be 
described; it was heart-sickening. Two of the unfortunate children lay sick on a 
pallet, moaning most piteously. Unable to help themselves, it was evident from their 
homed condition that their wants had not been attended to, probably, for days. 
Mr. Kendall's generous nature was deeply moved. He called the man to account for 
the condition of the children and the treatment they received at his hands. He 
promised reform. There seemed no remedy for the evil except through the man him- 
self. But this remedy was not given, and his promise of reformation was not observed. 
But a philanthropist, who was in earnest to do good, had witnessed himself the suf- 
fering that cried for aid, and did not rest contented with an unperformed promise of 
amendment. Mr. Kendall went to work, and by the aid of the law and the courts 
of the District, obtained possession of the children and took them to Kendall Green, 
and there himself became their guardian and their teacher, and that was the com- 
mencement and the foundationof this institution for the deaf and dumb. 
" The provisions of the act referred to were found to be inadequate to the accom- 
plishment of the object; and in the emergency forced upon him by the action of the 
orphans' court, Mr. Kendall did not hesitate to assume very heavy responsibilities, 
that the institution might go into operation without waiting for further action of 
Congress. The buildings and grounds previously offered to the school were now 
donated to the institution. Mr. Kendall became security for purchases of furniture 
and supplies, and guaranteed the payment of the salaries of the officers of the 
institution. 
" During the second year, the time being unfavorable for securing an appropriation 
from Congress for buildings, and enlarged accommodations being required by the 
institution, Mr. Kendall added to his benefactions of the first year. These having 
amounted to more than $5,000 in value, he still did not hesitate to incur an expense 
of $8,000 for the erection of a substantial brick structure, which now forms a part 
of the building of the primary department." Dormitory for men, and class rooms. 
COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
Cabinet shop. 
Laboratory. OPENING OF THE INSTITUTION. 
23 
electric telegraph was in its beginnings, Mr. Kendall, Mr. B. B. French, 
and a few others had an active part in making it a commercial success, 
being directors in the first company ever formed in the world, organized 
to build the line between Washington and Philadelphia. Mr. Kendall's 
connection with this enterprise was the basis of his fortune. Physic- 
ally he was spare and slight of figure, with a kindly face, and courteous, 
gentle manners; and was in all respects unlike the person his political 
enemies described him to be. He was a noted politician, and from 1835 
to 1840 was a member of Van Buren's cabinet as Postmaster-General. 
It is related that when he retired from office he was so poor that he was 
obliged to sell the horses and carriage he had used while in official life, 
and was even under the necessity of borrowing the means to supply 
the daily needs of his household. 
II. 
By the act of February 1G, 1857, the Columbia Institution for the 
Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind was incorporated, 
and on June 13 of that year the institution was opened in two houses 
on Kendall Green. One of these houses, together with 2 acres of 
ground, was given by Mr. Kendall, who acted as president from 1857 
to 18G4. The superintendent was Edward Miner Gallaudet,1 and soon 
after he was assisted by his mother, Mrs. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 
as matron, and by James Denison as instructor of the deaf, and Mrs. 
Maria M. Eddy as teacher of the blind. The 5 deaf-mutes from New 
York comprised the first scholars, and during the year 7 other deaf- 
mutes and G blind children vrere admitted. 
It was provided in the charter that the institution should receive 
$150 a year for each indigent pupil from the District of Columbia, the 
amount to be paid from the Treasury of the United States whenever 
the Secretary of the Interior should be satisfied by evidence submitted 
by the president of the institution that any deaf, dumb, or blind person 
of teachable age properly belonging to the District of Columbia could 
not command the means to secure an education. The amount thus 
paid during the first year was $1,000.75; the second year it was 
$2,380.40, and the third year $2,G71.5G. By the act of May 29, 1858, 
'Dr. Edward Miner Gallaudet was born in Hartford, Conn., February 5, 1837. 
His father, Rev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (born at Philadelphia, December 10, 
1787; died at Hartford, Conn., September 10, 1851) founded at Hartford the first deaf- 
mute institution in America; he resigned the principalship of the institution in 1830, 
and from 1838 until his death was chaplain of the Connecticut Retreat for the 
Insane, at Hartford, Conn. Rev. Thomas Gallaudet, a brother of E. M. Gallaudet, 
was an instructor in the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and 
Dumb, from 1843 to 1858; he founded St. Ann's Church for Deaf-Mutes in 1852 and 
became manager of the Church Mission to Deaf-Mutes in 1872. Dr. E. M. Gallaudet 
is a graduate of Trinity College (class of 1856), Hartford, Conn. He was an 
instructor at the Hartford institution at the time when, at the age of 20 years, he 
was called to Washington by Mr. Kendall, in 1857. From his college days he had 
planned a college on the lines of the Columbia Institution.-The Century Dictionary 
of Names. 24 
THE COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
however, Congress granted $3,000 per annum for five years for the 
salaries and incidental expenses of the institution, and provided for 
the free admission of deaf and dumb or blind children of men in the 
military or naval service of the United States. 
In 1859 a substantial brick building, erected by Air. Kendall at a 
cost of $8,000, was added to the resources of the institution, and in 1860 
the funds were increased by $4,000 by a transfer of the invested moneys 
of the Washington Manual Labor School and Male Orphan Asylum, an 
organization that had never undertaken to realize the objects of its 
foundation, and that now sought an efficient means of carryingout the 
trust imposed upon it.' The income of this fund has been used to pro- 
mote industrial education, and in 1862 a cabinet shop was established. 
In 1862 Congress practically assumed the support of the institution. 
The appropriation for the payment of salaries and incidental expenses 
was increased to $4,400, and $9,000 was appropriated to build, furnish, 
and fit up two additions to the buildings. The pupils at this time num- 
bered 41, of whom 35 were deaf-mutes, and 6 were blind. During the 
succeeding year a gas plant and steam-heating apparatus were supplied 
at a cost to the Treasury of $3,720. 
In 1864 the institution took a long step forward, both in the scope of 
its instruction and also in its equipment. By the act of April 8 the 
board of directors were empowered "to grant and confirm such degrees 
in the liberal arts and sciences to such pupils of the institution, or 
others, who, by their proficiency in learning, or other meritorious distinc- 
tion, they shall think entitled to them, as are usually granted and con- 
ferred in colleges, and to grant to such graduates diplomas or certificates 
sealed and signed in such manner as said board of directors may deter- 
mine, to authenticate and perpetuate the memory of such graduation." 
If the distinguish ex-officio patron of the institution, President Abraham 
Lincoln, read the act before he signed it, he must have been amazed 
at the style of the English Congress used to make a college out of a 
school; but confused phraseology could not impede the manifest destiny 
of the Columbia Institution as conceived by its indefatigable superin- 
tendent. 
Three months after having opened the way to higher education 
Congress appropriated $26,000 "for the purchase of a tract of improved 
land, containing about 13 acres, bordering on Boundary street, of the 
city of Washington, and adjoining the lot now belonging to the insti- 
tution, to enable it to instruct the male pupils in horticulture and 
agriculture, and to furnish sites for mechanic shops and other neces- 
sary buildings." To this was added $3,200 to supply Potomac water; 
and the allowance for salaries and expenses was increased to $7,500. 
In anticipation of these appropriations of July 2, the department for 
the higher education of the deaf was publicly inaugurated on June 28, 
and subsequently became known as the National Deaf-Mute College. 
'Act of June 13, 1860. COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMI COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB- DORMITORY FOR FEMALES. PRESIDENT GA L LA UDET. 
25 
This ceremony was made the occasion for an appropriate change in the 
management. The institution then definitely ceased to be in any sense 
an asylum, and became in theory as well as in fact an educational 
establishment. The office of superintendent was merged into that of 
president; and, at his own request, Mr. Kendall retired from the pres- 
idency of the corporation and of the board of directors, and was 
succeeded by Dr. Gallaudet. 
On laying down the office of president, Mr. Kendall addressed his 
"young and esteemed friend," Dr. Gallaudet, in phrases that belong 
to the history of the institution: 
In accordance with my own wishes, and the unanimous decision of the members of 
the association at their recent meeting, I now relinquish to you the presidency of 
this institution. It is an honor richly due to you for the services you have rendered 
to the institution, not only within its walls, but in Baltimore, in Annapolis,1 in 
Congress, and in the country. To you more than to any other man is it indebted for 
its rapid progress, and for the high position it now holds in the estimation of the 
community. It is, therefore, fitting that you should be clothed with all appropriate 
authority needful to maintain discipline within the institution, and all practicable 
means of influence to protect its interests without. The members of the association 
have, in the history of the past, abundant grounds of confidence that under your 
prudent and skillful management it will not only realize their highest hopes, but 
secure to yourself a degree of gratitude and affection in the hearts of this class of 
unfortunates, and a reputation for disinterested usefulness not inferior to those 
acquired by your honored father. And most happy shall I be if permitted to live to 
see this institution, under your judicious management, become one of the brightest 
jewels in the coronet of the Republic, once more, by the mercy of God, united, 
peaceful, and free. 
Thirteen students presented themselves in the autumn of 1864 for 
membership in the college. The organization of the collegiate depart- 
ment was the most advanced step that had ever been taken in the 
history of deaf-mute education; and, as was to be expected, there were 
those who doubted that persons wholly or even partially deprived of 
speech and hearing could engage profitably in learning the subjects of 
a college course. However strong these doubts may have been at the 
outset, the success of the college during the third of a century that it 
has been established has entirely dispelled them. 
Of the graduates of the college, 57 have become teachers, 4 have 
entered the ministry, 3 have become editors and publishers of news- 
papers and 3 others have engaged in newspaper work, and 15 have 
entered the civil service of the Government. One of the latter number 
resigned his position to practice patent law in Cincinnati and Chicago, 
and was afterwards admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of 
the United States. One became the official botanist of a State and a 
contributor to the publications of the Agricultural Department; one 
did valuable microscopic work for the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 
and one became an engraver for that Survey; of three who became 
draftsmen in architects' offices, one is in successful practice as an 
1 In 1860 the legislature of Maryland provided for the education of pupils iu the 
Columbia Institution. 26 
THE COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
architect on his own account, which is also true of another, who com- 
pleted his preparation by a course of study in Europe; one has been 
repeatedly elected recorder of deeds in a Southern city, and two others 
are recorders' clerks in the West; one was elected and still sits as a 
city councilman; another has been elected city treasurer and is at pres- 
ent cashier of a national bank; one has become eminent as a practical 
chemist and assayer; two are members of the faculty of the college, 
and two others are rendering valuable service as instructors therein; 
some have gone into mercantile and other offices, some have under- 
taken business on their own account, while not a few have chosen 
agricultural and mechanical pursuits, in which the advantages of 
thorough mental training will give them a superiority over those not 
so well educated. Of those alluded to as having engaged in teaching, 
one has been the principal of a flourishing institution in Pennsylvania; 
one is now in his second year as principal of the Ohio institution; one 
has been at the head of a day school in Cincinnati, and later of the 
Colorado institution; a third has had charge of the Oregon institution; 
a fourth is at the head of a day school in St. Louis; three others have 
respectively founded and are now at the head of schools in New Mexico, 
North Dakota, and Evansville, Ind.; and others have done pioneer 
work in establishing schools in Florida and in Utah.1 
III. 
During the early years of the college, before the appropriations by 
Congress were sufficient to provide for the necessary aid to students of 
slender means, private aid was forthcoming, and free scholarships were 
maintained for a time by Mr. Kendall, W. W. Corcoran, George W. 
Riggs, Benjamin B. French, Jay Cooke & Co., Charles Knap, of Wash- 
ington, D. C.; Thomas Smith and Edson Fessenden, of Hartford, 
Conn.; William Sprague, of Providence, R. I.; George Merriam, of 
Springfield, Mass., and J. P. Williston, of Northampton, Mass. Mr. 
Edward Owen, of Washington, D. C., also helped the college materi- 
ally by a gift of apparatus.2 
By the act of February 23, 1865, the Secretary of the Interior was 
authorized to cause all indigent blind children who were then and who 
might thereafter become entitled to instruction in the Columbia Insti- 
tution to be instructed in some institution for the education of the 
blind in Maryland or some other State, at a cost not greater for each 
pupil than is or may be for the time being paid by such State, and to 
cause the same to be paid for out of the Treasury of the United States. 
In this way the Columbia Institution was left to its natural develop- 
ment as a school for deaf-mutes. The cost of such instruction did not 
reach $3,000 in any year previous to 1876, and now the number of 
beneficiaries is between 20 and 25, and the annual expense per pupil 
1 Catalogue for 1892. 
2 President Gallaudet's historical sketch of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf 
and Dumb, printed in 1893. STATUE OF THOMAS HOPKINS GALLAUDET. 
Daniel C. French, Sculptor. CARE OF THE BLIND. 
27 
is $300. Payment for the indigent blind children of the District of 
Columbia is made from any money in the Treasury not otherwise 
appropriated. 
The Maryland Institution for the Blind, at Baltimore, where are sent 
the indigent blind children of persons actively engaged in the military 
and naval service of the United States and the indigent blind children 
of the District of Columbia, has a regular course of study, beginning 
with a kindergarten and advancing to courses in political economy, 
philosophy, ethics, chemistry, and the theory and practice of music. 
Instruction is given also in piano tuning, chair caning, and broom and 
mattress making. The school is nonsectarian, and the discussion of 
religious questions is forbidden; the pupils, however, are required to 
attend such churches and Sunday schools as are selected by their 
respective parents or guardians.1 
In 1867 the needs of the Columbia Institution were such as to lead 
Congress to appropriate $39,000 for the erection of a dormitory build- 
ing, and by 1870 a central building, containing a public hall and refec- 
tories, had been finished, at a cost of $120,000; and besides, two commo- 
dious dwellings had been erected for the college officers. In 1870 the 
appropriation for salaries and expenses, which had started at $3,000 
in 1858, was $40,775, and two years later it rose to $48,000. In the 
first eighteen years of the life of the institution, from 1857 to 1875, 
the Government appropriations for maintenance, tuition, and general 
expenses amounted to $470,134.51. 
From 1872 to 1874 Congress provided for the purchase of 80 acres of 
land, the estate of the late Amos Kendall, at a cost of $80,000. These 
lands, adjoining on two sides the holdings of the institution, made the 
entire domain amount to 100 acres, all lying within 2 miles of the Capi- 
tol. It was provided at the same time that all the real estate owned 
by the Columbia institution shall be vested in the United States as 
trustee, fbr the sole use and purpose provided in the act of incorpora- 
tion; and that whenever Congress shall so determine, any part of the 
estate may be sold, and so much of the proceeds thereof as may be 
needful for the purpose shall be applied to reimburse the United States 
for the expenditure caused by the purchase of the Kendall estate.2 
1 See Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior. 
2 In the purchase of Kendall Green, private aid was rendered by the following con- 
tributors: Hon. A. E. Borie, Clement Biddle, J. Harrison, jr., William Welsh, A. J. 
Drexel, M. Baird & Co., H. P. McKean, William Sellers & Co., Jay Cooke & Co., J. 
S. Lentz & Co., William Weightman, George W. Childs, John Farnum, Hon. Florace 
Binney, James L. Claghorn, Charles Wheeler, C. and H. Borie, Jacob P. Jones, 
Thomas H. Powers, George F. Tyler, H. G. Morris, Samuel Welsh, H. C. Gibson, 
Clarence H. Clark, J. E. Caldwell, H. Geiger, J. M. Whitall, L. A. Godey, Charles 
Yarnall, and F. J. Dreer, of Philadelphia; Edson Fessenden, Thomas Smith, Tertius 
Wadsworth, T. M. Allyn, Mrs. Samuel Colt, C. C. Lyman, and J. F. Burns, of Hart- 
ford, Conn.; and John Amory Lowell, H. P. Kidder, William T. Andrews, Benjamin 
E. Bates, George C. Richardson, Samuel D. Warren, J. S. Ropes, and Percival L. 
Everett, of Boston. 28 
THE COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
Additions to the buildings were also provided for from time to time, so 
that by 1875 the purchase and construction account showed an expend- 
iture on the part of the United States amounting to $538,105.33? In 
1881 a fine gymnasium, built according to the plans and suggestions of 
Dr. D. A. Sargent, the director of the Heminway Gymnasium at Har- 
vard University, was added to the equipment, at an expense of $14,000, 
and in 1887 a chemical laboratory, costing $8,000, was completed. 
IV. 
The Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb now embraces 
three departments: The Gallaudet College for the Deaf, the Kendall 
School, and the Normal School.2 The college course of study includes 
an introductory course of one year, leading to the regular four years 
of work in the college proper. Necessarily the studies are adapted to 
the pupils. In mathematics, algebra, geometry, plane and spherical 
trigonometry, calculus, and mechanics; in English the course covers 
four years and includes history of English literature and original work; 
1 Ex. Doc. No. 84, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, p. 114. 
s The name of the college was changed from the National Deaf-Mute College to 
the Gallaudet College for the Deaf on the petition of the alumni association. In 
1893 this association held a meeting at Chicago, Ill., which resulted in the following 
action: 
To the Board of Directors of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. 
Gentlemen : Agreeably to instructions from the alumni of the association of the 
National Deaf-Mute College, at a meeting held in Chicago, Ill., July 21, 1893, we, a 
committee representing the alumni, respectfully present to the attention of your 
honorable body the following resolution adopted by the association: 
Besolred, That it is the earnest desire of the alumni association that the distin- 
guished services of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the founder of deaf-mute instruc- 
tion in America, should be commemorated by changing the title of that department 
of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb now known as the National 
Deaf-Mute College to Gallaudet College for the Deaf. 
It has been truly said that with the appearance of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet 
upon the scene the intellectual history of the deaf in this country begins. By him 
was founded a system which, embodying all the elements of growth and improve- 
ment, made the higher education of the deaf as afforded by the college a practical 
possibility. Dis work and the manifold blessings to humanity flowing therefrom 
are too familiar to call for mention. The honor for which we petition, of naming 
our college after this distinguished educator and philanthropist, may, we trust, find 
an echoing response in your favorable action. 
Respectfully submitted. 
Thomas F. Fox, 1883, New York, Chairman. 
Olof Hanson, 1886, Minnesota. 
D. S. Rogers, 1873, Kansas. 
At the commencement exercises held on May 2,1894, President Welling, of the 
Columbian University, made this reference to the change of name: 
It is known to us all that institutions of the higher learning in the United States, 
while having corporate and official names and designations, are required, in order 
that they may explain to the public the differentiated work in which they are 
engaged, to indicate by special and descriptive titles the peculiar educational func- 
tions discharged by the schools which are embraced under their general official 
designation. * * * 
Now, it so happens that in our great seat of learning established here for the spe- 
cial benefit of those who are deaf (I can not say those who are deaf and dumb, 
because they are not all dumb), in this institution of learning established for the 
instruction of the deaf, as the range of its studies has grown, as it has ramified, as 
it has developed, we are required to have subclassifications by which we may know 
the various and the specialized work to which it devotes itself. 
Some years ago, when a school was established here for instruction in the elemeu- THE COLUMBIAN INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB-GYMNASIUM COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB-BOYS' DORMITORY THE KENDALL SCHOOL. 
29 
in Latin, Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil's JEneid occupy the freshman and 
junior years; in Greek (an optional study), the Anabasis, the Iliad, and 
an oration of Demosthenes occupy three years, making the course in the 
classes equal to the requirements for admission to the leading colleges; 
in history, Meyer's General History, and Guizot's History of Civiliza- 
tion; in science, zoology, chemistry with laboratory practice, botany, 
physics, astronomy, geology; there is a year each of French and Ger- 
man; and there are courses in psychology, ethics, philosophy, political 
economy, international law, and aesthetics. The number of pupils in 
the collegiate department is 108, representing 30 States, the District 
of Columbia, and Canada. 
The Kendall School, as the primary department of the institution 
has been called since 1885, receives pupils mainly from the District of 
Columbia, although a number came from Maryland between 1860 and 
1868, and both Delaware and Montana1 send their beneficiaries to the 
Columbia Institution. Children also are sent to the school from various 
States to be prepared for college. The aim of the school is to give the 
pupil a practical understanding and command of the English language, 
a knowledge of the principles of arithmetic sufficiently extensive to 
tary branches of knowledge, so that the deaf and dumb might here receive training 
in the elementary culture which would qualify them for business life, or at least 
begin the training required for the more exacting duties of college life, we all 
remembered that the board of directors called it the Kendall School, in grateful 
memory of Amos Kendall, well known in political history of the United States, above 
all, well known in Washington City. 
And so we have here the Kendall School as a subclassification of the work done in 
the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, the official designation by which 
the institution is known. Now, we have listened to-day to exercises which indicate 
a higher academic learning, and it has seemed to the board of directors, responding, 
I may say, to repeated and earm st entreaties coming from different parts of the 
land, and recently renewed in a petition of the alumni signed by a committee repre- 
senting all sections of the country, that this department now receive a special desig- 
nation by which its particular work, its distinctive work, should be signified at once 
by the name it shall bear. * * * 
That name has already been signified to you in bronze in the statue which stands 
yonder on this college green, a statue erected in memory of a great work done in the 
cause of education for the deaf and the dumb, because it is a statue erected in grate- 
ful memory of him who was the founder of this system of education in the United 
States. I need not say I refer to Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the founder of the first 
institution ever established for the instruction of the deaf and dumb in our country. 
And when I have pronounced that name I have told you a magnificent history and 
I have pronouced a eulogy, because it is impossible to name Thomas Hopkins Gal- 
laudet without signifying the work he did for the deaf and the dumb of our whole 
land. Born in 1787, a graduate of Yale College, a teacher in Yale College, a gradu- 
ate of one of the great theological seminaries of the North, a preacher of distinction, 
he early became interested in the education of the deaf and the dumb because of 
that sympathetic heart which brought him in close contact with one single sufferer 
from this difficulty of speech. That was enough to move him, and from that time 
he devoted himself to the study of all those appliances by which knowledge and 
culture might be brought within the reach of the deaf and the dumb. * * * 
Therefore it is that the board of directors of the Columbia Institution for the 
Deaf and Dumb have ordained that hereafter its academic, its collegiate depart- 
ment shall be known as Gallaudet College. 
The statue referred to by Dr. Welling is one of the most celebrated works of Daniel 
C. French, and was executed in 1887. It represents Dr. Gallaudet teaching his first 
pupil, Alice Cogswell, a girl of 8 or 9 years, who lived next to him at Hartford.- 
MS. letter from D. C. French to the Editor, September 7, 1887. 
1 Montana has recently established a school for the deaf of that State. 30 
THE COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
meet his needs in business transactions, a full coarse in political geog- 
raphy, and a reasonable coarse in history. Daily instruction in articu- 
lation and lip reading is given to every pupil who shows a capacity for 
vocal improvement, and all the various appliances that can aid the 
hearing are employed. The school has 67 pupils. 
The normal department was organized in 1892, with six hearing 
young men and one young lady, who were instructed in all the methods 
of teaching the deaf. The young men were college graduates, and the 
young woman was a graduate of the Boston High School. The degree 
of master of arts was awarded to the men after one year of study, and 
on leaving the college they found situations as instructors of the deaf 
and dumb, respectively, in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, 
Faribault, Colorado Springs, and Austin. The seventh was retained at 
the National College. Thus auspiciously begun, the normal depart- 
ment has been continued with increasing success. The normal students 
are especially helpful as instructors of speech and speech-reading in 
the college. 
The institution is managed by a board of directors on which Con- 
gress is represented by one member of the Senate and two members of 
the House of Kepresentatives. The admissions of all beneficiaries are 
subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. CHAPTER IV. 
GOVERNMENT HOSPITALS AND ASYLUMS. 
rpiIE war of the rebellion found Washington a straggling village; made 
1 of the District of Columbia an enormous fortified camp, and left the 
beginnings of a modern city. With the two exceptions of the Govern- 
ment Asylum for the Insane and the Columbia Institution for the Deaf 
and Dumb, every public charitable institution and agency had its origin 
either during or after the war. Dr. Samuel C. Busey's reminiscences 
of a Washington doctor's life during the two decades before the rebel- 
lion show how impossible any organized charity would have been in a 
city so slightly organized.1 
It was during war days that the doctors of Washington discarded 
the margins of newspapers for the prescription blanks furnished by the 
druggists. The day of the specialist was far distant. The young doctor 
trudged on foot over unpaved streets and through alleys rarely lighted 
with lard-oil lamps to earn the dollar fee that often failed to be forth- 
coming, while the more prosperous practitioner rode in a buggy, which 
was at once his comfort and his advertisement. Yet even the successful 
doctor in all his pride was compelled to make way for the gangs of 
geese and the droves of swine that acted as public scavengers to dis- 
pose of the garbage that was thrown into the carriage ways. To drive 
over one of these garbage collectors was to incur a fine or an enforced 
visit to the workhouse, until a citizen of importance was knocked 
down and killed, in front of the general post-office, by a pig running 
between his legs. This sacrifice proved effective, and stray animals 
were banished from the streets by law. 
"Then," says Dr. Busey, "the war came, and with it a transforma- 
tion not less surprising than the primitive methods and conditions to 
which I have referred. The barren farm and pasture lands were occu- 
pied with encampments, fortifications, parade grounds, hospitals, wagon 
yards, mule pens, and other munitions of warfare. The streets were in 
continuous martial array with troops equipped for the field. In brief, 
the city was one great, impregnable fortress, protecting a Government 
that never for one moment faltered in courage or paused in prosecu- 
'See also A Chorographical and Statistical Description of the District of Colum- 
bia, by D. B. Warden. Paris, 1816; pp. 92-97. 
31 32 
HOSPITALS DURING THE REBELLION. 
tion. With these stupendous preparations and masses of troops there 
came the omniton gatherum of contrabands, refugees, scalawags, camp 
followers, tramps, substitute brokers, wild-cat money changers, office 
seekers, as now, and last but not least the croakers who lived upon 
the innocent credulity of timid women and cowardice of malingerers 
who wanted war but somebody else to do the fighting." 1 
In the District of Columbia and Alexandria no fewer than eighty- 
five hospitals were opened for a longer or shorter time between 1861 
and 1866. Churches, hotels, schoolhouses, private residences, and 
even the Capitol itself were pressed into service to meet sudden exi- 
gency or to provide for distinct classes of cases. The home of Stephen 
A. Douglas became the Douglas Hospital; that of Joseph Gales was 
known as the Eckington Hospital. The Harewood Hospital was built 
upon the farm of W. W. Corcoran, and the Kalorama Hospital for 
eruptive diseases occupied the private residence of General Bomford, 
that had once been the home of Joel Barlow, the poet, and Robert 
Fulton, the inventor. The new east wing of the Government Insane 
Asylum was opened as a military hospital under the distinguishing 
name of St. Elizabeth's, a title that has since clung to the asylum itself. 
The congregation of St. Aloysius erected a building in order to prevent 
their church from being used for hospital purposes, but Ascension, 
Epiphany, Grace, Trinity (Episcopal); the Dunbarton Street, Ebene- 
zer, Ryland Chapel, Union Chapel (Methodist Episcopal); the E Street 
and Thirteenth Street (Baptist); the Fourth Presbyterian, and the 
Unitarian churches of Washington were among those occupied by the 
Government for the reception of the sick and wounded. 
The following list of hospitals for the accommodation of soldiers 
is taken from Dr. J. M. Toner's anniversary oration: 
Armory Square, Washington, D. C. Consisted of eight long, one-story, frame build- 
ings, erected on purpose, ends fronting on Seventh street, between the Canal 
and D street south. Opened August, 1862; closed September 11, 1865. Buildings 
retained by Quartermaster's Department as storehouses. 
Bayne, George. Private residence, Alexandria, Va., corner of King and Water 
streets. Branch of first division United States General Hospital. 
Bellhaven Female Institute, Alexandria, Va. Corner of Queen and St. Asaph streets. 
Branch of third division United States General Hospital. 
2 Beverly, Mrs. Private residence, Alexandria, Va., Washington street, between Oro- 
noco and Princess streets. 
2 Building used as a hospital, Alexandria, Va., on Cameron, near corner of Water 
street. (Owner's name not ascertained.) 
Campbell, Washington County, D. C. Frame buildings, erected on purpose, on ground 
just outside of city limits, at north end of Sixth street. Opened December, 1862; 
closed July 22,1865. (Buildings transferred to General Howard, who had a freed- 
man's hospital opened.) 
Capitol of the United States, Washington, D. C. Hospital opened in September, 
1862; closed November, 1862. 
Carver, Washington County, D. C. Frame buildings erected on a site adjacent to 
and north of Columbian College, on the Fourteenth street road. Opened July, 
1862; closed 16th August, 1865. 
1 Dr. Busey's Reminiscences, pp. 55, 56. 
2Not corroborated by any record found in tlie War Department, December 10, 
1897.-Letter of Surfjeon-General Sternberg to the joint committee. 33 
LIST OF ARMY HOSPITALS. 
Caspari's Hotel, Washington, D. C. Situated on South A street, between New Jer- 
sey avenue and First street east. Opened July, 1862; closed 26th February, 1863. 
Church, Ascension (Episcopal), Washington, D. C. Situated on north H street, 
between Ninth and Tenth streets. Opened July, 1862; closed 2d March, 1863. 
Church, Baptist, Alexandria, Va. On Washington street, between Prince and Duke. 
Branch of second division United States General Hospital. 
Church, Dunbarton Street (Methodist Episcopal), Georgetown, D. C. On Dunbarton 
street, between Congress and High. Opened October, 1862; closed 8th January, 
1863. 
Church, E Street Baptist, Washington, D. C. On E street north, between Sixth and 
Seventh streets west. Opened July, 1862; closed 26th December, 1862. 
Church, Ebenezer (Methodist Episcopal), Washington, D. C. On Fourth street east, 
between South Carolina avenue and D street south. Opened July, 1862; closed 
26th December, 1862. 
Church, Epiphany (Episcopal), Washington, D. C. On G street north, between Thir- 
teenth and Fourteenth streets west. Opened July, 1862; closed 11th January, 
1863. 
Church, Fourth Presbyterian, Washington, D. C. On Ninth street west, between 
G and H streets north. Opened July, 1862; closed 2d March, 1863. 
Church, Grace (Episcopal), Alexandria, Va. On Patrick street, between Prince and 
Duke streets. Branch of second division, and afterwards continued and known 
as L'Ouverture General Hospital for Colored People. 
Church, Grace (Episcopal), Washington, D. C. On D street south, between Eighth 
and Ninth streets west. Opened July, 1862; closed-January, 1863. 
Church or meeting house of the Society of Friends, Alexandria, Va. On corner of 
St. Asaph and Wolfe streets. 
Church, Methodist Episcopal, South, Alexandria, Va. On Washington street, 
between King and Prince. Branch of second division United States General 
Hospital. 
Church, Presbyterian, Georgetown, D. C. On Bridge street, between Washington 
and Green, south side. Opened September, 1862; closed 29th December, 1862. 
Church, Ryland Chapel (Methodist Episcopal), Washington, D. C. On southeast 
corner of D street south and Tenth street west. Opened July, 1862; closed 
January, 1863. 
Church, Second Presbyterian, Alexandria, Va. On corner of St. Asaph and Prince 
streets. 
Church, St. Paul's (Episcopal), Alexandria, Va. Corner of Duke and Pitt streets 
Branch of first division United States General Hospital, Alexandria. 
Church, Trinity ("Episcopal), Washington, D. C. Corner of C street north and Third 
west. Opened July, 1862; closed April, 1863. 
Church, Trinity (Catholic), Georgetown, D. C. On Lingan, between First'and Second 
streets. Opened October, 1862; closed January 12, 1863. 
Church, Thirteenth Street Baptist, Washington, D. C. On east side of Thirteenth 
street west, between G and H north. Opened and closed with Epiphany on G 
street. 
Church, Unitarian, Washington, D. C., also known by the name of Crunch Hospital. 
On corner of Sixth street west and D street north. Opened July, 1862; closed 
December 26, 1862. 
Church, Union Chapel (Methodist Episcopal), Washington, D. C. On Twentieth 
street west, between Pennsylvania avenue and H street north. Opened July, 
1862; closed December, 1862. 
1 Circle General Hospital, Riggs House, corner of Twenty-fourth and K streets, 
Washington. 
1 City Hall General Hospital, Indiana and Louisiana avenues, between Fourth and 
Fifth streets northwest, Washington. 
'Claremont General Hospital, located in the Claremont mansion, 2| miles from 
Alexandria. 
Cliff burn (Mrs. Hobbie's residence), Washington County, D. C. Situated about 1 
mile beyond the city boundary, from northern terminus of Twentieth street 
west. Large buildings and tents erected on the grounds to increase accommo- 
dations in addition to the mansion. Opened April, 1862; closed December, 1862. 
1 Hospital not given in Dr. Toner's list, but in records of the War Department, 
December 10, 1897. 
7260 3 34 
HOSPITALS DURING THE REBELLION. 
College, Columbian, Washington County, D. C. Situated on the Heights, just north 
of the corporation limits, with tents and temporary buildings erected bn grounds, 
on the Fourteenth street road. Opened July 186i; closed July 10, 1865. 
College, Georgetown (Catholic), Georgetown, D. C. Situated on the Heights, over- 
looking Washington and the Potomac Kiver. Opened in September, 1862; 
closed February 1, 1863. 
•Commissary Hospital, Alexandria, Va. In a house on Prince street, between Union 
and Water. 
2Convalescent Camp, rendezvous of distribution, and Augur Hospital, near Alex- 
andria. 
Daingerfield, Mrs. Edward (private residence), Alexandria, Va. Corner of Wolfe 
and Pitt streets. Branch of the first division United States General Hospital. 
Desmares (residence of Charles Hill, sr.), on the corner of Massachusetts avenue 
and Fourteenth street. Inclosed with the house is a half square of ground 
upon which additional frame buildings were erected. Opened March, 1863; 
closed December 2, 1865. (This building is now used as the Columbia Hospital 
for Women and Lying-in Asylum.) 
Douglas (private residence of the late Stephen A.), Washington, D. C. Including 
two adjoining dwelling houses and temporary frame buildings, erected on the 
remainder of the square bounded by New Jersey avenue and Third street north 
and I and K streets west. Opened January, 1862; closed December 11, 1865. 
'Dwelling house, No. 461 E street north, between Fifth and Sixth streets west. 
Occupied after the burning of the Washington Infirmary, and until the Douglas 
Hospital was opened. 
Eckington (private residence of the late Joseph Gales), situated about half a mile 
beyond the city limits, opposite the northwestern terminus of New York avenue. 
Temporary buildings and tents were erected here to increase hospital accommo- 
dations. Opened January, 1862; closed April 3, 1863. 
Emory Hospital, Washington, D. C. Frame building erected on purpose, covering 
the squares bounded by Seventeenth and Nineteenth streets east and B and D 
streets south. Opened August 1, 1862; closed July 22, 1865. 
English, Miss L. S. Female Seminary, Georgetown, D. C. Situated on the north- 
east corner of Gay and Washington streets. Opened July, 1861; closed July 
18, 1865. 
'Eruptive Fever General Hospital, First street, between B and C streets southeast, 
Washington. 
Female Boarding School, Alexandria, Va. On Washington street, between Queen 
i and Cameron. Branch third division United States General Hospital. 
Finley, Washington County, D. C. Buildings erected on purpose at Kendall Green, 
just outside of the city limits, opposite northern terminus of Fourth street east. 
Opened July, 1862; closed August, 1865. 
Fowle, W. H. Private residence, Alexandria, Va. On Prince, between Columbus 
and Alford streets. Branch of second division United States General Hospital. 
"General Hospital (Fairfax Seminary), located in the Protestant Episcopal Theo- 
logical Seminary, 2 miles from Alexandria. 
"General Hospital, Giesboro Point. 
"General Hospital, Nos. 360 and 361 C street northwest, Washington. 
"Grosvenor House (branch of third division General Hospital), located in the Gros- 
venor House, on Washington street, between Princess and Orinoco streets, Alex- 
andria, and in the Casenove House. 
1 Hallowell, B. Private residence, Alexandria, Va. On Washington street, between 
Green and Cameron Branch of third division United States General Hospital. 
Hallowell, James S. Female Seminary, Alexandria, Va. On Fairfax, between 
Cameron and Queen streets. Branch of first division United States General 
Hospital. 
Harewood, Washington County, D. C. On the farm of W. W. Corcoran, about one 
mile and a half directly north of the city limits. Extensive frame buildings 
erected on purpose for hospitals. Opened September, 1862; closed May 24,1865. 
'Not corroborated by any record found in the War Department, December 10, 
1897.-Letter of Surgeon-General Sternberg to the joint committee. 
'Hospital not given in Dr. Toner's list, but in records of the War Department, 
December 10, 1897. THE SOLDIERS' HOME. 35 
LIST OF ARMY HOSPITALS. 
Island Hall, Washington, D. C. Corner of D street south and Sixth street west. 
Opened July, 1862; closed March, 1863. 
1 Jewish Synagogue, Washington, D. C. On the west side of Eighth street west, 
between H and I north. Opened July, 1862; closed March, 1863 
Johnson, Rev. J. T. Private residence, Alexandria,Va. On Prince between Columbus 
and Alford streets. Branch of second division United States General Hospital. 
Judiciary Square, Washington, D. C. Commodious frame buildings erected on this 
square after the burning of the Washington Infirmary. Opened April, 1862; 
closed July 8, 1865. 
Kalorama, Washington County, D. C. Hospital for eruptive diseases. The private 
residence of General Bomford, and once the residence of Joel Barlow and his 
friend Robert Fulton, pleasantly situated on an elevated site just outside the 
city limits, opposite the northern terminus of Twenty-first street west. 
Opened early in the war, and still continued. 
Lincoln Hospital, Washington, D. C. Extensive frame buildings, erected for the 
purpose, fronting west, in the square between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets 
east, following pretty nearly the line of North Carolina avenue to Seventeenth 
street east, and then along that street to A street south, and then in a trian- 
gular direction to the point of beginning. Opened January, 1863; closed 
August 26, 1865. Buildings now occupied by quartermaster's stores. 
L'Ouverture Hospital, for colored troops, Alexandria, Va. Buildings erected on the 
corner of Washington and Prince streets. Opened March, 1864; closed Septem- 
ber, 1865. (Then opened by the Freedmen's Bureau and continued as a hospital.) 
Lyceum Building, Alexandria, Va. Corner of Washington and Prince streets. 
Branch of second division United States General Hospital. 
Mansion House (hotel), Alexandria, Va. Corner of Cameron and Fairfax streets. 
Headquarters first division United States General Hospital. 
McVeigh, J. H. (private residence), Alexandria, Va. Corner of St. Asaph and 
Cameron streets. Branch of third division United States General Hospital. 
Mount Pleasant, Washington County, D. C. On the Holmead estate, Piney Branch 
road. Frame buildings erected for the purpose about 1 mile north of the city 
limits, from the termination of Fourteenth street. Opened April, 1862; closed 
August 10, 1865. 
'National Era Building, Washington, D. C. Corner of Indiana avenue and Second 
street west. Opened July, 1862; closed April, 1863. 
"New Hallowell (branch of the General Hospital, and third division General Hos- 
pital), located in William Hallowell's three-story brick house, on Washington 
street, opposite Old Hallowell General Hospital, Alexandria. 
Odd Fellows' Hall, Washington, D. C. Ou Eighth street east, between F and G 
south. Opened July, 1862; closed March, 1863. 
Old Capitol Prison, Washington, D. C. Corner of A street north and First street 
east, to which was attached an extensive hospital for State prisoners. 
2 Old Hallowell (branch of the third Division General Hospital), located in Old Hal- 
lowell school building on west side of Washington street, between Cameron and 
Queen streets, Alexandria. 
Patent Office, Washington, D. C. Occupying squares bounded by Seventh and Ninth 
streets west and F and G streets north. The north and west wings used as a 
hospital. Opened October, 1861; closed January 16, 1863. 
Robertson, T. B. (private residence), Alexandria, Va. Corner of Prince and Colum- 
bia streets; was occupied as headquarters second division United States General 
Hospital. Taken September, 1862. 
Schoolhouse (public), Washington, D. C. On Judiciary Square, Fifth street west, 
between G and H streets north. Occupied November 3, 1861, after the burning 
of the Washington Infirmary; vacated on the opening of Douglas Hospital in 
January, 1862. 
2Sickel Barracks General Hospital (branch of second division General Hospital). 
Designation changed to Sickel General Hospital; located in a three-story brick 
building in the northwest section of Alexandria. 
2 Slough Barracks General Hospital, branch of the third division (designation changed 
to Slough General Hospital). Located in wooden barracks on Duke street, 
Alexandria. 
1 Not corroborated by any record found in the War Department, December 10, 
1897.-Letter of Surgeon-General Sternberg to the joint committee. 
-Hospital not given in Dr. Toner's list, but in records of the War Department, 
December 10, 1897. 36 
THE ARMY MEDICAL M CSEUM. 
Smith, F. L. (private residence), Alexandria, Va. On corner of Wolfe and Pitt streets, 
Branch of tirst division United States General Hospital. 
1 Soldiers' Rest General Hospital (branch of first division General Hospital), located 
nea.r depot of Orange and Alexandria Railway, Alexandria. 
St. Aloysius, Washington, D. C. This building was erected by and at the expense 
of St. Aloysius (Catholic) congregation, on a square between K and L streets 
north and First street west and North Capitol, to be used, instead of their 
church, which the exigencies of the war demanded, for the accommodation of 
the sick and wounded. Opened October, 1862; is still continued as a post 
hospital. 
St. Elizabeth, Washington County, I). C. This hospital consisted of the new east 
wing of the Government Insane Hospital, situated on a commanding elevation, 
about 2 miles south of the city. Opened December, 1862; closed May 28, 1864. 
Stanton, Washington, D. C. Frame buildings erected on square bounded by II and I 
streets north and Second and Third west. Opened December, 1862; closed 
October 19,1865. 
Stone, Washington County, D. C. Country residence of the late W. J. Stone, just 
outside the corporate limits, at the northern terminus of Fourteenth street, and 
opposite Columbian College. Opened April, 1862; -closed July 1, 1865. 
Union Hotel, Georgetown, D. C. Northeast corner of Bridge and Washington streets 
Opened May, 1861; closed March, 1863. 
1 Washington Hall General Hospital (branch of the second division General Hospital), 
located in Washington Hall, corner of Washington and King streets, Alexandria. 
Washington Infirmary, Washington, D. C. On Judiciary square. Taken possession 
of by the army for a hospital in April, 1861, and occupied until destroyed by lire. 
November 3,1861. 
Waters, Joseph (warehouse), Georgetown. D. C. On High street, between Bridge and 
Water streets. Opened September, 1862; closed October, 1862. 
II. 
As an outgrowth of the extensive hospital work done during the 
rebellion the Army Medical Museum was established. The act of 
April 7, 1866, authorized the purchase of the property in Washington 
City known as Ford's Theater, for the deposit and safekeeping of docu- 
mentary papers relating to soldiers of the Army of the United States 
and of the Museum of the Medical and Surgical Department of the 
Army, and during the following year the property was bought for 
$88,(100. This building was occupied by the Museum until the comple- 
tion of the present Museum building, on the corner of Seventh and B 
streets southwest. In this Museum are collected and preserved patho- 
logical specimens representing nearly every disease and accident that 
occurred in the Army and Navy during the war. The Medical and 
Surgical History of the War and the Index Catalogue of the Library of 
the. Surgeon-General's Oflice are monumental works.2 
Several of the hospitals established during the war were continued 
for some time thereafter. The Kalorama Hospital was open to citizens 
of the District on payment of $1.50 a day, and St. Aloysius Hospital 
1 Hospitals not given in Dr. Toner's list, but in records of the War Department, 
December 10, 1897. 
2 The Ford's Theater building, now occupied by the medical records of the soldiers 
of the rebellion, was erected about 1833 as a Baptist church, for which purpose it 
was used until 1860, when John T. Ford bought it to use as a theater. He rebuilt it 
after the lire of 1863. As a theater, it was the most popular place of amusement in 
Washington up to April 14, 1865, when President Lincoln was assassinated there. UNITED STATES NAVAL HOSPITAL. 
UNITED STATES NAVAL HOSPITAI REAR VIEW. THE SOLDJEHS' HOME. 
37 
became on May 1, 1866, the Washington City Post Hospital for the 
treatment of enlisted men stationed at the barracks and camps around 
Washington and for the quartermaster's employees. The Freedmen's 
Hospital will receive attention later. 
III. 
In order to complete the record of strictly Governmental hospital 
work, it is necessary to mention briefly the Military Asylum, popularly 
known as the Soldiers' Home, and the Naval Hospital. The former of 
these institutions was created by the act approved March 3, 1851, which 
appropriated any unexpended balance of the appropriation made March 
2, 1847, then remaining in the Treasury for the benefit of discharged 
soldiers disabled by wounds; the sum of $118,791.19 levied by the 
commanding general of the Army of the United States in Mexico 
during the war with that Republic, for the benefit of the soldiers of 
the United States Army, regulars and volunteers, engaged in that war, 
but taken possession of as funds of the United States and placed in 
the Treasury; all stoppages or fines adjudged against soldiers by sen- 
tence of courts-martial, over and above any amount that may be due for 
the reimbursement of the Government or of individuals; all forfeitures 
on account of desertion; all moneys, not exceeding two-thirds of the 
balance on hand, of the hospital fund and post fund of each military 
station, after deducting the necessary expenses of the year, and all 
moneys belonging to the estates of deceased soldiers which are now or 
may hereafter be unclaimed for the period of three years subsequent 
to the death of such soldier or soldiers, to be repaid by the commis- 
sioners of the institution upon demand of the heirs or legal representa- 
tives of the deceased. 
The location of the asylum was determined by Gen. Winfield Scott, 
who had confiscated the property that was sold to create the fund on 
which the establishment was based. The original site was purchased 
in 1853, additions being made in 1875 and 1876; the total cost was 
$436,080.94, of which sum $100,000 represents the cost of the original 
purchase.1 
The officers of the Home for 1896 were Brig. Gen. David S. Stanley, 
governor; Capt. D. A. Irwin, deputy governor; Maj. Richard C. Parker, 
secretary and treasurer; Lieut. Col. W. H. Forwood, surgeon. There 
are 502 acres in the tract owned by the Home, of which about 28 are 
used for farming purposes, 12 for the garden, 42 for lawns, and 200 for 
pasturage; and there are about 200 acres in woodland, and 20 acres 
'occupied by the buildings. The average number of officers and mem- 
bers present during the year ending September 30,1896, was 688, which 
is a slight increase over the number reported for the year before, and a 
gain of only 63 over the average of ten years ago. The highest number 
1 Ex. Doc. No. 84, Forty fifth Congress, second session, p. 70. 38 
THE SOLDIERS1 HOME. 
present during the year was 722, on February 28, 1896, and the lowest 
657, on July 6, 1896; and the total cared for was 1,535, against 1,755 
the preceding year. 
Facilities for amusement consist of billiards, pool, and bagatelle 
tables, cards, chess, checkers, and dominoes, occasional variety enter- 
tainments, a band, and a library. Each barrack building has a sort of 
assembly room set aside, which is located on the ground floor in the 
Anderson Building and in the basement in the other four. The billiard 
hall is located in the basement of the Sherman Building, and contains 
three billiard, one pool, and two bagatelle tables. There is no charge 
for these games and the tables are reported in constant use. Facilities 
for cards and other sedentary games are reported ample, each of the 
five amusement rooms containing tables. The rooms are inspected 
daily by a commissioned officer. The band is maintained during the 
entire year with an average membership of 14, all of whom are mem- 
bers of the Home. Its cost for the past year has been $1,925.04 for pay 
of the musicians, and $95.97 for instruments, and 155 concerts were 
given. The library contains 6,074 volumes; and 32 papers and 17 
periodicals are subscribed for. 
There are three societies among the members, viz: Henry Wilson 
Post, G. A. R.; Gen. William F. Barry Garrison, R. A. N. U.; and 
Soldiers' Home Temperance Union, with a membership of 120, 46, and 
130, respectively. Divine services are held every Sunday by each chap- 
lain in the Home chapel, which has a capacity of 250. There are three 
chaplains, a Catholic, an Episcopalian, and a Lutheran, who are paid 
$50 per month each, except the first named, who receives $15 additional 
for organist and choir. They do not live at the Home. In addition to 
their Sunday services they officiate at funerals and minister to the sick. 
There are five barracks at the Home, known as the Scott, Sherman, 
Sheridan, Anderson, and King buildings. The two first named are of 
stone, and the last three of brick. The Anderson, which is stuccoed and 
is the smallest of the five, was not originally constructed for barrack pur- 
poses, and is used principally for the band. There is room in these 
buildings for 710 beds; they contain 652. There are basements in all, 
which are used as amusement and smoking rooms, barber, tailor, uphol- 
sterer, and shoemaker shops, museum, reading and bath rooms, and 
storerooms, and a few have bunks in them. 
The annual expenses, exclusive of permanent improvements, have 
been reduced to $146,415.82, of which nearly $81,000 was met from the 
interest paid by the United States on the amount of the permanent 
fund1 on deposit with the United States Treasurer, and the remainder 
from the principal of that fund and some small incidental receipts. 
The average daily number of members on outdoor relief during the 
year 1896 was 318.58. These beneficiaries received $26,471.06, or an 
*0n June 30, 1896, the permanent fund amounted to $2,711,124.52. The per capita 
expense was $171.71. THE NAVAL HOSPITAL. 
39 
average of $83.09 each for the year. The maximum amount paid was 
$96 and the minimum $24. The system of outdoor relief at this Home 
gives general satisfaction and the expense is less than half the cost of 
maintaining these beneficiaries at the Home. Combining these with 
those constantly present at the home, a daily average of 1,006.58 mem- 
bers were cared for at an annual cost of maintenance per capita of 
$143.66. On September 30,1896, 76 of the 85 beds in the hospital were 
occupied by patients, which is a decrease of 5 from the number reported 
a year previous. The average number of daily sick during the year 
has been 77.18 in hospital and 6.44 at sick call. The total number of 
patients treated was 2,775, and the average number of days each case 
was treated was 66.94 days in hospital and one day at sick call. There 
were 341 patients admitted to the hospital during the year and 137 dis- 
charged as cured. The number of deaths during the year was 67, 
against 55 the previous year, and the death rate per 1,000 present and 
absent was increased from 52 to 62.73. Forty-two members died in 
hospital, 5 in other places on the reservation, and 20 outside of the 
reservation. The causes of death were: Natural, 45; suicide, 2; result 
of accident, 1, and unknown, 19. The average age at death was 64.63 
years. Deceased members are buried in the Home uniform in a coffin 
made at the Home shops at a cost of $6.12. The funeral is reported to 
cost $6.42. Fifty-three members and 12 ex-members were buried at the 
neighboring national cemetery during the year. An allowance of $25 
is made for funeral expenses of members buried away from the Home. 
Hygienic conditions seem excellent and the sick are well cared for, 
$3,917.88 being expended during the year for extra diet of the sick. 
The average daily cost of the hospital ration, including special diet, 
per man, is reported as $0,198. The insane are quartered in two small, 
barred isolation rooms when necessary, and in the general hospital 
quarters. When they can not be properly cared for there, they are sent 
to the Government asylum, St. Elizabeth's. The average annual num- 
ber of insane is about 25, and between three and four have been sent 
annually to the asylum for the past five years. The blind members are 
quartered on the first floor of the Scott buildings, and seem to receive 
all the assistance they need. Three are totally blind and 23 have 
impaired eyesight, so as to be unable to read. One man is employed to 
read daily to them. The hospital employees number 29 members and 
3 civilians, who received a total compensation during the year of 
$6,417.76, or an average of $200.59 each.1 
IV. 
A small naval hospital or infirmary for the accommodation of the 
marines stationed at the Washington Navy-Yard was maintained from 
the time of the removal of the seat of government to the District of 
1 Report of Gen. J. C. Breckinridge, inspector-general, H. R. Doc. 2, Fifty-fourth 
Congress, second session, p. 641. 40 
THE SOLDIERS' HOME. 
Columbia in 1800. Subsequently the Navy Department came into the 
possession of the property known as square 948, bounded by Pennsyl- 
vania avenue and E street south and Ninth and Tenth streets east, as 
the assets of a defaulter. The small frame house on the property was 
used as a hospital until October 1,1866, when the present building was 
opened for patients on the lands described above. The new building 
of brick, 90 feet long, 44 feet wide, and four stories high, with a capacity 
to accommodate from 80 to 100 patients was constructed with all the 
improvements in ventilation, heating, and sewerage then known to 
sanitary science.1 The first appropriation for the new hospital was 
made March 14,1864, and the total cost of the building was $97,929.58? 
The records of the hospital for the five years 1891 to 1895, inclusive, 
show 36 admissions of officers, with a total of 1,265 sick days; other 
admissions, sailors and marines, number 528. Patients are received 
at this hospital chiefly from the navy yard and marine headquarters, 
but from time to time they are transferred there from other hospitals, 
from coast survey vessels, and from other vessels, foreign or belonging 
to our own Navy, which may be in port; also old sailors and marines on 
the retired list who have no suitable home and when taken ill find a 
refuge here. The officers attached to the navy-yard and marine head- 
quarters number about 50, while the number of sailors and marines is 
about 240. Besides the above, there are in and about Washington 250 
or more officers, active and retired, liable to need hospital accommoda- 
tions and treatment. 
The situation of the hospital is excellent, occupying an entire square 
of land on four streets, having thus abundant sunlight and fresh air. 
The elevation above the navy-yard is inconsiderable, but sufficient to 
make a very great change perceptible in the condition of malarial 
patients transferred. The mere change from the one place to the other 
has sometimes sufficed to put a stop to an attack of malarial fever. 
There is but one separate room in which a sick officer can be isolated. 
In the opinion of the Surgeon-General of the Navy additional accom- 
modations should be provided, so that the whole of the two principal 
floors could be allotted to patients, the lower or main floor to officers, 
and the second floor to the enlisted men. The medical officers on duty 
should be lodged in an annex, which could be easily built within the 
present grounds and in connection with the hospital proper, and an 
appropriation with this object in view should be submitted at an early 
date.3 
1 Toner's Medical Register of the District of Columbia, 1867. 
2 Senate Ex. Doc. No. 84, Fifty-fourth Congress, second session, p. 75. 
3 Report of Surg. Gen. J. R. Tryon, U. S. N., H. R. Doc. 3, Fifty-fourth Congress, 
second session, p. 568. THE PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL CHAPTER V. 
GENERAL HOSPITALS. 
THE early struggles of the physicians of the District of Columbia to 
secure the establishment of a general hospital, and their partial 
success with the Washington Infirmary, have been related. When the 
exigencies of war times compelled the Government to reclaim its prop- 
erty for use as a military hospital the District of Columbia was left with 
only such hospital facilities as its citizens might be able to secure in 
competition with the sick and wounded soldiers who were crowding 
churches, hotels, schoolhouses, and even private residences. 
As has been related the Sisters of Mercy managed the domestic 
concerns of the Washington Infirmary for the medical faculty of Colum- 
bian College, and therefore it was but natural that when a continuation 
of the hospital work was considered the aid of a sisterhood should be 
invoked. This was made the more natural from the fact that the prime 
mover in the measures that led to the establishment of the new hospital 
was Dr. J. M. Toner, who was at the time physician to St. Vincent's 
Orphan Asylum.1 
On June 10,1861, the Sisters of Charity from the Emmetsburg, Md., 
home opened Providence Hospital in a rented house, formerly the resi- 
dence of Major Nicholson, on the corner of Second and E streets, Capitol 
Hill. The building was fairly well adapted to the needs of the modest 
institution. Being situated in the middle of a square it had plenty of 
light and air, and but few changes were needed to adapt it to hospital 
purposes.2 The first incorporation was under the general act of the 
District, but in 1864 Congress granted a charter.3 Although estab- 
lished for the use of the indigent sick of the District of Columbia, the 
hospital was used largely by the Government for the treatment of sol- 
diers, and doubtless it was because of this fact that the first announce- 
ment that the hospital was open to the public was not made until 1866. 
'Toner's Anniversary Oration. Dr. Johnston Helen also was one of the most active 
promoters of the new hospital. 
2 Toner's Medical Register of the District of Columbia, 1867. 
3Senate Doc. 185, Fifty-fifth Congress, first session, p. 373. 
41 42 
THE PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL. 
The full announcement is given in Toner's Anniversary Oration as 
follows: 
Washington Providence Hospital. 
This institution, which is under the control and direction of the Sisters of Charity, 
is now open to the public. 
All persons suffering from casualties or noncontagious diseases will be admitted. 
The buildings are spacious and, with the alterations recently made, well adapted 
to hospital purposes. 
The location is elevated and salubrious, the grounds are extensive and well shaded, 
affording ample facilities for air and exercise. 
Providence Hospital is admirably suited to patients wishing to avail themselves 
of the advantages of a hospital and yet enjoy the comforts and quiet of home. 
[Second street east, Capitol Hill, Washington, D. C.] 
Private rooms, from $7 to $10, according to the nature of the disease and the 
attendance required. 
General wards, $4. 
Dr. J. M. Toner is the attending physician and surgeon of the house, but all the 
physicians in the District will have an equality of privilege in the institution; 
consequently any physician who may send a patient to the hospital can attend the 
same, if he wishes to do so. 
Application can be made at the hospital or to Dr. J. M. Toner. 
Iii Congress the hospital early found a powerful and persistent friend 
in the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, and afterwards Hon. 
Samuel J. Randall and Hon. James A. Garfield were numbered con- 
spicuously among its supporters.1 The appropriation of $6,000 a year 
"for the support, care, and medical treatment of 40 transient paupers, 
medical and surgical patients, in some proper medical institution in the 
city of Washington, to be selected by the Commissioner of Public 
Buildings," was the main financial dependence of the new hospital. 
This appropriation was continued for three years, but failed in 1865, 
only to be doubled in the act of April 7, I860.2 The act of July 28, 1866, 
made a second appropriation of $12,000 and increased the number of 
patients to be treated from 40 to 60. The same act appropriated 
$30,000 for the purpose of aiding in the erection of an additional build- 
ing to the Providence Hospital, and provided that in case the property 
should ever be sold or diverted from hospital uses as expressed in the 
charter, then the sum of $30,000 shall first be paid out of the proceeds 
into the United States Treasury to reimburse the sum appropriated. 
Two years later a further appropriation of $30,000 was made for the 
completion of the hospital; and it was provided that " all expenditures 
under appropriations of Congress shall be made under the direction and 
control of the Surgeon-General of the Army, whose duty it shall be to 
report at the December session of every Congress a full and complete 
statement of all expenses incurred under and by virtue of appropria- 
TERMS PER WEEK. 
'Annual Report of Providence Hospital, 1896. 
* Senate Ex. Doc. No. 84, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, p. 119. THE PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL-OPERATING ROOM. THE PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL-PUBLIC WARD. SISTER BEATRICE. 
43 
tions made by Congress."1 In 1869 the annual appropriation was cut 
down to $6,000; but the next year Congress appropriated another 
$6,000 "to enable the Surgeon-General of the Army to pay the balance 
due under contract executed by him with the Providence Hospital for 
the care, support, and medical treatment of 60 transient paupers."2 In 
1873 the appropriation was increased to $15,000, and the number of 
free patients was raised to 75; and in 1890 the sum was further increased 
to $19,000, and the number of patients to 95. 
The new building, for which Congress appropriated in all $60,000, 
is located on the southeast corner of second and D streets southeast, 
the site of the original hospital. Facing a large reservation, and stand- 
ing high above the surrounding streets, the windows command fine 
views of the Potomac and its banks from Georgetown to Alexandria. 
With no further appropriations than those mentioned the hospital lands 
now comprise 89,882 square feet, valued at $39,137-an extremely con- 
servative estimate-and buildings valued at $100,600. The building is 
heated by steam, and the average air space to each patient is 896 cubic 
feet, exclusive of the halls. There is an operating room in a semi- 
detached building especially constructed to meet the requirements of 
surgical work, and one of the sisters devotes her entire time to the care 
of the room and the preparation of surgical dressings. The room has 
seats for 150 students, who may present themselves for the clinical 
instruction offered by members of the staff. There is also a newly 
built bacteriological and pathological laboratory fully equipped. The 
bacteriological department is in charge of Dr. E. M. Parker, and the 
pathologist is Dr. W. M. Gray of the Army Medical Museum, who 
investigates and reports on the pathological material turned over to 
him by the surgeons. A training school for the nurses and sisters 
employed in the hospital is also maintained. 
Since 1870 the Providence Hospital has been in charge of Sister 
Beatrice, the title being in the Sisters of Charity of Emmitsburg, Md* 
A board of visitors, consisting of four citizens of the District,3 makes 
a general report each year as to the condition in which they find the 
institution, and a sanitary committee appointed by the medical board 
also makes an annual inspection. The first medical staff was made up 
of Drs. D. R. Hagner, John C. Riley, and William Marbury, physicians; 
and Drs. J. F. Thompson, C. M. Ford, and N. S. Lincoln, surgeons; with 
Drs. Grafton Tyler and W. P. Johnson, consulting. Dr. J. M. Toner 
was the attending physician and the surgeon of the house. 
In his plan Dr. Toner very wisely arranged that any physician in the 
District who might send a patient to the hospital could attend the case 
if he should desire so to do. Again the authorities showed their 
1 Act of July 27, 1868. 
2 Act of April 20, 1870. 
8 The board of visitors now consists of Hon. Matthew G. Emery, A. S. Solomons, 
Thomas Somerville, and Hon L. G. Hine. 44 
THE PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL. 
wisdom in conciliating the medical profession by providing that the 
medical and surgical staff should visit and prescribe for patients in 
private rooms as well as those in the public wards; but such patients 
were required to pay the usual fees to the attending physicians and 
surgeons. The cost per week in the wards of the hospital was fixed at 
$6, with an extra charge for a private room. The prices now range from 
$7 to $20 a week, according to the accommodations. 
To the free public wards patients are admitted on the order of the 
Surgeon-General of the Army. In the report for 1896 the statement is 
made that while the appropriation the hospital receives is limited and 
provides only for the nonresident sick, yet by receipts of money from 
private wards a large charity fund is created for the sick poor of the 
District. No cases are refused admission except those of insanity7 or 
diseases of a contagious nature, thus fulfilling the requirements of a 
general hospital. While nominally the Surgeon-General of the Army 
admits public patients, they are really admitted on certificate from the 
sanitary officer of the District of Columbia.1 
The hospital was well patronized from the beginning, and in 1896 
the receipts from pay patients were $31,844.88. The sum of $149.50 
was received from the Marine-Hospital Service for the care of merchant 
sailors, who are treated by medical officers of that service. The hos- 
pital cares for between 2,200 and 2,300 cases a year, and is resorted to 
by persons in every7 walk of life. During the past year 351 laborers, 
230 domestics, 225 clerks, 128 housekeepers, 100 old soldiers, 42 stu- 
dents, 12 physicians, 27 lawyers, 16 merchants, 5 journalists, 12 actors, 
and 2 Congressmen were among the persons treated; in all 120 occupa- 
tions were represented. The largest number, 251, had no occupation. 
As to nativity, 56 States, Territories, and countries contributed to the 
total, the District of Columbia leading, with 605; then Maryland, 328; 
Virginia, 318; New York, 182; Pennsylvania, 126. 
The present medical board is made up of 24 physicians of recognized 
standing, the special departments, such as gynecology, laryngology, 
and the eye and ear, are in charge of specialists.2 
1 See testimony of Surgeon-General Sternberg, Sister Beatrice, and Sanitary Officer 
Frank before the Joint Select Committee on the Charities and Reformatory Insti- 
tutions of the District of Columbia. Senate Doc. No. 185, Fifty-fifth Congress, first 
session, p. 242. 
2The staff at present is as follows: Consulting board: Drs. S. A. H, McKim, N. S. 
Lincoln, J. W. Bulkley, J. T. Young, G. L. Magruder, Z. T. Sowers, Robert Reyburn, 
W. H. Hawkes, H. M. Newman, Walter Wyman, George M. Sternberg. Surgical staff: 
Drs. J. W. Bayne, T. F. Malian, Harrison Crook, James Kerr. Medical staff: Drs. 
C. V. N. Callan, M. F. Cuthbert, Thomas N. Vincent, C. R. Luce. Gynecologist: Dr. 
J. Wesley Bovee. Diseases of the throat and ear: Dr. C. W. Richardson. Ophthalmic 
surgeon: Dr. Swan M. Burnett. Bacteriologist: Dr. E.M. Parker. Pathologist: Dr. 
W. M. Gray. Resident physician: Dr. Jesse Ramsburgh. Externe: Dr. Charles C. 
Marbury. Dentist: A. J. Brown, D. D. S. THE PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL-PRIVATE ROOM PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL-CORRIDOR THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOST IT AL. 
45 
II. 
The medical profession of Washington have ever had in mind the 
establishment of a general hospital in which the treatment should be 
entirely free and to which admission should be confined to the deserv- 
ing poor. In May, 1874, Drs. L. W. Richie and C. H. A. Kleinschmidt, 
together with several of their professional brethren and a number of 
private citizens, organized the General Hospital of the District of Co- 
lumbia, Georgetown, an institution that continued in active operation 
until lack of support compelled it to close its doors in March, 1876. 
The next year Dr. Francis A. Ashford was the leader in a movement 
that sought to change the management of the almshouse hospital and 
on that foundation build such a hospital as the profession so earnestly 
desired. 
The situation, as it then appeared to the majority of the physicians 
of Washington, was briefly as follows: In the District of Columbia, 
and especially in Washington, a large floating population was domiciled 
in hotels, boarding houses, and apartments, in which the sick could 
not secure the ordinary comforts of a sick chamber, a suitable dietary, 
efficient nursing, and adequate medical attention. These necessaries 
could be supplied only by a general hospital which should offer, at a rea- 
sonable cost, suitable apartments, skilled nursing, proper food, and the 
choice of treatment by the regular medical staff or by a legally qualified 
physician of the patient's own selection, together with all the advantages 
of an ample and properly equipped pharmacy, necessary laboratories, 
appliances, and hygienic care. 
In reviewing the existing facilities of the city the doctors asserted 
that there was no institution which fulfilled the foregoing requirements. 
The Columbia Hospital afforded accommodations to females suffering 
from the diseases peculiar to women. It was governed by a board of 
directors under the provisions of a charter granted by Congress, and was 
supported in part from the District revenues and in part from funds 
derived from pay patients. The Children's Hospital was devoted exclu- 
sively to the medical and surgical treatment of children, and was 
owned and governed by a corporate body organized under the general 
incorporation law. The Freedmen's Hospital was in part an asylum, 
but mainly a hospital for the sick of the African race; it was owned by 
the Howard University corporation, and was supported by the Govern- 
ment. The almshouse hospital, owned, governed, and supported by the 
District government, afforded accommodations, in a badly constructed 
and improperly located building, for about 150 patients. There the 
vicious, criminal, vagrant,and a few deserving paupers were promiscu- 
ously commingledasone class. The Providence Hospital was owned and 
governed by the Sisters of Charity. It was built out of moneys appro- 
priated by Congress. It was supported by its own revenue, a part of 
which was derived under contract from an annual appropriation by 46 
THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. 
Congress for the maintenance of sick transient paupers. The public 
patients were admitted by order of the Surgeon-General; and even in 
the estimation of its managers, in order to fit it for a general hospital, 
at least $25,000 expense would be necessary. 
While of all the existing institutions the Providence Hospital ap- 
proached nearest the character of a general hospital, yet its confessed 
lack of advantages, the fact that it was a pay hospital, and the condi 
tions of entrance led the medical profession to aver that there was 
no hospital in the District into which a deserving poor white man or 
woman (unless she is afflicted with some disease peculiar to her sex) can 
find accommodations except upon payment of a weekly board or sub- 
mit to conditions which should not be imposed on that class. This 
was true notwithstanding the fact that $70,000 of public money annu- 
ally went to the support of hospitals exclusive of the almshouse hos- 
pital. Moreover, the hospital accommodations were inadequate to the 
wants of the community.1 
To Dr. Ashford and his numerously signed memorial the munici- 
pal authorities gave no heed; and the zealous promoter of a general 
hospital gave up the idea of converting the almshouse asylum into the 
institution so much desired. At this juncture the assassination of 
President Garfield stirred the sympathies of the civilized world to 
such an extent that various plans of expression were put forward. In 
Washington a society was organized to procure and erect the statue 
that stands on the west front of the Capitol Grounds. The modest 
church in which he and his family had worshiped for many years 
gave place to the Garfield Memorial Church, one of the most expensive 
church edifices in the city. To many it seemed most appropriate that 
the President's long and patient suffering from the wounds that caused 
his death should be commemorated by a hospital which, though located 
in Washington, should possess a national character.2 
The original suggestion of a memorial hospital was made by Mr. 
Lewis J. Davis in the Evening Star. Mr. Davis proposed a hospital 
at the Baltimore and Potomac Kailroad station, where the assassination 
occurred, but in the Star of August 3, 1881, Mr. A. S. Solomons advo- 
cated the establishment of a general hospital to be known as the Gar- 
field Memorial Hospital, and "designed to be as wide in its scope of 
benevolence as was the kindly heart of the martyred President in its 
outstretch and human sympathies." Mr. Solomons outlined a plan of 
obtaining subscriptions and easily convinced Dr. Ashford that the 
opportunity had now come to realize his project of a public general hos- 
pital that should be nonsectarian and wherein the medical and surgical 
practitioners of the District could have free access at all times. 
1 Memorial signed by 85 physicians and dated at Garfield Memorial Hospital, June 
1882. This is nearly identical in language with the statement prepared by Dr. 
Busey iu 1885.-Dr. C. S. Busey's Personal Beminiscences, p. 222. 
The memorial is given on pages 228 and 229; and also in the report of Garfield 
Hospital for 1883, and the Toner MSS. in the Library of Congress. 
* Garfield Memorial Hospital Inaugural Address by Mr. Justice Miller. A PUBLIC MEETING. 
47 
A call for a public meeting, signed by many physicians and by prom- 
inent citizens, resulted in a large gathering at Lincoln Hall on the 
evening of October 5, 1881. At the request of Mr. Solomons and Dr. 
Ashford, Mr. Justice Miller presided and eventually became the first 
president of the new corporation.1 Mr. Solomons, the chairman of the 
committee on resolutions, reported the following preamble and resolu- 
tions, which were unanimously adopted: 
Whereas the whole civilized world has been shocked and moved to tears by the 
untimely death of the late President of the United States, and will, we believe, unite 
with us in testifying its admiration of the man for his unsullied virtues, eminent 
statesmanship, unflinching courage, and for his patient endurance and steadfast hope 
during his painful illnes's; and 
Whereas it is desirable to perpetuate his cherished memory in a manner consistent 
with his constant practice of " doing good unto others" in the most direct and 
practical way; and 
Whereas during his life he always manifested the greatest interest in all charitable 
institutions, and at the close of his Congressional career expressed a great desire to 
see established in Washington a general hospital and promised to aid such enter- 
prise to the full extent of his ability: Therefore be it 
Resolved, That the citizens of the United States and loving sympathetic friends 
everywhere will doubtless consider it a privilege as well as a duty to their departed 
brother, James Abraham Garfield, to erect to his memory a free general hospital, to 
be national in character and conducted on the broadest basis of common humanity, 
and that this monument of the people's esteem and gratitude be known as the Gar- 
field Memorial Hospital and located in the District of Columbia, where he was so 
ruthlessly stricken down in the discharge of his public duties; and with a view 
of promoting this object it is 
Resolved, That Mr. Justice Miller, of the Supreme Court of the United States, the 
chairman of this public assemblage, held in the city of Washington on the 5th day 
of October, 1881, do appoint an executive committee of twenty-five persons, with 
full power and privilege to fill vacancies, to take such action as will consummate to 
the fullest extent the object herein set forth. 
In supporting these resolutions, Mr. Solomons adverted to the fact 
that the assassination of President Garfield occurred on the Hebrew 
Sabbath, and that when the idea of a memorial hospital was suggested 
two small and poor Hebrew congregations voted from their church 
funds $50 and $25, respectively; and that the St. George Society of 
the District sent $25. These were the first subscriptions.1 
The committee of twenty five had for its chairman Gen. William T. 
Sherman, the other members being James G. Blaine, William Windom, 
Gen. D. G. Swaim, James Gilfillan, A. S. Solomons, James H. Saville, 
Arthur McArthur, John W. Thompson, Lewis J. Davis, Henry A. 
Willard, Reginald Feudal], E. Francis Riggs, W. G. Metzerott, H. M. 
Hutchinson, John A. Baker, Benjamin G. Lovejoy, Henry Wise 
Garnett, Josiah Dent, Dr. J. M. Toner, Dr. Smith Townsend, Dr. F. A. 
Ashford, Dr. S. G. Busey, Dr. J. Ford Thompson, and Dr. W. G. 
Palmer. This committee sent out the following appeal, which had 
been prepared by Hon. James G. Blaine: 
The citizens of Washington and the officials having residences here have unitedin 
a movement to do marked and enduring honor to the name of the late President, 
whose great life was so sadly and so tragically ended. 
1 Dr. Busey's Reminiscences, p. 223. 2 Dr. Busey's Reminiscences, p. 224. 48 
THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. 
His reputation as a statesman, legislator, and Executive was acquired in this capi- 
tal. Beyond his claim to admiration and gratitude, he was personally beloved by 
all classes of citizens in a degree that rarely falls to the lot of any public man. 
Reflecting his own wishes, as far as they may be inferred from his career and his char- 
acter, the memorial designed is that of a national hospital, to be located in the 
District of Columbia, to be known forever by his name. It will be a provision for 
the relief of human suffering, from the cup of which ho drank the bitterest dregs; 
and in the breadth of its human charity it will fitly typify the noble nature and 
exalted aims of the hero and martyr. 
The hospital is designed to be as wide in its scope of beneficence as was the kindly 
heart of the dead President in its outstretch of human sympathies. It will be open 
to those needing its aid and ministrations, without regard to class, caste, creed, or 
color; to be a sufferer in need of help will be the only passport required to enter its 
door and secure its aid. Such an institution, founded in the cause of charity and 
bearing the name of Garfield, appeals to the generosity of everyone, and to everyone 
the appeal is made. Contributions, small and great, are solicited, and may be safely 
remitted to Hon. James Gilfillan, Treasurer of the United States, who has consented 
to act as treasurer of the fund. He gives twice who gives quickly. Let the response 
be prompt, generous, and universal. 
W. T. Sherman, Chairman. 
John A. Baker, Secretary. 
The circulation of this appeal in foreign countries was promoted by 
the following unofficial letter from the Department of State dated May 
12, 1882, and addressed to the diplomatic and consular officers of the 
United States: 
[Unofficial.] 
Department of State, 
Washington, April IS, 1882. 
To the Diplomatic and Consular Officers of the United States of America. 
Gentlemen: I transmit herewith copies of an appeal which has been issued for 
the purpose of inviting contributions to aid in the erection of a national hospital at 
this capital as an appropriate memorial of the high appreciation entertained by 
mankind of the valuable public services and exalted character of the late President 
Garfield, as well as of the detestation and horror felt by the world for the crime by 
which his life was destroyed. 
It is thought that the proposed memorial can not but commend itself to the atten- 
tion not only of Americans temporarily abroad, but of all persons, of whatever 
nationality, who abhor assassination and wish to show their respect for the cause of 
law and order. 
I will therefore thank you to avail yourself of suitable means of giving public 
information of the proposed plan of honoring the memory of our late President. 
You will also make known the fact that you are authorized to receive and forward 
contributions for the object in question. 
I sign this circular unofficially, by no means intending that it shall impose any 
obligation upon the diplomatic and consular officers to whom it is addressed. It is 
designed simply to bring the matter before them in an intelligible shape, and thus 
enable them to answer inquiries as to the objects of the proposed hospital. 
I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, 
Fred'k T. Frelinghuysen. 
The response made to the appeal was more generous from foreigners 
than it was from the people of this country. Both the royalty and the 
peasantry of Europe made contributions to honor the memory of one THE HOSPITAL INCORPORATED. 
49 
whose taking off brought forth a very widespread sympathy from foreign 
peoples.1 
The Medical Society of the District of Columbia, of which Dr. Ash- 
ford was president, gave their aid to the project by these resolutions: 
Whereas the medical profession of this District have long felt the need of a general 
hospital, and in a very largely attended meeting before the late civil war, had, with 
great unanimity, formed a project for the establishment of such a hospital, the move- 
ments for which were unfortunately interrupted and rendered abortive by that 
unhappy event; and 
Whereas, the necessities for such an institution in our midst are unquestionable, 
and have since that time not diminished but increased more than sevenfold: Therefore 
Resolved, That this society has learned with great pleasure that certain patriotic 
and benevolent ladies and gentlemen are now earnestly cooperating in the endeavoi 
to procure the establishment of a general hospital to be known as the Garfield 
Memorial Hospital. 
Resolved, That no more appropriate method of honoring the memory of our late 
brutally murdered President can be conceived of than the erection of'such a monu- 
ment, an ever-active institution for the relief of humanity, suffering in so many 
various forms; a source for the acquirement and development of knowledge in those 
branches of scientific study most nearly directed to the immediate relief of man, and 
an everlasting and inexhaustible wellspring of charity and benevolence, which, in 
the minds of all men of right feeling, must be esteemed far above tablets of brass or 
mere monuments of bronze or marble. 
Resolved, That this society desires to assure all concerned that the proposed meas- 
ure meets with its entire approbation, to express the extreme interest which it feels 
in the success of so grand a benevolence, and to offer its cordial cooperation in efforts 
to obtain so desirable an object. 
F. A. Ashford, M. D., President. 
T. E. McArdle, Secretary. 
On May 18, 1882, the hospital was incorporated under the laws of 
the District, and it was provided that for the first year the affairs and 
funds should be managed by a board of directors consisting of the 37 
signers of the certificate. On the 27th of May the certificate was 
recorded, and on June G the first meeting of the directors was held. 
These directors managed the affairs of the corporation until May 31, 
1883. One of their first steps was to send a message to the wives and 
daughters of the Senators and Kepresentatives, saying that "to insure 
a complete success to the undertaking the warm hearts, the magnetic 
enthusiasm, the unbounded resources, and the untiring devotion of the 
women of the country are needed." The response was prompt. About 
150 ladies met in the parlor of the Ebbitt House on March 22,1882, and 
organized the Ladies' Aid to the Hospital, for the purpose of raising 
money in the several States. In spite of many discouragements and in 
spite, too, of widely-circulated rumors that the hospital project had 
been given up, the ladies were able to contribute $5,000 toward the 
purchase of the site for the hospital and to carry a fair balance to its 
fund for future work.2 
'Second report of the board of directors of Garfield Hospital, p. 11. 
'Reports of (Mrs.) Eliza N. Blair, corresponding secretary; (Miss) M. G. Freling 
huysen, recording secretary; and (Mrs.) Miranda Tullock, treasurer. 
72G0 4 50 
THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. 
The board of directors issued on March 1,1883, the first report of the 
president of Garfield Memorial Hospital, which showed that the total 
receipts from all sources had been $17,023.36; that there were in proc- 
ess of collection $2,300 in foreign bills, and that (including $5,520.27 
raised by the Ladies' Aid Society) the amount available was $23,901.07. 
The report also mentioned the receipt from the trustees of the Soldiers' 
and Sailors' Orphans' Home of the property known as the " Wirt 
House." This transfer, probably suggested by Dr. Ashford, was the 
real foundation of the Garfield Memorial Hospital. Its value was 
double the amount of the subscriptions made during the first year, and, 
what was more important, the passage of the enabling act by Congress 
brought out the latent opposition to the hospital and enabled its pro- 
moters to win such a substantial victory as to give the project a recog- 
nized standing before both Congress and the public.1 
On July 10, 1882, Mr. Neal, chairman of the House Committee on 
the District of Columbia, reported from that committee tlie bill to 
authorize the transfer of the property of the National Soldiers' and 
Sailors' Orphans' Home to the Garfield Memorial Hospital, and asked 
for immediate consideration.2 In support of this measure Mr. Neal 
had the resolutions of the medical society and a memorial signed by 
85 physcians, setting forth the necessity of such a hospital, and he had 
also the sentiment created on behalf of a memorial hospital. The 
opponents of the measure, headed by Mr. Blount, produced a counter 
memorial, signed by 26 physicians of standing and reputation, in which 
it was alleged that the sick poor of the District of all classes, creeds, 
and nationalities were amply provided with gratuitous hospital accom- 
modations, and that the floating population was provided for in existing 
hospitals at a reasonable cost. The protest continues: 
The Columbia Hospital for women provides all that is necessary for the treatment 
of special diseases of female pay or pauper patients. The Children's Hospital is an 
institution exclusively devoted to the medical and surgical treatment of children, 
and provides all needed accommodations for such patients. St. Ann's Infancy 
Asylum accommodates all destitute infants left to its care. The Freedmen's Hos- 
pital is "mainly a hospital for the sick of the African race, but is open to white 
patients, and is* satisfactorily fulfilling its mission." The almshouse hospital 
accommodates a class that drifts into such institutions. The Emergency Hospital, 
located near the center of the city, is prepared to attend accidents and emergencies. 
1 Dr. Busey, in his Reminiscences, page 226, says: "I can not assert it as a fact, but 
my recollection and belief are that Dr. Ashford was the first to suggest the acquisi- 
tion of the property of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans Home. I do know that he 
held numerous interviews with some of the trustees, especially with the Rev. Dr. 
Sunderland and Chief Justice Cartter and with Mr. Neal, the chairman of the House 
of Representatives Committee on the District of Columbia, in regard to the transfer 
of the property. I was present at several of the interviews with Judge Cartter and 
can testify that he accepted the proposition with marked enthusiasm and gave to it 
his earnest support. Judge Cartter's opinion in regard to the necessity of the pas- 
sage of the enabling act and his advocacy of the transfer constituted the turning 
point in the success of the scheme." 
2H. R. 6702, Forty-seventh Congress, first session. THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. PROTEST OF CERTAIN PHYSICIANS. 
51 
Providence Hospital, under the charge of the Sisters of Charity, has public wards, 
to which free patients are admitted, and private wards and rooms for pay patients 
at rates varying from $6 to $20 per week. It receives an appropriation from Con- 
gress for the maintenance of transient sick paupers admitted upon the order of the 
Surgeon-General of the United States Army. Resident paupers are admitted at the 
request of the sanitary officer, Metropolitan police, a request that is never refused. 
It is thus seen that Providence Hospital cares for all the sick poor, transient and 
resident, who apply for treatment, "and there is no distinction made on account of 
creed, nationality, or color." The above statement and the additional fact that the 
capacity of the hospitals heretofore mentioned has always exceeded the demand 
must make it plain to the observant that the hospitals of the District of Columbia 
more than meet all present requirements, and that while separately performing their 
allotted duties the combined work of these institutions creates a general hospital 
in its best form, a condition of separation which accords with the approved laws of 
hygiene. 
Should the future demand increased accommodations, it will be wiser by donations 
and appropriations to enlarge the powers of existing organized institutions than by 
too ambitious and hasty action run the risk of creating a standing bid for pauper- 
ism, for it is to be feared that a superabundance of hospitals here might entice a 
class not desired by our citizens or legislature.1 
Dr. Busey says that "this protest had been prepared with great care 
and had been concealed from the public and the management of the 
Garfield Hospital until it was suddenly thrust into the debate on 
the bill in the House, just at the moment when its most vindictive 
opponent believed it would defeat the enabling act. It set forth in 
very emphatic and cogent language the interests of 'the Providence 
Hospital/ and equally distinctly, but erroneously, intimated that the 
efforts to establish Garfield Hospital were in antagonism to that insti- 
tution. It sought to eliminate the influence of the medical society and 
of the 85 physicians by misrepresenting their memorial, and attempted 
by adroit extracts of parts of sentences to assail the veracity of the 85 
memorialists. To it were signed the names of 26 physicians, most of 
whom were actively engaged in practice, and several were men of 
prominence and very great influence."2 
The protest was ineffective. The bill passed both Houses of Con- 
gress and became a law on August 8,1882. On October 2 of that year 
D. K. Cartter, president, and Marcellus Bailey, secretary, acting under 
instructions from the board of trustees of the National Soldiers' and 
Sailors' Orphans' Home, joined in a deed conveying to Garfield Memo- 
rial Hospital all the property of the Orphans' Home, with the power 
"to sell, convey, transfer, and convert the said property, or any part 
thereof, into cash at its option."3 Thereupon the board of incorpora- 
'This protest was signed by the following physicians: Johnson Eliot, James E. 
Morgan, S. A. H. McKim, Ralph Walsh, G. L. Magruder, Z. T. Sowers, John W. 
Bayne, H. H. Barker, Llewellyn Eliot, L. W. Richie, W. G. H. Newman, J. F. Harti- 
gan, J. Walter, Carroll Morgan, James MeV. Mackall, Daniel J. Kelly, Thomas N. 
McLaughlin, James T. Young, John I. Dyer, J. S. Harrison, C. V. N. Callan, P. J, 
Murphy, H. M. Newman, George C. Samson, John Parsons, and J. O. Stanton. 
2 Reminiscences, p. 234. 
3 The deed was recorded October 5, 1882, liber 1016, folio 195. 52 
THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. 
tors took possession of the "Wirt House," No. 1732 G street NW., and 
there held their meetings. The value of the property thus turned 
over proved to be $39,708.03J 
In the plan of organization adopted it was provided that " one ward 
in the hospital shall be appropriated to the homeopathic treatment for 
such patients as desire it, and the directors shall provide for that pur- 
pose." The medical members of the board who were present stoutly 
opposed the adoption of this paragraph. Dr. Toner then expressed 
and soon after carried out his intention to resign. The other medical 
members protested ami waited. The storm created by the action of 
the board again threatened the defeat of the project. The timely elec- 
tion of Dr. John S. Billings to a place on the board and his leadership 
in securing a repeal of the controverted paragraph on February 19, 
1883, restored to the enterprise that support of the local physicians of 
the medical society which had temporarily been withdrawn.2 
The original plan of the hospital provided that of the fifteen directors 
four should be practitioners of medicine. This paragraph of the by- 
laws was repealed after the death of Dr. Ashford,3 and at the present 
time Dr. John S. Billings, U. S. A., stationed in Philadelphia, is the 
only physician on the board. On the board of incorporators, how- 
ever, Dr. Samuel C. Busey, Dr. William W. Johnston, and Dr. 
J. Ford Thompson, as well as Dr. Billings, have places. The man- 
agement of the hospital is in the hands of fifteen directors, each of 
whom is elected to serve for three years. Five directors are elected 
annually by the board of incorporators, and the directors name the 
medical staff. The board of incorporators is a self-perpetuating body. 
On May 31, 1883, the incorporators elected a board of directors, and 
active work began. A site comprising 7 acres was purchased for 
1 Hospital report for 1886. 
2 Dr. Busey's Reminiscences, p. 237. Dr. Busey says: "To Surgeon Billings honor, 
praise and gratitude are due from the management as from the medical profession of 
this District. His election to the directorship was the turning point at the critical 
moment of its history, and stayed the influences leading to discontent, controversy, 
disappointment, and failure, and restored the institution to the course and purpose 
fostered by its projectors and founders. 
3 Dr. Francis A. Ashford died May 19, 1883. He was a resident of Virginia when 
the war of the rebellion broke out, and was in the Confederate army from Ball's 
Bluff- to Petersburg, where he was wounded and captured. After his release from 
prison at the close of the war he studied medicine with Dr. Thomas Miller. He 
began practice in 1867, and was immediately appointed resident physician of Colum 
bia Hospital; afterwards he was assistant surgeon and a director of that institution. 
He was the attending surgeon of the Children's Hospital from its beginning until 
his death. He was the professor of surgery in Georgetown College. The memorial 
resolution of the directors of the Garfield Hospital recites: " It is due to the memory 
of Dr. Ashford to give a sincere expression of our appreciation of his services in the 
institution of this hospital, and to say that to him more than to any other is due 
the credit of initiating this undertaking and by his unobtrusive energy of putting 
it in the path of success." He died before the hospital entered upon its work.-Dr. 
Busey's Reminiscences, pp. 116,188-189,238. THE LADIES' AID ASSOCIATION. 
53 
$37,500, on which the sum of $15,500 was paid in cash, and the title 
was held by Henry A. Willard under a declaration of trust. The land, 
fronting on Florida avenue at the head of Tenth street, was occupied 
by buildings that were utilized for various purposes. To the large 
dwelling known as the "Haw Mansion" a wing especially designed for 
hospital purposes was added, at an expense of $12,000, the work being 
done according to plans approved by Dr. Billings, a distinguished 
authority on hospital construction.1 
The managers of the Ladies' Aid Association were Mrs. John A. 
Logan, president; Mrs. Charles Nordhoff, Mrs. Benjamin Harrison, 
Mrs. James B. Ricketts, Mrs. John S. Williams, Mrs. Earl English, 
vice-presidents; Mrs. Henry W. Blair, corresponding secretary; Mrs. 
Thomas L. Tullock, treasurer; Miss E. Callis Smith, assistant treas- 
urer; Miss M. G. Frelinghuysen, recording secretary; Mrs. A. F. Rock- 
hill, assistant recording secretary; Mesdames A. J. Bentley, Joseph N. 
Dolph, Dorman B. Eaton, William H. Emory, Orange Ferriss, Randall 
L. Gibson, Alexander B. Hagner, John M. Harlan, Joseph R. Hawley, 
William P. Hepburn, Miss E. B. Johnson, Mesdames Jean Margaret 
Lander, Noah C. McFarland, John F. Miller, Samuel C. Pomeroy, R. B. 
Springer, Howard White, Henry A. Willard, and James F. Wilson. 
The " Haw Mansion" was purchased of Mr. L. H. Schneider, a hard- 
ware merchant of Washington. 
On Decoration Day, Friday, May 30,1884, the buildings and grounds 
of the Garfield Memorial Hospital were dedicated with appropriate 
religious and historical exercises, followed by a garden party.2 The 
'The incorporators were *Mr. Justice Miller, president; *B, G. Lovejoy, secre- 
tary; John A. Baker, Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, *Dr. John S. Billings, Hon. 
James G. Blaine, *Mrs. Eliza N. Blair (the wife of Senator Blair), of Manchester, 
N. H.; Mrs. Mary E. Blair, *Dr. Samuel 0. Busey, Mrs. Ida C. Candler, of Brookline, 
Mass.; Mrs. Stella B. Conger (the wife of Senator Conger), * Lewis J. Davis, Josiah 
Dent, James B. Edmonds, Mrs. Matilda W. Emory, * Reginald Fendall, Mrs. Cor- 
nelia W. Ferris, Dr. A. Y. P. Garnett, Hon. James Gilfillan, New York City; Mrs. 
Carrie S. Harrison (the wife of Senator, afterwards President, Harrison), Mrs. Mary 
J. Irish, *Mrs. Jean Margaret Lander, *Rev. W. A. Leonard, W. G. Metzerott, Dr. 
W. G. Palmer, *Mrs. Fannie Ricketts, *E. Francis Riggs, * James H. Saville, A. S. 
Solomons, *Gen. D. G. Swaim, *Dr. J. Ford Thompson, John W. Thompson, Dr. 
Smith Townshend, Mrs. Miranda Tullock, * Henry A. Willard, J. Ormond Wilson, 
Hon. William Windom. The directors are marked with an asterisk (*). 
2 The Washington Capital of June 1, 1884, contained this report of the opening: 
The Garfield Hospital.-The dedication of the Garfield Memorial Hospital on 
Friday took place in the hall of the new wing of the hospital building. The exer- 
cises were simple and impressive, and were the reading of the twenty-fourth psalm 
by the Rev. Dr. Butler; repeating the Apostles' Creed by the audience; prayer and 
reading of the seventh chapter of Luke by the Rev. Dr. Bartlett; hymn, led by Mr. 
Clarke, of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church; address by Mr. Justice Miller; 
singing of "America" by audience; benediction by the Rev. Dr. Sunderland. After 
the exercises everybody had the opportunity of going over the building, and then 
the lawn was the center of attraction, where the refreshment tents were well 
patronized. 
The reception committee were the wives of Senators Logan, Blair, Harrison, Dolph, 54 
THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. 
new institution so auspiciously opened was called on to endure a year 
of severe trials. The only resource that did not fail was the Woman's 
Aid Association. The board of directors, in their report of April 20, 
1885, acknowledged their indebtedness and proclaimed that of the exec- 
Gibson, Representative Hepburn, Mrs. J. M. Lander, Mrs. Henry A. Willard, Mrs. 
Dorman B. Eaton, and others. 
At the supper tent were Mrs. English, Mrs. Ricketts, Mrs. Rockwell, Mrs. Tullock, 
Mrs. Ferris, Mrs. Frelinghuysen, and several young lady assistants, among them the 
Misses Stevens, English, Cady, Rickets, Spofford, and Hepburn. The ice cream and 
lemonade were dispensed by Mrs. Willard, Mrs. Pomeroy, and Miss E. C. Smith. 
The confectionery tent was in charge of Mrs. Logan, assisted by Mrs. Skinner and 
Mrs. Clarke, of New York, the Misses Bergmann, Dolph, Wiltshire, Jennings, Vender, 
and other ladies. Much of the confectionery was donated by Guenther, of Chicago, 
and the hand-painted and embroidered satin bonbon bags were very pretty, and, 
with the fans, found ready sale, though the cool air rendered the fans more orna- 
mental than useful. Two bags were made from pieces of the "Elizabeth dress" 
worn by Mrs. Lander when playing that part. One was bought by Mrs. Joslyn, of 
Illinois, and the other by Dr. Sanborn, of Colorado. 
Nothing could be more effective than the beautiful grounds, where the lights were 
placed in the many Chinese lanterns swinging from the trees. Nature made it one of 
the fairest spots on earth, and the gay-colored lights and music added to the scene. 
The garden party closed with dancing in the hall of the hospital. It is not too 
much to say that the Garfield Hospital owes its existence to the women, who, from 
the beginning, have worked with a faith in its future success with a conscientious 
belief in the want of such an institution and with the untiring industry which has 
brought such gratifying results. They have worked together with a zeal and har- 
mony worthy of the cause, and despite all discouragements and many obstacles they 
have made the hospital an assured reality and a greater tribute to the memory of the 
late President than any marble or bronze. A number of beds have been given. One 
memorial bed was given by Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell, with the sum of $1,000. 
It is named William Schuyler Johnson Bell, and will always bear this name. This 
sum donated entitled the donor to naming a bed in perpetuity and designating the 
patient to occupy it, making it a free bed. 
The wife of Representative Hitt, of Illinois, gave two beds in the names of their 
young sons, William and Reynold Hitt. The wife of ex-Senator Pomeroy gave two 
beds. One was given by Mrs. Theodore Lyman, of Massachusetts, and another is 
the joint gift of Mrs. Worthington, Miss E. C. Smith, and Lieutenant Harber. 
Mrs. Freeman, of Washington, gave a bed, and her sister, Miss Coleman, gave part 
of the entire bed linen for the hospital. The remainder of the bed linen was given by 
the wife of William Walcott, of the Oneida Mills, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Walcott 
are the guests of the wife of the Rev. Dr. Bartlett. The silver was given by the 
Wallingford and Middletown Plate companies, of Connecticut, and is sufficient for 
the whole hospital. 
Every entertainment given to raise funds for the hospital has been singularly suc- 
cessful, and this is the best evidence of the admirable management and sincere 
efforts of the women engaged in the work. The public have confidence in their 
ability and sincerity, and respond promptly and willingly to all requests for aid. 
To those who have been steadfast from the beginning is due the greatest praise. As 
the pioneers, they met the hardship of prejudice, and, by honesty of purpose, made 
the way easier for others who have more recently taken an active part in the work. 
None but honest, capable, earnest women could have done this. So well have they 
done their whole duty that now there is no drawing back by anyone.. It is said 
that nothing succeeds like success. Of no work can this be more truly said than of 
the Garfield Memorial Hospital. GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. SALE OF THE WHIT HOUSE. 
55 
utive committee "to this band of noble women, without whose unselfish 
and untiring devotion nothing could have been accomplished." The 
ladies contributed the means and selected and purchased the furniture 
for the old and new buildings, laundry, nurses' and servants' rooms, all 
to the satisfaction of Surgeon-General Billings. 
On June 18 Dr. Harry M. Cutts, of Washington, as resident physi- 
cian, and Mrs. M. E. Vanderbilt, formerly matron of the Woman's 
Hospital of New York City, as matron, received the first patient, a young 
woman who was a clerk in one of the Departments; and on June 28 
Dr. Swan M. Burnett performed the first surgical operation, the patient 
being a colored man and an ex-soldier. The first death was that of an 
Indian temporarily in Washington. In January Dr. Cutts resigned and 
was succeeded by Dr. W. M. Sprigg. The number of patients during 
the first year was 178, of which number 119 were free.1 
The treasurer, Mr. J. W. Thompson, resigned before the hospital was 
opened; his successor, Mr. Edward Temple, was compelled by ill health 
and the pressure of other duties to give up the position, and in Janu- 
ary, 1885, Mr. Samuel W. Curriden was elected to the vacancy. On 
the 1st of May the directors were called on to face a deficit of $3,000 to 
tide the hospital over until July 1, when the first appropriation of 
$7,500 made by Congress toward the payment of the current expenses 
of the institution would become available. At the same time the 
directors were in possession of hospital property worth $54,835.82, 
encumbered with debts to the amount of $32,000. The available assets 
were securities estimated to be worth $4,500 and the Wirt House 
property, estimated at $30,000. During the year 1885 the Wirt House 
was sold to John It. McLean for $26,800, and the securities yielded 
$7,255.38. With this money the indebtedness was satisfied; and the 
directors were greatly encouraged, although they had exhausted all 
their available resources and were confronted with the fact that 
another building, with accommodations for 25 beds, was made imper- 
ative by the increase in the number of patients to 222, and 64 persons 
had to be refused admittance because of lack of room. The new build- 
ing was made possible by the pledge of the Ladies Aid Association to 
raise $15,000 of the $25,000 necessary for the construction. Of this 
amount the ladies paid $6,000 during 1886, besides spending $404.47 
on hospital furnishings. The main sources from which their moneys 
came were $4,602.49 from entertainments, $168.79 from the mite box 
placed in the Baltimore and Potomac station near the scene of the 
assassination, and $347 from membership fees and subscriptions. 
The new wing contained 24 rooms for patients, besides a refectory, 
an operating room, and several office rooms, all constructed according 
'The medical staff included Drs. John Frederick May, president; Swan M. Bur- 
tent, secretary; A. Y. P. Garnett, W. W. Johnston, N. S. Lincoln, J. W. H. Lovejoy, 
Louis Mackall, J. Ford Thompson, J. M. Toner, Ralph Walsh, Edward M. Schaeffer, 
microscopist; W. W. W. L. Cissell, and D. Olin Leech, assistants to the resident 
physician. 56 
THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. 
to the most approved theories of ventilation and sanitation. On the 
opening of these increased facilities, the management called the atten- 
tion of the public to the fact that the hospital receives for gratuitous 
treatment in public wards all persons applying for the same, without 
distinction of race, sex, or creed, provided they are unable to pay their 
expenses, and are considered proper subjects for treatment by the 
medical staff. These patients are entitled, free of charge, to board, 
lodging, washing, medicines, nursing, and the services of the medical 
staff of the hospital and of the resident physician and his assistants. 
Patients in the wards who are able to pay are charged $4 a week for 
the privileges mentioned. Patients in private rooms are required to 
pay in proportion to the class of the room selected, and this charge 
includes the services of the medical staff, including the resident physi- 
cians. Any licensed physician of good standing, whether a member of 
the medical staff or not, may enter a patient in a private room. Such 
patients are entitled to board, lodging, washing, medicines, nursing, 
and the services of the resident physicians. The terms for medical 
services are agreed upon between the patient and his physician. Also, 
two wards were set apart for incurable patients. 
The report of the hospital for 1886 showed that $105,000 had been 
received and expended for grounds and buildings, besides the amount 
spent for current expenses; that from June 18, 1884, to December 31, 
1886, 604 patients had been admitted, of whom 362 were men, 207 
women, 25 boys, and 10 girls; 49 were colored and 2 were Indians. Of 
these free patients 48 were brought by the police ambulance, 5 by the 
police patrol wagon, 18 were transferred from the Emergency Hospital, 
5 were sent by the physicians to the poor, and 45 came from the sani- 
tary officer.1 The largest single gift to the hospital was the bequest, 
made in 1886, by William G. Metzerott, who left to Dr. John S. Billings, 
U. S. A., in trust $10,000 to be used for the treatment of diseases of 
the chest and lungs. 
In their annual report dated January 12,1888, the medical staff called 
the attention of the directors to the necessity of finishing and furnish- 
ing an operating room. "Without an amphitheater," they said, "it is 
impossible for the Garfield Hospital ever to attain that position as a 
center for medical and surgical teaching for which the staff are ambi- 
tious and concerning which we do not believe the board to be indiffer- 
ent." The staff also desired increased accommodation for the use of 
nurses from the training school. 
The year 1888 proved an eventful one in the history of the hospital. 
The management had behind them four years of experience-years of 
struggle, of trials, of mistakes, and of victories. With absolutely no 
aid from Congress, save such as was in payment of actual services ren- 
dered, the hospital had secured a fine property, its buildings were well 
constructed and well equipped; its medical staff was able and devoted; 
iFor a complete list of donors see the report for 1886. GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL-PUBLIC WARD, MR. JUSTICE MILLER. 
57 
and, thanks to the indefatigable work of the Ladies' Aid Association, 
the Garfield Hospital had made a stronger and a more successful appeal 
to the charitable people of Washington than any other like institution 
hasever made. Indeed, the early history of theGarfield Hospital would 
seem to prove that even a charitable undertaking of the first magni- 
tude can be founded and built up in the District of Columbia without 
the direct aid of the General Government. 
The necessity of a reorganization of the administration of the hos- 
pital had been recognized for some time.1 Dr. W. A. B. Hutton was 
appointed resident physician, with Dr. R. D. Boss as assistant, and 
Miss Sophia S. Palmer became matron, changes made "with the single 
object of improving the hospital." In the same spirit a staff of trained 
nurses was placed in charge of the wards. The entire buildings were 
thoroughly disinfected, purified, and renovated, and where additional 
facilities were needed they were supplied. A friend of the hospital gave 
$1,000 to equip an operating room; Prof. Alexander Graham Bell pro- 
vided an ambulance; and a steam laundry was added. 
The combined requirements of age and private business caused the 
resignation of Dr. J. Frederick May. who had served as president of 
the medical staff from the opening of the hospital, and he was suc- 
ceeded by Dr. J. M. Toner, who had brought about the foundation of 
Providence Hospital, and who was one of the most efficient members 
of the board of St. Elizabeth's. The hospital also lost by death the 
services of Dr. Garnett and of Mr. Lovejoy, two of the incorporators. 
In 1890 the hospital received an anonymous gift of $1,000 to build 
an ice house, and Mr. Samuel Norment gave $1,000 to begin a special 
endowment fund for the benefit of the sick and injured members of the 
District police force. The directors put into operation their long cher- 
ished plan of establishing a training school for nurses, the Ladies' Aid 
Association finishing and furnishing accommodations for 15 nurses. 
During the year the school had 4 trained nurses, and 11 pupils entered 
for the course of two years under the superintendence of Miss Palmer, 
the matron. 
Mr. Justice Miller had consented to preside over the public meeting 
at which the Garfield Hospital was started only after several other 
prominent men had declined. Drawn into the movement somewhat 
unexpectedly, he gave to the work an amount of attention, time, study, 
and sympathy that were invaluable to the undertaking. His death, 
on October 13, 1890, removed the only president the board of incor- 
poratars and the board of trustees had ever known. He was the 
better fitted for the position from the fact that in early life he had been 
a druggist's clerk, had received the degree of M. D. from the medical 
department of the Transylvania University at Lexington, Ky., and for 
several years had practiced medicine at Barboursville, Ky. It is said 
that he left the medicine because of the want of definiteness and pre- 
'Report of the board of directors, January 8, 1889. 58 
THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. 
cision in the means of diagnosis and in the evidence as to the effects of 
remedies then at his command, and especially because of the mental 
worry and anxiety which his bad cases caused him, owing to this want 
of definite knowledge.1 Mr. Justice Harlan was elected to fill the 
vacancies caused by the death of his late colleague. 
In 1891 a searching inquiry was made into "the management and 
working of the hospital for the purpose of ascertaining if it was man- 
aged with due regard to the interests of the patients and with that 
economy which those contributing to its support have a right to expect." 
It was found that the average cost per patient per day for the four years 
was $1.63; in 1887 it was $1.53, in 1888 it was $1.75; in 1889 it was 
$1.54, and in 1890 it was $1.69. The average number of patients per 
day for the four years was 26. The inquiry developed the fact that 
there are great differences in the average daily cost per patient in dif- 
ferent hospitals, and in the same hospital for different years. The 
investigating committee concluded "from the imperfect data given in 
the published reports of most hospitals it is difficult to account for these 
differences; and we [they] can only say that a comparison of the Gar- 
field Hospital expenditures with those of other hospitals furnishing the 
same kind of accommodations, and of about the same size, does not 
indicate that it has been extravagant." The increased cost in 1890 was 
due to the fact that two of the wards were closed for two months. It 
appeared, further, that in a comparison of Garfield Hospital with others 
the only department in which the percentage of the Washington insti- 
tution showed a marked excess was in salaries and wages, which item 
had risen from 32 per cent in 1887 to 36 per cent in 1890. In so far as 
the comfort and well being of patients was concerned the committee 
found the hospital well managed.2 
The funds of the hospital were increased in 1891 by a legacy of 
$10,000, the gift of Mr. George Francis, of Washington, left to perpet- 
uate the memory of the testator's deceased wife, after whom the Hulda 
Stellman Francis ward is named; and by a gift of $5,000 made by Mr. 
William Thompson, also of Washington. During this year also (March 
31) the first graduating exercises of the training school for nurses took 
place. Miss Margaret A. Mullen, the single graduate, received the 
honors of the occasion in the presence, among others, of Mrs. Garfield. 
The exercises took place in the Victoria memorial room, which had 
been furnished by the St. George Society of Washington to commem- 
orate the fiftieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne 
of England. Three other nurses graduated during the year. 
During 1892 the Miller Memorial Building was completed and fur- 
nished, giving the hospital in all 100 free beds. The building was 
opened by a bazaar and dancing on the eighth anniversary of the dedi- 
1 Report of the board of directors, January 1, 1891. 
2The committee consisted of Drs. Billings, Yarrow, and Thompson, Mrs. Logan, 
and Mrs. Tnlloek. They had the expert services of Mr. W. J. Lowell, of the United 
States Treasurer's otlice. ENQNEERS and servants quarters 
STABLE AND MORTUARY. 
FIRST FLOOR PLAN. 
SECOND FLOOR PLAN. 
GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. WO UK OK THE LADIES' AID ASSOCIATION. 
59 
cation of the hospital. The Ladies' Aid Association now addressed to 
the women of America a circular letter asking contributions and at the 
same time making a statement of the financial work done by the women 
during the ten years, from May 1882. This statement was as follows: 
RECEIVED. 
From entertainments $30, 540. 39 
Donations and memberships 8, 691. 63 
Ward for incurables (Miss Coleman) 5, 400. 00 
Mite box (in Baltimore and Potomac station) 1, 089. 40 
Vice-presidents 347. 25 
Collectors'books 314.00 
Circular letter 51. 37 
Total 46, 434.04 
Toward purchase of site 5,060.00 
Toward first wing 2, 000. 00 
Expenses of entertainments 3,320.71 
Hospital furnishings 7,147. 70 
Printing, advertising, and secretary's supplies.., 634.19 
Ward for incurables 5, 400. 00 
Hospital expenses and interest 2, 958.00 
Putting in elevator 1, 500. 00 
Ice room 1,000.00 
Attic furnishing , 1,999.12 
Ladies' Aid Building 15, 000. 00 
Balance on hand 447. 32 
Total 46, 434. 04 
PAID OUT. 
In May, 1894, a new administration building was occupied. Oilices, 
lecture rooms, dining rooms, and apartments for officers and nurses 
were thus provided, and new wants were created by the growth of the 
work and the enlargement of facilities. Also a free dispensary was 
opened. A pathological and bacteriological laboratory was equipped 
and placed under the charge of Dr. Philip Jaisohn. By an arrange- 
ment with the Home for Incurables and the Washington Home for 
Foundlings those institutions were supplied with nurses, the number 
being increased from 13 to 30. 
The buildings of the hospital are now six in number, costing $135,750. 
The value of the lands is estimated to be $250,000. From the opening 
of the institution to December 31,1896, 7,364 patients have been treated 
in the hospital and 4,366 in the dispensary, which latter branch of the 
work is self supporting. The superintendent, who is the chief resident 
physician, receives $1,000 per annum, and the matron and superintend- 
ent of the training school for nurses also receives $1,000. No com- 
pensation is received by the medical staff,1 The training school has 
graduated 25 nurses. 
'The consulting staff for 1896 was: Doctors William AV. Johnston, president; 
Nathan S. Lincoln, James W. 11. Lovejoy, Z. T. Sowers, Henry C. Yarrow. 
The attending staff was: Doctors George N. Acker, Samuel S. Adams, G. Wytbo 60 
THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. 
The hospital received in 1896 from Congress an appropriation of 
$19,000 a year; from endowment ($10,000) an income of $500; from 
pay patients $14,417.78; from membership fees, donations, and enter- 
tainments $1,807.08, making a total income of $35,724.86. The prop- 
erty of the hospital is mortgaged for $75,000, and the other debts 
amount to $1,200; the interest paid amounted to $4,217.77. 
The number of patients in 1893 was 515, as against 1,302 in 1895, 
besides 1,700 dispensary patients. The average daily number of 
patients increased from 30 to 79. The receipts from private patients 
rose from $7,000 to over $14,000, while the cost of maintenance increased 
by only $4,556. The average cost per patient per day has been reduced 
from $1.89 to 89 cents, thus bringiugthe hospital in line with the great 
hospitals in other cities. 
In a certain way the United States Government has committed itself 
to the Garfield Memorial Hospital project. Mention has already been 
made of the circular letters addressed to the diplomatic and consular 
officers of the United States, soliciting funds for the erection of the 
hospital; also, through appeals sent out by the Post-Office Department, 
the postmasters throughout the country were made the agents for col- 
lecting subscriptions from people all over the land. While it is true 
that the circulars so sent out were marked "unofficial," yet at the same 
time the whole machinery of the Government, both at home and abroad, 
was utilized in furtherance of the project. Churches of every denomina- 
tion and benevolent associations of every kind sent in their subscriptions 
for varying amounts. 
For example, Benjamin F. Peixotto, United States consul at Lyons, 
France, issued a circular in French, making an appeal for funds for the 
erection at Washington of an international hospital designed to perpet- 
uate the memory of President Garfield, and announced himself as 
authorized by his Government to receive and transmit to the Treas- 
urer of the United States all subscriptions received for this object. 
This circular named as the executive committee W. T. Sherman, Gen- 
eral Commanding the Army of the United States; James Gilfillan, 
Treasurer of the United States; James G. Blaine, ex-Premier Ministre, 
and William Windom, ex-Ministre des Finances. 
The American Register, Paris, for March 11,1882, contained a list of 
subscribers to the fund, including the Empress Augusta of Germany, 600 
francs; the King and Queen of Belgium, 1,000 francs; the (^ueen of 
Spain, 300 francs; the Empress Eugenie, 250 francs; the Grand Duke 
and Grand Duchess of Baden, 300 francs; His Imperial Highness the 
Grand Duc Constantine of Russia, 200 francs; the Convent of the 
Cook, secretary; Middleton F. Cuthbert, Henry D. Fry, Arthur A. Snyder, Albert 
L. Stavely, J. Ford Thompson, John Van Rensselaer, Leonard Wood, W. Holland 
Wilmer, in charge of diseases of the eye; Joseph H. Bryan, in charge of diseases of 
the throat, nose, and ear; James C. McGuire, in charge of diseases of skin. 
The dispensary staff was: Doctors Henry B. Deale, first assistant; Thomas A. 
Claytor, second assistant. EMANCIPATION IN THE DISTB1CT OF COLUMBIA. 
61 
Sacred Heart, Paris, 150 francs; Lord Justice Sir Henry Hawkins, 20 
francs; and other subscriptions to the amount of 17,265 fr. 35 c.1 
King George of Tonga sent $239.50 through the American consul at 
Opia, Samoan Islands. Japan, India, Brazil, Australia, Haiti, Mexico, 
Demerara, China, Russia, Canada, England, and other countries sent 
subscriptions. Indeed, no place seemed too remote to make its contri- 
bution to perpetuate the memory of a man whose assassination stirred 
the whole world. 
It is true that the Windom bill (S. 35, Forty-seventh Congress, first 
session), to incorporate the hospital, failed to pass the House of Rep- 
resentatives, but the hospital was incorporated under the regular incor- 
poration act of the District of Columbia, which made provision for such 
corporations, and at the instance of the directors of the hospital the 
general incorporation laws were changed so as to cover all possible 
needs of such an organization.2 The fact that the hospital has since 
its organization commended itself to Congress is seen from the annual 
appropriation of $19,000 which it receives from the United States 
Treasury. No gifts for lands, buildings, or equipment, however, have 
been made. 
III. 
The outbreak of the war of the rebellion brought Congress face to 
face with the question of slavery in the District of Columbia. Con- 
gress attempted to meet the situation by emancipating the slaves and 
sending them out of the country. The first section of the act of April 
16, 1862, provides: 
That all persons held to service or labor, within the District of Columbia, by rea- 
son of African descent, are hereby discharged and freed of and from all claim to 
such labor or service; and from and after the passage of this act, neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude, except for crime, whereof the party shall be duly con- 
victed, shall hereafter exist in said District. 
An appropriation of $1,000,000 was made to carry out the provisions 
of the act; and of this amount $914,942.18 was expended from 1862 to 
1868,3 on the basis of $300 paid for each slave. 
The same act appropriates $100,000, to be expended under the direc- 
tion of the President, to aid in the colonization and settlement of such 
free persons of African descent then residing in the District of Colum- 
bia, including those to be liberated by that act, as might desire to emi- 
grate to the Republic of Haiti or Liberia, or such other country beyond 
the limits of the United States as the President might determine, the 
expenditure to be limited to $100 per each emigrant. On July 16,1862, 
a further appropriation of half a million dollars was made to enable the 
President to carry out the District emancipation act above adverted to, 
and "to colonize those to be made free by the probable passage of a 
confiscation bill." This money was to be repaid to the Treasury out of 
confiscated property. The President had full control over the fund, to 
1 Toner MSS. relating to Garfield Hospital, in Library of Congress, p. 42. 
'Toner MSS., p. 43. 
3 Senate Ex. Doc. No. 84, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, p. 180. 62 
THE FREEDMEN'S HOSPITAL. 
use it in securing the right of colonization and in the payment of the 
necessary expenses of removal.1 
Under the provisions of the colonization law one person exiled him- 
self in 1862; in 1863 the sum of $28,420 was expended, and in 1864 
this amount was increased by $9,809.93, making a total expenditure of 
$38,329.93 out of appropriations aggregating $600,000. It was quite 
evident that the dependent freedmen preferred to continue dependent 
on the Government that had freed them rather than to seek new homes 
in countries where they would have to look out for themselves. There- 
fore it was necessary to make special provisions for the aged, the 
orphans, and the sick. For the aged and the sick the Freedmen's 
Hospital and Asylum was established. The National Association for 
the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children was also the out- 
growth of the conditions described.2 
The Freedmen's Bureau doubtless had its origin in an interview held 
in January, 1865, by Gen. W. T. Sherman and Secretary Stanton with 
the representatives of the colored men of the coast region of Georgia 
and South Carolina, as a result of which interview certain islands and 
rice lands were set apart for the settlement of negroes freed by the 
war, and Gen. R. Saxton was made inspector of settlements and 
plantations to carry out the schemes of colonization embodied in Gen- 
eral Sherman's special orders, No. 15, dated January 16, 1865.3 
1 Stat. L., vol. 12, pp. 378, 582. 
2 The Freedmen's Hospital is an outgrowth of the late civil war. During and 
after the war large numbers of freed people drifted into this city and remained here. 
Many of them were chronic invalids, insane, idiotic, etc., and required medical 
attendance. The local authorities refused to provide for them, and the Freedmen's 
Hospital was established for that purpose. 
During the existence of the Freedmen's Bureau, of which Dr. Robert Reyburn was 
the chief medical officer, 56 hospitals and 48 dispensaries were established at various 
points in the Southern States. During the period of " reconstruction" all of them were 
turned over to the local authorities of the Southern States by Chief Medical Officer 
Reyburn except the one located at Richmond, Va. At this point so many of the 
freed sick, crippled, and idiotic congregated the city authorities of Richmond 
refused to care for them, and they were brought to this city and provided for by 
the General Government in the Freedmen's Hospital.-Dr. Busey's Reminiscences, 
p. 218. 
3The advance of our armies had brought within our lines great numbers of negroes, 
formerly slaves, and individuals and associations interested in their welfare pressed 
on Congress the importance of a special department in the Government charged with 
the duty of aiding and protecting them during the transition period. The House 
passed, March 1, 1864, a bill, reported by Eliot of Massachusetts, which established 
a freedmen's bureau under the War Department. Sumner's committee, to which it 
was referred in the Senate, reported a substitute, which placed it under the Treas- 
ury Department, already charged with abandoned lands in the insurrectionary 
districts, which were at the time, or likely to be hereafter, largely occupied by the 
freedmen. * * * Sumner pressed it with his characteristic pertinacity and it was 
carried June 28. * * - In February, 1865, a committee on conference reported a 
bill creating an independent "Department of Freedmen and Abandoned Lands." 
This passed the House, but Sumner was unable to carry it in the Senate, where Hale THE FREEDMEN'S HOSPITAL-HOWARD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL AND ADMINISTRATIVE 
BUILDING INFLUX OF FREEDMEN TO WASHINGTON. 
63 
The march of events, however, brought the war to a close more 
speedily than was anticipated by General Sherman and the Secretary 
of War; and before the fall of Richmond Congress was forced to estab- 
lish the Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands, and 
had .committed to the new establishment the freedmen who had been 
wards first of the War and afterwards of the Treasury Department. 
The Bureau was attached to the War Department; and inasmuch as 
no appropriation was made to carry out the provisions of the law, Mr. 
Stanton solved the difficulty by assigning army officers, providing 
buildings then in the possession of the Government for military pur- 
poses, and furnishing them by requisitions on the Quartermaster's De- 
partment. In May, 1865, the President appointed Maj. Gen. Oliver O. 
Howard, then in command of the Army of the Tennessee, to be the head 
of the Bureau, with the title of Commissioner.1 
General Howard appointed ten assistant commissioners, with one 
exception all army officers in actual service. For the District of Colum- 
bia Bvt. Brig. Gen. John Eaton, jr.,2 was selected. Surg. C. W. Homer,3 
the chief medical officer of the Bureau, had general supervision over 
all medical matters connected with the freedmen, and the instructions 
were to make the medical department self-supporting so far as possible. 
The breaking up of the old plantation system, the frequent expulsion 
of the aged, sick, and infirm from the plantations by their former mas- 
ters, the flocking of the freedmen to cities and military posts greatly 
increased the sickness and mortality among them. 
When, in 1862, a large number of freedmen and refugees poured into 
Washington, Dr. Daniel Breed called the attention of the Secretary of 
War to the importance of having some hospital where the sick contra- 
bands could be treated; and he obtained authority to open a hospital 
in some rooms on Capitol Hill. Subsequently this work was moved to 
a piece of ground on the square bounded by Twelfth and Thirteenth 
and R and S streets. A company of soldiers under command of a Captain 
Barker had been encamped there, and the place was then known as 
Camp Barker. There the hospital continued until the winter of 1864. 
of New Hampshire and Lane of Indiana joined Grimes in opposition. On the last 
day of the session another committee of conference agreed on a bill which placed 
the Bureau in the War Department, limited its term to one year after the war, and 
reduced its scope. In this form it passed without debate or division, and was.one of 
the last acts approved by Mr. Lincoln. Gen. 0. O. Howard was appointed Com- 
missioner. The Bureau became a distinctive part of Republican policy, and a year 
later it was found necessary to enlarge its powers and strike out the limitation of 
its term. The Bureau was maintained till January 1, 1869, and did good service 
as "a bridge from slavery to freedom."-Edward L. Pierce's Memoir and Letters of 
Charles Sumner, vol. iv, pp. 178, 179. See also Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave 
Power, vol. iii, pp. 455-504. 
'The American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1865, 1866, 1867. 
2 General Eaton was relieved by Brig. Gen. J. S. Fullerton December 4, 1865, and 
the latter was relieved by Brig. Gen. C. H. Howard February 7, 1866. 
3Surg. L. A. Edwards succeeded in 1866. 64 
THE FREEDMEN'S HOSPITAL. 
Dr. Breed resigned, and Maj. A. T. Augusta was appointed in his stead. 
The latter was suceeeded in 1864 by Acting Asst. Surg. William P. 
Powell. In May, 1864, Dr. C. B. Purvis was appointed hospital dis- 
pensary steward under Dr. Powell. In August, 1864, being prostrated 
with typhoid fever, Dr. Purvis obtained his discharge, and returned to 
the North. He afterwards recovered, returned to the Cleveland Medical 
College, graduated, and was appointed acting assistant surgeon of the 
United States Army, under Medical Director Abbott. 
During the winter of 1864 Camp Barker was razed to the ground, 
and hospital buildings were erected at the intersection of Vermont 
avenue and Fourteenth and M streets, where the residence of Senator 
Justin M. Morrill now stands. In August, 1865, the hospital was trans- 
ferred to the buildings known as Campbell Hospital, now the present 
site of the Le Droit Park. These buildings would accommodate 1,560 
patients. The major portion of the buildings were used as quarters for 
freedmen and refugees, under the control of the Freedmen's Bureau. 
The hospital was in charge of Assist. Surg. Patrick Glennan. His 
immediate assistants were Drs. William P. Ellis and A. P. Abbott, 
two colored men. Dr. Purvis was assigned to attend to the freedmen 
and refugees who were quartered in different parts of the city, and to 
hunt up the smallpox cases and transfer them to what was known as 
theKalorama Hospital. He was transferred from Medical Director 
Abbott to the Freedmen's Bureau, under Medical Director Edmunds, 
in August, 1865. 
The Freedmen's Bureau erected new buildings on a plot of ground 
north of Campbell Hospital, on part of the farm of Mr. Smith. They 
were completed in 1868, and patients transferred from Campbell 
Hospital to the new institution, which is the present Freedmen's 
Hospital. 
The general supervision of all the medical work of the Bureau in the 
District of Columbia was in charge of Dr. Robert Beyburn,1 who reported 
that for 1866 fourteen medical officers were on duty in his division. 
The cities of Washington and Georgetown were divided into five dis- 
tricts, and an acting assistant surgeon was assigned to each to attend 
patients at their homes. An extra diet kitchen, under the charge of 
ladies who gave their services, provided food for those who were sick 
at home. In the District 22,798 patients were treated, of whom 21,239 
were pronounced cured and 752 died. The average mortality was 33 
in 1,009. 
'The Freedmen's Bureau had three hospitals-one in Washington, one at the 
Freedmen's Village, under the charge of Dr. M. Stovell, and L'Ouverture, at Alexan- 
dria, in charge of Dr. Lewis Heard. Both doctors were acting assistant surgeons in 
the Army. Five contract surgeons were also employed to attend freedmen and refu- 
gees at their homes in the cities of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria, and 
in the Freedmen's Village at Arlington. They were Drs. H. N. Howard, A. C. Tabor, 
J. H. Bushnell, C. B. Purvis, and Washington Kilmer. (Toner's Medical Register, 
1867.) THE FREEDMEN'S HOSPITAL-ENTRANCE. RATIONS ISSUED TO FREEDMEN. 
65 
On April 6, 1869, Bvt. Col. and Surg. L. A. Edwards, at his own 
request, was relieved from the duties of chief of medical staff of 
Freedmen's Bureau, and was succeeded by Dr. Robert Reyburn. The 
number of hospitals had been reduced from 21 to 2, namely, the one at 
Richmond, Va., and the Freedmen's Hospital in Washington. Dr. Rey- 
burn reports that a vast majority of the 302 patients under treatment 
at Washington were so helpless, either from old age or bodily infirmity, 
that they would require to be supported from some source during the 
remainder of their lives. He had also under his charge 71 colored 
patients at the hospital at Richmond, and recommended that a tem- 
porary building be erected at the Insane Asylum building at Washing- 
ton to receive these patients. 
In the District of Columbia, from May to November, 1865, there were 
treated in the freedmen's hospitals 3,300 adult males, 2,810 adult 
females, 2,345 male children, and 2,520 female children. On October 
30 there were remaining under treatment 275 adult males, 270 adult 
females, 105 male children, and 93 female children. The percentage of 
deaths in the District of Columbia was but 3 per cent, as against 49 
per cent in North Carolina (where there was practically no medical 
attendance), 0.09 in Virginia, 0.04 in South Carolina, and an average of 
13 per cent in all the Departments. In the District of Columbia, also, 
41 schools, employing 91 teachers and having an attendance of 4,884, 
were organized to supplement the regular colored schools of the Dis- 
trict. The freedmen first exercised the right of suffrage in the District 
on February 25, 1866. 
When the Freedmen's Bureau was broken up in 1869, Congress, at 
the instance of Dr. Reyburn,1 passed an act2 authorizing and directing 
the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees and Freedmen to continue 
the hospitals at Richmond, Va.; Vicksburg, Miss., and in the District 
of Columbia, including the asylum for aged and infirm freedmen and 
for orphan children. The expense was to be paid out of moneys there- 
tofore appropriated for the use of the bureau; and it was provided 
that the hospitals should be discontinued as soon as practicable, in the 
discretion of the President.3 
Under a special order of the War Department, dated January 21, 
1867, the subsistence department of the Army was issuing rations to 
the inmates of the hospital and asylum at Washington, and certain 
parts of this ration were exchanged for other supplies. For example, 
butter was not in the ration, and if butter was wanted an overplus of 
some other article was ordered and exchanged for butter, a practice 
that was stopped by the subsistence department. The premises occu- 
pied by the hospital having come into the possession of Howard Uni- 
1 Senate Report 209, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, p. 281. 
2 Act relating to freedmen's hospitals, approved April 7,1869. 
3 In a letter to the editor Dr. Reyburn states that employment agencies were estab- 
lished for colored people, and many persons were sent to different parts of the 
country, where they found remunerative employment. 
7260 5 66 
THE FREEDMEN'S HOSPITAL. 
versity,1 a lease was executed in 1874, and is still in force, by which the 
university agreed with Robert Reyburn, surgeon in charge of the Freed- 
men's Hospital for the Interior Department, to let the buildings and 
grounds known as the Freedmen's Hospital from the 1st day of July, 
1874, to the 30th day of June, 1875, for the sum of $4,000. It was 
agreed by the surgeon in charge that he should furnish the light and 
heat for that portion of the main brick building used by the medical 
department of the university, and should allow the medical department 
to use a portion of the premises, and to have facilities for clinical 
instruction. The buildings were to be kept in repair by the lessees. 
The lease was signed by John M. Langston, vice-president and acting 
president of Howard University, and by Dr. Reyburn. 
Dr. Reyburn was in charge of the hospital from its organization and 
building in 1866 until March, 1875, when he was succeeded by Dr. G. 8. 
Palmer? In his testimony taken by the subcommittee on appropria- 
tions (consisting of Senators Sargent, Allison, and Eaton) relative to the 
management of Freedmen's Hospital, in February, 1878, Dr. Palmer 
states that when he took charge of Freedmen's Hospital on March 20, 
1875, as surgeon in charge he could find no statute law by which he was 
to be governed in its management. The hospital had been established 
by the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, transferred by act of 
Congress from him to the Secretary of War, and subsequently by the 
same authority to the Secretary of the Interior, and it had been sup- 
ported since 1872 by annual appropriations from Congress.3 
Soon after taking charge he went to the Secretary of the Interior for 
instructions. The Secretary gave him none, excepting that he must do 
the best he could with the institution, and never exceed the appropria- 
tion. He was then left to follow precedents, customs, and his own judg- 
ment. He found some things to correct and corrected them, but in most 
respects it seemed to him that the hospital had been managed satisfac- 
torily to the Government and for the best interest of the inmates. 
Hence he continued the general management the same as he found it. 
He continued the same custom of diet, with some improvements, and 
1 The hospital was transferred to Howard University by Secretary of War Rawlins, 
under an act of Congress giving him authority to make such transfer through the 
Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. 
2 Dr. Palmer was graduated from the Maine Medical College in 1838. He practiced 
in the city of Gardiner, Me., until the war broke out; then went into the army and 
was first a regimental surgeon and then a surgeon of volunteers, and was assigned 
to duty in various parts of the Army. He had charge of the Lincoln Hospital in 
Washington, one of the largest hospitals at that time in the city. He served on the 
battlefield of Gettysburg, and then took charge of the hospitals iu the Cumberland 
Valley under Dr. King. From there he went to St. Louis, and was superintendent 
of hospitals in the vicinity of St. Louis under Dr. Mills. He then went to Annapo- 
lis, and had charge of St. Johns College Hospital until the war terminated, and at 
the same time was on the board of examination of officers, performing the duties 
of medical officer. Senate Report 209, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, p. xxiii. 
3 Senate Report 209, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, p. 238. TRANSFER TO THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT. 
67 
employed the same cooks, nurses, and the same employees generally. 
No money passed through his hands, but he approved bills for all articles 
purchased, and they were paid at the Interior Department every month, 
lie also made a full return of all property, for which the surgeon in 
charge was accountable. 
On July 1, 1877, he discontinued the issuance of rations to patients 
in quarters, and also to the children of the Colored Orphan Asylum. 
They had always constituted part of the Freedmen's Hospital and 
Asylum, and he did not drop their names from the rolls of the hospital 
until the 1st of August, 1877. He also carried the names of patients 
in quarters to whom rations had been issued on the hospital rolls until 
the 1st of October, thus giving them an opportunity to come in when 
they chose. They all understood that they belonged to the hospital 
and that that was their home, but they had been permitted to live out 
in consequence of enjoying a large liberty and because this method was 
economical for the hospital. 
Dr. Glennan remained executive officer during the administrations of 
Drs. Heyburn, Palmer, and Purvis. He had been through the war as 
assistant surgeon. During Dr. Heyburn's term of office as surgeon in 
chief of the present hospital his assistants were Dr. G. S. Patterson, Dr. 
Joseph Tabor Johnson, Dr. C. B. Purvis, Dr. Mear, and Dr. J. D. Harris. 
This number was reduced so that his assistants were Drs. Glennan, 
Purvis, and Harris. During the administration of Dr. G. S. Palmer his 
assistants were Drs. Glennan, Purvis, and for a short time J. D. Harris, 
and then for a year Dr. A. T. Augusta. At the time he resigned there 
were but two assistants, Drs. Glennan and Purvis. Dr. Palmer resigned 
in October, 1881, and Dr. C. B. Purvis was appointed in his stead. The 
latter held the position until 1891, when he was removed by Secretary 
Hoke Smith. 
Freedmen's Hospital continued under the control of the Freedmen's 
Bureau until June 30, 1872, when it passed under the supervision of 
the Secretary of War.1 Under the act of June 23,1874, the institution 
was transferred to the Interior Department. For the fiscal year 1872-73 
Congress appropriated $74,000 for the support of Freedmen's Hospital 
and Asylum, including the pay of medical officers and attendants, medi- 
cines, medical supplies, and rations, clothing, rent of hospital building, 
fuel and lights, repairs and transportation. It was provided that no 
part of the appropriation should be used to pay the expenses of any 
patient to be admitted thereafter, unless from some other Government 
hospital. Of this appropriation but $72,000 was used. In 1874 the 
expense was $51,284.90; in 1875 it was $50,202.59; and in 1870 it was 
$45,000.2 
The present surgeon in chief of the Freedmen's Hospital is Dr. Daniel 
H. Williams, who was appointed to the position in the spring of 1894 
1 Act of Jone 10,1872. Statutes at Large, vol. 17, p. 366. 
2 Senate Ex. Doc. 84, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, p. 194. 68 
THE NATIONAL HOMEOPATHIC HOSP11AL. 
by the lion. Hoke Smith, Secretary of the Interior, at the request of 
Secretary of State Gresham. Before coming to Washington, Dr. 
Williams was connected with the Provident Hospital, of Chicago, in 
which institution both Judge and Mrs. Gresham were interested. For 
four years he was connected with the Illinois State Board of Health 
and for eight years was attending physician to the Protestant Orphan 
Asylum in Chicago. 
The grounds on which the hospital buildings are located are valued 
at $100,000, and the buildings themselves at about $40,000. With the 
exception of the brick structure occupied as a dispensary, an admin- 
istrative building, and a medical college, the buildings are of wood, are 
cheaply constructed, and are heated by stoves. The hospital provides 
for about 500 persons each year and has a daily average of from 175 to 
200 patients in both hospital and dispensary. About one-third of the 
patients are white, and all are charity patients. Admission is through 
the Secretary of the Interior, the sanitary officer of the District of 
Columbia, and the physicians to the poor. The Secretary alone can 
order patients to be received. It is estimated by the surgeon in chief 
that about one half of the patients are not residents of the District of 
Columbia.1 
In his testimony before the Joint Committee on the Charities and 
Reformatory Institutions in the District of Columbia, Dr. Williams 
tated that the Freedmen's Hospital, one hospital in Chicago, and as 
small hospital in Baltimore, are the only ones in which a colored man 
can obtain medical training, or a colored woman can be trained as a 
nurse. The training school for nurses was organized on its present 
basis by Dr. Williams. Four colored men and one white man are 
employed as interns, taking the place of two salaried assistant surgeons 
formerly employed. The sum of $3,000 thus saved is devoted to the 
pay of the interns at a sum not exceeding $10 a month, and of the 
nurses at $7 a month. The 40 nurses are under the superintendence 
of Miss S. C. Ebersole, who came to the Freedmen's Hospital on the 
recommendation of the authorities of Johns Hopkins Hospital. The 
length of course for nurses is two years. The income of the hospital 
($54,025 in 1896-97) comes entirely from the Treasury, the appropria- 
tion being made in the District of Columbia appropriation bill. The 
Secretary of the Interior manages the institution, but the expendi- 
tures are under the control of the Commissioners of the District of 
Columbia. 
IV. 
The National Homeopathic Hospital was incorporated June 10, 1881, 
under the general incorporation law. For two years after its organ- 
ization the corporation had no hospital building. The first year the 
1 Testimony of Dr. Williams, Senate Doc. No. 185, Fifty-fifth Congress, First Ses- 
sion, page 268. THE NATIONAL HOMEOPATHIC HOSPITAL. UNION WITH GAEFIELD HOSPITAL PROPOSED. 
69 
receipts were $85; tne second year, $229.50; tne third year the hospital 
was practically closed, and the receipts were but $60. The year fol- 
lowing the receipts rose to little less than $3,000, of which $1,839.40 
was raised by the association now known as the Ladies' Aid Association. 
From this date forward the receipts increased until they amounted in the 
aggregate, on December 31, 1891, to $101,996.23. Of this sum a little 
less than $19,000 was raised by the Ladies' Aid Association. The pro- 
ceeds from the fair given by the National Homeopathic Hospital Asso- 
ciation in 1885 were $2,70S, and up to 1892 about $20,000 had been 
received from patients, notwithstanding the fact that the hospital was 
closed for four months in 1889. The total receipts from donations 
during the first decade were $3,931.10 and from membership fees, $930. 
The early records of the hospital are not available, but the origin of 
the enterprise seems to have been the movement (in 1881) that culmi- 
nated in the selection by the hospital trustees of a board of 200 lady 
managers, which organization immediately began to raise money by con- 
certs and excursions. While working for the Homeopathic Hospital a 
project for a union with the Garfield Memorial Hospital (also chartered 
in 1881), with the view of establishing "a grand unsectarian hospital, 
where both systems of medicine could be fairly and openly tried," was 
entered into by a number of the lady managers of the former institu- 
tion. In November, 1882, however, a number of the lady managers 
who were not favorable to the union obtained a charter and established 
a dispensary. In the autumn of 1883 Mrs. G. S. Wilcox and Mrs. G. W. 
Pope interested many other persons in the hospital enterprise, and at a 
public meeting a new board of trustees was selected, and a small build- 
ing on F street, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets, was secured. 
During 1884 luncheons, fairs, concerts, and other like entertainments 
realized a sum sufficient to carry on the work. 
It was at this time that the managers of the Garfield Memorial Hos- 
pital finally declined to grant to the homeopaths an equal representa- 
tion on their board of trustees, and thereupon a committee of ladies, 
consisting of Mrs. Charles Nordhoff, Mrs. F. L. Freeman, and Mrs. E. 
B. Wright, by an appeal to Congress for the recognition of a homeo- 
pathic hospital among the charities of the District, secured an appro- 
priation of $15,000 for the purchase or erection of a building. In 1885 
a second committee, consisting of Mrs. Sara A. Spencer, Mrs. A. F. 
Childs, Mrs. John Ellis, Mrs. Fobert Stevens, Mrs. Isabella M. Bittin- 
ger, Mr. Alonzo Bell, and Mr. Elias S. Hutchinson, secured from Con- 
gress a further appropriation of $5,000; and in January, 1876, the 
present building was opened. The work of planning the changes 
devolved on a building committee, made up of Mr. Elias S. Hutchinson, 
Mr. Lewis Clephane, and Mr. G. II. Wilcox. 
The president of the association in 1888 was Chief Justice Morrison 
R. Waite, of the United States Supreme Court; the vice-presidents 
were Mr. Hutchinson and Mrs. Nordhoff; the secretary was Mr. Joseph 70 
THE NATIONAL HOMEOPATHIC HOSPITAL. 
M. Wilson, and the treasurer was Mr. Lewis Clephane. Mr. A. S. Pratt 
was president of the board of trustees. 
For- the purchase and fitting up of the grounds and building now 
occupied by the hospital, at the corner of N and Second streets NW., 
Congress appropriated in all $29,500; and for maintenance during the 
first ten years of the hospital's existence $23,000 was appropriated.1 
During the same period the hospital spent $61,446.99 for maintenance, 
hospital appliances, tools, incidental repairs, and sundries. 1 luring that 
time the hospital accommodated 1,000 patients. At the time the hos- 
pital was established there were about a dozen homeopathic physicians 
in the city, and at the end of the ten years this number had increased 
to 50 homeopathic physicians in successful practice in Washington. 
The management of the hospital is intrusted to a board of trustees, 
the medical staff, and the hospital committee. Aside from the trustees 
there is a hospital association which has its own officers. In 1891 lion. 
Boswell P. Flower, a member of the House of Representatives from 
New York, was the president; E.S. Hutchinson and Mrs. Charles Nord- 
hoff were the vice-presidents, and Lewis Clephane was the secretary. 
Of the board of trustees, John Joy Edson was the president; A. S. Pratt 
and Mrs. I. M. Bittinger were the vice-presidents; William Redin Wood- 
ward was the secretary; Job Barnard was the treasurer, and Charles 
B. Bailey, Henry M. Baker, Mrs. Thomas H. Martin, and Mrs. Sara A. 
Spencer were the other members of the board. 
The hospital committee consisted of Mr. Edson, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Bar- 
nard, Mrs. A. F. Childs, Mrs. A. IL Davis, and Mrs. Harrison Ding- 
man. The emeritus staff of the hospital was made up of Drs. Tuleo 
S. Verdi,2 Gustavus W. Pope, and Simon I. Groot. Dr. J. B. G. Custis 
was the chief of the staff, and with him were associated Drs. Edward 
Janney, Grace Roberts, Ralph Jenkins, Daniel IL Riggs, Lyman B. 
Swormstedt, Charles B. Gilbert, Henry Krogstad, and S. S. Stearns, the 
members of the staff being elected to serve three years. 
In 1892 Hon. John Dalzell, Member of Congress from Pennsylvania, 
was elected president of the association to succeed Hon. Roswell P. 
Flower, which position he stills retains. 
In 1892 the hospital received a letter from the president of the Ladies' 
Aid Association, Mrs. A. R. Quaiffe, guaranteeing from that association 
a sufficient sum to open a training school for nurses. The report of 
the president for this year shows that the members of the medical staff 
irDie hospital was established on January 15, 1884, on F street, between Eleventh 
and Twelfth streets NW. From this building the hospital was removed, October 30, 
1884, to No. 520 Third street NW. The present building was erected for a brewery 
and was afterwards used as a public school. It was opened as a hospital in February, 
1885. 
2Dr. Verdi, after a service of many years as chief of the medical staff of the hos- 
pital, declined reelection as a member of the staff, and was made a member of the 
emeritus staff' under the provision of the by-laws that provides that those physicians 
and surgeons who have served six years on the medical staff of the hospital shall, 
by virtue of such service, become members of the emeritus medical staff. TRAINING SCHOOL FOR NURSES. 
71 
admitted to the hospital 42 pay patients and 29 free patients, and that 
other physicians sent to the hospital 41 pay and 31 free patients. The 
sanitary officer of the District of Columbia sent 35 free patients. 
Thirty-nine pay patients and 187 free patients were admitted to the 
hospital, and 15 free patients were admitted from the various institu- 
tions in the District of Columbia. The total number of patients treated 
at the hospital during that year was 451; an increase of more than 50 
percent over the number treated during the previous year. Of these, 
54 were colored. In the dispensary 2,890 patients were treated. 
In 1894 the hospital received from the bequest of Mrs. Nancy B. 
Scudder the sum of $5,000, to constitute a fund, the income from which 
is devoted to the endowment of a free bed. Mrs. Scudder also left to 
the hospital many books and pictures, which have added to the attract- 
iveness of the building. In 1889 extensive improvements were made 
to the hospital building, at a cost of $8,500. In 1890 the fourth door of 
the hospital was completed and thus 16 rooms were added, including a 
surgical operating room, at a cost of $2,800? The next year an Otis 
elevator was placed in the hospital, at a cost of $3,500; in 1892 a com- 
modious and nicely equipped kitchen was built, at a cost of $2,000, and 
the next year a laundry was constructed at a cost of $2,700. 
In the summer of 1893 the training school for nurses was organized, 
under the superintendence of Miss S. W. Wartman, who had been in 
charge of a similar school in Wilmington, Del. From the first the 
school gave promise of complete success, and proved of great practi- 
cal benefit to the hospital. The course of training was fixed at two2 
years-the first year exclusively in the hospital, the second year both 
in hospital and outside nursing. A diploma is provided for those who 
successfully complete the course and pass the final examination, the 
medical staff of the hospital and the superintendent constituting the 
faculty of the school. The first admission to the school is upon appli- 
cation, with proper indorsements as to health and character. The first 
month is probationary, without compensation; and if the candidate is 
found satisfactory, the probationer is enrolled as a pupil nurse, upon 
signing an agreement to pursue the course to the end. The candidates 
must not be under 18 nor over 35 years of age. The compensation the 
first year is $7 per month, and the second year $12 per month, a part 
of which sums are retained until the end of the course. Four nurses, 
who were in the hospital when the school was started, entered as pupil 
nurses, and were given a reasonable credit on the two years' course for 
knowledge and experience already acquired. 
The salary of the superintendent, $900, was assumed by the Ladies' 
Aid Association, and a diet kitchen for the use of the training school 
1 This room has recently been completely refitted, and is now one of the most com- 
plete operating rooms in Washington. 
2The course is now three years; the compensation is $7 per month during the first 
year; $10 per month during the second year, and $12 per month during the third 
year. 72 
THE H ATTOKAL HOMEOPATHIC HOSPITAL. 
was also provided. The sum of $250, given to the hospital by the inau- 
gural committee from their surplus, was used in fitting up nurses' 
quarters. In November, 1890, the Nordhoff Guild, a sewing circle, was 
organized as an auxiliary to the Ladies' Aid Association. The officers 
of the guild for 1893 were, president, Mrs. John Dalzell; vice-president, 
Mrs. John Tweedale; secretary, Mrs. Rufus Choate; treasurer, Mrs. J. 
II. Whitaker; executive committee, Mrs. Lewis Clephane, Mrs. G. IL 
Wilcox, and Mrs. E. M. Marble. This guild has given many entertain- 
ments, all of which have resulted in considerable additions to the funds 
of the institution. 
During 1894 the wisdom of establishing the training school for nurses 
was shown, not only by the increased efficiency of the hospital nursing, 
but also by reason of the fact that the nurses brought to the hos- 
pital a revenue of $1,434.15, the sum paid for outside nursing done by 
them. During this year a mortgage of $(5,000, at 0 per cent interest, 
was placed upon the buildings and grounds of the hospital, and the 
proceeds were used to extinguish the indebtedness that had been accu- 
mulating for several years for improvements, repairs, and maintenance. 
The trustees also borrowed $3,384.91 to improve the building, the Ladies' 
Aid Association guaranteeing to raise $3,000 of the amount. 
In February, 1894, Mrs. Bennis C. Wilson succeeded to the position 
of superintendent, but died during July of that year. Miss Mary IL 
Ellison, who had been Mrs. Wilson's assistant, was appointed superin- 
tendent for three months on probation, and at the end of that time her 
appointment as superintendent was confirmed. In 1894 Mrs. John B. 
Wight succeeded to the presidency of the Nordhoff Guild. In May, 
1895, the first class of the Nurses' Training School, 10 in number, were 
graduated, and in that year the receipts of the hospital from this source 
were $1,582.09. On January 2, 1895, Mrs. A. R. Quaiffewas compelled 
by ill health to resign the presidency of the Ladies' Aid, and Mrs. W. L. 
Vanderlip was elected to succeed her. In 1890 the receipts of the hos- 
pital were $1(5,731.40-about $1,000 less than the receipts of the year 
previous. The difference is accounted for in the decrease of the receipts 
from the Ladies'Aid Association, which dropped from $1,650 in 1895, to 
$520.48 in 1896. The receipts from pay patients were $5,398.88, only 
$41.83 less than for the year previous. The receipts of the nurses for 
outside nursing were $1,374.52, a decrease of $207.32. There was an 
increase of $250 in the amount received from the Government. 
The cash disbursements during the year left a balance of $74.36 in 
the hospital treasury and $312.70 in the United States Treasury. To 
offset this there were a trifle more than $3,000 of bills approved and 
unpaid and about $400 in bills awaiting approval, making a total 
indebtedness for current expenses of $3,417.25. Deducting the bal- 
ance on hand left a net indebtedness of $3,030.19. This indebtedness 
was the accumulation of two and a half years, showing that the aver- 
age deficit in the running expenses of the hospital during that time 
had been about $100 per mouth, a reduction of 50 per cent over the WASHINGTON ASYLUM HOSPITAL-A PAVILION. THE WASHINGTON ASYLUM HOSPITAL. 
73 
deficit of the previous three years. At the same time the report of 
the medical staff showed that there was a small increase over the pre- 
vious year in all the departments of the hospital, the total number of 
hospital cases treated being 502; dispensary cases, 7,890. 
In 1896, Mr. John Joy Edson resigned his position both as president 
of the board of trustees and as a trustee on account of the pressure of 
private duties. Mr. Job Barnard also resigned. The vacancies on the 
board were filled by the election of Mr. Charles B. Bailey and Mr. Henry 
Wells, and Hon. Charles Lyman was made president of the board of 
trustees. Mrs. A. A. Birney succeeded to the presidency of the Ladies' 
Aid Association, and Mrs. J. Hale Sypher to the presidency of the 
Nordhoff Guild. The St. Felicitas Guild was organized with Miss 
Frances R. Hough as president; Mrs. Frederick Gray, vice-president; 
Miss Lorena Barber, secretary and treasurer, and Mrs. A. L. Pope as 
assistant secretary and treasurer. The name was adopted by reason 
of the fact that St. Felicitas is the patron saint of infants, and the work 
of the guild is in the free dispensary and the maternal ward. 
The active medical and surgical staff during 1896 consisted of Drs. 
Howard H. Hawxhurst, Henry Krogstadt, Richard Kingsman, T. L. 
MacDonald, William R. King, Lyman B. Swormstedt, Ralph Jenkins, 
Reginald Munson, W. F. Corey, C. A. Davis, and Margaret Hislop. 
V. 
Reference has already been made to the hospital that has always 
existed in connection with the poorhouse, better known as the Wash- 
ington Asylum. This hospital occupies a portion of the grounds 
belonging to the asylum, and is under the general superintendence of 
Walter H. Stoutenburgh, the intendant of the asylum. The hospital 
occupies four one-story frame buildings, and for the fiscal year 1895-96 
accommodated 811 patients. It is under the immediate direction of a 
visiting physician, appointed by the Commissioners of the District of 
Columbia, and two resident physicians. The hospital accommodates 
patients transferred from the asylum, and also those sent thither by the 
sanitary officer, some of whom are, at the request of this officer, trans- 
ferred from other hospitals. On the grounds of the asylum also is a 
smallpox hospital, an institution which has existed for many years, and 
which has recently been rebuilt according to modern requirements, 
under the direction of the health officer, Dr. William C. Woodward. 
The staff consists of Dr. 1). Percy Hickling, visiting physician; Dr. 
Stuart Johnson, resident physician, and Dr. Thomas Ehleider, assist- 
ant resident physician.1 
1 For a description of the hospital see Appendix A, Report of the Joint Select Com- 
mittee on the Charities and Reformatory Institutions in the District of Columbia, 
1898. CHAPTER VI. 
HOSPITALS FOR SPECIAL CLASSES. 
IDHE Columbia Hospital for Women and Lying-in Asylum was started 
L early in 1866 by subscriptions and donations made by citizens of 
Washington, and was incorporated by an act of Congress approved 
June 1 of that year. The object of the institution as stated in its char- 
ter is "to found in the city of Washington a hospital and dispensary for 
the treatment of diseases peculiar to women, and a lying-in asylum, 
in which those unable to pay therefor shall be furnished with board, 
lodging, medicine, and medical attendance gratuitously." 
The hospital was organized at the instance an I mainly through the 
instrumentality of Dr. J. Harry Thompson. Dr. Thompson, in his first 
annual report, gives very fully the condition of hospital facilities in 
Washington and the circumstances attending the organization of 
Columbia. The report calls attention to the fact that the year 1861 
found the capital city of the United States, with a population of over 
100,000, without a single civil hospital or dispensary to which the poor 
of its resident or floating population could apply for medical assistance 
in case of disease or accident. Such a condition of things was an 
anomaly in the history of civilized nations. 
This need was in part supplied by the Sisters of Charity in founding 
the Providence Hospital; but the new hospital supplied only a small 
portion of the demand, for the free beds were occupied mostly by non- 
residents, leaving the resident sick poor of the District no other refuge 
than the poorhouse. In numbers of instances, the report states, 
respectable married women had been confined in police-station houses, 
sometimes in the public grounds, and in one instance Dr. Miller, one of 
the oldest physicians of Washington, was obliged to deliver a woman 
on the steps of the State Department, and then take mother and child 
in a carriage and go to some of his patients to collect money to procure 
a shelter for the poor sufferer. 
To supply the existing want, Dr. Thompson advocated the establish- 
ment of at least two public hospitals which should be national in 
character and into which no sectarian influence should be allowed to 
enter. One of these should be a general hospital, with not less than 
360 beds, and the other a woman's hospital and lying-in asylum, with 
at least 100 beds. 
74 THE COLUMBIA HOSPITAL ORGANIZED. 
75 
The Kev. Dr. A. D. Gillette and Dr. C. II. Hall warmly advocated the 
enterprise, and it was determined that a hospital should be established 
for the treatment of the diseases peculiar to women, and in which 
wards should be set apart for the reception of lying-in patients. Dr. 
Hall waited upon Secretary Stanton and explained the project; the 
Secretary at once recognized the necessity and became warmly inter- 
ested, and gave an order upon the medical department for the supply 
of 50 beds furnished complete, the conditions of this loan being that 
" twenty" beds were to be set apart for the use of the wives and widows 
of soldiers of the United States Army. Surgeon-General Barnes 
became equally interested and promised all the assistance in his power 
in the furtherance of the interests of the institution, and accepted the 
position of head of the consulting staff of physicians. 
Thus encouraged, the movers in the project felt justified in appealing 
to the public for donations and subscriptions. Messrs. C. Knapp, H. 
D. Cooke, and Fahenstock headed the subscription list, and their 
example was followed by several other prominent business men. 
The building first occupied was the old Hill mansion, the grounds of 
which covered nearly the whole square on the northwest corner of 
Fourteenth street and Massachusetts avenue. The property was leased 
for one year for a rental of $2,000 and for the subsequent two years 
at $2,500 per annum. The hospital was opened for patients in March, 
1866. Application was at once made to Congress for a charter, which 
was granted. Officers were elected, and at the first meeting of the 
directors it was decided that application should be made to Congress 
for an appropriation of $10,000 for the then current fiscal year to assist 
in the support of the free beds. The amount asked for was appro- 
priated, and thus the institution was placed upon a firm basis. 
In his first report Dr. Thompson stated that the hospital had 60 beds 
completely furnished. Twenty of these were subject to the order of 
the Surgeon-General of the Army, and of Dr. Horwitz of the Navy. 
The remaining 40 were to be divided between the resident and non- 
resident poor of the District. Says the report: 
The number of patients applying for admission is steadily on the increase, and 
before many months the institution will be filled to its utmost capacity. I am 
exceedingly gratified to report that during the few months we have been in opera- 
tion we have been successful in relieving many sufferers. Some of them had been 
for months unable to attend to their domestic duties, and but for this institution 
must have lingered on, a burden to themselves and their families, being without 
means to pay for competent medical attendance, and if they could through friends 
have obtained that they could not have been provided with proper nursing and the 
necessary food. These patients came into the institution helpless and broken down; 
they have left it perfectly restored to health and usefulness. The amount of good 
thus accomplished can not be estimated by dollars and cents; it is incalculable. 
No deaths have occurred among any of the inmates of the hospital. Many of 
the women who have been admitted into the lying-in wards were entirely destitute 
of clothing for their expected offspring, and some were without a change of clothing 
for themselves. So far Mrs. A. J. Brown has supplied their wants, but that duty 
must for the future devolve upon the ladies of the visiting committee. 76 
THE COLUMBIA HOSPITAL. 
In estimating the amount of money required for the support of the institution for 
the ensuing fiscal year, it must be borne in mind that the necessary expenses incurred 
in a hospital of this character are necessarily proportionally much larger than would 
be required for the same number of patients in a general hospital. 
Most of the patients who are admitted are broken down in constitution, and often 
require a long course of tonics and stimulants, combined with the most nourishing 
diet, before they are in a condition to admit of surgical interference. After many 
operations the entire time of one nurse is occupied in ministering to the wants of the 
patient. In the lying-in wards we require one nurse to every four beds; this is more 
than double the number required in a general hospital. 
The hospital was placed in charge of twelve directors, the first board 
being made up of Kev. A. D. Gillette, D. D., president; Rev. C. II. 
Hall, D. D., and Rev. D. P. Gurley, D. D., vice-presidents; Moses 
Kelly, treasurer; Rev. J. N. Coombs, secretary; and Dr. C. H. Nichols, 
Charles Knapp, Rev. G. W. Samson, D. 1)., W. W. Corcoran, Ancel St. 
John, Henry D. Cooke, Dr. J. H. Thompson, and Dr. P. J. Horwitz, 
U. S. N. 
The medical and surgical staff was made up of Dr. J. H. Thompson, 
surgeon-in-chief; Dr. Robert Reyburn, assistant; Dr. Joseph K. Barnes, 
U. S. A., Dr. Joshua Riley, Dr. Thomas Miller, Dr. A. Y. P. Garnett, 
Dr. W. P. Johnson, Dr. Grafton Tyler, and Dr. Flodoardo Howard.1 
A dispensary for women and children was established in connection 
with the hospital, advice and medicine being furnished free by Dr. Rey- 
burn during two hours of each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. 
From its beginning Columbia Hospital was practically supported by 
the Government. In 1866 an appropriation of $10,000 was made "for 
the support of the Columbia Hospital for Women and Lying-in Asso- 
ciation." The next year the same amount was given " to aid in the 
support" of the hospital. In 1S68 the amount was increased to $15,000, 
"for the support of the asylum, over and above the probable amount 
which will be received from independent or pay patients;" but in 1869 
the appropriation dropped back to $10,000. In 1870 the appropria- 
tion for support was $15,000, and an additional $3,000 was granted 
for rent and repairs. The next year, in addition to the $18,000, the 
hospital received $500 for the purchase of surgical instruments. 
In 1872 Dr. Thompson furnished the Interior Department with a 
report of the medical work of the hospital for the preceding five years, 
giving in great detail a statement of every important case treated dur- 
ing that period, largely illustrated with plates showing the conditions 
of surgical treatment. It also included a statement of the dispensary 
service for children and for the eye and ear, which had been adopted 
by the hospital outside of its charter authority in consequence of the 
entire lack of hospital facilities for the treatment of these classes of 
cases. The report was printed, by order of the Secretary of the Inte- 
rior, in a large quarto volume, which is on file in the medical libraries. 
The year 1872 marked the transition from a temporary to a perma- 
'Toner's Medical Register of the District of Columbia, 1867. COLUMBIA HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND LYING-IN ASYLUM DR. J. HARRY THOMPSON'S REPORTS. 
77 
nent Government institution. Not only was the appropriation for sup- 
port placed at $18,300, but also the sum of $25,000 was given for the 
purchase of the building then and now occupied by the hospital, 
together with 40,000 feet of ground, and $7,000 additional for altera- 
tions and repairs.1 At the same time it was provided that the title of 
the real estate shall be vested in the United States for the use of the 
hospital, and that no part of either the real or the personal property 
then held or thereafter to be acquired by the institution shall be 
devoted to any other purpose than a hospital for women and lying-in 
asylum without the consent of the United States. In addition to the 
directors already provided for, three others were to be appointed: One 
Senator, to be named by the President of the Senate, and two Repre- 
sentatives by the Speaker of the House. These directors are appointed 
for the term of a single Congress, and are eligible to reappointment. 
In 1873 a bountiful Congress provided $15,0(H) to complete the altera- 
tions and the refitting of the building, and added $28,500 for support; 
in 1874 a stone wall was provided for at an expense of $8,500, and 
$24,000 was given for support; and in 1875 another $25,000 was appro- 
priated for land and $24,300 for support-a remarkable record of 
munificence.2 
Dr. Thompson's annual reports were usually quite voluminous and 
give much information in regard not only to the work of Columbia 
Hospital but also to that of other charities of the District. In his last 
report, October 31, 1877, he says: 
The utmost care has been exercised to prevent the charities of the hospital being 
misapplied. There are in all large communities numbers of professional paupers 
who spend their lives partly in the poorhouse and the rest in public hospitals, 
1 Statutes at Large, vol. 17, p. 360. 
2 On March 22, 1873, a contract was made with Messrs. Fitch & Fox, agents, for 
the purchase of the northwest quarter and the southeast quarter of square 25, for 
$25,000, payable $5,000 in cash, $5,000 on or before August 1, 1874, with 7 per cent 
interest, and to assume an existing lien of $15,000 with its interest, the hospital to 
assume the payment for all taxes for street improvements and otherwise after June 
30,1872, corporation taxes prior to that date to be paid by the owner. Payment of 
$5,000 was made March 26, 1873; the hospital immediately entered into possession, 
but the deed remained unrecorded until August 4, 1875. Congress at its session of 
1875-76 appropriated $25,000 to pay for the property, and provided that the title 
should be vested in the United States. On May 26, 1876, the Attorney-General 
refused his approval of the title because of taxes amounting to $6,279.78 remaining 
unpaid. Several small pieces of the property had been sold for taxes, and in one 
instance the time for redemption had expired. Gen. O. E. Babcock, president of 
the board of trustees, wrote to the Secretary of the Interior that the treasurer of 
the hospital had been instructed in the matter, the instructions being to place on 
record the deed and the opinion of the Attorney-General. Ou April 30, 1883, the 
appropriations for the hospital were stopped at the Treasury Department. The 
stoppager was removed by Congress, whereupon the Comptroller brought suit 
against the treasurer of the hospital, John T. Mitchell, for wrongful disbursement. 
The cost of the land was $20,000; interest, $1,085.83; grading, etc., $3,913.55. The 
assessed taxes to April 1, 1883, including interest and penalties, was $13,388.88, held 
by the First National Bank of New York; private parties held tax liens to April, 78 
THE COLUMBIA HOSPITAL. 
always preferring the latter, occupying room which would be better filled by more 
deserving members of the community. This class of persons have been rigidly 
excluded from this institution, the means placed at our disposal having been barely 
sufficient to provide for those who were known to be suffering and proved to be 
deserving. 
Most of the patients applying for admission to the surgical wards of the hospital 
were suffering from diseases which were the result of difficult labors where no com- 
petent medical assistance had been provided. Persons outside of the medical pro- 
fession have no conception of the amount of physical suffering endured by a large 
proportion of the females belonging to the poorer classes resulting from the mal- 
practice of incompetent attendants. 
Lying-in asylums should become more general and the community should be 
taught that in all cases where they are unable to provide themselves at their homes 
with competent medical assistance and nursing they should seek the comforts pro- 
vided in these beneficent institutions. 
Much difficulty has been experienced in procuring good nurses. Women of ordi- 
nary capacity are not competent for this duty. They should be intelligent, kind, 
Christian women, in every respect reliable and trustworthy. Before we can per- 
suade this class of women to assume the duties of nurses we must elevate the posi- 
tion, make it one of the greatest respectability, and educate them thoroughly for 
the work and pay them a fair salary. 
As soon as practical I would earnestly recommend the directors to inaugurate in 
this institution a system of thorough education for nurses, who from time to time, as 
their terms of service may expire, should receive, if found competent, certificates to 
that effect, and thus be placed in a position to command the confidence and respect 
of the community. We have at present every bed in the hospital occupied, and 
applications for admission are steadily on the increase. Lying-in patients can not 
be crowded. As much space and ventilation are required for them as for fever 
patients; no more than a given number can be admitted, and, if the benefits of this 
hospital are to be extended, more room must be provided. 
Dr. Thompson was the surgeon-in-chief from its beginning until Sep- 
tember 20, 1877. During the year 1875 the directors effected changes 
that led to a wider distribution of the authority that up to that time 
had been exercised almost if not quite wholly by Dr. Thompson. At 
that time he was placed on a salary of $2,000 a year; the office of 
assistant surgeon was abolished, and an advisory and consulting board 
of physicians and surgeons was created. In September, 1870, this 
medical board made an elaborate report, which was referred to a com- 
mittee of the directors, which committee reported December 21, 1876. 
The action of the trustees on this report was such as to cause the med- 
ical board to resign in a body on February 2,1877.' 
1883, to the amount of $681.14. The treasurer stated that he was advised by the 
members of the then board of directors and by the surgeon-in-charge, Dr. J. Harry 
Thompson, who assumed to speak by authority, that no taxes could be collected 
against the institution. No improper motives were alleged. Congress in 1884 appro- 
priated $5,320 to discharge the liens, and the Commissioners remitted the remainder 
of the assessment.-lieport of Columbia Hospital for 1884. 
1 The medical board from January 1876, to January, 1877, consisted of the follow- 
ing: Drs. Johnson Eliot, Flodoardo Howard, A. Y. P. Garnett, S. C. Busey, J. Ford 
Thompson, W. B. Drinkard, S. A. H. McKim, and C. H. A. Kleinschmidt. On their 
resignation they were succeeded by Drs. J. O. Stanton, J. A. Richie, Z. T. Sowers, 
R. W. Reyburn, N. S. Lincoln, L. Mackall, jr., James T. Young, and H. C. Yarrow. 
In a volume of essays and addresses published by Dr. S. C. Busey in 1896, may be DB. MUBPHY SUCCEEDS DB. THOMPSON. 
79 
The history of Columbia shows that the recommendations of Dr. 
Thompson in respect to provision for a training school for nurses were 
subsequently adopted. Early in 1877 Dr. Thompson received six months' 
leave of absence to enable him to visit hospitals in Europe of correspond- 
ing specialties. Before his term of absence expired he resigned in order 
to remain abroad. He located in Rome, where he resided until his death 
a few months ago. He was at one time attached to the Vatican staff of 
physicians, and he always enjoyed a large and lucrative practice. In 
Dr. Thompson's1 letter of resignation, from Carlsbad, August 24,1877, 
he sums up the result of his examinations of hospitals in Europe as 
follows: 
It is nearly t welve years since I started Columbia Hospital. It had a small begin- 
ning, but by the firm and consistent support of the directors and the liberal assist- 
ance of Congress it has grown to be an institution of considerable importance and 
a credit to all connected with it. When I compare the results of the work done 
there with those of similar hospitals on this side of the water which I have visited 
I am more than satisfied with my labors. 
Dr. Thompson was succeeded by Dr. Patrick J. Murphy. 
In the report for 1882, the membership of the board of lady visitors 
first appears. The board was made up of Miss Margaret Washington, 
president; Mrs. Cornelia W. Ferris, secretary; Mesdames S. Phillips 
Lee, William B. Snell, Thomas A. R. Keetch, F. L. Moore, Samuel 
Emery, John G. Parke, S. Ledyard Philps, William Paret, William T. 
Sherman, and William G. 11. Newman. 
The report of 1883 notes the extension of the west wing, paid for by 
an appropriation of $10,000 in the act of August 7, 1882. The report 
for 1885 mentions the retirement of the Rev. Dr. William Paret from 
the presidency of the board, caused by his removal from the city. He 
was succeeded by Maj. G. J. Lydecker, who in turn was succeeded in 1886 
by Rev. Rush R. Shippen, who held the presidency for four years, giving 
place to Rev. William Alvin Bartlett, who served from 1892 to 1895, 
when Nathaniel Wilson, esq., was elected president. 
A careful inquiry into the cost of the hospital work was made by the 
found a paper entitled "The Columbia Hospital and Lying-in Asylum, a Govern- 
ment Institution: Its past and present management, 1877." This article was origi- 
nally published in the October, 1877, number of the Richmond and Louisville Medical 
Journal. The article was answered in the annual report for the year ending June 30, 
1877, and to this answer Dr. Busey replied in an article printed in the Richmond and 
Louisville Medical Journal of January, 1878. 
'James H. Thompson was mustered into the United States Army September 21, 
1861, as surgeon of the Forty-third New York Infantry; accepted appointment as 
brigade surgeon November 4, 1861; dismissed by General Orders, No. 42, April 18, 
1862, as an alarmist, on the recommendation of General Burnside; dismission revoked 
March 22,1867, and honorably mustered out. J. Harry Thompson was mustered into 
service September 9, 1862, as surgeon of the One hundred and thirty-ninth New York 
Infantry; honorably discharged December 19, 1863; acting assistant surgeon, United 
States Army, under contract with the United States, at the Judiciary Square General 
Hospital and other places in the city, from March 1, 1864, to January 23, 1865. 80 
THE COLUMBIA HOSPITAL. 
treasurer, Dr. Charles H. Cragin,1 in 1886, with the showing that aside 
from fire insurance, repairs, and permanent improvement the expenses 
were $15,466.45. With a daily average of 33.45 patients, without reck- 
oning infants or officers and employees of the hospital, the average cost 
per patient per day was $1.26|. 
From the pay-patient fund a sufficient amount was accumulated to 
extend the cottage connected with the lying-in department of the 
hospital; but the fund was insufficient for the elevator so urgently 
needed.2 In 1889,however, Congress was prevailed upon to appropriate 
$11,300 for improvements; and the same year the pay-patient fund 
reached $7,981, the highest point in the whole history of the institution. 
In July, 1890, "by motion of lion. J. C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky, 
representing the United States Senate on the board of directors, it was 
voted to employ an assistant surgeon-in-charge to be resident in the 
hospital and devote his full time and strength to the work."3 At the 
same time the salary of the surgeon-in-charge was increased by $200. 
Dr. J. Foster Scott was appointed assistant surgeon-in-charge. 
At the beginning of the year 1891 Dr. Murphy, in consequence of 
failing health, resigned his position as surgeon-in-charge, and during 
the summer following he died. For many years the medical profession 
of the city almost unanimously criticised the organization of the hos- 
pital, the medical conduct of which was exclusively in control of the 
surgeon-in-charge. A large number of distinguished medical gentle- 
men who successively constituted the board of advisory physicians 
and surgeons, in their reports to the board of directors, uniformly rec- 
ommended that the office of surgeon-in-charge should be abolished and 
the medical conduct of the hospital be placed in the hands of volunteer 
physicians and surgeons to be selected from the medical men of the 
District. These recommendations were uniformly disapproved by the 
directors, and thereupon the then existing advisory board as uniformly 
tendered their resignations. 
After the resignation of Dr. Murphy a committee of directors, con- 
sisting of Dr. Louis W. Ritchie, J. D. McChesney, and F. II. Smith, vis- 
ited the prominent hospitals in the eastern cities for the purpose of 
ascertaining the status of such hospitals and obtaining advice as to the 
reorganization of Columbia. The report of this committee resulted in 
the division of the hospital into gynecological and obstetrical service, 
each having two visiting physicians in charge, to serve without pay, 
with a corps of house physicians, each to serve for two years, elected by 
the directors on the nomination of the visiting board of physicians and 
surgeons. The house physicians at first received a small compensa- 
tion, which has since been discontinued. Each house physician serves 
1 Dr. Cragin died in 1887, after long and faithful service as treasurer. He was suc- 
ceeded by Col. John M. Wilson, U. S. A., who was followed in 1890 by Mr. John D. 
McChesney, the present treasurer. 
2The improvement and repairs cost $10,670.39, of which amount $9,813.33 was taken 
from the pay-patient fund. 
3 Report of President Shippen, 1890. CHANGES IN MANAGEMENT. 
81 
a period of eighteen months, lives in the hospital, bnt receives no other 
compensation. The first board of visiting physicians consisted of Drs. 
J. Taber Johnson and I. S. Stone, gynecologists, and Drs. J. Wesley 
Bov^e and Louis W. Richie, obstetricians. Changes in the medical 
board have occurred from time to time, the present board consisting of 
Drs. I. S. Stone and J. Wesley Bovee, gynecologists, and Drs. Henry 
D. Frye and John F. Moran, obstetricians. 
Mrs. A. L. S. Thombs as matron was succeeded by Miss G. I. Pope 
as superintendent. The new by-laws provided for the annual appoint- 
ment of the medical staff and of the house staff, the latter to be 
nominated by the medical board. The medical staff were to receive 
pay only from pay patients, and the house physicians were to receive 
salaries. As a result of the sweeping changes that occurred during 
the year, the receipts from pay patients fell to the lowest point since 
1881, to $2,574.71. In January, 1890, the receipts from this source 
were but $184; in January, 1891, when the change took place, the 
amount fell to $136; in February to $82, and in April to $68. In May, 
however, the new order was well established, and the receipts rose to 
$288, and in June the amount reached $562. 
The new staff were almost as sparing of words as their predecessors 
had been. In their first report of eleven lines of print they say: 
The increase in number of patients during the past six months (the period of our 
connection with the hospital) and the evidence of increased popularity of the insti- 
tution, both at home and abroad, are very gratifying and give promise of still further 
usefulness. We are not, however, insensible to the growing demands for better 
facilities in order that we may keep the hospital fully abreast with the spirit of 
scientific progress of the day in treatment of both gynecological and obstetrical 
cases as well as in pathological research. 
We, therefore, recommend that steps be at once taken to secure the erection of a 
suitable building, on the L street front, in which proper arrangements could be per- 
fected to make this institution compare favorably with any other, both in facilities 
and in results of surgical and other treatment. 
Iii 1892, Drs. Stone and J. Ford Thompson made to the directors a 
lengthy report of the gynecological department, showing that 137 eases 
had been admitted from the dispensary and 192 from other sources. 
Of these 126 were private patients. Of the whole number 144 cases 
were surgical and 175 required medical or other treatment. Of the 
surgical cases 51 were of such a nature as to require capital operations 
for their relief. After discussing the surgical treatment in the hospital, 
the report says: 
As a large proportion of all patients are sent to the hospital by other physicians for 
surgical treatment, it necessarily follows that surgical operations are of frequent 
occurrence. Due regard is, however, paid to all other methods when available as a 
means of cure. This statement can be easily confirmed by anyone who may be 
sufficiently interested to visit the institution and observe the methods employed. 
In closing this report we again call your attention to the need of better facilities 
in the pathological department. We have no suitable room for a museum, and 
many valuable and rare specimens have been lost for want of facilities for their 
preservation. Again, there is need for a competent microscopist and pathologist. 
7260 6 82 
THE COLUMBIA HOSPITAL. 
The internes are daily in attendance upon surgical and obstetrical cases and cannot 
be permitted to do post-mortem work. There is a great need in this city for a hos- 
pital (which may with propriety be added to this one) where women may have 
treatment for hysteria and allied nervous disorders, especially when these diseases 
are consequent upon or connected with those peculiar to females. Many women are 
great sufferers from hysteria, insomnia, and neurasthenia. They are not subjects 
for a hospital like this, nor are they to be confined in an asylum for the insane. 
They need rest, seclusion, and moral management, as well as proper treatment to 
promote a cure. It is beyond our ability to provide for this class is the present 
building. They prove to be unsatisfactory cases, and have a demoralizing effect 
upon other patients who are fit subjects for this hospital. They in turn are unduly 
excited or influenced by the usual and unavoidable scenes in a hospital where sur- 
gical cases abound. It is earnestly recommended that you may give this matter 
your attention. In the event of the erection of a new building for surgical work, 
a part of the present structure could be appropriated to this class of cases. 
It affords us great pleasure to again allude to the growth in popularity of the 
hospital and its increased usefulness as evidenced by the increasing number of 
patients, especially in the private rooms. 
Drs. Bovee and King, the obstetricians, recommended the construc- 
tion of two (so called) "delivery rooms," and a room where examinations, 
dressings, etc., can be made, all of which may be built adjacent to, but 
separate from, the present cottage, and connected with it by a closed 
corridor. Such rooms, separated from the lying-in rooms, and supplied 
with suitable appurtenances for artificial delivery and obstetrical opera- 
tions, they said, are a part of every well-appointed lying-in hospital. 
The beds and operating table should be specially constructed for the 
purpose, upon the latest and most approved plans. The erection of 
a small building, containing such rooms aud connected with the present 
building, would also render convenient the construction of better bath- 
ing facilities for the colored patients of the lying in department than 
now exists. 
The report for 1893 shows receipts from pay patients to the amount 
of $5,238; the two new delivery rooms had been provided, with bath- 
rooms, closets, hot and cold water and good facilities for heating, an 
improvement that placed the hospital maternity on a thoroughly good 
basis. The gynecological department also received a new equipment of 
model surgical beds. A training school for nurses had been established 
and the first class was graduated. The next demand was for a nurses' 
home; and this need was supplied during the next year by an appro- 
priation of $19,000. Owing, however, to the depressed condition of 
business the pay patients receipts decreased to $3,395, while the num- 
ber of free patients increased; and in 1895 the income from pay patients 
was further reduced to $2,089. In this connection the observations of 
the superintendent, Ella Underhill, in her report for 1895 are pertinent: 
" Careful observation," says Miss Underhill, "has shown a decided indis- 
position on the part of many patients to pay even a small sum weekly, 
although circumstances point to their ability to do so. In this way 
many beds are taken up by people who might pay, thereby occupy- 
ing other than free beds, increasing the income of the hospital, aud THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. 
83 
depriving the really poor people of room which would otherwise be 
theirs. This is an established fact, but one which it is difficult to 
obviate." 
In the report for 1895 also is the first statement made in regard to 
the school of nursing, then numbering 30 nurses, 18 under instruction 
at the Children's Hospital and 12 at Columbia. Out of 180 applicants 
in 1895 but 22 were accepted. Lectures were delivered on obstetrics 
by Dr. A. F. A. King, on gynecology by Dr. D. S. Stone, on general 
survey by Dr. J. Wesley Bovee, on anatomy by Dr. J. Foster Scott, on 
physiology by Dr. G. N. Acker, on diseases of the eye by Dr. Swan M. 
Burnett, on diseases of children by Dr. S. S. Adams, on special emer- 
gencies and fevers by Dr. J. Van Rensselaer, on materia medica by 
Drs. Stoutenburgh and Barton. Applications for entrance came from 
Illinois, Texas, Canada and other distant localities, but few from the 
section near Washington. Nurses from Boston, Philadelphia, and Bal- 
timore applied for entrance to the post-graduate course in obstetrics. 
The graduates numbered 28, two of whom gained enviable reputations 
in smallpox work, two others obtained responsible posifions in hospi- 
tals, and the remainder were doing private duty. 
IL 
When, in 1869, a department of diseases of infancy and childhood 
was established in connection with the Columbia Hospital Dispensary, 
the fact that cases of disease that could not properly be treated in a 
dispensary were so frequent as to impel Dr. S. C. Busey, then con- 
nected with that hospital, to consider the propriety of an attempt to 
establish in Washington a children's hospital. In March, 1870, Dr. 
Busey interested Dr. F. A. Ashford in the project, and they called in 
Drs. William B. Drinkard and W.W. Johnson. At the suggestion of Dr. 
Drinkard, the board of lady managers of the Washington City Orphan 
Asylum were interested and a committee of that body, consisting of 
Mesdames S. P. Lee, J. Zeilin, William Stickney, J. C. Harkness, A. J. 
Brown, A. E. Perry, H. S. Reynolds, and Miss Margaret Washington, 
was appointed to confer with the above-named doctors. The confer- 
ences were held at the home of Mrs. A. J. Brown, and the Misses Vir- 
ginia and Sally C. Miller and Miss M. L. Thompson also were present. 
Drs. J. C. Hall, Thomas Miller, W. P. Johnson, C. II. Liebermann, and 
Grafton Tyler were interested in the subject. 
Dr. Busey says that "from the time when he was first advised of our 
object, Dr. William P. Johnson manifested the liveliest interest in its 
success, and exercised an active and controlling influence in perfecting 
the organization. There was no lack of effort on the part of any one 
of these five [last named] gentlemen, but Dr. Johnson's enthusiasm 
and earnestness assured success."1 The laity was represented at first 
by Mr. F. B. McGuire, and afterwards by Messrs. J. C. Kennedy, M. W. 
Galt, S. V. Niles, Joseph H. Bradley, jr., and Rev. A . N. Zevely. On 
1 Dr. Busey's Reminiscences, p. 118. 84 
THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. 
November 25,1870, those interested met at the office of Dr. W. P. John- 
son to form a preliminary organization, and at a public meeting held at 
Lincoln Hall December 9 the organization was completed by the selec- 
tion of corporators and the election of a board of directors. The cor- 
porators finally adjourned after adopting the report of the committee 
to name trustees. 
The "Children's Hospital of the District of Columbia" became incor- 
porated on December 2, 1870, under the general incorporation law 
the District; and on June 24,1884, an amended certificate was re' 
under the provisions of section 3, of the amendatory act ap^ 
April 23, 1884, by virtue of which the hospital became incorporated for 
1,000 years. The object stated was " to establish and maintain in the 
District of Columbia a hospital and dispensary for the gratuitous med- 
ical and surgical treatment of indigent children under the age of 12 
years, without distinction of race, sex, or creed;" but it was provided 
that sick and disabled children, whose parents or guardians may be 
able and willing to defray the expense of care and treatment, in wh.m 
or in part, may be admitted to the hospital upon such terms as may be 
prescribed by the rules of the board of directors. 
Dr. Busey relates that at his first interview with Dr. James C. Hall,1 
he indicated his willingness to contribute means, but declined on account 
*Dr. James Crowdhill Hall was born in Alexandria, Va., in 1805. His father hav- 
ing died, his mother removed to Washington and married Dr. Laurie, a distinguished 
clergyman. Dr. Hall was graduated at Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pa., and 
studied medicine with Dr. Thomas Henderson, one of the founders of the Medical 
Society of the District of Columbia, and a surgeon in the United States Army. He 
subsequently graduated in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania in 1827, 
and immediately entered Blockley Hospital as a resident physician, and there famil- 
iarized himself with the new methods of investigation and physical exploration thei. 
being introduced. " He was a skillful, conscientious, and benevolent physician, 
more willing to render service to the suffering poor than to receive remuneration; 
as a citizen he was always ready and willing to discharge every duty of good citi- 
zenship. * * * He was charitable, just, and honorable. * * * Besides 
numerous personal charities during his lifetime, his bequests to the Washington 
City Orphan Asylum and the Children's Hospital will be held through many years 
to come in commemoration of his benevolence." He was the family physician of 
every President of the United States, beginning with Jackson and ending with the 
death of Lincoln's son. For many years he attended the families of every justice 
of the Supreme Court; through many administrations the families of every member 
of the Cabinet; and for a long series of years every foreign legation, and every 
prominent Senator and Member of the House of Kepresentatives employed his stir- 
vices. For twenty years after his retirement from active practice his professional 
advice was constantly sought by both physicians and laymen. In 1830 he was the 
professor of surgery in Columbian University, and was a contributor to the Ameri- 
can Journal of the Medical Sciences in 1828. About 1850 he was tried by the 
Medical Association for neglecting to make charges and failure to send bills for pro- 
fessional services. He pleaded guilty, and promised reformation! Au examination 
of his books disclosed the fact that his annual receipts exceeded those of any other 
Washington physician, all of which had been paid without the presentation of a 
single account. In 1880, he died at the age of 75.-Dr. Busey's Reminiscences, pp. 
105,147-152. CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL-REAR VIEW 
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL-RECEPTION ROOM. THE FIRST BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 
85 
of feeble health to hold any office in the institution; and only after a 
formal invitation from the citizens who assembled at the office of Dr. 
W. P. Johnson, on November 25,1870, did he consent to unite with the 
others in a personal effort to complete the organization. How deep his 
interest was may be known by the fact that the proceeds of his bequest 
now (June 25, 1897) amount to $76,395. This bequest appears on the 
books of the hospital in 1881. The moneys are invested in real-estate 
mortgages in the city of Washington; the average annual interest for 
the past ten years has been $3,954.90, and under the terms of the will 
only the income from the funds is available for the use of the hospital.1 
The first home of the Children's Hospital was a small building on the 
corner of Thirteenth and F streets, with accommodations for only 12 
beds. The matron in charge accomplished all the necessary work. In 
1872 a building with more ample accommodations was rented on E 
street. The number of children seeking admission, however, increased 
so rapidly that in 1875 the present site was purchased and the main 
building was erected with an east wing extension, which was ready for 
occupancy in 1878. In 1899 the west wing was added and the central 
building was enlarged, thus completing the original design of the 
hospital.2 
The first board of directors of the hospital was composed of Dr. J. C. 
Hall, Dr. Grafton Tyler, Dr. Thomas Miller,3 Dr. C. II. Liebermann, 
Dr. W. P. Johnson, J. C. Kennedy4 (president), A. E. Perry (vice- 
president), M. W. Galt, Gen. E. D. Townsend, S. V. Niles, J. H. Brad- 
ley, jr., W. I). Clements, J. C. Harkness, F. B. McGuire (treasurer), A. 
N. Zevely, S. Semken, S. H. Kauffmann (secretary), L. J. 1 )avis, Fitzhugh 
Coyle, R. C. Fox. The physicians on the board formed the consulting 
medical staff; and the attending physicians were Drs. Busey, Ashford, 
Drinkard, and W. W. Johnson. Dr. Ralph Bell was the house phy- 
sician ; Dr. G. W. V. Hickman, the assistant, and Miss A. C. Macgruder, 
the matron. Mrs. M. W. Galt was the chairman of the board of lady 
visitors.5 
1 Letter of W. S. Thompson, treasurer, to Hon. .Janies McMillan, chairman, dated 
June 25, 1897. 
2The square No. 272, bounded by W and V and Twelfth and Thirteenth streets 
NW., contains 98,268 square feet. It was purchased for 16 cents a foot, or $15,722.88, 
payable $9,000 in cash and the remainder within a year. The building was erected 
in 1877-78 under the direction of a building committee of which Mr. John C. Hark- 
ness, "one of the most experienced and reliable architects and builders of the city," 
was made chairman. The plan selected had the approval of Dr. John S. Billings, 
U.S.A., who had studied the subject of hospital construction both in this country 
and in Europe. The building was constructed by J. G. Naylor, the contract price 
being $18,999. The total cost of the building was $23,662.22. Of this sum Congress 
appropriated $10,000, and $10,000 was raised by mortgage. Dr. James C. Hall gave 
$1,000 and " a friend," through Dr. Ashford, gave $1,000. 
3Dr. Miller died in 1873, and was succeeded by Dr. Johnson Eliot. Dr. W. P. Johnson 
died in 1876. 
4 Mr. S. V. Niles became president on the death of Mr. Kennedy in 1873. 
6 First annual report, 1872. 86 
THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. 
During the first ten month 94 patients were admitted to the hospital 
and 99 were treated in the dispensary, besides 125 vaccinations. Both 
white and colored children were treated. The medicines were given by 
Messrs. Kidwell & Son, J. W. Nairn, W. S. Thompson, G. G. Simms, 
and I. L. Bates, all druggists who were interested in the work. The 
receipts for the first year were $5,138.50, of which $1,205.46 came from 
theatrical performances; $974.20 from the corporation of Washington; 
$229.89 from a children's fair, and the remainder from contributions. 
By the gift of $100 each, the following persons endowed beds for one 
year: W. M. Galt, Gen. J. G. Parke, G. W. Biggs, Miss Coleman, W. 
W. Corcoran, Mrs. Margaret C. Freeman, J. C. McGuire. Also a bed 
was endowed by the Protestant Orphan Asylum. 
The first meeting of the ladies as a board of visitors was held at the 
hospital, at the corner of F and Thirteenth streets, on February 8, 1871. 
The question of ways and means being presented, on motion of Mrs. 
Marshall Brown, it was voted that each lady present should pledge 
herself to furnish a bed with 3 pairs of sheets, 2 blankets, 2 pillowcases, 
and a spread, or an equivalent in toweling, tablecloths and other requi- 
sites. Thus 12 beds, the required number, were furnished, as well as 
the necessary towels, etc. The furniture was given in the same way 
Soon subscriptions of money were secured, and to make certain of the 
amount required, each member of the board made herself responsible 
for five annual subscriptions of $5 each. Also the ladies held festivals 
and entertainments, the proceeds of which, to the amount of $10,006, 
went into the building fund. 
From the first the ladies provided for daily visiting committees to 
have a systematic oversight over the work of the hospital. They fined 
their members for absence from board meetings and in this way raised 
about $150 a year, first to support a diet kitchen and then to build a 
porch. A committee was charged with auditing and examining the 
accounts of the matron, and to exercise a minute control over the 
domestic management. In this way the board has united efficiency 
and economy.1 
In his report for 1874, President Niles states that 120 children had 
been treated in the hospital and 883 in the dispensary. Nine-tenths of 
these children were in destitute circumstances, and there was no other 
institution in the District, either public or private, where this class of 
unfortunates could be treated. A young physician had been employed 
to attend in their homes poor children unable to be removed to the 
hospital;2 a course of clinical lectures was proposed, and there was a 
surplus of $3,453.53 in the treasury, besides $2,000 in certificates of 
indebtedness issued in favor of the hospital by the District Government 
1 Report of Mrs. James B. Ricketts, president, and Mrs. John C. Kennedy, secretary 
of the board of lady visitors, to Reginald Fendall, secretary of the board of trustees. 
(Seo annual report for 1880.) 
20f this class of patients 237 were treated during 1875 by Dr. A. C. Adams. CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL-SURGICAL WHITE WARD. 
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL-SURGICAL COLORED WARD. MODEL RE POUTS. 
87 
and worth about $1,360; Congress had been appealed to for an annual 
appropriation of $5,000 on account of the large number of nonresident 
patients treated.1 
From the beginning of the hospital the raising of money and the 
supervision of expenditures was in charge of the board of lady visi- 
tors, and in each annual report acknowledgment of their indispensable 
work is made in most heartfelt manner. In 1879 it was found that the 
actual expense of maintenance in the new building was a little less than 
41 cents per day, the daily average of patients being 30.9. Including 
interest, improvements, salaries, and all other expenses, the cost was 
less than 53 cents a day, a fair average for to-day. 
On June 9, 1884, the original incorporators of the hospital, their 
associates and successors, accepted the provisions of the act of April 
23, 1884, amending the Revised Statutes of the United States relating 
to the District of Columbia, and a reorganization was effected. During 
1884 Dr. Grafton Tyler, one of the original incorporators and directors 
of the hospital, and Dr. Johnson Eliot, chairman of the board of hos- 
pital administration, died. Both were eminent in their profession and 
enjoyed the respect and confidence of the community, and were largely 
instrumental in making the Children's Hospital a success. 
In 1884 the management of the hospital felt the need of enlarging 
the institution, and called on Congress for an appropriation of $10,000 
toward the construction of the west wing, plans for which had been 
adopted. During this year the treasurer, Mr. F. B. McGuire, felt 
obliged by the pressure of his private business to resign a position the 
duties of which he had discharged from the organization of the hospi- 
tal. He was succeeded by W. S. Thompson, who has continued to fill 
the office to the present time. It may be proper to say here that the 
annual reports of the president, Mr. Niles, and the treasurer, Mr. 
McGuire, are models in respect to the information they give as to the 
actual workings of the hospital. The reports of the president of no 
other institution in the District of Columbia excel those of Mr. Niles in 
the manifestation of a direct personal interest in, and knowledge of, the 
workings of the institution with which he was connected. Limited as 
the resources of the hospital have been at various times, and great as 
has been the pressure on the treasury, yet it has been the invariable 
practice of the institution never to allow the expenditures to exceed 
the receipts, but on the contrary the rule has been to have a small bal- 
ance to provide for contingencies. 
The president's report for 1886 records the fact that during the first 
1 Of the 4,233 patients receiving surgical and medical treatment from February 11, 
1870, to November 30, 1875, 1,709 were residents of States. Of this latter number 
501 came from Maryland, 585 from Virginia, 95 from Pennsylvania, and 92 from New 
York. The amount realized from the certificates during 1875 was only $630.53. The 
annual Congressional appropriation of $5,000 began in 1874-75 and has been con- 
tinued since that date. The trustees looked forward to the time when the hospital 
would be self-supporting. 88 
THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. 
sixteen years of its life the hospital provided for 20,862 children, and of 
this number 70 per cent were cured or improved in health. The major 
portion of the revenues of the institution was derived from charitable 
bequests and donations from benevolent citizens. The attending physi- 
cians, at great sacrifice of their pecuniary interests, had labored dili- 
gently to bring success in their department; and the board of lady 
visitors was spoken of as the mainspring that had given to the hospital 
its practical force and effectiveness in the matter of material aid. 
At the annual meeting held December 5, 1887, the by-laws of the 
hospital were amended in order to render eligible for election as directors 
all residents of the District of Columbia without distinction of sex or 
profession or vocation. A change was made in section 2 of the original 
certificate of incorporation by striking out the word "male," and, also, 
the words "five of whom shall be regular practitioners of medicine," so 
that the first clause of the section now reads "the government of the 
institution shall be vested in a board of twenty directors." 
Also the by-laws were amended so as to provide that the directors at 
their annual meeting in December shall elect from the regular practic- 
ing physicians in the District of Columbia one consulting physician to 
serve for five years, and until his successor shall have been chosen, and 
a medical staff to consist of five consulting physicians and four attend- 
ing physicians. 
During 1887 Mr. Niles, the president of the board of trustees, died, 
and was succeeded by Mr. M. W. Galt,1 who had been vice-president of 
the hospital since its beginning. Also the hospital lost the services 
of Mrs. Fannie Ricketts, the president of the board of lady visitors, by 
reason of her removal from the city. Airs. Ricketts was succeeded by 
Airs. Robert K. Stoue. 
In 1888 the revolution that had begun in hospital management 
throughout the country made itself felt in the Children's Hospital. The 
report of the board of lady visitors for this year expresses pleasure in 
the fact that the system of nursing adopted by the board of directors 
at the suggestion of the ladies had thus far proved a success. "Trained 
nursing," they say, "inaugurated in this country at the Bellevue Hos- 
pital in New York has been extended into the hospitals of nearly all 
the principal cities of the United States. The need of it in every hos- 
pital is self-evident. In accordance with the plans submitted by a mem- 
ber of the board of visitors, a graduate of the Bellevue School was 
appointed superintendent of nursing and matron of the hospital. A 
trained nurse was placed at the head of each ward, having under her 
three pupil urses. These nurses serve alternately in the white and 
colored wards. The pupils pledge themselves to remain for one year, 
and are to receive such instruction during that time as will fit them, 
after passing an examination by members of the medical board, to take 
charge of hospital wards or to nurse in private families." 
Mr. Galt died February 23, 1898. CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL-MEDICAL WHITE WARD. 
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAI MEDICAL COLORED WARD. CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL-BABIES' WARD 
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL-GALT ROOM. INCREASE IN APPROPRIATIONS. 
89 
In 1889, to meet the cost of improvements demanded by the growth 
of the hospital, the board authorized the giving of a promissory note for 
$30,000 at five years, with interest at 5 per cent, payable semiannually, 
and secured by a deed of trust on the hospital ground and building. 
At this time the land and building were valued at $200,000, all of which, 
with the exception of the appropriation by Congress of $10,000 toward 
the erection of the building, came from private contributions.1 
The additions to the hospital were completed during the year 1890, 
and the board of lady visitors were able to supply the beds, bedding, 
and other necessary appliances at a cost of over $3,000. Through the 
efforts of a special committee, aided by Mr. R. Ross Perry, the former 
chairman of the executive committee, Congress was induced to increase 
the appropriation for the Children's Hospital from $5,000 to $7,000. 
The sum of $2,000 was paid on the debt of $30,000. During this year 
the president calls attention to the fact that of the $1,141.73 expended 
for medicines, the dispensary used $761.61 worth, 2,600 patients being 
treated in that department. During the year several cases of scarlet 
fever occurred in the wards, and for a time the reception of patients 
was discontinued. The patients affected, however, were isolated in the 
building itself, and the spread of the disease was prevented. At this 
time, also, the hospital received contributions of $1,000 each from 
Messrs. C. C. Glover, R. Ross Perry, and B. II. Warner, and $500 from 
Mr. Samuel Norment. The children of Annapolis contributed $200, 
and numerous Sunday schools furnished beds at a cost of $15 each. 
During 1891 the training school for nurses was organized, and the 
members of the medical staff gave regular lectures during the fall and 
winter months. Ln 1892 an arrangement was effected with the Columbia 
Hospital for an exchange of nurses and consequent training in both hos- 
pitals, the board to grant diplomas to those nurses who filled the regular 
time of service and passed a satisfactory examination. The first com 
mencement of the.joint school of nurses was held at Columbia Hospital 
August 7, 1893, when 5 students were graduated. Dr. J. W. H. Love- 
joy, of the Children's Hospital, acted as chairman; Mr. F. II. Smith, 
of the training school executive committee, delivered the introductory 
address; and an address was also delivered by Dr. Charles Sutherland, 
late Surgeon-General United States Army. 
In 1894 an infants' ward was started, and a teacher was employed to 
give the nurses lessons in diet cooking, the expense of the teacher 
being met by Mrs. Leiter and the Daisy Chain Guild. In this year 
Mrs. R. K. Stone retired from the presidency of the board of lady visi- 
tors and her place was filled by Miss Virginia Miller, who for twelve 
years had been treasurer of the ladies' board. The report of the ladies' 
board for 1895 calls attention to the fact that twenty-five years before 
the Children's Hospital had been started in a small building, with 
'One of the main resources of revenue relied on by the ladies for the support of the 
hospital has been the annual Charity Ball, the receipts from which, while varying 
from year to year, have rarely fallen below $1,000 90 
CENTRAL DISPENSARY AND EMERGENCY HOSPITAL. 
accommodations for only 12 beds. At the end of a quarter of a cen- 
tury the hospital had grown until there were 102 beds, 58 of which 
were for medical and 14 lor surgical cases, besides an additional ward 
for infants with 12 beds, all requiring a force of 16 nurses in training, 
besides the head nurse. Of the original members of the ladies' board 
six remained.1 
III. 
Like many another, if not most, medical charities, the birth of the 
"Central Free Dispensary" was presided over by young medical men. 
The recently graduated physician has almost always an abundance of 
one thing, fortunately for him. If he had not enthusiasm, and plenty 
of it, his lot would be for the most part a very unhappy one. He loves 
science; he is strongly moved by his humanitarian instincts; he is ambi- 
tious that the one shall have all the benefits to be had of the other, and 
he is anxious to lend himself as the intermediary.2 
Some time in the spring of 1871, Dr. G. L. Magruder, fresh from a 
service at the Columbia Hospital, realized the necessity of extending 
1 These six were Mrs. S. H. Kauffmann, Mrs. Z. C. Robbins, Mrs. M. A. B. Kennedy, 
Mrs. H. A. Willard, Mrs. William Wall, and Mrs. F. B. McGuire. 
The officers of the Children's Hospital since its beginning are as follows: 
Presidents: J. C. Kennedy, 1870-1873; Samuel V. Niles, 1873-1887; M. W. Galt, 1X87. 
Vice-presidents: A. E. Perry, 1870-1875; M. W. Galt, 1875-1887; F. B. McGuire, 
1887. 
Treasurers: F. B. McGuire, 1870-1885; W. S. Thompson, 1885. 
Secretaries: S. H. Kauffmann, 1870-71; L. J. Davis, 1871-72; Edward Temple, 
1872-1875; James 11. Saville, 1875-1879; Reginald Feudal!, 1879-1884; Robert C. Fox, 
1884-85; Blair Lee, 1885-1888; F. L. Moore, 1888-1890; W. P. Young, 1890. 
Consulting physicians: Drs. J. C. Hall. 1870-1880; Grafton Tyler, 1870-1881; Thomas 
Miller, 1870-1873; C. H. Liebermann, 1870-1878; W. P. Johnson, 1870-1877; Johnson 
Eliot, 1873-1885; A. Y. P. Garnett, 1877-1888; N. S. Lincoln, 1878; J. W. H. Lovejoy, 
1880; Daniel R. Hagner, 1884-1888; W. W. Johnson, 1885; A. F. A. King, 1888; D. 
Webster Prentiss, 1888. 
Attending physicians: Drs. S. C. Busey, 1870-1885; F. L. Ashford, 1870-1883; W. B. 
Drinkard, 1870-1877; W. W. Johnson, 1870-1884; W. V. Marmion, 1877-1887; J. Ford 
Thompson, 1883; G. N. Acker, 1884; A. F. A. King, 1885-1888; F. B. Loring, 1887-1890; 
Samuel S. Adams; 1888; Swan M. Burnett, 1890. 
Presidents of board of lady visitors: Mrs. M. W. Galt, 1870-71; Mrs. Charles Alex- 
ander, 1871-1877; Mrs. James B. Ricketts, 1877-1887; Mrs. Robert K. Stone, 1887-1894; 
Miss Virginia Miller, 1894. 
Matrons: Miss A. C. Magruder, 1870-1874; Miss Davis, 1874-75; Mrs. Sarah Towers, 
1875-1884; Miss A. Meyers, 1884-1888; Miss M. L. Rogers, 1888-1889; Miss G. B. 
Chamberlin, 1889-1891; Miss Mary L. Rogers, 1891. 
2 An historical sketch of the Central Dispensary and Emergency Hospital was 
prepared by the order of the board of directors by Dr. Swan M. Burnett, and was 
printed in the report of the hospital for the year 1894. The article here printed is 
condensed from the one prepared by Dr. Burnett. As is perhaps natural, there 
is some dispute as to the facts in relation to the origin of the hospital. Such being 
the case, it has seemed best to the editor to print Dr. Burnett's " official" account 
and to refer the reader to Dr. Busey's Reminiscences, pp. 219-221, and to "An Open 
Letter to Dr. Samuel C. Busey," by H. H. Barker, M. D., printed in 1895. THE CENTRAL DISPENSARY AND EMERGENCY HOSPITAL. CONNECTION WITH GEORGETOWN COLLEGE. 
91 
to those afflicted with all ailments the advantages of treatment 
which were there offered to those suffering with the diseases peculiar 
to women. It was at his call, on or about April 15, that five other 
young physicians equally enthusiastic met, and with him formally organ- 
ized the Central Dispensary. These five young men were II. H. Barker, 
Austin Brockenbrough, Robertson Howard, P. T. Keen, and Ralph 
Walsh. The institution that they then founded was the only general 
dispensary service in the city at that time, and remained, until recent 
years, the only place for outdoor relief open to the poor of Washington, 
regardless of age, color, or sex. 
The majority of these men were alumni of the medical department of 
Georgetown College, and this institution most generously allowed them 
the use of the college building at the corner of Tenth and E streets for 
the beginning of their enterprise. The college gave them the free use 
of two rooms, with counter and the shelving for drugs. Dr. Magruder 
was the first treasurer, and from an examination of the book of sub- 
scriptions it appears that on April 8 W. II. Baldwiii is the first recorded 
name, with a donation of $1. Dr. James E. Morgan and O. A. Daily 
follow with the same sum. The whole amount of donations, "principally 
by physicians and druggists," as the first report says, was $150. This, 
with $300 which was appropriated by the legislature of the District (but 
which realized only $278), was the sum total expended during the year 
ending May 7, 1872, for the treatment of 511 patients. 
During the first year several changes took place in the attending 
staff. Drs. Keen and Brockenbrough having removed from the city, 
Drs. Boarman and Ross were elected to fill these vacancies. The board 
of directors of the dispensary for the first year was as follow's: 
Consulting medical board.- Drs. Joshua Riley, Noble, Young, L. Mack- 
all, jr., J. Howard, T. Eliot, W. G. Newman, J. E. Morgan, C. II. Cragin. 
Attending staff.-Drs. G. L. Magruder, surgery; II. H. Barker and 
Robertson Howard, diseases of women and children; R. S. L. Walsh, 
eye, ear, and skin; C. V. Boarman, heart, throat, and lungs; W. H. 
Ross, head and abdomen; Lawrence Wilson, dispensary physician; 
E. C. Morgan and J. S. Stephenson, assistants to dispensary. 
The directors (in addition to the medical staff') were: N. P. Chipman, 
John C. McKelden, George P. Fisher, M. G. Emery, J. Carroll Brent, 
W. J. Murtagh, Jesse B. Wilson, J. W. Thompson, J. W. Barker, Arthur 
Shepherd, George H. Plant, B. II. Stinemetz, W. M. Shuster, W. M. 
Morrison, and 1). W. Middleton, jr. 
In the early part of 1874 an effort was made to establish a German 
dispensary for the benefit of the German element of our population, but 
principally through the efforts of Dr. George M. Kober and Dr. Klein- 
schmidt, the scheme was abandoned and the funds that had been sub- 
scribed and collected (about $800) and the influence of the originators 
were thrown in favor of the Central Dispensary. 
The third annual report (there does not seem to have been a second), 92 
CENTRAL DISPENSARY AND EMERGENCY HOSPITAL. 
published in January, 1875, gives a summary of the work done during 
the first three and a half years of the existence of the dispensary, which 
was 2,236 new cases and a total of 7,425 prescriptions compounded. 
The members of the attending staff at that time were: Drs. Barker, 
Boarman, Ross, Briscoe, Kleinschmidt, and Walter. 
The dispensary from the beginning laid itself out on the broadest 
lines along which it proposed to develop and has persistently refused 
to lend itself to the furtherance of any party or faction. It represented 
the medical profession as a body and belonged to suffering humanity 
without regard to sex, creed, or color. While it enjoyed the hospitality 
of the medical department of Georgetown University, it was not con- 
sidered, even by the university itself, as in any way a part of that 
institution. The time soon came when its growing importance and 
widening scope raised the question in the minds of some as to the pro- 
priety of a public charity of its comprehensive character longer remain- 
ing under the rngis of some one medical school. It was therefore 
resolved in 1876 to make the bold venture of removing to quarters of 
its own, and these were found in a wooden building No. 514 Sixth street 
NW. At this time a reorganization, or rather a perfected organization, 
was effected, and the first officers of the board of directors were as fol- 
lows: B. U. Keyser, president; A. S. Solomons,1 vice president; T. J. 
Durant, secretary; D. W. Middleton, jr., treasurer. The attending staff 
was: II. II. Barker, diseases of women; W. C. Briscoe, surgery; G. L. 
Magruder, children; W. II. Ross, heart and nervous system; Ralph 
Walsh, eye, ear, throat, and lungs; John Walter, general diseases, and 
Swan M. Burnett, general assistant to the staff. There was also a 
house physician and three assistants. There was also a board of lady 
visitors, of which Mrs. William Dennison was president; Mrs. D. R. 
McKee, vice-president, and Miss Solomons, secretary. The hospital 
year was made to end March 31, and on that day in 1878 there had 
been treated for the preceding twelve months 3,677 new patients. 
During this year, 1878, some changes were made in the staff, on 
account of the removal of Dr. Ross to Mexico. Dr. Walsh gave the 
diseases of the eye to Dr. Burnett, who was then made a full member of 
'Adolphus S. Solomons was born in New York City, October 26, 1829. His father, 
John Solomons, was a native of London, and his mother and her ancestors were 
Americans. Mr. Solomons was a corporate member of the first training school for 
nurses established in the District of Columbia; also treasurer of the Humane 
Society; president of the Night Lodging House Association; vice-president of the 
National Red Cross Association, and was appointed by President Arthur to represent 
the United States at the Red Cross Congress held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1881, 
and was elected one of its vice-presidents; chairman of the Associated Charities of 
the District of Columbia; vice-president of the Emergency Hospital, and is now 
a member of the board of visitors of the Providence Hospital; a director of the 
Columbia Hospital for Women, and of the Garfield Memorial Hospital, of which he 
was the chairman of the committee on ways and means, and succeeded in providing 
means for its establishment. He is now the general agent of the central committee 
of the Baron de Hirsch Fund.-Editor. CENTRAL DISPENSARY AND EMERGENCY HOSPITAL-DISPENSARY ROOM. EMERGENCY SERVICE ESTABLISHED. 
93 
the staff. Diseases of the heart were transferred to the throat depart- 
ment, and nervous diseases to general diseases. 
In the early part of 1879 was given the first presentation in this 
country by amateurs of the opera of " Pinafore," for the benefit of the dis- 
pensary, which was at that time on the point of dissolution for want of 
funds. This performance netted over $1,090, and its success was largely 
due to the energy of Miss Waite, who a short time before had begun her 
connection with the institution, for which she has ever since been such a 
zealous and untiring worker. There were many troublous and perilous 
times in those days, and many of those interested feel that but for the 
labor without stint, the interest that never flagged, and the enthusiasm 
which knew no obstacles, of her and two or three other faithful friends 
the institution would exist only as a pathetic memory. It then received 
but a pittance from the District and was almost wholly dependent upon 
voluntary contributions. 
It was in the beginning of 1880 that the first patient was admitted into 
the dispensary for operation and treatment. Up to this date operations 
were either done at the dispensary and the patient afterwards sent 
home, or the operations were done at the houses of the patients, which 
were usually the veriest hovels. On December 22, 1879, the board, 
through the recommendation of the staff and at the request of the 
ophthalmic surgeon, granted the sum of $7.50 to fit up a cuddy-hole in 
the attic for the reception of cases for operation. The first patient 
taken in was a woman for the operation of iridectomy. About the 
same time the ophthalmic surgeon held the first Sunday clinic given in 
the institution before a class of students, though students had always 
been welcome to attend the daily services of most of the directors of 
clinics. Thus early did the management of the dispensary recognize 
that one of its prime functions was educational. Some years after 
(1882) regular clinics were given for two seasons by all the members of 
the staff. 
As far back as the summer of 1880 the question of establishing an 
accident hospital in connection with the dispensary was agitated among 
the staff. They recognized fully the crying need of such a hospital in 
the center of the city, and felt that upon them devolved the duty of 
initiating the enterprise. It is true they had no money to back up such 
an undertaking, but they had what is sometimes more than its equiva- 
lent-a conviction that it was the thing to do and the energy and deter- 
mination to do it. It is recorded that at a meeting of the board on the 
11th of November, 1880, "Dr. Burnett reported that the staff had, 
through a committee (of which he was chairman), conferred with Mr. 
Dent, District Commissioner, and Major Brock, chief of police, in refer- 
ence to the establishment in connection with the dispensary of an 
emergency1 hospital. These gentlemen regarded the scheme favor- 
ably and a committee was appointed from the board of directors to 
'The name "Emergency," I think, was given by Mr. B. U. Keyser, at that time 
secretary of the board. 94 
CENTRAL DISPENSARY AND EMERGENCY HOSPITAL. 
take charge of the matter." The committee consisted of Messrs. 
Drew, Wilson, Keyser, and Drs. Howard, Reyburn, Barker, Walsh, and 
Burnett. 
Soon after this a project was started by the Commissioners and chief 
of police for the erection of a building at the corner of Ninth and K 
streets, to be used con jointly as a dispensary and police station. After 
a good deal of discussion of systems and plans the project was finally 
abandoned. This seems to have been a year fruitful of changes, for the 
question of being incorporated was brought forward' and after much 
opposition from some of the older and more conservative members of 
the board this was finally agreed upon, though it was not until 1882 that 
the articles of incorporation were filed. The committee on incorpora- 
tion was Messrs. Durant and Duncanson and Dr. Walsh. 
The old quarters on Sixth street were getting more and more inad- 
equate for the work of the dispensary, and the establishment of an 
emergency hospital, which had been resolved upon, was an impossibility 
in that building. A committee was therefore appointed to take the 
matter of another and more suitable building into consideration, and 
finally at a called meeting on May 28, 1881, "Dr. Burnett stated the 
object of the meeting to be the consideration of the subject of the 
removal of the dispensary to Tenth street, opposite the Washington 
Gaslight Company's office, and the establishment of an emergency 
hospital, and on motion it was ordered that the dispensary be removed 
to 416 Tenth street as soon as a lease of the building can be procured, 
for the purpose of establishing, as soon as possible, an emergency hos- 
pital in connection with the dispensary." Dr. Magruder was appointed 
a committee of one to secure the building. Messrs. Drew and Duncan- 
son were constituted a committee to solicit donations for supplies and 
furniture for the emergency hospital. 
On June 30, 1881, Messrs. Barker and Drew and Drs. Burnett and 
Magruder were appointed a committee to take charge of the removal 
to -116 Tenth street on or before July 1. 
On July 8, 1881, "it was ordered that the Commissioners of the Dis- 
trict and the major of police be notified that the Emergency Hospital 
is now ready to receive and care for patients." 
The equipment for an emergency hospital was the scantiest possible, 
consisting of two cots in a back room of the building. There was a 
resident physician and one assistant, who lived in the house, but who 
took their meals outside. 
From the beginning there has been a hearty cooperation and the 
utmost harmony existing between this institution and the police depart- 
ment. Before the Emergency Hospital was established many, perhaps 
a majority of the minor accidents (or those supposed to be trivial), were 
*At a meeting of the staff November 5, 1880, " Dr. Burnett offered the following 
resolution : 'Resolved, That iu the opinion of the staff it is absolutely necessary for 
the good of the institution that we be immediately incorporated.' This resolution 
was ordered to be communicated to the board." CHANGES IN OFFICERS. 
95 
taken to the police stations and the police surgeon sent for, or, in case 
he could not be found, a doctor of some kind was called in. Much 
unnecessary suffering was caused by this, and the consequences of 
neglect (often unavoidable) were sometimes disastrous. None were so 
well aware of this as the police officers themselves, and to-day in each 
member of the force one will find a stanch friend of the Emergency 
Hospital. All the while the dispensary and hospital was on Tenth 
street, and even after its removal to Twelfth street, and before the 
ambulance service was established, the resident surgeon was allowed 
to go to the first precinct station to attend persons brought there by 
the force that needed medical or surgical attention. 
It was the rule adopted by the staff at the time of the starting of the 
emergency department that the executive officer for the month should 
take charge of the emergency work during that period and be called 
when the resident physician did not feel that he should assume the 
responsibility of treatment. By courtesy, however, some members of 
the staff afterwards waived this privilege in favor of the director of the 
surgical clinic of the dispensary. 
On December 9,1S81, Dr. Ralph Walsh resigned and Dr. E.C. Morgan, 
whose connection with the dispensary dates back to its origin, was 
elected to fill the vacancy thus made in the staff. The ear clinic was at 
that time transferred to the eye clinic. 
In December, 1881, Mrs. Mary J. Audenried proposed to furnish a 
room in the hospital for the care of patients admitted for treatment, and 
her generous offer was accepted by the board. This room was used prin- 
cipally for cases admitted from the dispensary department, but was also 
occupied by patients from the emergency department. Two other 
rooms in the building were also fitted up and used for the same purpose 
later. 
Mrs. James M. Carlisle gave a parlor concert for the benefit of the 
dispensary in the winter of 1881-82, which netted about $809. The 
opera of "The Debutantes," by Mr. J. Hubbard Smith, was given in 1886 
and realized a considerable sum. Mr. B. H. Warner was elected presi- 
dent. His immediate predecessor had been Gen. William McKee Dunn, 
and before him Mr. Jesse B. Wilson had served for several terms. Mr. 
A. S. Solomons at one time held the office, and was for many years an 
earnest worker. Mr. W. M. Galt in the earlier days served for several 
terms with great advantage to the dispensary. Mr. T. J. Durant was the 
faithful secretary for many years, and following him was Mr. B. U. 
Keyser, who is dear to the memory of all the older members of the 
board for his geniality, efficiency, and absorbing interest in everything 
that pertained to the welfare of the hospital. By his death the hospital 
lost a most valuable friend. His successor was Mr. F. B. Moliun, who 
was indefatigable and untiring in his labors, and it is due to his energy 
principally that the hospital finally secured a building of its own on 
Twelfth street. 96 
CENTRAL DISPENSARY AND EMERGENCY HOSPITAL. 
Iii Majr, 1886, there was a reorganization of the staff, whereby Dr. 
J. B. Hamilton took charge of surgery; Dr. Geo. W. Johnston, diseases 
of women, and Dr. Wm. Lee, general and nervous diseases. 
After careful deliberation and thorough discussion, the board 
resolved, on March 12, 1886, to purchase the building No. 521 Twelfth 
street for the use of the dispensary and hospital, for the sum of $12,000. 
To raise this amount bonds were issued and subscribed for by members 
of the board. The committee on removal was: Dr. G. W. Johnston and 
Messrs. Warner and Mohun. The occupancy of the new quarters was 
completed the latter part of 1886. 
In May, 1887, Dr. Hamilton resigned his position as surgeon, and 
Dr. J. F. Thompson was elected to fill the vacancy thus caused. 
Mr. Mohun resigned his secretaryship in 1887, to the regret of his 
fellow-members of the board, and our present efficient incumbent, Mr. 
H. R. Webb, was unanimously elected to till the vacancy. 
In December, 1887, Dr. E. C. Morgan, in charge of the clinic for 
diseases of the throat aud chest, tendered his resignation on account 
of failing health. Dr. G. B. Harrison, at that time Dr. Morgan's 
assistant and at present one of the attending staff, had charge of the 
department for several months prior to the resignation of Dr. Morgan. 
In the death of Dr. Morgan, which occurred several months later, the 
staff lost a valuable and highly esteemed member and the directorate 
an earnest worker. Dr. T. Morris Murray, the present director of that 
clinic, was nominated and elected to the vacancy thus caused. 
The building on Twelfth street soon became totally inadequate for 
the work of the institution, and the erection of a building designed 
for our use was often discussed, and finally, at the suggestion of Mr. 
B. II. Warder, who was then vice-president, the lot at the junction of 
Ohio avenue and Fifteenth street was finally decided upon and pur- 
chased. Through the efforts of the president and several other mem- 
bers of the board, an appropriation of $30,000 was secured from Con- 
gress in 1890 for the construction of a new hospital. This, with the 
$25,000 realized from the sale of the house on Twelfth street, consti- 
tuted the fund for the construction of the proposed new building. In 
1893 further efforts placed the institution on the regular District bill 
with a yearly allowance of $4,500, which was successively increased, in 
order to meet the pressing demands upon the hospital, to $9,000, 
$12,000, and $15,000 for the current year. 
In November, 1889, Messrs. Warner, Carlisle, and Whittemore and 
Drs. Magruder and Lee were appointed to procure plans for the new 
hospital. To this committee others were added from time to time, 
and finally the plans were completed by Messrs. Schneider & Pelz and 
building operations begun under the supervision of the District author- 
ities. In June, 1889, Dr. Magruder, after years of valuable service, 
both as a member of the staff and the directorate, resigned from the 
attending staff'on account of other pressing duties. He was elected a OPENING OF THE NEW BUILDING. 
97 
member of the consulting board, and Dr. W. II. Hawkes succeeded 
him as director of children's clinic. In October, 1889, Dr. G. W. 
Johnston resigned, and Dr. H. L. E. Johnson, who had been connected 
with the dispensary as student and assistant for several years, was 
elected to take charge of the clinic for women. Dr. Thompson resigned 
from the active staff in October, 1890, and Dr. James Kerr was elected 
in his stead as director of the surgical clinic. 
The committee on building were: Dr. Magruder, chairman; Messrs. 
Warner and Carlisle and Drs. Kerr and Lee. Dr. Johnson was chair- 
man of committee on furnishings, Drs. Burnett and Kerr being the 
other members. 
After the many delays and annoyances always found in the construc- 
tion of a building of this importance, the hospital was finally completed 
and was thrown open to the public for inspection on the evening of 
March 24, 1892. In January of that year, however, the work of the 
hospital had been transferred to the new structure from the building 
at No. 407 Fifteenth street, which had been used temporarily for the 
purpose for some four months; the house on Twelfth street having been 
relinquished on account of projected improvements by its owners. 
Through the liberality and energy, principally, of Mr. A. A. Thomas, 
one of the directors, an ambulance fund was raised, and on the 8th of 
April the ambulance committee, with Dr. Kerr as chairman, reported 
that $750 had been collected and an ambulance selected. 
In May the house staff and domestic management were reorganized 
and a matron appointed, Miss Gaddis being elected to that position. 
She some months later resigned, giving place to Miss Mullen. 
In November, 1892, at the request of Dr. Burnett, the board granted 
the use of the southeast room on the fourth floor for the establishment 
of the " Lionel Laboratory and Library," the room to be fitted up and 
equipped at his expense. This was done during the following spring. 
Booms to be known as "memorial rooms" have been fitted up in the 
new building by the executors of the late George A. Mcllhenny, who 
was for many years a generous contributing member, by Mr. William 
Galt, a member of the board and once its vice-president, by Mr. C. 0. 
Willard, in memory of his son Walter J. Willard, by Georgetown Col- 
lege, in memory of George Behan, a student, and by Mrs. Audenreid 
in memory of Gen. Joseph C. Audenreid. 
In March, 1893, the dispensary and hospital suffered a great loss in 
the death of Dr. William Lee. director of the clinic of general and 
nervous diseases. This clinic was then divided, and Dr. George Byrd 
Harrison was elected to take charge of general diseases and Dr. E. L. 
Tompkins of nervous diseases. 
On November 10 Miss Mullen's resignation as matron was accepted 
and Miss Roberta M. West, of the Philadelphia Hospital, was appointed 
superintendent of the hospital, her duties to begin December 15. 
After removal to the new building the work of the hospital rapidly 
7200 7 98 
CENTRAL DISPENSARY AND EMERGENCY HOSPITAL. 
increased and has continued to do so each succeeding year, as the 
tabulated statements embodied in the reports of the staff show. The 
work, both in the dispensary and emergency departments, has become 
more perfectly organized, and a well regulated system has been the 
outcome of experience and necessities. Good works have carried the 
name of the institution into every corner and recess of this populous 
city, and there are no better known figures in the streets and avenues 
than the good gray horse "Frank" and his ambulance. 
The first "Donation Day" was on March 17,1891, and it yielded $458 
in money and about $500 in supplies. 
In this short resume it has not been possible to mention by name all 
the gentlemen who have, from time to time, constituted the boards of 
directorship. Many not occupying official position have been as faithful 
and energetic as those who did, and all have had the welfare of the 
institution at heart. Many noble women, too, have given their time, 
labor, and money to the work. Everything has not gone smoothly at 
all times, but it would be safe to say that harmony lias prevailed in the 
management of the affairs of this hospital to a much greater extent 
than in most institutions of its kind. It is the one hospital in our city 
in which the medical men who do the work have an equal share in the 
management of its affairs. The good effect of this is seen in many 
ways. It has brought laymen and medical men into more intimate 
relations and allowed the laymen to have a more perfect knowledge of 
the workings of the hospital, and has thus enabled the business men 
of the board to act with a more intelligent comprehension of its actual 
needs. 
It has been the boast that the management has done, under this 
organization, more for the money they had than would have been oth- 
erwise possible, and they are proud of the manner in which the finances 
have been managed. Mr. D. W. Middleton was the first treasurer. He 
was followed by Mr. Edward Temple, then came Mr. Eugene Morgan, 
and after him Mr. C. J. Bell, whose capable work all are familliar with, 
served until circumstances which he could not control forced him to 
give up his post. Mr. W. B. Gurley was then elected and served until 
last year, when he resigned, and the hospital was fortunate enough to 
secure the services and interest of the present incumbent, Mr. John B. 
Wight. 
In the matter of medical education most excellent work has been 
done. The clinics and operations are attended by crowds of students, 
and in many fields the facilities for instruction are not surpassed by 
institutions of much greater pretensions, and the motto in this as in all 
other departments is still "Excelsior." WASHINGTON HOME FOR INCURABLES. 
99 
IV. 
The Washington Home for Incurables was incorporated for a term of 
fifty years, under the general incorporation act, on March 6,1889. The 
particular object and business of the association, as stated, is the care 
of indigent incurable persons of both sexes. Persons who contribute 
$5 yearly, or over $30 in one sum, become members of the association. 
The articles name as the board of management for the first year: 
Mrs. Katharine Everett, president; Mrs. E. Snowden Bell, vice-presi- 
dent; Miss I. Corson, secretary; Mrs. E. Phillips, corresponding secre- 
tary; Thomas Hyde and E. Francis Biggs, trustees; Mrs. E. Phillips, 
treasurer. 
The hospital was first opened in Mount Pleasant, at No. 1503 Merid- 
ian avenue. About 1892 an attractive site was secured north of 
Road street, between Thirty-first and Thirty-second streets, for $12,047, 
and a building that cost, including the furnishings and equipment, 
$56,736.38 was constructed. The price of the lot and $28,000 additional 
were given by Miss Kibbey; there was an anonymous contribution of 
$10,000; and Mr. M. W. Galt gave $500 for the gas fixtures. From the 
proceeds of the sale of the lot in Mount Pleasant, the gift of Mrs. 
G. V. Fox, the hospital realized $2,000. From the sale of its Mount 
Pleasant property the sum of $4,000 was realized in notes, so that 
practically the debt is $1,000, now canceled. 
Until July 1, 1896, the hospital received no aid from Congress, but 
for the fiscal years 1896-97 and 1897-98 appropriations of $2,000 per 
annum have been made. During the year 1896 private gifts to the 
amount of $7,503.24 were received, besides $312.10 from the two endow- 
ment funds raised, respectively, by the Georgetown and the Washing- 
ton Ladies' Aid Societies, and $1,524.34 from other sources. 
The earnest and wide interest taken in the hospital by the benev- 
olently disposed people of the District is shown in the report of the 
trustees for the year 1895-96. During the year Mrs. Hearst opened 
her picture gallery for the benefit of the institution, and $1,276.86 was 
realized; a letter-chain scheme, proposed by Mrs. Jackson, brought 
$1,730.95, letters coming from almost every State and Territory, and 
from Canada and Europe; Mrs. N. S. Lincoln suggested and carried 
through the "Woman's issue of The Times," of July 5, 1896, which 
netted $1,010; from the bequest of Michael McKeon, an inmate of the 
Soldiers' Home, came $3,097.68; from Mrs. Edward Wolcott's bequest 
came $40,000, and probably $20,000 additional when the estate shall 
be settled (now $63,713.64), the income to be used to establish and 
maintain a ward for crippled children, to be known as "The Lolie 
Wolcott ward; " Mrs. George L. Bradley has paid the salary of a nurse, 
and Miss Noble, Miss Ernst, and Mme. de Chambrun contribute $300 
a year to support a cancer ward. A bicycle parade at the Eclipse 
Park, managed by Mrs. W. J. Boardman, realized $1,249.76, and Mrs. 
Hearst added to her other bounties a gift of $500. 100 
VARIOUS MEDICAL CHARITIES. 
This interest in the hospital was aroused by efforts on the part of the 
management quite in proportion to the results. The statement made 
in the president's report for 1895-96 very fairly explains the situation: 
By continual effort on the part of the managers, the annual subscription list has 
gone up $267-for the past year is $1,117-and there is no question but that by per- 
sistent and renewed efforts it can be largely increased. Two most generous friends 
have told me they will give $100 a year if 100 people can be found to do the same. 
That I scarcely think possible; nor is it quite fair that the burden should be borne by 
100 people alone, but I think 25 could be found to give $100, and 50 to give, respec- 
tively, $50, $25, $20, and $15 a year apiece; 100 to give $10, and 200 to give $5 a year. 
That would be only 525 persons in all, and by a determined effort they could be found 
and held. That would give us $10,000, which, with our pay patients, would enable 
us to extend our work, and never have recourse to the wretched methods now in 
vogue for raising money-a system which is fast making it impossible to induce any 
but rich people to serve on boards, and is fast disgusting the public. 
During 1896, 21 persons were admitted and 17 died, leaving a popu- 
lation of 40 on January 1, 1897. The mortality of the institution is 
remarkably small when it is taken into consideration that persons from 
all the hospitals are received who are pronounced absolutely incurable, 
and who have no one to shelter them. The expense also of the inter- 
ment of so many friendless persons is considerable. The hospital thus 
far has received only white persons. The officers are: Mrs. Archibald 
Hopkins, president; Mrs. William J. Boardman and Mrs. J. L. Hodge, 
vice-presidents; Mrs. Addison, recording secretary; Mrs. J. Y. Taylor, 
corresponding secretary; Mr.B. P.Mimmack, treasurer; Messrs.Thomas 
Hyde and E. Francis Biggs, trustees; Drs. John R. Wellington, Arthur 
A. Snyder, Henry B. Deale, and Sterling Ruffin, medical staff; Dr. 
William II. Fox, in charge of diseases of the eye and ear; Miss Pur- 
man, matron; Dr. J. Carleton Haas, resident physician. 
V. 
In addition to the institutions already mentioned are a number whose 
status is not clearly defined. A hospital has been organized recently 
in connection with the medical department of the Georgetown College. 
The Sibley Memorial Hospital, erected a few years ago, is now closed 
for want of funds to maintain it. The medical department of the Colum- 
bian University has established, and is about to put into operation, a 
hospital in connection with that school. 
The Eastern Dispensary, located at 217 Delaware avenue NE., was 
organized April 13,1888, and occupies a rented building. It receives an 
appropriation of $1,000 a year from Congress, and its expenses are about 
$300 in excess of the appropriation. 
The Woman's Dispensary, located at the corner of Maryland avenue 
and Four-and-a-half street 8W., was incorporated June 18, 1883, and 
occupies premises rented from Mrs. M. J. Stroud. The District Com- 
missioners have made the institution an allowance of $500 a year from 
the appropriation for the relief of the poor, and the annual income from 
private gifts, as last reported, was $348.82. THE WASHINGTON HOMIE FOR INCURABLES. VARIOUS MEDICAL CHARITIES. 
101 
The Woman's Clinic, located at 1833 Fourteenth street NW., has a 
large staff; it receives no appropriation. 
VI. 
The Children's Country Home, located on the Broad Branch and 
Grant roads, near Tennallytown, has been in operation for about fifteen 
years, and cares for about 150 girls and 100 boys each summer. The 
home is under the care of the Sisters of St. Margaret. On February 
24, 1897, the home had a balance of $57.80 on hand, and up to Novem- 
ber 1 received $1,546.17 interest on Kellogg & Co.'s notes, $552.42 from 
the estate of the late Michael Briel, besides one-third interest in real- 
estate notes amounting to $12,940.84, and a store and dwelling esti- 
mated to be worth $12,000. The buildings and grounds are valued at 
$12,000, and the total assets of the home on November 1, 1897, were 
$29,898.71.' This charity is maintained entirely by private subscrip- 
tion. The home is open from June to October, and receives children of 
all denominations and creeds; 45 children can be accommodated at 
one time, and each child stays two weeks. The officers are: Miss Kate 
L. Boy, president; Mrs. E. M. Chapman, vice president; Miss Frederica 
L. Rodgers, secretary; Mr. F. V. Robinson, treasurer. 
The Diet Kitchen was begun April 24,1896, by Mrs. Sarah S. Fuller, 
who acts as secretary. Her only helper was a matron, who cooked, 
under Mrs. Fuller's direction, what was necessary. From April to 
November, 1897, 26 white and 36 colored patients were served for 
periods varying from five days to two weeks. 
Various religious denominations maintain small dispensaries for spe- 
cial purposes. For example, there is a Lutheran eye, ear, and throat 
infirmary, organized in 1889, located at the corner of Fourteenth and 
N streets NW. During 1896 7,064 persons were treated at a total 
expense of $178, not including rent. 
1 Letter from Mr. F. V. Robinson, treasurer, to clerk of joint committee, Oct. 29,1897. CHAPTER VII. 
FOUNDLING ASYLUMS. 
rpHE St. Ann's Infant Asylum was started in August, 1860, by Sister 
-L Dyonisia, in a building on the corner of Pennsylvania avenue and 
Thirteen-and-a-half street, under the name of the Washington Infant 
Asylum. It was the first distinctly foundling asylum in Washington. 
Within a year the asylum was removed to a large building owned by 
Mr. W. W. Corcoran, on Vermont avenue between H and I streets, 
where it was continued until the Sisters purchased the three lots in 
Square No. 39, now occupied, on the corner of K and Twenty-fourth 
streets. 
St. Ann's Infant Asylum was incorporated by the act of March 3, 
1863, with the following incorporators: Theresa A. Costello, Lucy 
Guynn, Margaret Bowden, Sarah M. Carroll, Catherine Ryan, Louisa 
Fisher, and Catherine Shea. The objects of the institution, as given in 
the act, are the support and maintenance of foundlings and infant 
orphan and half-orphan children, and also to provide for deserving 
indigent and unprotected females during their confinement in child- 
birth. The corporation is empowered to hold real and personal property 
to a value not exceeding $100,000; "children are committed to its 
charge as fully and completely, to all intents and purposes, as if they 
were regularly indentured and bound apprentices of the institution, 
until they shall attain the age, if males, of 21 years, and if females, 15 
years, or for any shorter period that may be agreed upon; and to the 
corporation is given the power to bind out children as apprentices, to 
learn any trade or business or to learn to be useful in housekeeping." 
The corporation is not restricted in the exercise of their powers in 
binding and placing out in the District of Columbia; and Congress 
reserved the right to alter, amend, or repeal the act. 
In 1867 there were 40 children receiving the protection of the charity; 
and the Asylum was at that time entirely dependent upon the liberality 
of the public for its support. A lying-in department was attached 
to the institution, Dr. W. G. H. Newmann being the attending physi- 
cian, and Drs. B. Magruder, N. S. Lincoln, and J. Eliot the consulting 
physicians. 
The cost of the land occupied was $24,000, and the value of the 
buildings is about $100,000. The present rules of the institution limit 
102 ST. ANN'S INFANT ORPHAN ASYLUM. WASHINGTON HOSPITAL FOB FOUNDLINGS. 
104 
the age of children at the time of reception to 6 years. Foundlings 
left in baskets on the doorstep or elsewhere, or found by the police and 
brought to St. Ann's Infant Asylum, are received. After the boys 
reach the age of 6 years a majority of them are sent to farms in the 
country, and the girls are taught trades. 
The number of inmates on January 1,1897, was 125. of whom 110 
were admitted during the year 1896. The number of children placed 
in free homes during the year was 11, and the number restored to 
parents and relatives, 50; the number of deaths was 64. All but 8 of 
the children were residents of the District of Columbia. The income 
from Congressional appropriations during 1896 was $5,400, and from 
private gifts $1,749.29. There was also a legacy of $3,398.71 received. 
The institution receives colored as well as white children. In 1877 
the institution received its first appropriation from the Government, and 
from that year to the present time it has been receiving an appropria- 
tion from Congress. From 1877 to 1887 the appropriation was $5,000, 
after which it received $6,000 until 1891, when the amount was raised 
to $6,500. In 1872 it received $7,079; in 1893, $6,500; in 1894, $3,840; 
in 1895, $5,400. The annual expenses are from $12,000 to $15,000. 
There is a medical staff connected with the institution, the medical 
board filling vacancies as they occur. In case homes have not been 
found for children who have arrived at the age of 6 years, they are sent 
to St. Joseph's or St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum, where they continue 
until the age of 15 years. They are then sent to homes in the country, 
if such homes can be found. If the girls show an aptitude for needle- 
work, they are sent to St. Bose's Industrial School. The president of 
the institution is Sister Elizabeth Belihan. 
II. 
The Washington Hospital for Foundlings exists by virtue of the act of 
April 22, 1870, the incorporators being G. W. Samson, Gen. O. O. How- 
ard, Z. D. Gilman, William Stickney, A. C. Richards, B. Sunderland, 
A. N. Zevely, Wright Rives, Dr. James C. Hall, David K. Cartter, 
William B. Todd, jr., D. W. Middleton, George L. Sheriff, B. B. French, 
Joseph S. Stettinius, and John R. Arison. The control of the hospital 
was intrusted to a board of ten directors, to be made up of the first 
seven above mentioned incorporators and three others, to be selected 
by the corporation. The object, as stated, was to found in the city of 
Washington a hospital for the reception and support of destitute and 
friendless children. The foundlings received were to be wholly under 
the guardianship, care, and control of the institution, to be educated, 
apprenticed, and otherwise disposed of until they reached the age of 
18 years, when the care and control was to cease. The property, both 
real and personal, of the hospital was made exempt from taxation, and 
Congress reserved the right to alter, amend, or repeal the act. 
The hospital was founded to carry into effect the bequest contained 104 
JOSHUA PIERCE. 
in the will of Joshua Peirce, who died at Linnsean Hill, near Washing- 
ton, April 11, 1869, the bequest being as follows: 
I give, devise, and bequeath all those fourteen certain lots or pieces of ground, 
part of square number two hundred and seven, situate between R and S streets north 
and Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets west, in the said city of Washington, in the 
District of Columbia, which lots are numbered from number twenty-four to number 
thirty-seven, inclusive, on a certain plan of subdivision of the said square, regis- 
tered and recorded in the surveyor's office for the said city, in Liber W. F., folio211, 
and are situated on the east side of the said Fifteenth street, at the distance of one 
hundred and sixty feet northward from the north side of the said R street north, 
containing together in front on the said Fifteenth street west one hundred and 
thirty feet, and in depth eastward, between parallel lines, two hundred and ninety- 
four feet and a half inch, more or less, to Johnson avenue (including in the said depth 
a twenty-feet-wide alley, laid out through the middle of the said lots), to my friends 
William M. Shuster and William H. Claggett, both of the said city of Washington, 
and the survivor of them, and the heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns of 
such survivor, in trust. Nevertheless, and to, for and upon the uses, intents, and pur- 
poses following, that is to say: In trust to hold the said fourteen lots of ground, 
with the appurtenances, as and fora site for the erection of a hospital for foundlings, 
to be built and erected by any association, society, or institution that may hereafter 
be incorporated by act of Congress, as and for such hospital, and upon such incor- 
poration, upon further trust, to grant and convey the said lots of ground and trust 
estate to the corporation or institution so incorporated for the said purpose of the 
erection of a hospital, which conveyance shall be absolute and in fee: Provided, 
nevertheless, That such corporation shall be approved by my said trustees, or the 
survivor of them, or their successors in the trust, and, if not so approved, then upon 
further trust to hold the said lots and trust estate, for the same purpose, until a cor- 
poration shall be so created by act of Congress, which shall meet the approval of 
the said trustees, or the survivor or successor of them, to whom full discretion is 
given in this behalf, and, upon such approval, in trust to convey as aforesaid. And 
I recommend to my said trustees to select an institution which shall not be under 
the control of any one religious sect or persuasion, and until such conveyance I 
direct the taxes, charges, and assessments, and all necessary expenses of, for, and 
upon the said lots, and every of them, to be paid by my executors, as they shall 
from time to time accrue and become due and payable, out of the residue of my 
estate. 
The hospital, although chartered in 1870, did not begin operations 
until 1887. It is located on Fifteenth street NW„ between It and S 
streets, on a half square (38,000 feet) given by Mr. Peirce, and now 
valued at $95,550. The delay in starting the institution was due to the 
difficulty in raising money to erect the necessary building. The sum 
of $31,500 having been secured, Congress appropriated $3,500, neces- 
sary to complete the building, the designs for which were prepared 
under the direction of John S. Billings, surgeon U. S. A. 
Since its opening the hospital has cared for, up to 1897, 538 children, 
108 of whom have been adopted, 34 being retained in the institution, 
and the remainder having died. Excepting in one instance, no child 
has been retained beyond the age of 6 years, the majority being adopted 
between the ages of 2 and 3 years. The capacity of the hospital being 
limited to 50, only white children are admitted. 
The by-laws of the institution, adopted March 17, 1887, provide that THE WASHINGTON HOSPITAL FOR FOUNDLINGS. WASHINGTON HOSPITAL FOli FOUNDLINGS. 
105 
whenever the number of incorporators shall from any cause become less 
than 100, the remaining members shall, at an annual or special meeting, 
elect so many new members as shall be necessary to increase the total 
number of members to 100. It is provided that no officer, director, or 
visitor shall receive any compensation whatever for his or her services, 
but the matron, nurses, and servants are paid regular salaries. Each 
incorporator pays annually $5 in dues. 
The Government makes an appropriation of $6,000 for maintenance, 
and from private sources in 1896 $1,923.43 was obtained, being the pro- 
ceeds of dues, donations, and entertainments. Two directors, 1 male 
and 1 female, are elected each year to serve for five years, and until 
their successors are chosen. Fifty ladies make up the board of lady 
visitors, whose duty it is to visit the hospital and to unite with the 
finance committee of the board of directors in efforts to raise money for 
its needs. 
Applications for admission are made to the matron, and children are 
received by her, subject to the approval of the executive committee. 
Children are received into the hospital upon personal application of the 
mothers, or of some responsible citizen who has personal knowledge of 
the case, no application being received after the child is 3 years old. 
The rules provide that in passing upon applications the present neces- 
sities of the mother, if living, the fact that she is not an habitual 
offender against chastity, that the father of the child has deserted it 
and the mother, and that the reception of the child would probably be 
the means of restoring the mother into the course of virtue and in the 
way of an honest livelihood, shall be considered. 
No money is received for the admission of children, and no infant 
having infectious, incurable, or contagious diseases is admitted. The 
medical staff consists of a chief, elected by the directors, and two or 
more assistant physicians appointed by the chief of the staff, subject 
to the approval of the board of directors. The medical staff serve 
without compensation, and is subject to removal by the board of direc- 
tors. At the time the hospital began operations, the directors were 
Dr. Z. T. Sowers, W. F. Mattingly, J. P. Klingle, M. M. Parker, Thomas 
J. Fisher, Miss H. Williamson, Mrs. Francis Colton, Mrs. W. H. Lamon, 
Mrs. H. M. Hutchinson, and Mrs. Frank B. Conger. 
On the day the hospital was opened for the reception of children 
there were three admissions, and within three weeks the first child, a 
little over 2 years old, was adopted, and during the year two more were 
placed in homes. In 1888 eleven adoptions were made; in 1889, eight; 
in 1890, twelve; in 1891, sixteen; in 1892, seven; in 1893, thirteen; in 
1894, nine; in 1895, five; and in 1896, seventeen ; making a total of 101. 
The Peirce Guild have taken the responsibility of supplying the fur- 
nishings of the children's wards, including clothing. The board of lady 
visitors takes charge of the bed and table linen, and everything that 
relates to the domestic part of the asylum. During the continuance of 106 
THE COUNTRY HOME. 
the Pansy Magazine, the Pansy societies throughout the country became 
interested in the institution, and for four years sent contributions from 
all over the world, varying from 25 cents to a 2-cent postage stamp, 
the total contributions from this source amounting to $440.88. 
For two years the children were taken to the country home in the 
Rock Creek Park, but last year the finances of the institution did not 
permit this movement. From November, 1895, to February, 1896, the 
private fund was exhausted owing to the extra demands made by the 
diphtheria and scarlet fever epidemic, and this experience has impressed 
upon the management of the institution the necessity for an isolated 
ward. Besides the contributions in money, considerable amounts of 
clothing, furnishings, and provisions are sent to the hospital annually. CHAPTER VIII. 
ORPHAN ASYLUMS. 
rilHE sad results of the war of 1812 were not confined to the destruc- 
-L tion of the public buildings, but left to the care and sympathy of the 
citizens a full share of the orphanage resulting largely therefrom.1 The 
proclamation of peace sent a thrill of joy through every household, and 
elicited the warmest sympathy for the fatherless children brought, to 
public notice. Mrs. Gen. John P. Van Ness, moved by the frequency 
of appeals to her charity, consulted with Mrs. Kev. Obadiah Brown, of 
the First Baptist Church, as to the feasibility of effecting an organiza- 
tion by which permanent relief could be assured for the helpless orphans 
of the city and neighborhood. As a result of this interview a public 
meeting was called through the press for "the ladies of Washington 
and neighborhood, to be held in the Hall of Representatives, on Tues- 
day, October 10,1815, to consider the propriety of instituting an asylum 
for the relief and maintenance of orphans." At the time and place 
named a number of ladies responded to the call. After prayer by Rev. 
Dr. Caldwell, Mrs. Hunter was invited to preside and Mrs. Samuel H. 
Smith to act as secretary. A draft of a constitution was presented to 
the meeting for consideration, which, after being amended, was adopted, 
and the institution named "The Washington City Orphan Asylum." 
The following officers were elected, viz: First directress, Mrs. James 
Madison; second directress, Mrs. J. P.Van Ness; treasurer, Mrs. Josiah 
Caldwell; lady managers, Mrs. McGowan, Mrs. Roger Weightman, Mrs. 
Andrew Ramsey, Mrs. Chalmers, Mrs. Obadiah Brown, Mrs. Joseph 
Mechlin, Mrs. Dr. Blake, Mrs. Dr. Breckenridge, and Mrs. Dudley 
Diggs, of Green Hill. 
The vacancies occurring in the board by death and other causes have 
been, as occasion required, supplied by the following ladies, viz: Mrs. 
Gen. Walter Jones, Mrs. Larned, Mrs. Lear, Mrs. Joseph Gales, Mrs. 
'This sketch is substantially the address delivered by Mr. John C. Harkness, for 
many years a trustee of the institution, on the occasion of the dedication of the 
Hall Memorial Building, May 26, 1885. Mr. W. W. Corcoran presided. At one end 
of the hall was a marble bust of Dr. James C. Hall, while at the other was a similar 
bust of Mr. Corcoran. Upon the walls were portraits of Dr. Hall and Mrs. Laurie, 
his mother. Addresses were made also by Mr. R. Ross Perry, Judge William Mer- 
rick, and President J. C. Welling, of the Columbian University, eulogistic of Dr. 
Hall. See also Elliot's Historical Sketches, p. 310.-Editor. 
107 108 
WASHINGTON CITY ORPHAN ASYLUM. 
Samuel H. Smith, Mrs. General Towson, Mrs. Henderson, Mrs. Andrews, 
Mrs. Dr. Lanrie, Mrs. Tayloe, Mrs. Weed, Mrs. Combe, Mrs. Colonel 
Bumford, Mrs. Fowler, Mrs. Dr. Hawley, Mrs. Clagett, Mrs. Dr. Wash 
ington, Mrs. Gillis, Mrs. McPherson, Mrs. Adelaide Brown, Mrs. Colonel 
Zeilen, Mrs. William B. Todd, Miss Smith, and Miss Van Ness. 
Present [1885] board of lady managers: Mrs. S. P. Lee, first directress; 
Mrs. William M. Merrick, second directress: Mrs. Z. D. Gilman, secre- 
tary; Mrs. Dr. Z. T. Sowers, corresponding secretary; Mrs. M. G. 
Temple, treasurer; Miss M. F. Waite, Mrs. Dr. George B. Harrison, 
Mrs. George Brown, Mrs. George S. Gideon, Mrs. John C. Harkness, 
Mrs. N. Mulliken, Mrs. Marshall Brown, Mrs. J. W. Maury, Mrs. Edwin 
Green, Mrs. M. G. Emery, Mrs. George M. Head, Mrs. Dr. A. Y. P. 
Garnett.1 
The institution being duly officered, a small frame house fronting on 
Tenth street west, near Pennsylvania avenue, was rented, and in this 
unpretentious structure the first organized effort on behalf of destitute 
orphans, it is believed, was made in the Capital City, under the presi- 
dency of Mrs. James Madison and her associates in office. The lady 
managers were for many years dependent upon voluntary contributions 
and church collections to meet the expenses of their growing family. 
It may be of interest to narrate, as an illustration, certain facts con- 
nected with the early history of the institution confirmatory of the 
trials of the ladies' faith. The discrepancy between the income and 
the expenses was at times the occasion of deep concern. To meet an 
emergency a public meeting was advertised for Wesley Chapel. The 
evening proved unfavorable. The basement was opened, which was 
ample to accommodate the few present. After the preliminary song 
and prayer, an address was made by Dr. B. Then followed a statement 
of the financial needs of the home. A collection was proposed. No 
baskets for the purpose could be found. A voice: "Take the orphan 
boys' hats I" They were so utilized, but the collection, on examination, 
was judged to be far short of what was needed. 
This announcement brought to his feet one of the trustees, who 
appealed for a better evidence of their interest in the great charity 
which the community had confided to the care of Christian ladies 
representing nearly all of the evangelical churches of the city. In 
response to this appeal a number of propositions was announced and 
•The management now is in the hands of Mrs. S. P. Lee, first directress; Mrs. 
William M. Merrick, second directress; Miss Mary Temple, treasurer; Mrs. George 
B. Harrison, secretary; Mrs. Z. T. Sowers, corresponding secretary; Miss Strong, 
registrar; Mrs. George M. Head, Mrs. George S. Gideon, Mrs. Wright Rives, Mrs. 
Edwin Green, Mrs. M. G. Emery, Mrs. A. Y. P. Garnett, Mrs. John Rogers, Miss 
Waite, Mrs. I. La Rue Johnson, Mrs. S. M. Woodward, Miss Stinemetz. The trustees 
are F. B. McGuire, J. J. Darlington, Blair Lee, Reginald Fendall, Judge Seth Shepard; 
physicians, Drs. George B. Harrison, Charles R. Collins, L. W. Glazebrook; consult- 
ing physician, Dr. Charles E. Hagner; oculist, Dr. Swan M. Burnett; dentist, Dr. J. 
Buddington Wright.-Editor. THE WASHINGTON CITY ORPHAN .ASYLUM, MRS. JOHN P. VAN NESS. 
109 
responses made thereto. When this expedient was about exhausted a 
gentleman from a secluded part of the room crossed over to the trustee 
managing the case, whispered in his ear, and returned to his place. It 
was then announced that a patron of the institution just returned 
from Europe was unexpectedly present; that he wished the effort to be 
prolonged, and that he would duplicate the amount raised. Under 
this inspiring proposition a lively interest on behalf of the orphans 
was kindled. The amount of the collection was over $600, which was 
promptly duplicated by the check of the patron referred to. 
On the retirement of Mr. Madison to his Virginia home, the resignation 
of Mrs. Madison as first directress, to the great regret of her numerous 
friends, became necessary. Mrs. James Monroe was elected to this 
position, but she declined the proffered honor. Mrs. Monroe having 
declined to serve, Mrs. John P. Van Ness was elected to fill the vacancy, 
and for fifteen years met the onerous duties pertaining to the office of 
first directress with highly appreciated ability and unflagging zeal. 
Near the close of her administration the Asiatic cholera visited Wash- 
ington with great fatality. Mrs. Van Ness, with a courage and self- 
denial worthy of the proudest chaplet ever bestowed upon human merit, 
remained at her post of duty, and sought, to the utmost of her ability, 
to alleviate the sufferings of the poor and needy, and to stanch the 
wounds of helpless orphanage. The task was too much for her deli- 
cate frame. Exhausted, mind and heart, in September, 1832, she, too, 
fell a victim to the plague. January 3, 1833, the board of lady man- 
agers resolved "that a portrait of Mrs. Marcia Van Ness be painted at 
the expense of the board of managers and placed in the asylum." 
As early as October 17,1815, the board of lady managers, with a pur- 
pose to provide a home of its own, appointed a committee, consisting of 
Airs. Mechlin and Mrs. Dr. Breckenridge, to solicit aid of the corporate 
authorities. After a delay of some months, an appropriation of $200 
was effected. March 19,1816, the board resolved to build, and for that 
purpose made each member responsible for $25. Mrs. Madison gave 
$20 and a cow. Mrs. President Monroe, on declining to accept the 
appointment of first directress, gave $50. Mrs. Van Ness gave $ 10 and 
the use of a lot on which to build free of rent. Encouraged by the 
above facts, a contract was concluded with Henry Smith, builder, for 
the erection of a frame tenement adequate to meet the needs of the 
institution for several years on the lot offered by Mrs. Van Ness, which 
proved to be a part of the site on which the II street home was subse- 
quently built. The first annual meeting of the association was held at 
Dr. Laurie's church, now Willard Hall, October 12,1816, at which $500 
was voted Mr. Smith on account, and May 6,1817, the balance due him, 
including extras, viz, $200, was paid. For five years the orphan family 
was domiciled therein. The demands upon the institution multiplied 
until larger accommodations were needed. In the year 1822 a house 
flouting on Seventh street, between H and I streets northwest, was 110 
WASHINGTON CITY ORPHAN ASYLUM. 
routed, and the family transferred thereto, and there remained until 
the permanent II street home was completed in 1829. The small frame 
building was rented until 1828, when it was sold and moved off the lot 
to allow the foundations of the permanent home to be laid. 
To give a legal status to the institution, Congress, by request of the 
board, incorporated it May 24, 1828, with William Hawley, John P. 
Van Ness, Nathan Towson, Obadiah Brown, and James Larned, 
trustees.1 
The vacancies occurring in the board by death, removals, etc., have 
been supplied, as provided by the charter, by the following-named 
gentlemen, viz: William J. Stone, Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, William B. 
Todd, Seth J. Todd, Thomas Blagden, Dr. Phineas D. Gurley, Dr. James 
C. Hall, and R. K. Eliot. 
The existing board are as follows, viz: W. W. Corcoran, president; 
John C. Harkness, secretary; Edward Temple, treasurer; Fred B. 
McGuire, R. Ross Perry.2 
Closely following the act of incorporation. Congress donated to the 
institution a number of city lots, estimated by the commissioner3 at 
$10,000, which was emphasized by the gift of Gen. John P. Van Ness 
and wife of an eligible lot fronting on II street north, between Ninth and 
Tenth streets west, on which to build a permanent home for orphans. 
With these timely gifts, supplemented by others of less amounts, the 
trustees were encouraged to build, under the direction of Architect 
1 By section 3 of the act of incorporation, the real and personal property before 
given, granted, devised, or bequeathed to the asylum, or to any person or persons for 
its use, or that had been purchased for the institution, was vested in aud confirmed 
to the corporations respectively; but it was provided that the clear annual income 
of property to be acquired by either of the corporations should not at any time 
exceed the sum of $3,000. 
Section 6 provided that the then managers of the Washington City Asylum (called 
by the articles of association the " board of trustees") might continue in office until 
the second Tuesday in October, 1828, 4,at which time, aud on the same day in each 
year thereafter, the corporation, by those who from their by-laws may be qualified 
to vote, shall be regulated, aud the officers thereof appointed agreeably to the pro- 
visions of this act-that is to say, there should be appointed a first and second 
female directress, also fifteen female managers, and these directresses and managers, 
a majority of whom shall be necessary to do business, at such time and place as they 
may direct, shall appoint a treasurer and secretary, and such other officers and also 
perform such other duties as the by-laws may direct." 
Section 7 provides that when any destitute male or female child is received into 
the asylum with the approbation of the parent, guardian, or friends who may have 
charge of the child, they shall not thereafter be at liberty to withdraw or leave the 
asylum without the consent of the directors until, if a male, he shall attain the age 
of 21 years, and if a female, she shall attain the age of 15 years, but up to the periods 
and ages named, they shall remain subject to the direction of the asylum, or those 
to whom, by the asylum, they may be bound, unless, by consent given by those 
directing the institution, they may be exonerated from service previous to attaining 
those respective ages."-Editor. 
2 For the trustees for 1896 see page 108, note.-Editor. 
3 See page 115 for the terms of this gift.-Editor. ORPHANS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 
111 
Bulfinch, a convenient and substantial asylum building, the coiner 
stone of which was, in the presence of a large number of citizens, the 
most of whom had inarched in procession from Dr. Laurie's church on 
F street, near Fourteenth street northwest, laid by the Masonic fra- 
ternity, August 11,1828. The superstructure was erected in due time, 
and in the summer of 1829 the institution was installed therein. For 
thirty-eight years the lady managers, representing most of the churches 
of the city, within this valued home, sheltered, fed, clothed, and 
schooled a large number of orphans. Not only so, but they bestowed 
upon their parentless wards much of maternal solicitude for their moral 
training and preparation to meet the conflicts of coming life.' 
To facilitate the education of the children, suitable rooms in the old 
and new buildings were fitted with school requisites, and faithful, com- 
petent teachers employed. Results have been secured in this depart- 
ment which will compare favorably with the public schools of the present 
day. 
The Sabbath school, under the superintendence of Mr. W. F. 
Randolph, assisted by the following teachers, viz, Miss Carrington, 
Misses Porter, Miss Gowie, Miss Stier, Miss Campbell, Miss Tulee, 
Miss Rathbone, Messrs. Kellog, Conner, Bailey, Cooper, and W. J. B. 
Sleman, musical director, has rendered valuable aid to the lady mana- 
gers, and the intelligent Christian matron, Mrs. Wright, in the moral 
training of the children of the home. 
The vast addition to the population of the Capital City and District, 
following the conclusion of the late civil war, added largely to the 
number of helpless orphans, whose claims could not be ignored, and 
therefore required additional accommodations. While debating the 
question, How can these be provided? Mr. William Galt made an offer 
for the H street home, and Mr. Corcoran had long before entertained 
the idea that the future wants of the city would demand a change in 
the location of the home, and greater accommodations, and having 
disclosed a purpose to favor the institution with the present site, the 
trustees, the lady managers concurring, with these encouraging facts 
before them, sold the II street home to Mr. Galt for $25,090, possession 
to be given April 1, 1867. Whereupon the trustees rented one of those 
large residences fronting on I street north, near Second street west, 
adjoining the then residence of General Grant, from whom and his 
family the orphan home received many kind attentions. In this tem- 
porary home the lady managers continued without abatement their kind 
offices to their dependent wards until May, 1876, a period of nine years. 
The deed for the lots constituting the present site of the Washington 
City Orphan Asylum, viz, 200 feet on Fourteenth street, and 276 feet 9 
1 On December, 1867, there were 93 orphans in the institution. At the close of 1874, 
114 children were enjoying the benefits of the Washington City Orphan Asylum-55 
boys and 59 girls. Three boys and 7 girls having left at suitable ages, were placed 
in positions.-Editor. 112 
WASHINGTON CITY ORTH AN ASYLUM. 
inches on S street northwest, containing 55,350 superficial feet, having 
been executed by Mr. W. W. Corcoran, the secretary of the board was 
authorized to make to him a suitable acknowledgment. The following 
is a copy of the same: 
Washington, June 20,1806. 
W. W. Corcoran, Esq. 
Dear Sir: I am directed by the trustees of the Washington City Orphan Asylum 
to acknowledge the reception by them of the deed executed by you for the lots in 
square 239, which you donated to the asylum. It is with emotions of the deepest 
gratitude that we acknowledge the generous and timely gift. Surely, among the 
many noble charities whereby you have aided the cause of our suffering humanity, 
this is not the least. The fruits of it will abound through countless years to come, 
gladdening the hearts and brightening the prospects of the children of want and 
sorrow; you yourself will contemplate these fruits with unutterable satisfaction as 
long as you live, and when you have faded and passed away they will make your 
memory blessed. 
While we are grateful to you for your liberality towards the institution whose 
pecuniary interests are under our care, we are also grateful to God, who disposes 
you to devote so large a share of your earthly substance to the cause of benevolence; 
and our prayer to Him is, that you may be long spared "to strengthen the hand of 
the poor and needy," and to show to a selfish world the blessings that ensue when 
wealth is laid as a willing offering upon the altar of God and humanity. 
On behalf of the board of trustees, 
I am yours, truly, P. D. Gurley, 
Secretary of the Board. 
Plans for the home were prepared by John C. Harkness and adopted 
by the lady managers and the board of trustees as well. Bids for the 
inclosing of the building were received from several prominent build- 
ers. The contract was awarded James G. Naylor, dated June, 1865, 
the amount of the contract being $24,170. Under this agreement the 
basement walls were completed, so that the corner stone was laid July 
13, 1865, in the presence of a great crowd of citizens, with imposing 
Masonic ceremonies. Appropriate addresses were delivered by Hon. 
William Whiting, of the Masonic order; Hon. William Harlan, Secre- 
tary of the Interior; prayer by the Rev. Dr. Gillette, pastor of the First 
Baptist Church, and the benediction pronounced by Rev. P. I). Gurley, 
pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. 
By the close of the season the building was satisfactorily inclosed, and 
in the spring of 1866 the then Secretary of State, the late Hon. William 
H. Seward, requested its completion for the accommodation of the State 
Department, which was cordially agreed to by the trustees, and during 
the summer and fall the work was accomplished and the distinguished 
tenant put in possession, and continued in the occupancy until Novem- 
ber 1, 1875. The trustees having been put in possession of the build- 
ing lost no time, but at once proceeded to have the same fitted up with 
the best of known requisites for a first-class orphan asylum, so that the 
institution was installed therein May, 1876. Resuming the official his- 
tory, Mrs. William Hawley succeeded Mrs. Van Ness as first directress, 
.and continued to fill this position until 1859, resigning because of ill GIFT OF DR. JAMES C. HALL. 
113 
health. Mrs. R. T. Coxe was elected first directress in January, 1859; 
was such until 1862, when she resigned. 
The present incumbent, Mrs. Admiral Lee, was duly elected to the 
chair of first directress in 1862, and during these years, embracing 
epochs of extraordinary interest and trial, by her fidelity to her obliga 
tions and by her undiminished solicitude for the moral training of the 
children of the home and their educational equipment for the duties of 
subsequent life, has won for herself the highest meed of praise. In 
this connection it may be observed that to those who are familiar with 
the onerous duties gratuitously discharged by the lady managers-not 
infrequently in the presence of marked ingratitude-their continuance 
in the noble charity is, indeed, a marvel and should command the grati- 
tude of the community whom they serve. 
As a framework to give due prominence to the beautiful picture of 
the disinterested charity of the lady managers, it should be mentioned 
in this sketch that when the institution was without a home they ami 
their friends, at a large outlay of personal effort, involving investments 
of time, toil, and means, held a series of fairs at Odd Fellows' Hall credit- 
able to all concerned, and, as a final result, they paid over to the trustees, 
to aid them in the building of this present home, upward of $21,060-in 
view of which it may be said that many daughters have done well, but 
these lady managers excel them all. To supply a broken link in this 
historic chain, it will be noted that the vacancy in the board of trustees 
of the asylum, occasioned by the deeply regretted death of the late 
Dr. P. D. Gurley, which occurred October 7, 1868, was filled by the 
election of Dr. James C. Hall, who devoted to the office rare culture, 
varied experience, acknowledged talent, unflinching devotion to duty, 
and especial interest in all that pertained to the health and comfort of 
the home. As a member of the building committee, the good judgment 
and varied learning of Dr. Hall were of great value. After a faithful 
service to the institution he so highly appreciated, as trustee and a 
member of the building committee for twelve years, he fell in the har- 
ness, beloved and highly respected by all who knew him. 
By his will Dr. Hall made the Washington City Orphan Asylum and 
the Children's Hospital his residuary legatees, in equal shares, and 
thereby enlarged their respective spheres of usefulness. The sum to 
be realized by the asylum from this source has not been as yet fully 
determined, and, as directed by the will, the amount is to be kept sep- 
arate from other assets, and called " The Laurie Fund," as a perpetual 
memorial of his sainted mother, who had held official relations to the 
institution. In order that the usefulness of the institution might keep 
pace with its increase of means, the trustees were constrained to build 
the S street annex, the plans for which were submitted to the board of 
trustees, and also to the lady managers, and by both boards approved. 
Contracts for the work were made by the building committee under 
date of March 25,1881, the work to be done under the supervision of the 
7260 8 114 
WASHINGTON CITY OB PHAN ASYLUM. 
architect of the building committee. By the plan a " Hall memorial" 
was provided for, in which may be preserved, as long as the building 
may remain, cherished memorials of its departed patrons. 
Mr. Harkness's sketch closes v ' the year 1885. During 1886 the 
institution lost 6 children di theria and had 40 cases of the dis 
ease, which were traced to the unsanit y condition of the basement. 
The matter was at once remedied, and while the building was in process 
of repair the board rented Ingleside for the summer, to the great ben- 
efit of the children. In 1887 Mr. E. F. Andrews gave to the asylum a 
copy of Stewart's protrait of Mrs. Madison, the first directress. Mr. 
W. W. Corcoran, with his accustomed generosity, gave the frame and 
appropriate easel for the portrait, and interest was added to the occa- 
sion of the presentation by the fact that Mrs. Cleveland, the wife of the 
President, unveiled the portrait. The managers having decided in 1882 
that no girl should leave the asylum until she was 18 years old, except 
for adoption or because of incorrigibility, in 1888 6 girls were gradu- 
ated from the dressmaking department and immediately found satis- 
factory places. Six other girls found employment in private houses, 6 
children under 6 years old were adopted, and 17 were returned to friends 
who had become able to take good care of them. A very serious blow 
to the asylum this year was the death of its life-long friend, Mr. W. W. 
Corcoran, who had given the lot on which the Home was built, and who 
had aided largely in erecting the buildings, besides invariably sending 
gifts for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and May Day. Mr. Corcoran left a 
bequest to the institution, the income of which is used annually to pro- 
vide a Christmas tree and dinner and a May-Day feast. 
During 1889 Mrs. Sarah Utermehle left the institution $2,000, and in 
1891 Mr. William Thompson made a gift of $5,609 to establish the 
Thompson fund. 
The annual report of the asylum for 1896 shows that on January of 
that year there were in the institution 139 children-89 girls and 50 
boys. During the preceding year 25 children were received (18 girls 
and 7 boys) and 61 children (35 girls and 26 boys) were dismissed, 6 
of the girls having attained the age of 18 years. Forty-three children 
were returned to friends, 2 boys were sent to the Reform School, 5 chil- 
dren were provided with homes, and 3 died. The treasurer's report 
shows that during the year $680.33 was contributed to the support of 
the Home. This small sum, says the secretary, Mrs. Jane L. Stone 
Harrison, proves the existence of a general but erroneous impression 
that the legacies which have been received from time to time by the 
Washington City Orphan Asylum are sufficient to meet all demands 
made upon the institution. The latter, indeed, has cause for gratitude 
for endowments well invested by the board of trustees, but the interest 
on these funds is far from meeting the expenses necessary to the care 
of a greater number of children than are now with the institution. 
More children could be received, with its present appointments and ST. VINCENT'S ORPHAN AS YLI AT. 
115 
service, if the limited income did not make it necessary to refuse admis- 
sion to the increasing applications. The receipts from all sources for 
the year were about $13,000 and the expenses were something over 
$14,000, thus making an encroachm on the invested funds of the 
institution. An earnest appeal is mad (to- U-v, public for increased gifts. 
One reason for the extended pace that has been given to the history 
of the Washington City Orphan Asylum is to show how large a work 
has been done without Government aid and also to call attention to 
the fact that the accommodations of the asylum are sufficient for an 
increased number of inmates, thus suggesting the idea that instead of 
starting new institutions it might be well for those benevolently inclined 
to build on foundations already firmly laid. 
II. 
St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum was established by the Rev. Father 
Matthews and the Roman Catholics of Washington about the year 
1825, and was incorporated by the act of February 25, 1831, which 
named as incorporators William Matthews, Matthew Deagle, Peter S. 
Shreiber, Thomas Carberry, and William Hickey. The act makes the 
provisions usual at that time as to acquiring and holding real and per- 
sonal property, but provides that "the clear annual income of prop- 
erty to be acquired by the corporation shall at no time exceed the sum 
of $5,000." The act further provides for a yearly meeting in the 
month of June of the regular annual contributors, at which those per- 
sons by the by laws qualified to vote shall elect 9 female managers,who 
shall appoint a first and second directress. Parents, guardians, or 
friends of children may place them in the asylum until they reach the 
age of 21 years, if males, or 18 years, if females; and the asylum may 
receive children who have neither friend nor protector. The power of 
binding out children was given, and provision was made for schools. 
The asylum was located at the corner of Tenth and G streets north- 
west, the site now occupied. 
The only aid ever received from the General Government was that 
granted by the act of July 14, 1832, which directs "the commissioner 
of public buildings to select and value such of the building lots and 
parts of lots owned by the United States in the city of Washington 
as he shall think may be brought to market and sold to the greatest 
advantage, to the amount of $20,009, which he shall divide and sepa- 
rate into two parcels of $10,000 worth each, one of which, at his elec- 
tion, he shall convey to the Washington City Orphan Asylum and the 
other to the St. Vincent's Female Orphan Asylum of Washington, and 
to the successors of each forever." These lots were exempted from 
taxes for five years, unless sooner disposed of, and might be sold or 
leased, the proceeds of the sale or rents not to be applied to any other 
objects than the purposes of the institutions named.1 
't'nited States Stat. L., vol. vi, p. 512. 116 
ST. JOSEPH'S MALE ORPHAN ASYLUM. 
in. 
The St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum was organized at a meeting 
held October 13, 1854, and was incorporated by the act of February 6, 
1855, the incorporators being Thomas Carberry, James S. Harvey, 
Thomas Feran, Gregory Ennis, Nicholas Callan, Hugh B. Sweeny, John 
Carroll Brent, Richard 11. Clark, and William II. Ward. The object of 
the institution was charity and education. The incorporators were 
empowered to hold property not exceeding in value $100,000 at any one 
time. The corporation was forbidden to issue any note, token, device, 
scrip, or other evidence of debt to be used as currency, and each of the 
trustees was made liable in his or her individual capacity for all the 
debts and liabilities of the company, however contracted or incurred, 
to be recovered by suit as other debts or liabilities before any court of 
competent jurisdiction. 
The asylum was established by the united contributions of the differ- 
ent Catholic congregations in Washington and was placed under charge 
of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. The institution was first opened in a 
house on the southwest corner of H and Thirteenth streets, on the 14th 
of September, 1856, where it was continued for about three years. It 
was then moved to a house on the north side of G, between Twelfth and 
Thirteenth streets, and subsequently removed to a building purchased 
by the trustees, on the corner of Tenth and F streets, where it remained 
until removed to a house on H street, between Ninth and Tenth streets, 
bought from the Washington Orphan Asylum. In 1867 the asylum 
supported 60 orphans and half orphans, and a day school for small boys 
was also maintained. 
The institution occupies 18,770 square feet, which is assessed for 
$24,401. The assessed value of the buildings and other improvements 
is $20,000. The only aid received from Congress is an annual appro- 
priation of $1,800. The number of inmates on January 1, 1897, was 
105, of whom 33 have been admitted during the year. The number of 
children placed in free homes during the year was 11, and the number 
restored to parents or relatives 31. Male white children between the 
ages of 6 and 14 are admitted. Besides the Congressional appropriation 
of $1,800, $3,455.28 was received during 1896 from solicitation, sub- 
scription, and donation, and $1,056.22 from private gifts, making a 
total income of $6,311.50. 
For forty-two years after the incorporation of the asylum the total 
amount of money received from the Government was about $7,200, and 
the average number of boys cared for was 127. Orphans come mainly 
from St. Ann's Infant Asylum, being turned over to St. Joseph's at the age 
of 6 years, and retained until they are 14 years of age, when positions 
are obtained for them if possible. The institution is under the manage- 
ment of Sister Euphrasia. ST. VINCENT'S FEMALE ORPHAN ASYLUM. 
ST. JOSEPH'S MALE ORPHAN ASYLUM 117 
NATIONAL SOLDIERS AND SAILORS9 ORPHAN HOME. 
IV. 
The National Soldiers and Sailors' Orphan Home owed its existence 
to the philanthropic efforts of the ladies of Washington City, promi- 
nent among them being Mrs. J. S. Carlisle, Mrs. William B. Todd, and 
Mrs. Robert Farnham. The object of the institution was to provide 
a home and education for orphans and half orphans of soldiers and 
sailors who have been in the service of the United States. Children of 
either sex under 12 years of age were received. The project took shape 
at a meeting held January 10, I860, and the first board of directors 
consisted of Mrs. William B. Todd, Mrs. David T. Patterson, Mrs. E. C. 
Carrington, Mrs. James Harlan, Mrs. Gideon Welles, Mrs. David A. 
Hall, Mrs. James Speed, Mrs. Robert Farnham, Mrs. J. C. Smith, Miss 
Sarah Wood, and Miss L. Howard. The directors and friends of the 
charity projected a large fair to be held in Washington to raise funds 
for the purposes indicated. Committees were formed, and an organized 
canvass was made through the States and Territories for contributions 
to the fair and general fund. A temporary frame building was erected 
on the public reservation at the corner of Pennsylvania avenue and 
Seventh street, where the fair was held with good success. 
In September, 1866, the institution was opened, and in the following 
November a more desirable house was obtained at the corner of B 
street north and Second street east. 
The institution was at first entirely dependent for support upon the 
funds raised from the fair and voluntary contributions by its friends 
throughout the United States. During the first year it provided for 
about twenty-six children, the orphans of soldiers and sailors, admission 
being through the members of the board of directors. The officers of 
the institution were Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, president; Mrs. William T. 
Sherman, first vice-president; Mrs. General Williams, second vice- 
president; Mrs. Henry D. Cooke, treasurer; Mrs. H. C. Fahnestock, 
assistant treasurer; Mrs. J. C. Carlisle, secretary; Mrs. Charlotte Tay- 
lor, assistant secretary; Miss Ann Sherman, matron; Dr. S. J. Todd, 
physician; Dr. N. S. Lincoln and Dr. G. M. Dove, consulting physicians. 
'The first appropriation made by Congress for the support of this 
institution was contained in the act of March 30, 1867, the amount 
being $5,000. In 1868 an appropriation of $10,000 was made, a like 
sum being appropriated in 1869, with the provision that the funds 
should be disbursed under the direction of the Secretary of the Inte- 
rior instead of under the direction of the officers of the institution. 
The appropriations for 1870, 1871, 1872, and 1873 were $15,000 each 
year. In 1874 the appropriation was $11,350.97, the next year $12,000, 
and in 1875 $10,000. 
'The National Soldiers and Sailors' Orphan Home was organized under the act of 
July 25, 1866; amended by the act of February 22, 1867. 118 
CHURCH ORPHANAGE OF ST. JOHN'S PARISH. 
During the year 1874 the managers of the Soldiers and Sailors' 
Orphan Home labored under great financial embarrassment owing to 
the failure of Jay Cook & Co., which deprived them of the appropria 
tion voted them by Congress for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1874, 
amounting to $11,350. In order to meet the demands of their large 
household it was determined by the trustees to appropriate the pro- 
ceeds of some bonds belonging to a legacy from the estate of Mr. 
Ward, the amount to be returned to the fund when the deficiency 
appropriation should become available. The school was in charge of 
Miss Frost. Boys and girls who had reached the age of 16 were 
returned to their parents or guardians, and two of the eldest boys had 
situations provided for them at the Springfield Armory. Owing to a 
provision in their act of incorporation, only destitute orphans of sol- 
diers and sailors who had died in the late war, no children were admitted 
during the year 1874. The number of beneficiaries in the Home was 
42, of whom 24 were males and 18 females, ranging from the ages of 2 
to 13 years. The disbursements of the year were about $14,000, of 
which less than $200 came from donations. 
The appropriations for 1878 and 1879 were $10,000 each year. By 
the act of August 8, 1882, the property of the National Soldiers' and 
Sailors' Orphan Home was conveyed to the Garfield Memorial Hospital, 
ami the sum of $39,708.03 was realized from the sale after it was 
turned over to the hospital. 
V. 
The Church Orphanage of St. John's parish had its origin in the 
work begun on All Saints Day, 1S70, by Sister Sarah, who for eleven 
years continued to provide for a few destitute orphan children, with 
such assistance as she could obtain from persons whom she interested 
in the work. In 1872 the institution had been incorporated under the 
general incorporation law. In 1881 the Rev. Dr. Leonard, now bishop 
of Ohio and then rector of St. John's Church, undertook the task of 
placing the orphanage on a firm foundation. An appropriation by Con- 
gress of $10,000 was obtained for the purchase of lands and buildings, 
and a considerable amount was raised from private sources. 
The president of the orphanage is the bishop of the diocese for the 
time being, and the warden is the rector of St. John's parish. The 
institution is managed by a board of nine trustees, all of whom, except 
the treasurer, must be communicants of St. John's Church. A ladies' 
aid, consisting of 25 ladies of the parish, also assists in the manage- 
ment, and there are two physicians connected with the orphanage. 
Twenty-six persons have been enrolled as honorary members of the 
orphanage by the payment of $1,000 each, and the interest ($1,114) on 
an endowment fund of $22,100 adds to the receipts. During the recent 
business depression the subscription list was maintained in a manner CHURCH ORPHANAGE OF ST. JOHN'S PARISH. SECTARIAN APPROPRIATIONS. 
119 
highly satisfactory to the management and the endowment fund was 
increased.1 
In the annual report of the orphanage for 1895-96 the rector of St. 
John's speaks with satisfaction over the partial return made by the 
orphans for the service rendered them by the people of the parish, in 
the organization of a choir of from 12 to 15 children " whose well- 
trained voices have dispersed the slight coldness which characterized 
our former services." " The children," he says, "are enthusiastic and 
proud to be chosen as members of the'rector's choir.' The average 
attendance at our daily service is four times what it was before the 
choir was organized; and it is safe to say that the interest of the 
parishioners in the orphans has largely increased." 
Dr. Mackay-Smith further says: 
Let me allude briefly to one misfortune which threatens us. For some years we 
have received an appropriation from Congress, not very large in amount, but of 
some importance to an institution conducted so economically as ours. Our services 
to the public well repaid it, because in return for a very small sum given for each 
child, we saved the Government, which must otherwise care for it entirely, an 
expenditure many times as great. It appears at present as if this appropriation 
would be withdrawn. In such an event we may be compelled to reduce the scope of 
our work. Many of our children might then be forced into institutions where no 
definite instruction of a religious nature would be given. We know what this 
means. It would result in a child being practically left without religious faith of 
any strong kind to support it in the struggle of life. A child with irreligious 
parents may still have many chances of cultivating a strong moral life. There will 
be found relatives, friends, and social ties which bring the boy or girl continually 
in contact with Christian teaching or example. But an orphan sent out from an 
institution where none has a right to teach it any definite religious truth is apt to 
go almost defenseless against temptation into the world. It has no helpful ties. In 
this country any child in a public institution is practically bound down to one of 
three results: It must be brought up as a Protestant, a Roman Catholic, or indiffer- 
ent to religion. If the Government gives no money to an institution in which the 
doctrines of the first two of these creeds are taught, it does in effect endow unre- 
ligion, if not irreligion, however well-meaning may be its intention. 
Still, so great are the dangers of giving public money to religious institutions, 
that I think we should not complain if we were previously warned that in three or 
five years the appropriation would cease. But we deem it hardly fair to suddenly 
deprive us of aid, with only a few months' warning, after years of labor in upbuild- 
ing a home which has done so good a work. We need time to accommodate ourselves 
to a different policy. 
We feel this the more strongly because we have never tried to make our children 
fanatically attached to any one church, but rather to make them good citizens, with 
a kindly feeling toward all forms of Christian faith, and an affection for our own. 
The main strength of our system of training, after all, has been, we think, that it 
has taught our inmates not so much through doctrine, as by giving them instructors 
who are Christians in daily life and conduct. Children are, above all, imitative. 
They will grow virtuous mainly through "object teaching," as they see those about 
'The officers are: The Rt Rev. Henry Yates Satterlee, D. D., president; Rev. Alex- 
ander Mackay-Smith, D. D., S. T. D., warden; Frank W. Hackett, secretary; James 
G. Payne, treasurer. The trustees are : Rev. Alexander Mackay-Smith, D. D., Robert 
Reyburn, M. D., Frank W. Hackett, Francis M. Gunnell, U. S. N., Alexander B. Hag- 
ner, James M. Johnston, William J. Boardman, Edward McCauley, Nicholas Luquer. 120 
CHURCH ORPHANACE OP ST. JOHN'S PARISH. 
them practicing the qualities they inculcate. It is possible to teach even a hundred 
children in an institution like ours what love and unselfishness and kindness are 
in this way. And we believe that this is one of the results attained in St. John's 
Orphanage. May God bless its work, and keep it undiminished. 
In their report for 1896-97, the trustees discuss the subject of the 
annual appropriation by Congress. They state that it had been their 
hope that in course of time a fund could be built up, the interest of 
which should support the orphanage without the need of a public 
appropriation. This fund now exceeds $22,000, and its moderate growth 
maybe expected; but it is beyond the power of the trustees, even with 
the strictest economy, to provide for the little ones now sheltered with- 
out the aid of Congress. 
The trustees continue: 
As the law now stands, it is announced that from and after "the 30th of June, 
1897, no money appropriated for charitable purposes in the District of Columbia 
shall be paid to any church or religious denomination, or to any institution or 
society which is under sectarian or ecclesiastical control." 
There is just enough here to awaken serious apprehension as to the effect of the 
declaration upon the long-continued custom of Congress of making a small annual 
appropriation for the maintenance of the inmates of the orphanage. For some years 
past that appropriation has been $1,800. It is with pride that we can say that the 
per capita expense of maintaining a child at the orphanage is less than that in any 
charitable institution in the District. It needs no array of figures to satisfy the 
inquirer that the money thus voted by Congress is to the last cent judiciously and 
economically applied. 
The trustees of the orphanage are communicants of St. John's parish, and the bishop 
of the diocese is ex officio president of the board of trustees. The many duties devolv- 
ing upon the bishop, however, prevent his taking an active part in the administra- 
tion of the office. The rector of St.John's parish is warden. In that capacity he 
presides over the board of trustees (in the absence of the bishop), and is ex officio a 
member of the board. The children are trained to attend the service of the church. 
These circumstances lend color to the charge that the orphanage is under sectarian 
or ecclesiastical control. As a matter of fact, however, the actual control of the insti- 
tution is vested in the board of trustees, who are laymen, and who have no occasion 
to consider any question of a sectarian or ecclesiastical nature. 
A mistaken opinion is found to exist in the minds of some persons, in that they sup- 
pose that Congress gives aid to the orphanage. The expression is inaccurate. What 
Congress does is to vote money to help pay the expenses of taking care of, feeding, 
housing, and educating children who otherwise would be a public burden. It acts 
as the municipal council of the District of Columbia in this regard. The object of 
the charity is not to build up the church, or to strengthen any sectarian or ecclesi- 
astical body, but to take care of children who otherwise would have to be supported 
in some public institution of the District. 
These considerations, however, need not extend further. They are alluded to here 
simply to remind those who take an interest in the work that is done at the orphan- 
age that grave responsibilities confront the management, and that it is of vital 
importance that the claims of the inmates upon the care and attention of Congress 
should be correctly understood. 
Mrs. E. C. Warrington Chubb, secretary of the "Ladies' Aid," reports 
that there are now in the orphanage 90 children, and there is no room 
for more. Scarcely a day passes that some application is not refused. 
She also reports that the cyclone of September, 1896, damaged the AN ASYLUM FOR ROYS ESTABLISHED. 
121 
building of the orphanage in the city and entirely destroyed those on 
the Virginia country home. The damage amounted to $6,000, the 
greater part of which sum had already been contributed by the gener- 
ous friends of St. John's parish. 
The report of Sister Sarah states that for the purposes of a separate 
home for the older boys of the orphanage, an attractive house was given 
"by an untiring friend of the orphanage," and was opened on Ascen- 
sion Day. The home started with 16 boys, under the charge of the 
Brothers of Nazareth, and the money needed for the new work was 
furnished by "a well known philanthropist." 
The report of the treasurer shows receipts of $5,190.22, of which 
amount $1,800 was received from appropriations by Congress. The 
expenditures for maintenance were $3,536.07; $200 was paid on the 
debt on the orphanage of $2,500, and $500 was added to the endow- 
ment fund. Besides the regular receipts, $6,329.50 was collected for 
rebuilding the orphanage country home. Special donations amounting 
to $497, besides considerable gifts of supplies, also were received. CHAPTER IX. 
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 
mHE Industrial Home School was organized on Thanksgiving Bay, 
1 1867, by a few benevolent ladies, who began a school in Georgetown, 
and was incorporated May 5, 1870. On March 12, 1872, the incorpora- 
tors amended their union, as provided for in the general incorporation 
act of the District of Columbia, those signing the articles being Messrs. 
A. M. Gangewer, A. B. Atkins, John Hitz, J. S. Blackford, A. N. Zev- 
erly, M. H. Doolittle, Thomas Taylor, W. W. Dungan, M. V. Buckley, 
and Walter S. Cox.1 The by laws provided for the usual officers and 
a board of managers, 25 in number, to be elected annually by members 
of the association, membership being through election by a majority of 
the existing members. During its first years the school occupied rented 
quarters, but in March, 1875, the Commissioners of the District of 
Columbia set apart for its use the buildings and grounds of the George- 
town almshouse, on the Tennallytown road, about 1 mile above George- 
town and adjoining the grounds of the Naval Observatory. The building 
was constructed in 1830.2 
In the thirteenth annual report of the school, for the year ending 
October 29, 1877, the fact is noted that the Commissioners of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia had set apart the Georgetown Asylum property3 for 
the purpose of an industrial school, where "the children of the unfor- 
tunate or depraved could be properly provided for," and the trustees 
asked the Commissioners to recommend to Congress the enactment of 
a law, similar to that existing in several States, requiring the District 
of Columbia to pay to the board of trustees of the school the amount of 
$2 per week for each inmate of the industrial home. This amount, with 
some assistance from charitable people, the trustees believed would 
suffice to carry on the institution successfully, provided the requisite 
buildings were furnished for mechanical and industrial purposes. 
The school already had a steam engine and other machinery, secured 
by act of Congress in June, 1871; but this machinery was in a rented 
building more than a mile distant from the then location of the home,, 
necessitating a payment of rent of $250 a year and the loss of much val- 
'See report of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia for 1886, p. 431. 
2Report of Commissioners of District of Columbia for 1885, p. 108. 
3The ground was deeded to the city of Georgetown by Elisha W. Williams .Inly 
19, 1830, and was used by that corporation for almshouse purposes. 
122 THE INDUSTRIAL HOME SCHOOL. 
THE INDUSTRIAL HOME SCHOOL EA HL Y S TH UG GL ES. 
123 
able time, without affording the requisite facilities for proper instruction 
in mechanical and other arts. Therefore an appropriation of $10,000 
was asked for the purpose of erecting a suitable building for workshops 
in conformity with plans submitted. Such an appropriation had passed 
the House of Representatives during the previous year, but, owing to 
some misunderstanding, it failed in the Senate. This report was signed 
by John Hicks, president, and H. W. Blackford, secretary. 
The report of the treasurer, M. V. Buckey, for 1877 showed earnings 
of $7,276.50, mainly from tree boxes furnished to the Parking Commis- 
sion. The earnings of the home for the maintenance of paupers 
amounted to something over $1,500, while the proceeds from sale of 
products of the garden increased the amount by $153.77. 
In the fourteenth annual report for the year ending October 30,1878, 
the secretary, H W. Blackford, says that the school "has established 
the fact beyond question that its aims are practicable, and really con- 
tribute to the public welfare; yet the trustees are forced to witness the 
humiliating spectacle of organizations in other places, which have fol- 
lowed out the ideas of the Industrial Home School, in the space of 
three or four years growing into large and flourishing institutions, with 
elegant buildings and surroundings, and affording homes and instruc- 
tion to hundreds of children, while the Washington institution is com- 
pelled by limited means and room to refuse admission to many cases of 
destitute applicants who should by all means be rescued from their 
pitiable condition, and not be left to shift for themselves, and so ulti- 
mately become a burden to the community." She calls attention to the 
State public school of Michigan, organized in 1874, that had gone ten 
times as far in four years as the Washington school had in fourteen, 
"simply because the people of that State were enthusiastic on the sub- 
ject of human progress, and wise enough to see that it will be money 
in their pocket in the end to educate their dependent children, give 
them a trade, and make them useful citizens. It is known to be a fact 
by those who have investigated the subject," she says, "that where 
children are brought up in large numbers together in institutions devoid 
of the means of industrial training, both girls and boys are apt to turn 
out badly, and in the end tend towards indolence and helplessness." 
The buildings occupied as a home were sadly in need of repair. The 
industrial department was still in a rented building, more than a mile 
distant from the home, and under the circumstances the trustees 
renewed their application for $25,000 for the erection of a workshop 
and effecting the indicated improvements upon the home, already the 
property of the Government. The report for the year showed receipts 
of $7,091.02, of which amount $3,000 was the first installment of an 
appropriation by Congress. 
The first report of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, 
appointed under the act of Congress providing for a permanent form of 
government for the District, approved June 11,1878, commended to the 124 
INDUSTRIAL IIO HE SCHOOL. 
liberality of Congress the Industrial Home School of Georgetown. 
''This charity," they say, "has been founded and chiefly sustained thus 
far by private benevolence. By permission the school is occupying the 
Georgetown almshouse, where a small number of District paupers are 
provided for by an arrangement between the Commissioner of the 
Washington Asylum and the managers of the homeschool. The benevo 
lent ladies who have charge of this deserving charity have collected 
within the walls of the dilapidated building about 50 indigent children 
of both sexes, whom they are educating in various industries, and for 
whom they provide homes as soon as they attain sufficient age and 
qualifications. The workshops connected with the institution contribute 
largely to its maintenance, and experience thus far has demonstrated 
the wisdom and beneficence of this plan." 
The Commissioners in their annual report for 1879-80 state that the 
experience of every year of its existence has added fresh evidence of 
the value and beneficence of the Industrial Home School. During the 
past year a public school had been established within its walls by the 
board of school trustees of the District for the benefit of its 50 inmates 
and the children in its neighborhood. The addition of a third story, 
comprising a large schoolroom and workshop, had also been made to 
its accommodations, at a cost of $2,200. Of this sum, its public- 
spirited and frugal manager had contributed $1,500 from the meager 
appropriation of $5,000 made by Congress for its maintenance during 
the fiscal year. Although established, and thus far chiefly maintained, 
by private benevolence, the school was destined, the Commissioners 
believed, to solve successfully the important problem of industrial 
education as a factor in our system of public instruction. These con- 
siderations are the more important, in the view of the Commissioners, 
"because by the influence of labor organizations, the apprentice system 
formerly in use for the instruction of boys in the various trades and 
industries had been virtually abandoned." 
In the report of the school for 1881 note is made of the resignation 
of the superintendent, Mr. L. Barnes, and the employment of Mr. W. 
S. Stockbridge as his successor at an annual salary of $1,000, which 
amount is to cover the salaries of matron and housekeeper. 
The greenhouse had been completed and put into operation, and in 
addition to the swimming pond a small fish pond had been excavated. 
A cottage provided for by Congressional appropriation had been built 
for the sum of $4,006. The board of trustees of the public schools 
were furnishing teachers for the inmates of the home, and a kinder- 
garten had been established. The living expenses of the home were 
materially lessened by the success of the garden, in which the boys 
labored. There were 43 pupils in the school of shoemaking, and the 
wood-working and sewing schools had been maintained. A fair at the 
house of Dr. J. F. Appleby, of Georgetown, resulted in securing $120 
for hospital purposes. ST. ROSE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL. 
125 
In the report of the school for 1883, Mr. B. H. Warner, the president, 
and Mrs. Huldah W. Blackford, the secretary, state that the amount 
appropriated by Congress, $5,000, for the expenses of the school was 
entirely inadequate properly to maintain it. Although economy was 
practiced at every point, the unattractive and poorly adapted building, 
with the addition of one cottage, compared very unfavorably with the 
elegant modern buildings used by the Reform School, " where it must 
be a genuine pleasure for those who go there to remain, and a tempta- 
tion for them to commit offenses in order to gain admission." 
In 1896 the school was transferred to the control of the District of 
Columbia, as provided in the District appropriation act of June 11 
of that year, and the name was changed to the District of Columbia 
Industrial Home School. The Commissioners appointed as trustees 
Mrs. Huldah W. Blackford, Dr. James B. Hood, and Miss Mary A. 
McPherson, for one year; Messrs. William B. Curley, Bernard T. 
Janney, and James B. Nourse for two years; Mrs. Emily L. Nourse, 
Mr. J. B. T. Tupper, and Mr. J. Ormond Wilson for three years. Sub- 
sequently Mrs. Blackford and Dr. Hood were reappointed for three 
years, and Mrs. James M. Flint was appointed in place of Miss 
McPherson, who had resigned. Mr. J. Ormond Wilson was chosen 
president, and Mrs. Blackford secretary of the board. In 1897 (act of 
March 3), the sum of $30,000 was appropriated for a new building, 
now under construction. 
II. 
The St. Rose Industrial School, located at 2023 G street NW., was 
organized March 25, 1872, and incorporated July 20, 1895, under the 
act of May 24, 1828. It occupies lands 76 by 194 feet, valued at about 
$6,000, the title being in Sister Clara (Nora Maloney). The value of the 
buildings and their improvements is about $30,000, of which sum $20,000 
was given by Congress, and $2,500 was received from private gifts. 
The number of inmates on January 1, 1897, was 66, of whom 19 were 
received during the year, the capacity of the institution being 75. 
Twelve girls were restored to their parents or relatives during the 
year. Admissions are limited to white females 14 years of age. The 
income from Congressional appropriations for 1896 was $4,500, and the 
income from the work of the institution-dressmaking and plain and 
fine sewing-was $3,157.50, the total income being $8,185. There is an 
indebtedness of $3,845.86. The total cost of maintenance was $12,030.86. 
The school is in charge of Sister Clara, and receives orphan girls 
from St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum at the age of 14 and keeps them 
until 21, at which age they are expected to be trained in housekeeping, 
dressmaking, and sewing. After the girls attain the age of 21 employ- 
ment is found for them in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or 
other cities. If they are employed in the District they are supported 
'On May 4, 1885, Mr. Warner was succeeded as president by Mr. Charles E. Foster 
who in turn was succeeded by Mr. W. B. Gurley in 1890. 126 
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 
for one month; that is to say, they receive one month's wages in 
advance, and if they go to another city they are provided with a suf- 
ficient sum to keep them for a time. 
Since the school was established in 1872 it has been conducted by 
the Sisters of Charity, six of whom, with Sister Mariana as superior, 
are on duty at the industrial school, acting as instructors in domestic 
economy, plain sewing, practical housekeeping, and dressmaking in its 
different branches. A certain amount of time each day is devoted to 
study. Morning and evening prayers are conducted at the institution, 
and the Catholic inmates are required to attend church. 
III. 
The National Association for the Belief of Destitute Colored Women 
and Children was incorporated by the act of February 14, L"63, which 
provides that "Sayles J. Bowen, Daniel Breed, George E. Baker, their 
associates and successors, being members of said society, by paying 
into the treasury the sum of $2 annually, or life members by paying 
$50 at one time, are hereby made a body politic," for the purpose "of 
supporting such aged or indigent and destitute colored women and 
children as may properly come under the charge of such association; to 
provide them a suitable home, board, clothing, and instruction, and to 
bring them under Christian influence." The usual officers, together 
with a board of nine members, is constituted the executive committee 
to carry into effect the plans and purposes of the institution; and these 
officials are to be elected annually on the second Tuesday of January. 
The society is authorized to receive into a house or building provided 
for it any destitute child or children at the request of the parents or 
guardians, or next friend, or the mother, if the father be dead, or has 
abandoned his family, or does not provide for their support, or is an 
habitual drunkard, such parents, guardians, or next friend, or mother 
making a written surrender of such child or children. The superin- 
tendent or other officer in immediate charge may, with the concurrence 
of the executive committee, or of a board of trustees to be appointed 
by that committee (and to consist of three persons, citizens of Wash 
ington City), govern the inmates, preserve order, enforce discipline, 
impart instruction in useful knowledge and some regular course of 
labor, and establish rules for the preservation of health, and for their 
proper physical, intellectual, and moral improvement. The trustees 
also have the power, with the consent of the executive committee, to 
bind out by indenture such children " as may be deemed capable of 
learning trades or of becoming useful in other occupations to such per- 
sons as will give them the benefit of good examples, wholesome instruc- 
tion, and other means of improvement in virtue and knowledge, and 
the opportunity of becoming intelligent, moral, and useful members of 
society." 
Further, the association is empowered, by and with the advice and ST. ROSE'S INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL. J SITE CONFISCATED. 
127 
consent of the Secretary of War, to occupy any lands, not exceeding 
100 acres, and the improvements thereon, which the Government might 
then own or thereafter acquire, contiguous to the city of Washington, 
by confiscation or purchase, such occupation to continue for such a 
number of years as the Secretary of War may prescribe. 
The association met for the first time on March 15, 1863. The first 
effort of the management was to find a place suitable for the purposes 
of the work and at the same time liable to confiscation. After much 
inquiry such site was selected, and on June 1, 1863, by order of the 
Honorable E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, a house and grounds on the 
heights in Georgetown was set apart for the uses of the association. 
The extensive grounds, embracing about 80 acres, gave promise of help- 
ful recreation for the children, instruction for the youth, and a pleasant 
home for the aged. A matron was secured, and during the first six 
weeks 2 aged women and 62 children were admitted. Of this number, 
4 children were returned to their friends and 13 died. The want of 
house room prevented the admission of a larger number of aged people. 
Of the children, 12 were infants, and few of the entire number were in 
a healthy condition when admitted. The first teacher at the school was 
Miss Maria Mann, who soon had 37 pupils. The want of necessary 
room for so large a number of children compelled the erection of a tem- 
porary dining room, laundry, schoolroom, and dormitory in the form 
of barracks. The asylum received from the Secretary of War a lot of 
condemned hospital furniture and bedding; indeed, the supply was 
greater than the demand. The National Relief Association, of New 
York, gave $1,000 toward the enterprise, and contributions of clothing 
and provisions came from a number of the States. 
During the first year of the institution Mrs. Potter, of Wisconsin, 
and Mrs. Pomeroy, of Kansas, two of the originators of the enterprise, 
died. Mrs. Pomeroy was the president of the institution, and her 
death at that time was due to the fact that she remained in Washing- 
ton during a hot summer to aid in the work that she had started, and 
she would not cease her labors even after her final illness had begun. 
Mrs. Pomeroy was succeeded as president by Mrs. A. L. Hooper, of 
Boston, and Mrs. E. S. Grimes, the first vice-president, was succeeded 
by Mrs. A. M. Gangewer. Mrs. Webster, the wife of Dr. Webster, the 
first treasurer, resigned, and was succeeded by Mrs. W. R. Johnson. 
Mrs. Potter, the first secretary, was succeeded by Miss Emily How- 
land. The board of managers consisted of the following: Mrs. Henry 
Wilson, the wife of the Vice-President; Mrs. A. H. Gibbons, of New 
York; Miss M. A. Donaldson, Mrs. Louisa Howells, Mrs. George E. 
Baker, Mrs. C. C. Leighton, Mrs. Frederick T. Brown, of Washington; 
Miss Anna Nl. Hooper and Mrs. Samuel Wilkeson, of Boston. The 
committee on ways and means included: Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
then of Andover, Mass.; Miss Elizabeth Peabody and Mrs. Endicott, 
of Boston; Mrs. Eliza Randolph, Miss Margaret Robinson, and Mrs. 128 
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 
Passmore Williamson, of Philadelphia, Pa.; Mrs. Benjamin F. Wade, 
of Ohio; Mrs. Dawes Elliott, of New Bedford, Mass.; Miss Bright, of 
Madison, Wis.; Mrs. S. F. Headley, of New Jersey; Mrs. L. L. Rice, 
of Ohio; Mrs. E. 1). E. N. Southworth, of Georgetown; Mrs. John 
Jolliffe, of Washington; Mrs. H. Bridge, Mrs. G. Breed, and Mrs. H. D. 
Cooke, of Washington; Miss E. D. Thomas, of Union Springs, N. Y., 
and Miss Phebe Jane Howland, of Aurora, N. Y. 
The receipts for the first year were $3,470.68, all of which amount 
came from private sources, and a balance of $1,606.06 was carried 
forward to the next year. Much of the money collected for the support 
of the enterprise was gathered in the vicinity of Boston by Miss Pea- 
body and others. In 1864 Mrs. T. D. Elliott, of New Bedford, Mass., 
was made president. 
The report for the year 1865 relates that the committee on manage- 
ment, on assuming their duties at the beginning of the year, found at 
the home 47 children, 13 of whom were confined to their beds by illness, 
and the others, with few exceptions, were suffering from cutaneous and 
other diseases, caused by improper diet and want of cleanliness, the 
last named being a result in part of the lack of a supply of water on 
the premises. Water was introduced from the reservoir, and a com- 
plete change of diet and a new matron brought about a thorough refor- 
mation. In February Miss Robinson, sent as a volunteer teacher by 
the Freedman's Aid Society of Worcester, Mass., took charge of the 
school. Rations were supplied to the home during February through 
the influence of Senator Pomeroy and were continued by the order of 
Gen. (). O. Howard, in charge of the Freedmen's Bureau. In July a 
communication was presented to the trustees from R. S. Cox, asking 
that the association vacate the premises then occupied as the Home 
in consideration of receiving $1,060. This application resulted in the 
following letter being sent to the President of the United States: 
To His Excellency Andrew Johnson, 
Sir: Believing that the petition of Richard S. Cox, late of Georgetown, D. C., for 
pardon, has heen presented for your consideration, we beg respectfully to lay before 
you the following facts: Richard S. Cox, immediately previous to the rebellion, held 
a clerkship in the office of the Paymaster-General of the United States Army. In 
1861, when the employees of the Government were required to take the oath of alle- 
giance, he refused and left for the South without resigning his position. Mr. Cox 
held also the commission of colonel of the Eighth Regiment of the District Militia, 
having been placed there by Secretary Floyd just before the inauguration of Presi- 
dent Lincoln, in the place of Colonel Cruickshank, a man of undoubted loyalty and 
respectability. In the rebel service R. S. Cox held the rank of major until the sur- 
render of General Lee. After the abandonment of his property on Georgetown 
Heights it was, on representation of the facts, turned over by the Secretary of War 
to the lady managers of the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored 
Women and Children. Since their occupation there has been expended on the prem- 
ises nearly $3,000, while every care has been taken to keep the property in at least 
as good condition as when it was placed under the care of the association. In view 
of these facts, and also remembering the situation of the capital when Mr. Cox 
President of the United States. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE RELIEF OF DESTITUTE COLORED WOMEN AND CHILDREN. DISTINGUISHED DONORS. 
129 
deserted it-his position rendering this peculiarly disgraceful, without the excuse of 
State allegiance, which has been pleaded by so many-we beg leave earnestly and 
respectfully to protest against the restoration of this property; and, in conclusion, 
will add that these statements can be vouched for by parties of undoubted respect- 
ability if required. 
Most respectfully submitted by your obedient servants. 
Mrs. M. C. Hart, Vice-President; 
Mrs. Germond Crandell, Treasurer; 
Mrs. W. L. Nicholson, Secretary, 
of National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children. 
In September an order was obtained from the Attorney-General for 
the District attorney to proceed with the confiscation of the property, 
but difficulty was experienced in obtaining the necessary information 
for the purpose of securing condemnation, and application was made to 
the Freedmen's Bureau for the postponement of action on the applica- 
tion of Mr. Cox for pardon. 
In June, 1866, the President of the United States granted a pardon 
to Richard S. Cox, the owner of the property that had been for nearly 
three years occupied by an asylum, and on August 17 General Howard 
informed the management that the President had requested him to 
procure a place for the orphans in order to restore the estate to Mr. 
Cox. Two months were granted by the President during which to make 
the removal. Five lots of land on Eighth street, west of the northern 
boundary of the city, were then purchased from Mr. Wright for the 
sum of $2,500. On this site a building was erected by the Freedmen's 
Bureau, designed to accommodate 225 inmates. Into this unfinished 
building the orphans were driven from the asylum by the former owner, 
who, on taking possession, dismantled the dwelling of doors and win- 
dows, removed the furniture, and made it unsafe for the occupants to 
remain. Mr. Cox, not satisfied with receiving a pardon and regaining 
possession of his place, sued the association for damages done to the 
property to the amount of $10,000. 
During 1867, among the donations mentioned was $282.50, the pro- 
ceeds of the sale of an afghan presented by Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, 
and $14.75, the proceeds of a portfolio, flag, and watch case, coming 
from the same source. The Bangor (Me.) Freedmen's Aid Association 
paid the salary of a teacher for thirteen months ($325), and the sale 
of a ship presented by the Hon. George T. Brown, Sergeant-at-Arms of 
the Senate, brought $125. In all, the donations for that year amounted 
to $5,142.50. It was not until 1869 that the Government contributed 
to the support of the institution. Since that time, however, appropria- 
tions have been made regularly for its maintenance. So far as can be 
learned, the presidents of the association from its beginning have 
been as follows: 1863, Mrs. Pomeroy, of Kansas; Mrs. A. L. Ilooper, of 
Boston; 1864, Mrs. T. D. Elliott, of New Bedford, Mass.; 1865, Miss 
Margaret Robinson, of Philadelphia; 1866, Mrs. Benjamin F. Wade, 
of Ohio; 1869, Mrs. S. C. Pomeroy, of Kansas. 
7260 9 130 
THE NEWSBOYS AND CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY. 
The annual report of the National Association for the Relief of 
Destitute Colored Women and Children for the year ending January 
1, 1897, states that that was the first year since the establishment of 
the Home in which there had been no death. The schools were stated 
to be doing good work under experienced teachers. Miss Storum, the 
industrial teacher for fifteen years, resigned and died during the year. 
Eighteen children left the school during 1896. Of these, 7 boys and 
3 girls were indentured, 2 boys and 2 girls were adopted, and 4 girls 
were returned to parents. The supervision of children placed in fami- 
lies was kept up as well as possible with the facilities that the school 
was able to command. In several cases during the year children were 
transferred to other homes with good results. The report states that 
quite a number of those who left the school, on being indentured, 
return to Washington when the term of their indenture expires. In 
the industrial room the public-school methods of sewing with graded 
classes was introduced, with the result of decreasing the number of 
garments made by the scholars, in comparison with former years, but 
with a betterment in the character of the work. 
Carpentering was carried on at the Home during the summer, but no 
plans have been formed for continuing this branch of work all the year 
round. The Home receives a certain number of the wards of the Board 
of Children's Guardians. The cost of maintenance for the year was 
$10,117.90. The direct appropriation was $9,900, and the Home received 
from the Board of Children's Guardians $1,425.66. With the excep- 
tion of $22.30, the school derived its entire support from public moneys. 
The whole number of dependents in the institution on January 1, 1897, 
was: Women, 10; boys, 51; girls, 38; total, 99. The officers for 1897 were 
President, Mrs. M. S. Pomeroy, who has occupied the position since 
1869; Miss L. S. Swan, vice-president; Mrs. B. G. Francis, treasurer; 
Mrs. A. M. Purvis, secretary; Mesdames E. G. Dole, A. M. Edgar, A. P. 
Shadd, H. A. Cook, L. S. Doolittle, J. W. Scudder, H. M. Hatch, M. L. 
Meriwether, F. T. Baxter, board of managers; Mr. John F. Cook, Dr. C. 
B. Purvis, and Mr. F. L. Grimke, trustees; MissC. L. Franklin, matron; 
Miss IL E. Hood, assistant matron; Miss N. A. Plummer, Miss Eleanor 
Robinson, Miss SarahF. Bullard, teachers; Mrs. A. E. Williams, kinder- 
garten teacher; Dr. James M. Wilder, physician. 
IV. 
The Newsboys and Children's Aid Society was organized on January 
24, 1885, by a few persons who realized the necessity of such an insti- 
tution, among them being the late Chief Justice Waite and the late 
Justice Miller, of the Supreme Court of the United States. It began 
operations in a part of a room occupied by the Humane Society, and at 
first confined its benefactions to the newsboys of the city. During thu 
twelve years of its existence the society has grown from its small 
beginnings until now it owns a site 60 by 125 feet, at the corner of THE NEWSBOYS' AND CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY. G RA TIFYING GR O WTH. 
131 
Third and C streets NW., on which is a valuable house. The land and 
building are worth about $25,500. Also at the rear of the property is 
a new and excellently equipped gymnasium, over which is a hall used 
as a schoolroom, all built at a cost of $5,500. Fn this building are 15 
sleeping rooms for the accommodation of the boys who desire a bed for 
the night. Newsboys to the number of from 125 to 150 use the institu- 
tion as an evening gathering place, where they receive instruction both 
mentally in the school and reading rooms, and physically in the gym- 
nasium. There are also bathrooms for the use of the boys. The 
gymnasium was opeued on October 27,1896, with appropriate exercises, 
including addresses by Justice Harlan, Postmaster-General Wilson, 
Dr. Gallaudet, and Dr. Makay-Smith, the president of the board of 
trustees. The institution is known as the George Maulsby Memorial 
Home. The land was given and the buildings were secured within the 
limit of the legacy of Mrs. Anna M. Maulsby, amounting to $30,000.' 
Children are taken to the home by destitute mothers, by the Board 
of Children's Guardians, or by the police. As the children are gener- 
ally at the Home but a limited time, they are not sent to the public 
schools, but are instructed in the fundamental branches by the assist- 
ant superintendent. Singing lessons, given in the evening, are shared 
by the newsboys. The older children arc placed at service, as far as 
possible; and those who earn wages pay something into the home treas- 
ury. There are 15 rooms, 5 by 9 feet, devoted to the occupancy of 
this class of boys. The cost of furnishing a room is $18, a single bed, 
a chair and table, a mirror and a strip of carpet constituting the fur- 
nishings. Small as the rooms are, each has a closet. The room belongs 
to the boy so long as he complies with the conditions and rules of the 
house. 
In the main building there are 45 beds. The cost of furnishing is $15 
each. Thirteen of these have already been furnished by the following 
friends: Miss Dixon one, in the name of Elsa Welling; Mrs. J. C. Well 
ing one, in the name of Willie Welling; Mrs. Clover two, in the names 
of her two little daughters Dora and Beatrice; Mrs. McLanahan one, 
in the names of Kosalie and Sherwood S. Day; Major Jacobs's "three 
boys" one; and one each by Mrs. Chute, Mrs. Myers, Rev. Mr. and 
Mrs. Howell, Mr. C. Lawrence Perkins; Mrs. Marcus Kimball, of Bos- 
ton, in the name of her little boy Day Kimball; and two by Miss 
Welsh, of Philadelphia. 
Ladies of the society, aided by able volunteer workers, have spent 
1 The codicil to the will of Mrs. Maulsby is as follows: 
March 23, 1892. 
I bequeath thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) to the "Newsboys' " and "Children's 
Aid Society," for the erection of a suitable building for the use and accommodation 
of the children and newsboys befriended by that society. This building is to be 
denominated " The George Maulsby Memorial Home," in memory of my husband. 
Anna M. Maulsby. 
Ida Corson, Witness. 132 
THE NEWSBOYS AND CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY. 
many evenings in entertaining and instructing the boys, and have 
reported large and increasing attendance at the meetings. Two friends 
have furnished the reading room with rugs, reading table, eight chairs, 
three rocking-chairs, window shades, muslin curtains, and brass rods. 
This room is kept open throughout the day for any idle newsboy. 
Twelve of the bedrooms in the new building have been furnished by 
the following: Dr. Mackay-Smith three, one in the name of each of his 
daughters, Virginia, Helen, and Gladys; Mrs. Murray Addison one; 
through Mrs. Gallaudet one, and the "Phemus" Club one, and one each 
by Miss Ward, Mr. II. B. F. Macfarland, Mrs. Hagner, Mrs. E. Berg- 
land, of Baltimore, Md.; Dr. II. M. Skillman, of Lexington, Ky.; and 
Mrs. G. W. Richardson. Four more beds in the main building have 
also been taken, one by Mrs. E. N. Waters as a memorial bed, and three 
by Mrs. Cunningham in the names of her three little grandchildren, 
Cecil, Machlin, and Jane Chester. 
Donations have been made for the furnishing of the gymnasium, as 
follows: Miss Corson, $50; Mrs. McLanahan, $25; Mrs. Cunningham, 
$10: Mrs. Heald, $5; Mrs. Dr. Richardson, $5; Rev. Mr. Cornell, $3; 
Airs. Leiter, $5; Miss Ward, $5; Mrs. John Hay, $5; General Whit- 
tlesey, $5, and the Evening Star Newspaper Company, $100. Mrs. 
Teel has given $5 toward the expenses of a teacher for the gymnasium. 
About half of the children in the home are wards of the board of 
children's guardians. The superintendent, Miss B. Mordaunt Wilson, 
says: 
We never have at any time refused to admit any of the wards. I emphasize this, 
because it is worthy of notice that at any hour they may come to us, and at any age; 
and only when I have reason to believe they have been living for a long time immoral 
lives, have I advised that special provision be made for them at some suitable place; 
but I have kept them always till the agent of the board of children's guardians had 
made suitable preparation for them, though it has been necessary in dealing with 
such eases to give a room intended for perhaps six children to the one special ward 
of the board, and I have often had three rooms at a time used solely for such cases. 
No child has ever been refused admittance to our home because he could be classed 
among bad boys. Whenever I have thought a girl or boy was not showing the 
improvement to be expected after a course of training, I have invariably reported it 
to those specially interested in that case. I have not considered the bearing on my 
own methods, but wholly the child's good. I have rarely so failed; but when a girl 
or boy reaches 15 years of age undisciplined, untrained, fifteen years in which he or 
she has been allowed untrammeled liberty, then it is a question how much we can 
really help such. Help them back to the innocence of childhood? Never! But 
help them we may to gain something of manhood or womanhood; something of 
decency and honesty and uprightness; and of such sad cases we may say they ought 
not to be placed where there are many young children. 
During the year ending October 31, 1896, the home served 10,252 
free meals, and 3,412 free lodgings, 23,959 meals partly paid for, and 
7,982 lodgings partly paid for. The receipts for the year ending 
November 13,1896, were $4,910.95, of which sum $2,235.41 was paid by 
the board of children's guardians; $500 was one-half of the $1,000 
appropriated by Congress, and $352 was paid by children boarding in THE GERMAN ORPHAN ASYLUM. 
133 
the home. The cash donations amounted to $569.50, and the member- 
ship subscriptions to $377.50. The donations of clothing and provisions 
were very numerous. The society has 12 life members (including 3 
present members and 3 ex-members of the Senate) Avho have con- 
tributed $50 each; 28 sustaining members who pay $5 a year, and over 
100 members who pay $1 annually.1 
V. 
On August 31,1879, the congregation of the German Lutheran Church 
"Concordia" made an appeal to the German-American citizens of the 
District of Columbia for the erection of a German orphan asylum that 
should be nonsectarian in its character. Within a month from the time 
the appeal issued the undertaking was upon a solid basis, and on Sep- 
tember 20, 1879, the asylum was incorporated under the general incor- 
poration act. A site, comprising 32 acres of ground, was secured on 
Good Hope Hill, Anacostia, at a cost of 820,000, one-half of which sum 
was given by the Government. After the ground had been purchased 
and the original building had been erected, it was found that the title 
to the property was defective. The attorney who examined the matter 
had overlooked a very important fact, in consequence of which an addi- 
tional payment was required. The Government, having made the 
selection of the attorney who examined the title, paid one-half the addi- 
tional amount. Of the twelve directors elected in September, 1879, and 
who witnessed the opening of the asylum on the 13th of October of the 
same year, Dr. John Walter and William and Louis Kettler are still 
members of the board. 
The earlyrecords of the asylum are not available; but it appears that 
in 1884 the president was Louis Kettler; the vice-president, Charles 
Graff; the secretary, Maj. J. E. Weyss; the treasurer, John L. Vogt, 
and the financial secretary, Gustave Hartig. In 188G Mr. Kettler was 
succeeded as president by Jacob Jose, who now occupies that position. 
During the first nine years of its existence the German Orphan 
Asylum furnished a home for 139 orphan children. A considerable 
'The officers are: President, Mrs. T. S. Childs; vice-presidents, Mrs. Teller, Mrs. 
McCulloch, Mrs. Cunningham, Mrs. McLanahan, Mrs. Gallaudet, Mrs. Myers. Mrs. 
Hamlin, Mrs. Armes, Mrs. J. C. Breckinridge, Mis. Mackay-Smith, Miss Corson; 
recording secretary, Mrs. R. H. Atwater; corresponding secretary, Mrs. N. A. Robbins; 
treasurer, Mrs. I. F. Macfarlaud; auditors, Mr. J. B. T. Tupper, Miss F. G. Childs; 
superintendent of home, Miss B. M. Wilson; attending physician and surgeon, 
Dr. A. R. Shands. 
The members of corporation are: Crosby S. Noyes, Edward M. Gallaudet, James K. 
McCammon, Thomas S. Childs, Alex. Mackay-Smith, Henry B. F. Macfarland, George 
W. McLanahan, Mary H. Myers, Henrietta C. Metzerott, Mary E. Hood, Mrs. George 
W. Childs, Rose A. Foster. Jane L. Childs, Artemisia H. Thomas, Helen W. King. 
The board of trustees are : Alex. Mackay-Smith, D. D., president; T. S. Childs, D.D., 
vice-president; E. M. Gallaudet, LL. D., Crosby S. Noyes, Airs. G. AV. McLanahan, 
Mrs. M.E. C. Wilbur, Miss Ida Corson ; H. B. F. Macfarland, secretary; J. B. Wight, 
treasurer. 134 
THE GERMAN ORPHAN ASYLUM. 
number of these children attended the public schools of Anacostia, 
others receiving instruction in the asylum. During its early years the 
asylum had no established funds, but was dependent on the liberality 
and the generosity of the people, by whose gifts it was maintained. 
Two ladies' societies were organized to assist the directors, both in the 
government of the institution and in the matter of raising money. 
Dr. J. Stewart Harrison, of Anacostia, and Dr. Walter acted as the 
attending physicians. 
Having at its command a large amount of land, the products of the 
farm each year were considerable in the shape of chickens, eggs, milk, 
butter, fruits, and vegetables. The bakers and butchers of the Dis- 
trict made large donations of bread and meat, and among the gifts in 
1888 is an item of $100, four turkeys, ice cream, and cakes from Mr. 
W. W. Corcoran; and hundreds of German citizens made contribu- 
tions of articles useful in the institution. 
In 1889 the directors announced to the society that the resolution, 
passed ten years before, to erect a fireproof building well adapted to 
the requirements of an orphan asylum was near its accomplishment. 
Generous donations from individuals and an appropriation of $19,090 
by Congress enabled the work to be started during that year. The 
building committee consisted of Messrs. Simon Wolf, John L. Vogt, 
Anton Eberly, Jacob Jose, and .John E. Weyss, and the architect was 
Mr. C. A. Didden. The building has a front of 100 feet by a depth of 
52 feet, and contains accommodations for 80 children. It was placed 
in front of the old building, which was made an addition to the new. 
The supervision of the new structure was in charge of Messrs. George 
J. Seufferle, J. L. Vogt, Charles Huppert, A. Eberly, J. J. Appich, 
Charles Mades, Simon Wolf, J. Jose, Maj. J.E. Weyss, and Mesdames 
E. Posche and R. Botsch, representing the ladies' societies. The con- 
tract for building was intrusted to Mr. William Lawson, and the corner 
stone was laid with appropriate ceremonies in the presence of a large 
gathering on February 9, 1890. The cost of the entire building was 
$30,601.75, of which amount Congress gave in all $16,000, the remainder 
coming from private contributions. Among the larger subscriptions 
were: Mrs. George W. Utermehle, $2,009; C. Henrich, $1,909; C. H. It. 
Ruppert, $599; George J. Seufferle, $500; Jacob Jose, $400; Anton 
Eberly, $350; John L.Vogt, $300; Simon Wolf, $200; Dr. J. Walter,jr., 
$200; Albert Carey, $200; W. B. Moses & Son, $200; Andrius Loeffler, 
$200. The furnishings of the new asylum were supplied by the Ladies' 
Aid Society and the Ladies' Sewing Society. 
On November 12, 1890, Mr. Charles Graff, who had been the vice 
president of the institution since its organization, succeeded to the 
presidency. Mr. Christian Ruppert, who was one of the organizers of 
the movement and who had been on the board of trustees from the 
beginning, died on AugustO, 1891, and his interest in the institution 
was shown by a legacy of $5,000. During the same year the asylum THE GERMAN ORPHAN ASYLUM 
THE GERMAN ORPHAN ASYLUM DONATIONS TO THE ASYLUM. 
135 
lost, through death, the services of Mrs. Caroline Wolf, the wife of Mr. 
Simon Wolf, who is mentioned in the report as "a true and steadfast 
guardian of the institution, and a warm-hearted, kind, and open-handed 
friend of the children." During this year also fourteen children were 
admitted, regardless of nationality, upon the recommendation of Mr. S. 
Wilson, the agent of the Humane Society of the District, and during 
the year ending December 30, 1892, nine others were admitted at the 
request of Mr. Wilson, only one of whom was of German descent. 
During the year 1892 the association found it necessary to restrict 
visiting to one afternoon a week. "For years," says the report, "peo- 
ple were accustomed to find on the other side of the river, on Anacostia's 
'Good Hope Hill,' an open house, ready and willing to receive and enter- 
tain at any day of the week, Sundays included. Valuable time, etc., 
properly belonging to the asylum and the children, was thus devoted 
to visitors and friends of former employees without any scruples or 
reflections of wrong." 
During the same year a legacy of $5,000 was received from Mr. George 
J. Seufferle, in addition to the gift of $1,000 from the same gentleman 
during the previous year. Also through the kindness of Mr. S. Zickle, 
a New York bookseller and publisher,-the institution received a valu- 
able contribution of German literature. 
During the fiscal year 1894 the asylum lost two of its most steadfast 
friends by the death of Mr. John L. Vogt and Mr. Gustave Hartig. 
Mr. Vogt bequeathed to the institution $1,000. During the fiscal year 
1896 Mr. Jacob Jose was again elected president, in place of Mr. Charles 
Graff, who declined reelection. The membership list of the association 
numbered 160 persons, each paying $5 a year toward the support of the 
institution. The asylum closed the year with a population of 42, 22 of 
whom were boys and 20 girls. Nine children left the asylum to be 
returned to surviving parents, relatives, or guardians. Those inmates 
who had arrived at school age attended the public schools of Anacostia 
and Good Hope Hill. The receipts for the year amounted $4,371.55 
and the expenses to $3,630.92, leaving a balance of $740.63. The Con- 
gressional appropriation for the year was $1,800. The interest on the 
legacy of Mr. George J. Seufferle amounted to $360, and there was 
interest from the building association amounting to $237.14. Delegate 
fees of $25 each were received from the Arminius Lodge, the Butchers' 
Association, the Germania Maennerchor, and the Washington Saenger- 
bund. The invested funds of the association amounted to $9,419. 
The officers for the year were as follows: President, Jacob Jose; 
vice-president, Fred. Imhof; secretary, Edward W. Koch; treasurer, 
E. F. Treiber. Board of directors: Jac. J. Appich, Geo. J. Bessler, 
Geo. Breitbarth, C. A. Didden, Chas. Graff, Chris. Henrich, Fred. 
Imhof, J. Jose, Louis Kettler, Wm. Kettler, Werner Koch, Chas. 
Mades, Chas. G. Rogier, John F. Schneider, Geo. J. Seufferle, E. F. 
Treiber, John Walter, M. D., Simon Wolf. Delegates: Ladies' Aid 136 
THE GERMAN ORPHAN ASYLUM. 
Society, Mrs. Rosa Botsch; Ladies' Sewing Society, Mrs. M. De Grain; 
Butchers' Benevolent Association, Chas. Schroth; Washington Saen- 
gerbund, Jos. Colignon; Arminius Lodge, No. 25, F. A. A. M., Win. F. 
Meyers; Germania Maennerchor, B. F. Schubert. Superintendent, 
Henry Ermold; matron, Mrs. Elizabeth Ermold. Ladies'Aid Society: 
President, Mrs. Rosa Botsch; first vice-president, Mrs. C. Barthel; 
second vice-president, Mrs. W. Dunkhorst; recording secretary, Mrs. 
R. Kettler; financial secretary, Mrs. M. Boettcher; treasurer, Mrs. C. 
Schaefer. Ladies' Sewing Society: Honorary president, Mrs. Emma 
Poesche; president, Mrs. M. De Grain; first vice-president, Mrs. W. 
Muehleisen; second vice-president, Mrs. L. Sondheimer; secretary, 
Mrs. Bertha Caron; treasurer, Mrs. Emma Klakring. THE WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, CHAPTER X. 
INSTITUTIONS FOR WOMEN. 
THE Women's Christian Association was incorporated under the gen- 
eral incorporation laws of the District of Columbia on December 
13, 1870, by Mrs. William Stickney, Mrs. John C. Smith, Mrs. Z. 
Richards, Mrs. S. C. Jones, Mrs. George A. Hall, Mrs. J. C. Lewis, 
Mrs. H. 1). Barr, Mrs. C. A. Weed, Mrs. H. Pitts, and Mrs. N. J. 
Whitney, the object of the association being to afford relief and aid to 
the destitute, work for those seeking employment, homes for the home- 
less, sympathy for the friendless, to reform and restore the fallen, and 
to bestow such Christian benevolence upon the needy as their means 
would allow. 
Beginning with a small house in the central part of the city, which 
was opened for the protection of young girls who sought a Christian 
home, the association removed to the old hospital buildings on Judi- 
ciary Square, the use of which was granted by Congress. These quar- 
ters were comfortably lifted up, enabling the association to enlarge its 
work by taking aged women and little children to care for. Employ- 
ment rooms were opened, and many worthy poor were helped by sewing 
given out and homes found. These rooms were afterwards closed for 
want of funds, and were not reopened because the Associated Charities 
provided for that class of work. From Judiciary Square the associa- 
tion moved to its present location on Thirteenth street, between R and 
S streets, where it occupied hospital buildings until by the aid of 
Congress a building was erected suited to its needs. 
The report of the Women's Christian Association for 1874 announces 
that the association has a large and suitable piece of ground, free from 
encumbrances, on which co erect a home building, and presents thanks 
to Congress for the appropriation of $25,000. Through the employ- 
ment committee, relief was afforded to 211 women during the year, 52 
being employed in the sewing rooms, and the remainder being supplied 
with work at their homes. During the year the receipts of this com- 
mittee, from labor, materials, sales, donations, and the proceeds of a 
festival, amounted to about $3,000, while the expenditures were about 
$4,500. Seventy-five children were cared for. The officers were Mrs. 
William Stickney, president, and Mrs. Thomas Wilson and Laura Sun 
derland, secretaries. 
137 138 
WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIA TION. 
The act of June 23,1874, appropriates $25,000 for the Women's Chris- 
tian Association of the District of Columbia, to be expended for the 
sole purpose of erecting a building on the ground owned by the asso- 
ciation, in conformity with a plan to be prepared by the architect of 
the Capitol extension, which building, together with its furnishing, 
should not exceed the sum of $25,0(H). The Secretary of the Treasury 
was required to be satisfied that the contract entered into for the erec- 
tion and furnishing of the building should not exceed that sum, 
and all payments were to be made by the Secretary of the Treasury 
directly upon vouchers to be approved by him. The association was 
required to file with the recorder of deeds in the District of Columbia 
a declaration that the building and lands on which it was erected should 
forever be held in trust for the association, without mortgage or security 
in the nature of a mortgage, for the sole purposes of the association as 
defined in its charter, of date December 13, 1870; and the filing of this 
declaration shall be regarded as notice to all persons who shall pur- 
chase the property or take any security thereon. The building was 
erected and paid for from the Treasury Department in 1875 and 1876. 
In 1884 the managers of the association were Mrs. Justice Strong, 
president; Mrs. S. C. Pomeroy, Mrs. E. M. Gallaudet, Mrs. J. W. 
Thompson, Mrs. Admiral Jdhn Rodgers, Mrs. William Stickney, Mrs. 
Le Droit Langdon, and Mrs. J. G. Ames, vice-presidents; Mrs. C. A. 
Weed, secretary; Miss Josephine Chester, treasurer; Mrs. C. B. Jewell, 
register. Mrs. S. C. Pomeroy was chairman of the reception committee, 
Mrs. S. B. French of the home committee, Mrs. T. P. Keene of the 
foster home committee, Mrs. M. A. Copenhaver, of the visiting com- 
mittee, and Mrs. B. R. Catlin of the devotional committee. The 
medical officers were Dr. Mary Parsons and Mrs. Dr. M. D. Spackman, 
and the consulting physician was Dr. J. Tabor Johnson. The officers 
of the Women's Exchange were Mrs. A. P. Westcott, chairman; Miss 
F. Woods, vice-chairman; Miss F. E. Chickering, secretary; Miss E. 
Alley, corresponding secretary, and Miss M. Ballantyne, treasurer. 
The report of the home for the year 1883 states that for several years 
the managers have been considering the feasibility of establishing a 
Women's Exchange, having for its foundation the true principle of 
bringing into higher estimation the ordinary avocations of women by 
making it possible for her to receive a proper remuneration for her 
work. Snch an exchange was established during the year. One hun- 
dred and thirty five women were cared for, besides 12 infants in the 
nursery. Forty-two women had found places to work, and a few who 
were trying to care for themselves were accommodated at the home at 
a low rate of board. In the Foster Home there were 17 children at the 
beginning of the year and 32 at the close of the year, the average 
being 26. A kindergarten was established. The Government appro- 
priation was $5,000, and the total receipts were $8,559.26. 
The report of the operations of the association for 1896 show that 385 THE YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRhSTIAN HOME. YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN HOME. 
139 
adults and 23 children were admitted from the following States and 
countries: From California, 3; Colorado,!; Connecticut, 3; Delaware, 
3; District of Columbia, 50; Florida, 1; Georgia, 10; Illinois, 1; Ken- 
tucky, 2; Maine, 4; Maryland, 34; Massachusetts, 31; Missouri, 2; 
New Hampshire, 3; New Jersey, 5; New York, 26; North Carolina, 3; 
Ohio, 7; Pennsylvania, 35; Rhode Island, 1; Texas, 2; Vermont, 2; 
Virginia, 101; Wisconsin, 1. From other nationalities: Canada, 1; 
Denmark,!; England, 5; France, 1; Germany, 12; India,!; Ireland, 
25; Mexico, 5; Nova Scotia, 1; Sweden, 1; Switzerland, 1; making a 
total of 406 women and children cared for during the year 1896. 
There have been 18,760 lodgings furnished; of these 5,692 were free; 
56,828 meals were served, of which 16,874 were free. The largest num- 
ber in the Home at any one time was in the months of July and Septem- 
ber, when it cared for 67. Besides Protestants of all denominations, 
there have been in the Home during the year 26 or more Roman Cath- 
olics. Some important changes looking toward the greater comfort of 
the inmates were made in the building during the last summer. Six 
large bedrooms were divided into 12 smaller ones, thereby giving to 
the occupants greater independence and privacy. An unusually large 
number of persons were seeking employment, and the home was able 
to send 84 into various positions, some as children's nurses, others as 
waitresses, housekeepers, and cooks. The visiting committee dis- 
tributed $300 of the association fund during the year 1896, besides 
numerous bequests of money from private sources, all of which was 
used to pay rent or provide food and fuel for 250 families, each and 
every case being investigated before assistance was rendered; 350 visits 
were made; 800 garments given out; Christmas and Thanksgiving 
dinners were sent to several homes by and through the influence of the 
different committees. Homes were found for 4 children and employ- 
ment for 13 persons. The Congressional appropriation was $4,000 and 
the receipts (including $2,616.08) were $4,365.95. 
The board of managers for 1897 was as follows: President, Mrs. John 
M. Harlan; vice-presidents, Mrs. Melville W. Fuller, Mrs. Henry B. 
Brown, Mrs. George Shiras, jr., Mrs. S. C. Pomeroy, Mrs. Thomas 
Wilson, Mrs. Jeannie K. Stickney, Mrs. G. O. Little, Mrs. W. C. Hill, 
Mrs. John Dalzell, Mrs. E. Whittlesey; secretary, Mrs. Walter L. Clift; 
treasurer, Mrs. Delia A. Freeman; register, Mrs. N. A. Robbins. 
II. 
The act of February 23, 1886, incorporating the board of trustees of 
the Young Women's Christian Home names as incorporators Mary G. 
Wilkinson, Benjamin II. Warder, Octavius Knight, Thomas P. Morgan, 
Eliza N. Blair, Emma E. Dorsey, Nathaniel Wilson, Francis II. Smith, 
A. J. Falls, It. D. Mussey, E. 1). Powell, Caroline M. Lawrence, Francis 
E. Childs, H. A. Hall, Elphonzo Youngs, and Addison M. Smith, and 
limits the object, purposes, and powers of the corporation to " providing 140 
YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN HOME. 
temporary home for young women coming to and being in the District 
of Columbia, who shall, from any cause, be in want of and willing to 
accept temporary home, care, and assistance in the said District. For 
this purpose the corporation has power to take and enjoy real and per- 
sonal property, endowments, and contributions for the establishment, 
maintenance, and success of the institution; and also to acquire, take, 
hold, use, occupy, manage, and own real estate in the said District, 
not exceeding in its appraised value the sum of $200,000/' 
The home has been in operation since 1887, occupying premises No. 
311 C street NW., the gift of Miss Kibbie. The lands are worth about 
$10,000 and the buildings about $20,000, on which there is a trust of 
$8,550 (involving an annual interest charge of $612), the debt being 
incurred for improvements necessary to adapt the house to the purposes 
of a home. For the past four years the home has received an annual 
appropriation of $1,000 from Congress, and in 1896 the total receipts 
were $4,793.86, including $2,901.23 paid by inmates. The home has 18 
life members who have paid $100, 15 honorary members who have paid 
$25, a sustaining membership of 79 who pay $5 annually; also, it 
receives the proceeds of various entertainments, besides gifts of money, 
provisions, and clothing. The age limit is from 16 to 35 years, and 
there are accommodations for 35 girls. On January 1,1897, there were 
24 inmates, of whom 18 had been admitted during the year. 
The work of the institution during 1896 was as follows: 
Free meals served 7, 759 
Meals paid for at half rates , 19, 254 
Meals worked for 2,104 
Salaried employees 4,315 
Free lodgings 2, 491 
Lodgings paid for 6,446 
Number of persons cared for 379 
Number for whom employment was found 98 
The officers for the current year are: President, Mrs. W. B. Gurley; 
vice-presidents, Miss S. A. Lipscomb, Aliss Anna Shellabarger, Mrs. 
Richard Pairo, Miss Charlotte Campbell; treasurer, Mrs. W. W. Herron; 
corresponding secretary, Mrs. H. L. Howland; board of trustees, Miss 
S. A. Lipscomb, Miss Anna A. Shellabarger, Mrs. W. W. Herron, Mrs. 
G. C. Hazleton, Mrs. Hariet L. Howland, Miss Haupt, Mrs. Richard 
Pairo, Miss Carrie Morgan, Miss Charlotte Campbell, Mrs. Van Rensse 
laer, Miss Susie Johnston, Mrs. I. F. Macfarland, Mrs. L. Y. Baker, 
Mrs. Eaton, Miss Agnes Kennedy, Mrs. M. E. M. Dunn, Mrs. C. H. 
Nichols, Mrs. Roberdeau Buchanan, Mrs. S. D. Yoemans, Dr. Ida Hei- 
berger, Mrs. C. L. Marlatt, Mrs. Charles Christiani, Mrs. James T. Young, 
Mrs. F. M. Matheson, Mrs. Walter Wheatley, Miss Miller, Mrs. Philip J. 
Ryan,Mrs. William B. Gurley; advisory board, Dr. Byron Sunderland, 
Mr. W. IL Hoeke, General Eaton, Mr.J.B. Larner, Dr.Randolph McKim. THE house of the good shepherd, HOUSE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 
141 
III. 
The House of the Good Shepherd, located at the corner of Thirty- 
sixth and T streets, West Washington, was organized August 16, 
1883, and incorporated March 6, 1884. The home was opened by a 
delegation of Sisters of the Good Shepherd from Baltimore, in the 
dwelling house on Ninth street formerly occupied by Admiral Smith. 
The house was given to the organization by the late Miss Anna E. 
Smith, the daughter of the admiral. Miss Smith interested Miss 
Alice Riggs and others of her friends, and a corporation was formed. 
The lands now occupied consist of all of block 133 in Burleith Addition 
to West Washington, and are valued at $25,000, the title being in the 
Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Buildings to the value of $36,500 and 
other improvements to the extent of $13,600 are upon the land. Of 
this amount, Congress appropriated $23,000 for lands, and from private 
sources came a house and lots, No. 1017 Ninth street northwest, which 
were sold for the sum of $30,000. The home can accommodate about 
100 inmates. Of the inmates of the institution during the year, 4 
were placed in other homes, 35 were restored to parents or relatives, 
and 6 left voluntarily. While the privileges of the institution are 
not confined to residents of the District, all of the inmates during the 
past year, with the exception of 8 belonged to the District. White 
females are admitted without regard to religious affiliation. 
During 1896 the house received $2,700 from Congressional appropri- 
tions and $282.93 from the Board of Children's Guardians for wards 
placed in the institution. The income from private gifts amounted to 
$116.25, besides which there were received $2,770.05 from sewing done 
by the inmates and a legacy of $1,000 from Miss Anna E. Smith, 
making the total income $6,869.23. There is an indebtedness of $25,000 
on the home, involving an interest charge of $131.67 annually. The 
only salary paid is for one man. The cost of maintenance equals the 
receipts, including the Congressional appropriations. 
The institution was established for the reformation of fallen and 
unfortunate females who might apply for admission or who are sent to 
the house by the courts, and for the preservation of young girls and 
children who, from dangerous surroundings or through want of proper 
paternal care, are exposed to the danger of being led astray. The 
home maintains two departments-the reformatory and the preserva- 
tion class. The principal income is derived from all kinds of needle- 
work, from plain shop work to the finest sewing and embroidery. Chil- 
dren are instructed in the rudimentary branches. 
IV. 
The Florence Crittenten Hope and Help Mission, located at 218 
Third street northwest, was organized in 1888 and incorporated in 1895 
under the general incorporation act of the District of Columbia. The 142 
THE FLORENCE CRITTENTEN MISSION. 
mission occupies one large five-story building on lands valued at 
$18,000, the property having been purchased for that sum. Mr. Crit- 
tenten gave $8,000 toward the purchase, and the remainder is still to 
be paid. During the year 1896, 397 persons were admitted and 231 
were discharged, leaving 20 in the institution on January 1, 1897, the 
highest number accommodated at one time being 40. Twelve children, 
with their mothers, were placed in homes during the year, and the 
number of deaths was 4. Any homeless or fallen woman can obtain 
admission to the home. The institution is connected with no religious 
denomination, but is one of the Florence Crittenten homes that have 
been established through the work of Mr. C. N. Crittenten in various 
cities in the country, including San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, Nash- 
ville, Chattanooga, Asheville; Portland, Oreg.; Norfolk, Ogden, Utah, 
and Salt Lake City. 
Daring the year 1896 the home received $1,000 from Congressional 
appropriations, $400 from Mr. Crittenten, $2,996.23 from collections 
and monthly subscriptions, besides contributions of groceries amount- 
ing to about $300, and furniture to the amount of $100. The matron 
is paid $15 a month, and all other services are given. The cost of main- 
tenance is about $3,500, which includes the expenses of girls in con- 
finement and sending them home, clothing, and general expenses. 
The Hope and Help Mission was first organized by Mrs. S. I). LaFetra 
as a local work, and later it came into the general organization estab- 
lished by Mr. Crittenten. It appears from the testimony of Mrs. Kate 
Waller Barrett, the general secretary of the Florence Crittenten mis- 
sions, that Mr. Charles N. Crittenten came to New York a poor boy, 
and at No. 115 Fulton street, in that city, built up one of the largest 
drug businesses in the world. After the death of his daughter, Florence, 
he became interested in the work among the slums of New York, and, 
buying a piece of property in Bleecker street, at a cost of $40,099, 
opened it as a home for fallen women. The expense of the institution, 
as now conducted, is from $10,909 to $12,909 a year, which sum is fur- 
nished by Mr. Crit tenten. The remainder of his income, which amounts 
to some $60,090 a year, is given to the general work of the Florence 
Crittenten missions. The home receives contributions from the 
Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, and 
Christian churches, and from individuals, the deficits being made up by 
Mr. Crittenten. The management of the institution is in the hands of 
a board of directors, composed as follows: Sarah D. LaFetra, president; 
Belle S. Luckett, corresponding secretary; Mary E. Catlin, recording 
secretary ; Alfred Wood, financial secretary; Thomas Jarvis, treasurer; 
James T. Petty, auditor; Dr. George W. N. Custis, Dr. George N. Perry, 
William IL McKnew, Letitia K. Knowles, and Mary Rector. The 
matron is Mrs. Elizabeth K. Fleck. FLORENCE CRITTENTON HOPE AND HELP MISSION. THE HOUSE OF MERCY. 143 
WOMAN'S UNION CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. 
V. 
About ten years ago a number of colored women, organized as the 
Women's Union Christian Association, opened the Home for Friendless 
Colored Girls in order that such girls, rescued from destitution and 
vice, from earliest age to their fourteenth year, might be cared for and 
trained in matters of housekeeping, and made self-supporting and self- 
respecting. During the ten years 300 children-many literally out- 
cast-have had the benefit of this charity, which included a certain 
amount of education, instruction in all branches of housekeeping, 
moral and religious (nonsectarian) training, and finding them perma- 
nent homes in families as their services became useful. 
A lot adjoining Howard University has been given by Miss Maria 
Stoddard (white) for the purpose of erecting thereon a building suitable 
for the Home, but the subscriptions of money toward this object as 
yet amount to but $150. Since its establishment the Home has been 
occupying rented quarters on Erie street, Meridian Hill, a house out 
of repair and ill suited to the purpose. The District Commissioners 
have allowed the Home $500 from the fund for the relief of the poor. 
On September 5, 1897, Mrs. Caroline Taylor, the devoted president 
of the association, fell from the embankment near the home (the street 
having been cut down), and was killed. Her successor in office is Mrs. 
John A. Pierre. 
VI. 
The Association for Works of Mercy, located at 2408 K street NW., 
was organized and incorporated under the general incorporation law 
February 1, 1884. The institution is under the care of the Sisters of 
the Epiphany of the Protestant Episcopal Church, occupies lands 
valued at $25,000 and buildings valued at $10,000. Congress appro- 
priated $8,200 towards the lands and makes an annual appropriation 
of $1,800 for maintenance. The institution accommodates about 24 
white girls under 30 years of age, no girl being received for less than 
a year. White girls of any faith are received. Koman Catholics are 
transferred to the House of the Good Shepherd. The income from 
private gifts in 1896 was $823.28, and the entire expenses were 
$2,778.59. The Board of Children's Guardians makes use of the Home 
to some extent. The Home is in charge of Sisters Mary and Dorothea.1 
The president is Mr. Harry C. Whiting; the president of the ladies' 
board is Mrs. E. C. W. Chubb. 
The Bruen Home, located at 436 M street NW., was established and 
is maintained largely by Mr. W. L. Bruen as a home for destitute 
women and girls. It has a kindergarten and a day nursery for the 
children of working women. The number of inmates is about 20. 
1 Hearings, pp. 299-301. CHAPTER XI. 
HOMES FOR THE AGED. 
1'N the Corcoran Art Gallery and the Louise Home, the late Mr. William 
Wilson Corcoran left to the city of Washington two conspicuous 
monuments of his public spirit and benevolence. How numerous and 
diverse were his private benefactions may be learned in part from 
the historical sketches of the various institutions in this book. It is 
quite within bounds to say that among all the philanthropic citizens of 
the District of Columbia Mr. Corcoran stands foremost, not alone in the 
amount of his gifts, but also in the direct personal interest he took in 
the application of benevolence.' 
1 William Wilson Corcoran was the son of Thomas Corcoran, who was born in 
Limerick, Ireland, in 1754, and who came to Baltimore in 1783, to enter into the service 
of his uncle, William Wilson, a shipping merchant. In 1788, Thomas Corcoran mar- 
ried Hanna Lemmon, of Baltimore, and the same year he settled in Georgetown, 
then a thriving port with ten square-rigged vessels lying at her docks, at the time 
of Mr. Corcoran's first visit. Entering the shoe and leather business, he also acted for 
his uncle in purchasing tobacco and flaxseed for export, Georgetown, Bladensburg, 
and Baltimore being at that time the three rival tobacco markets of Maryland. In 
1791, on behalf of the corporation at Georgetown, he presented an address to Presi- 
dent Washington, who had come to Bladensburg to negotiate with Robert Peter, 
Samuel Davidson, David Burns, Notley Young, and Daniel Carroll for the lauds com- 
prised in the District of Columbia. In 1801, President .Jefferson appointed him a 
magistrate and a member of the levy court, positions he held under successive Presi- 
dents until his death in 1830. In 1815 he was appointed by President Madison post- 
master of Georgetown, and held office till his death, being succeeded by his son 
James, who also held the position during his life. 
William Wilson Corcoran, the fifth son of Thomas Corcoran by his second marriage, 
was born December 27, 1798, and received instruction from Kev. William Allen, a 
Presbyterian clergyman; at the Georgetown College, of which institution the Rev. 
Father Gracie was then the president; and from Rev. Addison Belt, a graduate of 
Princeton. In 1815 he entered the dry goods store of his brothers, James and Thomas, 
and two years later they started him in business for himself. During the panic of 
1823 he went down with about one-third of the merchants of Georgetown; but in 
1847 he paid his creditors in full with interest, although he had secured a release 
after the failure. 
Instead of reembarking in business Mr. Corcoran devoted himself to the interests 
of his father, the management of whose property he superintended. In 1828 he 
took charge of the real estate and suspended debt of the Bank of the United States 
and the Bank of Columbia. In 1830 his father closed his long career of usefulness. 
He had been a member of the Georgetown council and mayor of the town; he was 
144 THE LOUISE HOME. 
145 
The Louise Home is beautifully situated on a high terrace fronting on 
the south side of Massachusetts avenue, between Fifteenth and Six- 
teenth streets NW. The grounds embrace about 53,000 square feet, 
and are laid out in walks shaded by trees and shrubbery of native and 
foreign growth. The building itself, French in its style of architecture, 
is one of the most beautiful ornaments to a section of the city where 
neither wealth nor taste have been spared in adornment. 
Being desirous of founding a memorial and fitting tribute to the 
memory of his wife and daughter, the latter of whom, an only child, 
had then but recently died, Mr. Corcoran conceived the plan of estab- 
lishing a home for women of education and refinement whom age and 
misfortune had rendered dependent, and to whose needs those bound 
by family ties were unable to minister. In his letter of December 4, 
1870, Mr. Corcoran, addressing Messrs. James M. Carlisle, George W. 
Biggs, James C. Hall, and Anthony Hyde, delivers to them, his selected 
trustees, a conveyance for the establishment of the institution. This 
also one of the founders of St. Jolin's and Christ churches, and of Columbian Uni- 
versity. Mr. W. W. Corcoran was active in the District militia-having been pro- 
moted through the various grades to a colonelcy-and in 1849 he declined the 
command of the militia of the District. On December 23, 1835, Mr. Corcoran mar- 
ried Louise Amory Morris, daughter of Commodore Charles Morris, the issue being 
two daughters and one son. The first daughter and the son died in infancy. The 
second daughter, Louise Morris, was born March 20, 1838, and died December 4, 
1867. She married the Hon. George Eustis, jr., son of Hon. George Eustis, chief 
justice of the supreme court of Louisiana. In 1837 Mr. Corcoran established a 
brokerage business on Pennsylvania avenue, near Fifteenth street, and during the 
the same year removed his family to Washington. In 1839 he removed his business 
to the old Bank of the Metropolis Building, on the corner of Fifteenth and F streets, 
and the next year associated with him Mr. George W. Riggs. 
In 1845 the firm of Corcoran & Riggs purchased the old United States Bank at 
the corner of Fifteenth street and New York avenue, together with all its property 
and effects uncollected. About 1847 the firm took, ou its own account, nearly all the 
loans made by the United States. In 1848 Mr. George W. Riggs retired from the firm 
and was succeeded by his younger brother Elisha. During this year the firm had 
on hand about twelve millions of the 6 per cent United States loan of 1848, and the 
demand for it falling off in this country Mr. Corcoran sailed for Europe to place the 
bonds. After much discouragement he succeeded in placing five millions with Bar- 
ing Brothers & Co., George Peabody, Overend, Gurney & Co., Denison & Co., 
Samuel Jones Lloyd, and James Morrison, this being the first sale of American 
securities made in Europe since 1837. The success of this operation in London 
gradually advanced the bonds to 119£, thus securing a very handsome profit for the 
firm. On April 1, 1854, Mr. Corcoran withdrew from the firm, and the business was 
continued by Mr. George W. Riggs, under the firm name of Riggs & Co., which name 
was changed in 1896 for the Riggs National Bank. 
In 1859 Mr. Corcoran began the erection of a building at the northeast corner of 
Pennsylvania avenue and Seventeenth street, designed for a public art gallery. The 
breaking out of the civil war brought into requisition all such buildings in the city, 
and led to the occupation of this building for military purposes, to which use it was 
devoted until about the beginning of 1869, when it was restored to the possession of 
the owner. On May 10, 1869, Mr. Corcoran called to his house Messrs. J. M. Carlisle, 
George W. Riggs, Dr. James C. Hall, Anthony Hyde, James G. Berret, James C. 
Kennedy, Henry D. Cooke, James C. McGuire, of the District of Columbia, and W. T. 
7260 10 146 
THE LOUISE HOME. 
trust was formally accepted by the trustees in their letter of December 
7, 1870. 
The intentions of Mr. Corcoran are clearly set forth in this conveyance. 
He declares it his desire and intention to establish and maintain in the 
city of Washington, D. C., to the extent thereafter provided, and to 
such extent of endowment as he may from time to time, by gift, devise, 
bequest, or otherwise determine, an institution for the support ami 
maintenance of a limited number of gentlewomen who have been 
reduced by misfortune, the propriety of their admission to be first de- 
termined by the trustees and a board of directresses provided for in 
a later clause of the deed, which board, having charge of and super- 
vision over the internal management and government of the establish, 
merit, consisted of the following ladies designated in the conveyance 
by the founder, viz: Mrs. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, Mrs. George W. Biggs, 
Miss Sarah Coleman, Mrs. Richard II. Coolidge, Mrs. James M. Carlisle, 
Mrs. John Marbury, sr., Mrs. Beverly Kennon, Mrs. Richard T. Merrick, 
and Mrs. S. P. Hill, all of Washington City. 
Walters, of Baltimore, in whom he vested the title to the property, together with 
the right to receive the rents wholly unpaid for the eight years during which the 
building was occupied by the Government, all for the purpose of establishing the 
Corcoran Art Gallery. To this gift he added his own gallery of art on which he had 
spent many years of time and a large amount of money. The gallery was chartered 
by the act of Congress approved May 24, 1870. The act of incorporation required 
that the Secretary of War, Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of State 
should ascertain and settle on principles of justice and fairness a just compensation 
for the use of the ground and buildings while the same were occupied by the United 
States, and made an appropriation to carry out their findings. 
During the period immediately preceding the war Mr. Corcoran enjoyed the 
friendship of Edward Everett, Daniel Webster, Gen. Winfield Scott, and George 
Peabody, of London. To Dorothea Lynde Dix, whose work among the insane has 
been mentioned elsewhere, Mr. Corcoran gave carte blanche to ask for relief for 
those she might find needing small pecuniary aid, a resource of which she availed 
herself from time to time. In 1863 Mr. Corcoran visited Europe where he was enter- 
tained by his friend, George Peabody, and it was during his stay in Paris that he 
gave to the Washington Orphan Asylum the lots on which their present building is 
erected. He also made many other gifts to charitable institutions in the South. To 
William and Mary College he gave, in 1867, $1,000, for rebuilding, and in 1878 he added 
$50,000 in bonds of the State of Virginia to endow a chair of natural history in that 
institution. In February, 1868, Mr. Corcoran returned from his second trip to 
Europe, bringing with him the remains of his daughter, Mrs. Eustis, who had died 
at her home in Cannes, and on December 4, 1870, he placed in the hands of the trus- 
tees the building and lands which he had devoted to an Asylum for Aged Women, in 
commemoration of his daughter and his wife. 
In 1872 Mr. Corcoran returned from his third visit to Europe and was met in New 
York by a delegation of the citizens of Washington sent to welcome him home. 
During this year Mr. Corcoran gave to the trustees of Columbian College, of 
which body he was president, the valuable tract of land called " Trinidad," north of 
the city of Washington. From this time on until his death Mr. Corcoran's benefi- 
cences were widely scattered both at the North and at the South. Gifts were made 
not only to institutions, but also to individuals whom the exigencies of war had 
reduced to poverty. Mr. Corcoran died in Washington February 24, 1888. THE LOUISE HOME. REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION. 
147 
In the same conveyance, the donor provides that the institution shall 
always be known by the name of "The Louise Home," the name given 
being that of his deceased wife and daughter. 
A conservative estimate of the value of this gift at the time of the 
organization of the institution would be as follows: 
The building, already erected at the time of the gift, and the grounds 
embraced in the deed of gift $200, 000 
An endowment fund well invested ... 325, 000 
Making total value of gift 525, 000 
The original endowment fund has, from time to time, been increased 
through gifts from the founder during his lifetime and bequests con- 
tained in his will, thus enlarging the capacity of the home for the sup- 
port and maintenance of a larger number of inmates. 
According to suggestions embraced in the original deed of gift from 
Mr. Corcoran, the trustees applied to Congress and, under an act of 
Congress approved March 3, 1875, were duly incorporated under the 
name and style of "The Trustees of the Louise Home," reference being 
made as to their powers, in the act, to the deed of gift from Mr. Cor- 
coran, and by the same act all the property, real and personal, held 
by the trustees for the purposes of the trust was declared to be exempt 
from taxation. 
The total number of inmates at the Louise Home at this date is 40, 
which is the number to which the admission is at this time limited, 
and all vacancies are filled from a list of applicants, according to the 
respective needs and merits of those appearing on the list. 
Among the principal requirements for admission to the home, the 
first and foremost is that the applicant must be a woman of culture and 
refinement, as well as dependent, and having no relative able and willing 
to furnish the means for her support, it being, however, necessary that 
she be financially able to provide for herself necessary clothing. It is 
also necessary that she be in such a physical condition as not to need 
the care and attention of an attendant. Her conduct after admission is 
to be always that of a gentlewoman. 
The board of directresses having charge of the internal and domestic 
government of the institution have supervision over all applications 
for admission, with such letters of indorsement as may accompany the 
same, and recommend to the trustees the applicant as a proper person 
for admission, and upon the confirmation of this action on the part of 
the trustees such admission is ordered; or they may, on the other 
hand, refuse to make such recommendation, as in their judgment may 
seem best; and at all times, with the concurrence of the trustees, the 
directresses have the power to remove any inmate from the home for 
good and sufficient cause. 
No charity could be more complete in its scope than that founded by 
Mr. Corcoran in the institution of the Louise Home. Every comfort 
within reason, and in keeping with the social position of the inmates, 148 
THE METHODIST HOME. 
is, through the thoughtfulness of the donor, provided, even to the pro- 
fessional care of skilled physicians and the proper medicines during 
illness; and should death claim them as his subjects, unless otherwise 
desired by them, they are laid to rest in that other most beautiful gift 
of Mr. Corcoran to his native town, Oak Hill Cemetery.1 
The board of directresses of the Louise Home at the present time is 
made up as follows: Mrs. Beverly Kennon, president; Miss Jeannie 
Turnbull, secretary; Mrs. Christopher Thom, Mrs. Margaret Stone, Mrs. 
Judge Hagner, Mrs. General John Parke, Mrs. Josephine Sowers, Mrs. 
Calderon Carlisle, and Mrs. Allen McLean.2 
The following gentlemen have been successors of the original trus- 
tees named in the deed of gift: Charles M. Matthews, William L. Dun- 
lop, Dr. Grafton Tyler, Hon. Walter S. Cox, M. W. Galt, James M. 
Johnston, and Thomas Hyde, the four last named constituting the 
present board of trustees. 
The following ladies have been directresses: Mrs. Ben. Ogle Tayloe, 
Mrs. George Biggs, Mrs. Bichard IL Coolidge, Mrs. James M. Carlisle, 
Mrs. John Marbury, sr., Mrs. Bichard T. Merrick, Mrs. Stephen P. Hill, 
Miss Margaret Washington, Miss Mary Blake Jones, and Aliss Sarah 
Coleman. 
III. 
The Methodist Home of the District of Columbia, located at the 
corner of Twelfth and N streets NE., was incorporated under the gen- 
eral incorporation act January 21, 1889, to provide a comfortable home 
for the aged and infirm members of the Methodist Episcopal Church of 
the Baltimore conference within the District of Columbia, and to ren- 
der such persons such assistance and relief as may be practicable. 
The trustees named in the articles of incorporation were William 
Taylor Birch, Richard H. Willet, Robert Cohen, Henry L. Strang, 
Andrew B. Duvall, David T. Cissel, George W. F. Swartzell, Benjamin 
F. Leighton, and William McKendree Clayton. 
Admissions to the home are restricted to members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church of the District of Columbia. Applicants must not 
be under 60 years of age, and must be recommended by the pastor and 
stewards of the church to which they belong, or furnish other satisfac- 
tory evidence of good standingas members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in the District of Columbia for five years prior to the time of 
In 1847 Mr. Corcoran purchased "Parrott's woods," the site of a ropewalk, and 
afterwards the place of Fourth of July celebrations. After spending $70,000 on the 
grounds, he gave the cemetery to his native town. In 1848 a corporation was formed 
for cemetery purposes. The total gifts of Mr. Corcoran on this account amounted 
to over $120,000. 
"Che editor is indebted to Mr. H. S. Matthews for the sketch of the Louise Home; 
the biography of Air. Corcoran was compiled from "A Grandfather's Legacy," a 
volume prepared by Mr. Corcoran and printed in 1879. The work contains brief 
sketches of himself and members of his family, and many letters of great interest 
and historical value. HOME FOR THE AGED OF THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR. THE HOME FOB THE AGED. 
149 
making application. The relief afforded is limited to those who have 
no means of support nor proper relations to provide for them. A pay- 
ment of $100 with the necessary wardrobe is required, but it is pro- 
vided that the board of managers may extend the benefits of the home 
in peculiar cases of distress to those not strictly eligible under the 
rules. 
On January 1, 1897, there were 15 inmates of the home, of whom 2 
were men. None of these inmates were admitted prior to 1890. The 
deaths during the year were 10. The home is supported by contribu- 
tions from the 19 Methodist Episcopal churches in the District of Colum- 
bia, which contributed during 1896 $2,758.77, the total receipts for the 
year being $3,853.17. The expenses nearly balanced the receipts. 
Besides contributions of money very considerable amounts of clothing 
and supplies were received. 
The president of the home is Mrs. D. B. Street; vice-presidents, Mes- 
daines A. E. Evans, William Burris, C. W. Baldwin, E. J. Harper, L. 
B. Wilson, S. M. Hartsock, J. E. Talty; treasurer, Mrs. T. C. Smith; 
secretary, Mrs. J. C. Tasker; corresponding secretary, Mrs. W. G. Mc- 
Dowell; physicians, Drs. 1). B. Street, I). Olin Leech, R. Kingsman, 
E. S. Lothrop. 
IV. 
The Home for the Aged, conducted by the Little Sisters of the Poor, 
is situated on II street between Second and Third streets NE., was 
organized February 2, 1871, was incorporated July 16, 1873, and rein- 
corporated May 16, 1884, under the act of April 23, 1884. The institu- 
tion occupies about four-fifths of square 751, the lands being valued at 
$110,000. The main building is valued at $130,000, the old mens' quar- 
ters at $10,000, stable, etc., $10,000, making a total of $150,000 for 
improvements. 
From 1873 to 1884 the sum of $55,000 was appropriated by Congress 
for improvements at the 1 lome, but no appropriations have been received 
for the past thirteen years, excepting that in 1893 Congress appropriated 
the lands embraced in the alleys in square number 751 to the Home for 
charitable purposes. The number of inmates is in the neighborhood ot 
200. During the year 1896 there were 35 deaths and 45 admissions, 6 
persons having been discharged during the year. The privileges of the 
Home are confined to the residents of the District of Columbia except- 
ing that a few inmates came from the adjoining counties in Virginia 
and Maryland. No one is admitted under the age of 60 years. 
The income of the institution comes from private gift, which amounts 
to about $4,000 in money, besides contributions of supplies and cloth- 
ing, which are made by the hotels, markets, dairies, and other patrons 
of the home. The total cost of maintenance is about $7,000, including 
repairs, fuel, medical bills, and undertakers' bills. The contribution of 
money and other supplies about equals the cost or expense of maiutaiu- 150 
HOMES FOR THE AGED. 
ing the home. Sister Dosithee, who is the superior in charge of the 
home, states that the institution aims to provide for about 200 aged 
inmates of both sexes, without distinction of color or creed. The 
sisters solicit and collect from private parties ample food required 
daily, and in case of deficiency, which often occurs, purchases are made. 
Clothing is obtained in the same way, is repaired in the home and is 
kept in readiness for use. No wages are paid and no labor is hired. 
Of the money received from public sources, $42,500 came by Con- 
gressional appropriation and $12,500 from the District. 
V. 
Besides the homes mentioned above there is the Aged Women's 
Home, located at No. 1225 Thirty-second street. Thirteen women are 
accommodated with rooms, and occasionally with fuel. If one is ill 
she receives medical treatment. The institution receives an allotment 
of $300 a year from the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, 
and the entire expense per inmate per day does not exceed 10 cents. 
The president is Mrs. B. Kennon. 
The National Lutheran Home, located on Winthrop Heights; the 
Lenthal Home for Widows, at the corner of Nineteenth and G streets 
NW.; the Colored Widows' Home, of St. Matthew's parish, at 1909 R 
street NW., managed by the Associated Charities, and the Epiphany 
Church Home for Aged Women, at 1319 H street NW., are among the 
institutions for the relief of the aged in the District of Columbia. CHAPTER XII. 
TEMPORARY REFUGES FOR MEN. 
THE Temporary Home for ex-Union Soldiers and Sailors was organ- 
ized September 1,1888, by some members of the Grand Army of the 
Republic, and was incorporated October 26 of that year. Beginning 
with the fiscal year July 1,1889, the home has been in receipt of $2,500 
annually from Congress. The home was organized as a temporary 
shelter for soldiers who come to the city from time to time to prosecute 
their pension claims, or who are left here without resources. The 
number of inmates ranges from 20 to 30 per day. Each man, on making 
application for reception, is required to prove his service in the Army 
or Navy. During April, 1897, the records of the home show that 5 of 
the inmates came to draw pensions, and stayed probably one night; 9 
were in the city to obtain an increase of pension, which usually means 
a stay at the home of at least ten days, that being the general limit 
that men are allowed to stay. One came to take a civil-service exami- 
nation, 9 came to reopen pension claims, and 11 to ascertain the status 
of their claims. Nine were on their way to the Hampton Home, and 2 
were in the city to obtain admission to that home. Three were here to 
procure the passage of bills for an honorable discharge, 2 to obtain 
transportation, 2 were on their way to the Dayton Home, and one came 
to get a patent on a musical instrument. From July, 1889, to May 1, 
1897, 8,243 old soldiers and sailors were cared for, and received a total 
of 147,479 meals and 72,533 lodgings, showing a daily average of 55 
meals and 30 lodgings since the opening of the home. The home owns 
no buildings or lands, but occupies rented quarters at No. 305 Missouri 
avenue NW. The present superintendent is D. B. Hill, who has been 
connected with the home since its inception. 
The Home is managed by a board of incorporators selected from the 
various Grand Army posts, as follows: David P. Craig, Lincoln Post, 
No. 3; James R. Brown, Kit Carson Post, No. 2, secretary; James E. 
McCabe, Lincoln Post, No. 3; Calvin Farnsworth, George G. Meade 
Post, No. 5, president; Rev. J. H. Bradford, James A. Garfield Post, 
No. 7, treasurer; Newton Ferree, John A. Rawlins Post, No. 1, vice- 
president; Rev. W. H. Gotwald, D. D., John F. Reynolds Post, No. 6, 
chaplain; Amos J. Gunning, B. F. Chase, A. F. Dinsmore, J. O'Meara, 
I. W. Stone, J. W. Kirkley, Theodore Hausmann, H. W. Burns. 
151 152 
THE MUNICIPAL LODGING HOUSE. 
IT. 
The Washington Night Lodging Ilouse opened its building on the 
4th of March, 1876. This charity was exclusively for the benefit of the 
male and female nonresidents visiting the city in search of work, or who, 
having claims against the Government, became financially stranded 
while awaiting their settlement. Many of the applicants were ex-sol- 
diers and sailors, who were thus substantially assisted while prosecuting 
their claims. Professional tramps were rigidly excluded. Every per- 
son was provided with a clean, comfortable bed and nightgown, and was 
compelled to take a warm bath before retiring. They were furnished 
with two substantial meals each day, and were allowed the privileges 
for three days and nights only unless there was good reason for their 
remaining longer. The inmates were admitted after examination by the 
officers in charge of the police stations, and were certified to by them 
or by the superintendent. No charge was made for the privileges. 
The premises were located at 312 Twelfth street, next to the fifth 
precinct station house. The brick house occupied had a capacity of 
50 beds, together with the rooms necessary for cooking, bathing, etc. 
The premises were bought for $4,500, of which $1,500 was paid by 
private subscriptions, leaving a debt of $3,000. The board of man- 
agers was composed of the following: Matthew G. Emery, Thomas J. 
Fisher, A. S. Solomons, John T. Mitchell, Edward F. Simpson, George 
E. Lemon, F. C. McGuire, William Ballantyne, James E. Fitch, A. C. 
Richards, Charles J. Bell, and II. O. Noyes. The president was Mr. 
A. S. Solomons, and the secretary Mr. II. O. Noyes. In a number of 
instances the directors sent out food for days and weeks at a time to 
the deserving poor in the District about the lodging house. Money in 
aid of the institution was received from the charity fund and expended 
in the purchase of food, all the furniture and present effects having 
been paid for from contributions by citizens and sojourners in the 
District. (Report of Commissioners Dist. Columbia for 1885-86, p. 147.) 
On July 14, 1892, the lodging house passed from private to municipal 
control, and has since received an appropriation for maintenance of 
$4,000 a year. The property, however, is still owned by the Night 
Lodging Ilouse Association. Persons out of employment can obtain 
shelter in the lodging house not to exceed three days at one time. They 
are required to perform certain manual labor, such as sawing and split- 
ting wood, and the other work of the house. For a night's lodging, 
which includes a supper, breakfast, and bath, they saw one-eighth of a 
cord of wood. Cripples and sick inmates are maintained free without 
work. The house has accommodations for 72 people, but as many as 91 
have been sheltered in stormy weather. In winter the average number 
of inmates is from 46 to 60, but in summer the average is about 14 a 
day. 
About one-third of the inmates are what may be called "good" men. 
They are traveling from place to place seeking work. The other two- MUNICIPAL LODGING HOUSE. 
TEMPORARY HOME FOR UNION EX-SOLDIERS AND SAILORS. 777 A CENTRAL UNION MISSION. 
153 
thirds are men who will not work, except when they are compelled to 
do so by starvation. In deserving cases the District, through the sani- 
tary officer, furnishes money to take inmates to their homes, and in no 
case are residents of the District maintained at the Municipal Lodging 
House. The house is well known throughout the country, and is one 
of the stations on the round of the great cities. The first superintendent 
of the Municipal Lodging House was William II. Dunn. The present 
superintendent is Capt. L. B. Cutler.1 
III. 
The Central Union Mission, located at 622 Louisiana avenue, with ten 
branches in differentparts of the city, wasorganized August 19,1884, and 
incorporated January 7,1887, under the general incorporation act. The 
value of the lands occupied on Louisiana avenue is $60,000, and one 
branch and its lands valued at $1,000, the title of these lands being in 
the Central Union Mission. On the Louisiana avenue property are 
improvements valued at $30,000, and on one branch improvements 
valued at $1,500. Other property to the amount of $5,000 is owned by 
the mission. 
The mission is organized as a Christian institution, its object being to 
preach the gospel to the neglected classes. Its managers do not regard 
it primarily as a charitable society, although its work is chiefly among 
the poor of the city, and, as an adjunct to its main work, it has done 
much to relieve suffering and furnish employment for the poor. The 
mission maintains an industrial department, including a wood yard for 
men and a laundry for the employment of women. At times it has had 
other industries, such as a broom factory, a mending department, and a 
cobbler shop. Attached to the industrial department is a dining room 
and lodging establishment. Meals are served at 10 or 15 cents each, and 
in the lodging department a bed is furnished at 10 or 15 cents a night, 
or in rooms at 25 cents a night. In the wood yard from 50 to 75 men can 
be worked, and the plant is capable of enlargement to double its present 
capacity. A laborer is required to saw one-twelfth of a cord of wood 
for a 10-cent meal or a 10-cent lodging, and the average laborer can 
obtain his meals and lodging by about three hours' work. The only 
drawback the wood yard experiences is the difficulty of disposing of 
all the wood sawed. The industrial department of the mission is fully 
self-supporting and has been maintained without financial assistance. 
Each branch of the work shows a small surplus to its credit, which is 
used in improving the plant. The religious work of the mission is sup- 
ported by voluntary contributions, and such contributions are not used 
for the industrial department. 
'Timothy Lubey, Commissioner of the Washington Asylum, in his report for 1875, 
says that it has been the custom of that institution to furnish food and shelter to 
that class of the poor termed " tramps" or transient paupers. Persons of this class to 
the number of 766 were accommodated during the year. CHAPTER XIII. 
REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS. 
ON July 1,1862, President Lincoln approved an act to incorporate the 
Guardian Society to reform juvenile offenders in the District of 
Columbia, by virtue of which act Amos Kendall, John M. Broadhead, 
Zenas C. Bobbins, Sayles J. Bowen, Nehemiah B. Northrup, Benjamin 
B. French, Joseph Bryan, Peter N. Higinbotham, James C. Jenner, 
David W. Heath, James B. Barr, Matthew Waite, Samuel A. II. 
McKim, John B. Nourse, and Stephen Prentiss, being already members 
of the Guardian Society, were incorporated and made a body politic 
"for the purpose of encouraging and aiding such children of the poor, 
ignorant, and vicious as could be induced to make such efforts as they 
ought for an improvement in their condition." 
The act contemplated a house of industry to which minors might be 
sentenced by the courts, and the trustees were empowered to receive 
children at the request of the parents, guardian, or next friend upon a 
written surrender of such child. The trustees were not to be required 
to receive any offenders known to be extremely vicious or to keep any 
who might prove incorrigible, but such were to be sent to the jail or 
penitentiary under an alternative sentence that the court was era 
powered to impose. It was also contemplated that persons committed 
as witnesses or committed for trial, if under the age of 18, should be 
placed in the house of industry instead of the jail or penitentiary. 
The trustees were empowered to bind out by indenture any who might 
appear to be sufficiently reformed, or the inmates might be hired during 
the daytime to employers whose work was not too far distant from the 
house of industry. 
The Guardian Society raised some $5,000 or $6,000 through the lib- 
erality of a few citizens and banking institutions of Washington, and 
in 1865 obtained a large building that had been constructed for hos- 
pital purposes during the war.1 This building they removed to the 
Government farm, situated about one-half mile from the Potomac 
River and 4 miles northwest from Georgetown. The funds of the 
Guardian Society having been exhausted, Congress established, by 
'The "Laws, By-laws, and Rules and Regulations of the Reform School of the 
District of Columbia, 1894,'' contains the brief history of the institution that is the 
basis of this sketch. 
154 REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS- MAIN BUILDING. THE REFORM SCHOOL FOR ROYS. 
155 
the act of July 25, 1866, a House of Correction for Boys in the District 
of Columbia "for the safe keeping, correction, governing, and employ- 
ing of offenders legally committed thereto by the authorities of the 
courts and the magistrates of the District of Columbia." It was also 
provided that the building before erected on the Government farm for 
the purpose of establishing a similar institution, together with all the 
other property there collected for the same purpose, should be trans- 
ferred to the trustees appointed according to the provisions of the act, 
at a cost not exceeding $1,500. 
The government of the institution was vested in a board of seven 
trustees to be appointed and commissioned by the President of the 
United States, one to be nominated by the mayor of Washington, one 
by the mayor of Georgetown, one by the president of the levy court of 
the county of Washington, and four by the Secretary of the Interior, 
the term of office of a trustee being three years. 
For the purpose of securing the transfer of the building and other 
property to the trustees, preparing the premises and building for occu- 
pancy, and payment of other necessary expenses, $12,060 was appropri- 
ated, to be paid on the order of the Secretary of the Interior; and it 
was provided that $6,000 of the said appropriation should be assessed 
and paid by the cities of Washington and Georgetown and the county 
of Washington, of which amount $1,500 was to be raised by the city of 
Washington, $1,000 by the city of Georgetown, and $500 by the county 
of Washington. Of the $ 12,000 appropriated, $9,500 was spent in 1867, 
and $2,500, together with the $12,000 appropriated by the act of April 
20,1870, was spent in the latter year. In 1871 Congress failed to make 
an appropriation for the support of the school, and the board of trustees 
was left without means to defray the necessary expenses of the 
institution. 
The first boys, 2 in number, were admitted January 13, 1870, and 
there were 63 boys in the school when Congress failed to provide for its 
support. At this juncture a number of liberal merchants and others 
furnished supplies, with the hope of reimbursement when Congress con- 
vened; and money for the payment of salaries and incidental expenses 
was raised on the individual notes of the trustees. The act of May 6, 
1870, amending the act of duly 25,1861, changes the name of the school 
to the Reform School of the District of Columbia, and provides that 
the mayors of the cities of Washington and Georgetown and the presi- 
dent of the levy court of the District of Columbia shall have full power 
to commit to the care, control, and custody of the board of trustees of 
the school, with the consent and at the proper expense of his parent or 
guardian, any boy under 16 years of age who is destitute of a suitable 
home and an adequate means of obtaining an honest living, or is in 
danger of being brought up, or is being brought up, to lead an idle 
or vicious life. The members of the board of trustees individually 
were authorized to commit boys for the same reasons as above stated. 156 
THE REFORM SCHOOL FOR ROYS. 
In tlie first act the cities of Washington and Georgetown and the 
county of Washington were required to pay 50 cents a week for each boy 
committed to the school from those respective localities; in the second 
act this sum was increased to $1.50 a week. 
During the summer and fall of 1871 the location of the school upon the 
Government farm near the Potomac River proved decidedly unhealthy, 
ami it was determined to ask Congress for an appropriation of $100,000 
to purchase anew site and erect a suitable building thereon. The board 
of trustees at this time was made up of H. D. Cooke, N. W. Burchell, 
J. E. Carpenter, II. A. Brewster, Nathan Sargent, D. V. Burr, and W. B. 
Todd. 
By the act of May 15, 1872 (in addition to the $10,000 appropriated 
to pay the annual salaries of the superintendent, two assistant super- 
intendents, the matron, assistant teachers, and other incidental expen- 
ses, including clothing, fuel, and servant hire), the Secretary of the 
Interior was authorized to purchase a new site for the school, to be 
selected by himself and the board of trustees, on which buildings for 
the accommodation of 300 boys were authorized to be erected, under the 
supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, the board of trustees, and 
the Architect of the Capitol. The appropriation was $100,000. The 
present site of the institution (old Fort Lincoln, now known as "Mount 
Lincoln," an elevation overlooking the surrounding country for many 
miles) was purchased. It is situated on the old Bladensburg turnpike 
road, 3 miles east of the Capitol. The main building, constructed accord- 
ing to plans made by Edward Clark, Architect of the Capitol, is a con- 
spicuous mark for many miles. The original site, purchased July 20, 
1872, consisted of 150 acres of land, 200 acres having been subsequently 
added to the farm.1 
1 On .January 22, 1875, the House of Representatives, by resolution, called on the 
Attorney-General of the United States for information as to what action, if any, 
had been taken to recover from the late treasurer of the Reform School of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia the sum of $31,772.29, the amount involved in the bankruptcy of 
Jay Cooke & Co., and belonging to the United States, as directed by the last section 
of the general appropriation bill passed at the first session of the Forty-third Con- 
gress, and approved June 22, 1874. 
The Attorney-General, George II. Williams, in reply, called the attention of Henry 
D. Cooke, esq., of Washington, D. C., to the provision in the act of June 22, 1874, 
to reimburse the fund of the Reform School in the District of Columbia for work 
done and materials furnished in the erection and furnishing of buildings and grounds, 
to the sum of $31,772.29; and the direction that the Attorney-General take such 
measures as shall be most effectual to enforce any right or claim which the United 
States has to this amount of money, or any part thereof, involved in the bankruptcy 
of Henry D. Cookeor of Jay Cooke & Co., the same having been in the hands of Henry 
D. Cooke as treasurer of the Reform School at the time of his bankruptcy, and being 
money belonging to the United States. 
On October 19,1874, the Attorney-General called on the Secretary of the Interior 
for any information as to the matters mentioned above, and also called on Nathan 
Sargent, president of the board of trustees of the Reform School, and Hon. R. W. 
Tayler, First Comptroller of the Treasury, for any information that might be in REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS-'A FAMILY BUILDING. REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS-"B" FAMILY BUILDING. THE BUILDINGS. 
157 
The main building consists of a front extension, which is four stories 
high, with a spacious hall through. On the first floor are located the 
offices, reception room, and officers' dining rooms. On the second 
floor are the parlors, superintendent's living apartments, and dormi- 
tories. The third floor is occupied by the officers. On the fourth 
floor are the storerooms for clothing, etc., and the bedchambers for 
the house employees. 
Two commodious wings extend from either side of the main building, 
the wings each being three stories high. One of the rooms on the first 
floor is designed for a dining room, which will accommodate 200 boys. 
One of these rooms is now occupied as a schoolroom and chapel, tem- 
porarily. The second floor of this wing is used for sick rooms, and the 
same floor of the other wing is used as officers' rooms, tailor shop, etc. 
The building has all modern conveniences, is heated by steam 
throughout, and is well lighted by gas, and splendidly ventilated. 
There is abasement under the entire building, in which are located the 
kitchen, furnace room, fuel room, and storerooms, and several capacious 
cellars, all substantially concreted. There is a tower carried above the 
front extension of the building where an excellent view of surrounding 
country can be had. 
Three family buildings, having front projections, two of them three 
stories and one two stories high above the basements, are located north 
and south of the main building. The basements have concrete floors, 
contain large washrooms, which are also used for playrooms in wet and 
stormy weather. On the first floor there are two rooms for the teacher 
in charge and his family, and a large schoolroom. The schoolroom is also 
used as a boys' sitting room and for evening and devotional exercises. 
The second story contains rooms in the front extension for the assist- 
their possession. The First Comptroller replied, under date of October 21,1874, that 
he had expressed the opinion to the First Auditor that Mr. Cooke was not an officer 
of the United States, but only treasurer of the institution. Mr. Sargent replied, 
under date of October 26, 1874, that upon examining the minutes of the board of 
trustees it appeared that of the money appropriated for purchasing a site for the 
school and the erection of buildings thereon, $30,000 was paid for the site, and 
$70,000 was placed in the hands of Mr. Henry D. Cooke, treasurer of the board, by 
the Secretary of the Interior upon the recommendation of the board, of which 
amount all hut about $18,000 was paid upon requisitions of the board, which latter 
sum was on deposit with Jay Cooke & Co. At the time this money was placed in the 
hands of the treasurer of the board Mr. Cooke was considered as responsible as any 
bank or hanker in the city, or as any one of the most wealthy citizens of Washing- 
ton. Ho had been treasurer from the commencement of the institution, and his 
accounts had always been promptly rendered and settled. Mr. Sargent ventured the 
opinion that it was unfortunate that a delay of two months occurred in the selection 
of a site for the school after the appropriation was made, for had the selection been 
made without delay, the appropriation would probably have been wholly expended 
some months before the failure of Mr. Cooke took place; but the serious conse- 
quences of this delay could not then be foreseen. 
Hon. Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior, under date of October 28, 1874, 
stated that it had been the custom of the Interior Department to make advances 158 
THE BEFOBM SCHOOL FOB BOYS. 
ant teacher, and the main floor is a boys' dormitory, and a back pro- 
jection furnishes the boys an entrance to the same and also a room for 
a night closet. The third floors are used for dormitory purposes, and 
the front rooms are used for storage, and one room is set apart for the 
boys' Sunday clothing. 
These buildings are plain but neatly furnished, and make a very com 
fortable home for a family of fifty boys and officers in charge of same. 
These, as well as the main building, are well heated by steam, supplied 
by large boilers located near the greenhouses, which are also heated 
from the same source. 
The bakery consists of the old farm building somewhat remodeled, 
with ovens added thereto. An excellent laundry, with all the modern 
improvements has been erected, and near it stands a good, substantial 
brick workshop, carpenter shop, and smokehouse. A piggery has 
recently been built after the latest improved plan, and one of the most 
commodious and best arranged barns, with extensive stables and agri 
cultural storerooms combined, has just been completed. The apple, 
io persons who were disbursing agents of moneys under its control upon their per- 
sonal request, assuming that if no bond had been filed in the office of the First 
Comptroller of the Treasury, as the law requires, by the person in whose favor the 
requisition may be drawn, a warrant for the money could not be passed by the 
accounting officers of the Treasury. In compliance, therefore, with the request of 
Mr. Cooke, a requisition upon the Secretary of the Treasury for $20,000 was issued by 
the Interior Department on July 31, 1872, and on the 2d of August, 1872, a similar 
requisition for $50,000 was also issued by the Department-both requisitions in favor 
of H. D. Cooke, treasurer of the Reform School. It was presumed by the Depart- 
ment that the requisitions took the usual course, and that drafts for their respective 
amounts were issued by the Secretary of the Treasury to Mr. Cooke, upon which the 
latter drew the money from the Treasury. 
By a provision of the sundry civil appropriation act approved March 3, 1873, Con- 
gress appropriated an additional sum of $15,000 for the purpose of providing for 
certain improvements in the buildings and grounds of the Reform School. Although 
there was nothing in the provision to indicate that this appropriation was disbursable 
by the Interior Department, the Treasury Department placed the amount under the 
control of that Department, and Mr. Cooke having made, on June 30,1873, a request 
similar to his former ones, a requisition in his favor to the amount of $15,000 was 
duly issued by the Department on the 8th of July, 1873. 
It is implied by the statute, continues Secretary Delano, that certain bankruptcies 
involved a loss to the Government of the sum of $31,772.29, being moneys appropriated 
by Congress for the Reform School and drawn from the Treasury by Henry D. Cooke, 
as treasurer, and unaccounted for by him. A certificate has been filed, however, in 
the Department by the finance committee of the board of trustees of the school, 
showing that of the entire sum of $85,000 drawn by the treasurer he had expended 
for the several purposes for which it was appropriated the sum of $66,613.42, leaving 
to the credit of the treasurer, as stated on his books, a deposit with Jay Cooke & Co. 
of $18,386.58, which seems to be the sum lost by the bankruptcy. Mr. Cooke's 
bondsmen were Messrs. A. R. Shepherd and 1). L. Eaton, and his bond, given to the 
board of trustees of the Reform School, was for $5,000. 
In the correspondence it appears that at the meeting of the board of trustees of 
the Reform School held July 25, 1872, the Peter farm, on which Fort Lincoln was 
located, was selected as a site for the school, provided the 150 acres fronting on the REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS-"D" FAMILY BUILDING. GREENHOUSES. 
STEAM-HEATING PLANT. 
REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS. 
THE SPRING. TRANSFER OF MANAGEMENT. 
159 
pear, and. peach orchards are all under a good state of cultivation, and 
the vineyards yield annually a bountiful supply of grapes. 
Walls are not used, and fences are needed only to keep the outer 
world from intruding, and not to restrain the boys or prevent escapes, 
for kind treatment is appreciated, and the sympathizing efforts and 
judicious management are incentives that so gain the higher nature of 
the boys, that many of them can at all times be trusted to go anywhere 
on the farm, and even to the city, without being attended by anyone, 
and without any danger of their escaping. 
By the act of March 5,1872, the powers and duties in relation to the 
reform school and jail in the District, of Columbia were transferred 
from the Secretary of the Interior to the Department of Justice, and 
by the act of May 15 of the same year the price to be charged to the 
cities of Washington and Georgetown and the county of Washington 
was increased from $1.50 to $1.75 per week for each inmate, to be paid 
on demand, with interest at the rate of 1 per centum per month if not 
paid within ten days. To the judge of the police court, the governor 
Bladensburg road could be secured for a sum not exceeding $30,000. The Secretary 
of the Interior made the purchase, and there then remained in the Treasury the sum 
of $70,000 for building purposes. On July 31, 1872, Hou. H. D. Cooke, treasurer, 
spoke to the board of the want of the $70,000 appropriated for buildings, and it was 
then resolved that Governor Cooke make his requisition at once for the whole sum 
of $70,000. 
An additional $15,000 for steam-heating apparatus was withdrawn from the Treas- 
ury by H. D. Cooke, as has been explained. Mr. Cooke, under date of November 16, 
1874, called attention to an error in the act of Congress assuming that the balance 
was $31,772.29 instead of $18,386.58, as appears on the books of the Reform School. 
This latter amount he held as treasurer of the Reform School, but he respectfully 
submitted that it was a mistake to say that it was then money belonging to the United 
States in his hands as a disbursing officer of the Government, or money of which any 
illegal or improper disposition was made by him within the meaning of the law. 
He held that the money was paid to him as the treasurer of the school, and not as 
disbursing officer of the Government; and was by him, with the knowledge of tho 
trustees of the institution, deposited with a banking house, at that time in every 
way a responsible and proper depository. The subsequent loss of part of the money 
so deposited, by the unexpected failure of the banking house, however much to be 
deplored, did not, he claimed, in any way alter the character of the prior transac- 
tions, nor indicate that there had been any violation of law or culpable neglect on 
the part of either the trustees or the treasurer. Having been treasurer of the 
Reform School from its earliest days, and for a considerable period before it received 
any pecuniary aid from the United States, Mr. Cooke said that he had always, with 
the knowledge and approval of the trustees, kept his accounts as treasurer with the 
banking house of Jay Cooke & Co., then and for along time thereafter the fiscal agents 
of the United States, and where it was frequently overdrawn ; and it was never sup- 
posed or suggested by anyone, so far as he was aware, that the statutes mentioned 
had any reference to accounts of this character. He submitted that he had violated 
no law, that he had kept his accounts in a legal and prudent manner, and that he 
should not be responsible if, contrary to his hopes, the final settlement of the affairs 
of Jay Cooke & Co. should result in the loss to the Reform School of a portion of 
the balance now standing to its credit on their books. See H. R. Ex. Doc. 153, Forty- 
third Congress, second session. 160 
THE REFORM SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. 
of the Territory, and the president of the board of trustees of the 
school was given power to commit boys, but the justices were not to 
commit boys when there was no room for them in the school. 
The act of May 3, 1876, revises and amends the various acts relating 
to the Reform School. It provides for a board of seven trustees, to be 
appointed by the President of the United States; makes the trustees a 
corporation for the purpose of holding property in trust for the United 
States; provides for the appointment of a bonded superintendent, two 
or more teachers or assistants, and a matron, at salaries fixed by law, 
and two or three master mechanics, a farmer, gardener, and necessary 
servants and laborers, at compensations fixed by the trustees, subject 
to the approval of the Attorney-General; provides for a treasurer, to 
give bond to the United States for not less than $20,000; fixes the 
duties of the superintendent, and requires him to employ "such meth- 
ods of discipline as will, as far as possible, reform their [the boys'] 
characters, preserve their health, promote regular improvement in their 
studies and employments, and secure in them fixed habits of religion, 
morality, and industry;" provides for the commitment of boys by tne 
courts and the president of the board and for placing out boys; fixes 
the price to be paid by the District at $2 per week for each boy, and 
provides for the appointment of one Senator and one Member of the 
House of Representatives as consulting trustees. Subsequent acts 
provide that one of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia 
shall be a trustee, with full powers; that an inventory of property and 
a full statement as to the labor employed be reported annually to the 
Commissioners of the District of Columbia; that an itemized account 
of the income of the school shall be submitted to and approved by the 
District Commissioners; that all revenues be paid into the Treasury to 
the credit of the United States and the District of Columbia in equal 
parts, and that the Commissioners shall control the expenditures. 
The superintendent of the school is, and during the past quarter of 
a century has been, Col. George A. Shallenberger. Col. Cecil Clay is 
the president of the board of trustees; Mr. John E. Carpenter is the 
vice-president, and Mr. S. W. Curriden the secretary and treasurer. 
Messrs. N. W. Burchell, John E. Fitch, Crosby S. Noyes, William M. 
Shuster, jr., and William S. Thompson are trustees. Congressman 
Dockery represents the House, and Hon. John W. Ross the Commis- 
sioners. 
IL 
Under the date of March 6, 1876, Timothy Lubey, commissioner of 
the Washington Asylum, addressed to the Commissioners of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia a letter in which he stated that there were at that 
time confined in the workhouse of the District a number of women for 
the crime of vagrancy, enticing prostitution, and the like. "These 
poor creatures," he said, "repeat their offenses so often that a majority 
of their lives are passed in the workhouse, during which no special 
effort is made toward their reformation, nor are the influences or sur- 
roundings of the workhouse calculated to make a change in their mode REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS-MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL AND BAKERY. NECESSITY FOR THE INSTITUTION. 
161 
of life. In other words, they are poor outcasts, heartily shunned by 
their own sex and abandoned by the other." lie called the attention 
of the Commissioners to the necessity for a reformatory institution, 
under the direct control of the District government, where these women 
could be sent and cared for, and where their time and labor could be 
utilized both to themselves and to the State, and where a special effort 
could be made and certain influences thrown around them to change 
and reform their lives and mold their minds and character toward a 
happier and better end. 
He suggested that the Georgetown almshouse be set apart for this 
purpose, and that $5,000 expended in repairs and furniture would make 
it suitable for 50 persons, while $10,000 for the first year would cover 
reasonable expenses. Mr. Lubey called attention to the fact that 
throughout this country and Europe a class of institutions, both penal 
and reformatory, for the benefit of girls and women had been founded 
and fostered by the State with most beneficial results. In all of them 
the inmates were required to perform some class of labor not inconsist- 
ent with their physical strength, such as paper-box making, sewing, 
knitting, and in some cases light gardening. They were required to 
perform the housework, washing, repairing, etc., for the institution. 
" Long ago," he adds, " the managers of these institutions discovered 
that moral suasion was more potent for good than harsh measures, and 
all agreed that the only way of reforming the vicious and criminal girls 
and women is to abandon the usual prison system and group them 
together in a community, insisting upon the discipline essential to good 
government, providing such employment as will render the period of 
their detention less irksome, seeking to impart to them such education 
as the elementary books afford, maintaining and improving their phy- 
sique by wholesome recreation, and above all by the channel of* reli- 
gious instruction to teach them the duty they owe to society while on this 
earth, and to lead them to a firm belief in their forgiveness and happi- 
ness in the world to come." 
From a carefully prepared statement of the experiences of the vari- 
ous States, Mr. Lubey found that the tendency of all the large cities 
was to center the care of all the poor into competent hands, under 
official appointment, and not intrust the distribution of moneys to 
half a dozen different managers of institutions both private and pub- 
lic. In the Commissioners' Report for 1877 Mr. Lubey repeats and 
strengthens his recommendations for a reform school for girls. 
George A. Caswell, commissioner of the Washington Asylum under 
the permanent form of government, took up the question of the girls' 
reformatory where his predecessor, Mr. Lubey, had left it, stating that 
the Washington Asylum was at that time little better than a school of 
vice, and recommended an institution for the care of girls who were not 
habitual criminals. 
In his report for 1879-80 Thomas P. Morgan, major and superintend 
7260 11 162 
THE REFORM SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. 
ent of the Metropolitan police, states that his department is very fre- 
quently called upon to seek out the hiding places of truant young girls. 
When found, perforce, for want of a place in which an attempt could 
be made at their reclamation, they were returned to their parents or 
guardians, again to meet and mingle with the same vicious companions, 
and in too many cases to return to their evil ways. Could they have 
been submitted to the counsel and encouragement afforded by a well- 
conducted reformatory, he says, their reclamation would be more than 
probable. Once founded, an institution of this character could, it was 
believed, be made self-supporting by the labor of the inmates in the 
various light employments, plain and fancy needlework, etc., to which 
women are adapted, and at the same time be the means of teaching 
them a method of honestly earning their living when discharged. The 
House of the Good Shepherd, in Baltimore, an institution of the char- 
acter suggested, under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, had 
kindly taken many cases of abandoned young girls from Washington, 
but could not, injustice to the demands of its own city, respond to the 
calls of this department. 
In his report for the year ending June 30, 1880, the major of police 
again calls attention to the necessity of a reformatory for girls in the 
following language: 
An institution for the reformation of erring girls is greatly needed in this District. 
This department is very frequently called upon to seek out the hiding places of such, 
but when successful, as we generally are, of what avail is it? We have no place in 
this District to which they could be consigned, where by judicious, moral treatment, 
counsel, and encouragement an opportunity would be given them to reform, which 
in many cases would, I think, be successful. At present, for lack of such an insti- 
tution, the fugitives, after being brought from their hiding places, are, perforce, 
returned to their parents or guardians, to be again subjected to the same influences 
that caused their fall, thus rendering it nearly impossible for them to ever become 
respectable members of society. All this in the capital of the United States, a city 
of 178,000 inhabitants, and in the nineteenth century. A new District jail was 
required, and it was built. We have station houses scattered all over the District 
for'the detention of violators of law, but not a place in all our magnificent city to 
enable or assist an unfortunate girl to overcome the results of the first false step 
in life. 
I can not too strongly recommend the establishment of such an institution; 
humanity as well as the interests of society imperatively demands it. 
Major Brock, superintendent of police, in his report for 1882 returns 
again to the subject of the reformatory for girls, saying that he can not 
allow the present opportunity to pass without calling the attention of 
the Commissioners to the great necessity existing for an institution for 
the reformation of girls. He says: 
We have a reform school for boys. It is working well and is giving satisfaction 
to the community, many of its former inmates having through its influences changed 
their mode of life and become useful members of society. It is at least of equal 
importance that young girls, having through means and temptations that we know 
not of taken the first false step in life, should not be allowed to sink more and more REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS-OLD FARM BUILDING. REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS-THE BARN 163 
ACT OF INCORPORATION. 
into the mire of siu and shame without an attempt being made for their reformation. 
This department is frequently called upon to seek out the hiding places of erring 
young girls, but when successful, as we usually are, of what avail is it? We have 
no place in this District to which they can be consigned, where, by judicious, moral 
treatment and counsel and encouragement, an opportunity would be given them to 
reform. Such an institution would, in my opinion, result in the reformation of a 
large number of such cases. At present the fugitives, after being taken from their 
places of concealment, are perforce returned to their parents or guardians, to be 
again subjected to the influences that caused their fall, thus rendering it nearly 
impossible for them to become respectable members of society. Humanity and civil- 
ization require that at least an effort be made to bring the erring ones to a sense of 
the evils attendant upon a continuation of their errors. Such an effort, to be suc- 
cessful, can only be made by totally severing the ties that bind them to their former 
modes of life, and for such*purposes I again respectfully recommend the erection in 
the suburbs of this city of a building to be used as a reformatory for girls. 
Ill 
The act incorporating the Reform School for Girls in the District of 
Columbia, approved July 9,1888, creates a body corporate to be known 
as the board of trustees of the Girls' Reform School of the District of 
Columbia, and names Samuel S. Shellabarger, Augustus S. Worthing- 
ton, Adoniram J. Huntington, William C. Dodge, Mills Dean, Orren 
G. Staples, James E. Fitch, Thomas P. Morgan, and Alexander Graham 
Bell as the incorporators. No organization was ever effected under 
this act because no appropriation was made to carry out its provisions. 
On February 11, 1891, a bill was passed by the Senate appropriating 
$75,900 for the establishment of the school, but the bill was not passed 
by the House of Representatives. The District of Columbia appropria- 
tion bill for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1893, approved J uly 14,1892, 
contained the following appropriation : 
Reform school for girls.-For the erection and completion, according to plans and 
specifications to be prepared by the inspector of buildings and approved by the 
Commissioners of the District of Columbia, of a suitable building or buildings to 
be used as a reform school for girls, $35,000, to be expended under the direction of 
said Commissioners. Said building shall be erected on land belonging to the Gov- 
ernment, to be selected by the, Attorney-General, the Secretary of W ar, and the 
Engineer Commissioner of the District of Columbia. 
In accordance with the above provision, the building at present 
occupied by the school was erected at a cost of about $25,000, the 
remainder of the appropriation being expended for water supply, stable, 
grading, fencing, etc. The land selected by the Attorney-General, the 
Secretary of War, and the Engineer Commissioner of the District of 
Columbia, was the old farm of 19 acres situated at the junction of the 
Loughborough and Conduit roads. The land had been lying fallow for 
more than forty years, and was overgrown with thickets; and also it is 
full of ravines. 
The building was finished about November 1, 1893, and was turned 
over to the board of trustees of the Girls' Reform School, by whom it 164 
THE REFORM SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. 
was formally opened for the reception of inmates, November 6, 1893. 
The board of trustees then notified the chief justice of the supreme 
court of the District of Columbia that the school was ready for the 
reception of girls, to the limit of 29. On November 6, 1893, the first 
girl was committed to the school, and admissions followed in rapid 
succession, until the school was crowded to its utmost capacity. From 
the time of the opening of the school until the end of the first fiscal 
year, 38 girls were committed, of whom 32 remained in the institution 
at the close of the year, 3 were turned over to the board of Children's 
Guardians, 1 was bound out, 1 was released at the request of the judge 
who committed her, and 1 was sent to the Government Hospital for the 
Insane. 
Although the building was constructed to accommodate only 29 girls 
by placing girls in the larger cells and also in the room that was intended 
as a hospital, 32 girls were provided for at one time. Almost daily 
application was made to the trustees by the judges of the police court 
and by others to receive girls, but it was impossible with the accommo- 
dations to receive more inmates, so that the school was practically 
closed against the reception of all comers. 
Nearly all the girls committed were guilty of theft; they lived in the 
midstof low surroundings, had been badly clothed and ill-fed, and were 
without moral training.1 Most of them were illiterate. Two teachers 
were employed to teach reading, writing, sewing, cooking, household 
duties, and gardening, many of the girls being fond of work in the open 
air. In the second annual report William C. Endicott, jr., president of 
the board of trustees, states that in the District of Columbia there are 
many criminals under the age of 18, and that the number is rapidly 
increasing. Statistics from other cities north and south show that 
female criminals under 18 years of age in the District of Columbia 
bear a larger proportion to the population than in any other city in 
the Union. "This would appear to be due," says Mr. Endicott, "to 
the presence of such .a large colored population as there is in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia," but when it appears that New Orleans, with much 
larger population, does not have nearly so many colored criminals, 
other causes must be looked for. 
"In this District the colored people are in better condition than the 
same class in any other part of the country. They are better off, more 
intelligent, receive larger wages, and have for more than a quarter of a 
century had the advantages of good schools. The following facts may 
to some extent explain the large percentage of girl criminals: 
" From the official reports of the intendant of the Washington Asylum 
(workhouse) it appears that of the 2,581 girls committed to that insti- 
tution since June 30, 1885, only 39 of them were white, while the white 
1 Report of the president of the Girls' Reform School of the District of Columbia, 
1894. THE REFORM SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. WORK OF THE SCHOOL. 
165 
population of the District of Columbia outnumbers the colored popula- 
tion two to one. 
"From the reports of the superintendent of the Metropolitan police, 
the girls arrested in the District of Columbia from the fiscal year end- 
ing June 30, 1887, to June 30. 1894, are as follows: 
Year ending June 30- 
1887 791 
1888 923 
1889 877 
1890 1,112 
Year ending June 30- 
1891 1,271 
1892 1,197 
1893 1,284 
1894 1, 171 
"In a period of seven years, from 1887 to 1894, this table shows an 
increase of nearly 50 per cent in female criminals, while the population 
increased at about 2 per cent per annum. Of this large number of 
arrests made by the Metropolitan police in the District over 2,500 were 
committed to the workhouse. 
"Up to the time of the opening of the Girls' Reform School of the 
District of Columbia there was absolutely no effort made in the District 
to reform colored girl criminals. The House of the Good Shepherd in 
Baltimore, and later the House of the Good Shepherd in Washington, 
and the House of Mercy in Washington, have been actively engaged 
for some time in their efforts to reform white girls. While the present 
reform school is not intended alone for colored inmates, still up to the 
present time no white inmate has been received at the institution. It 
will be observed that since the opening of the Girls' Reform School 
(now some eight months since) the result appears to have been that 
there was a decrease in the number of convictions by 160, or over 40 
per cent." 
From the beginning the school has had the cooperation of the Board 
of Children's Guardians in placing out girls, and to that extent has 
been able to find homes for such as were fitted for home life without any 
tax upon its own resources. The industrial report for the second year 
of the school is both interesting and instructive. Mrs. Jessie Aldrich, 
the superintendent, states: 
All the garments (some 570 in number), consisting of dresses, underwear, aprons, 
etc., have been made by the inmates under the direction of the sewing teacher. The 
majority do not like this work, and as this is an age of ready-made clothing, few, 
if any, knew anything of sewing when committed. 
The most satisfactory work that is done is in the laundry, but they are compara- 
tively young lor such heavy washing as ours, and I would recommend that with 
increased accommodation provision be made for a practical laundress. 
Our opportunities for teaching cooking are limited; the food is necessarily of the 
plainest kind, but our matron has succeeded wonderfully with the material at her 
disposal, and has turned out several excellent bread makers. 
It is most encouraging the progress many have made during the past few months 
in their school hours; they have become so interested and seem anxious to learn all 
they can, fully two-thirds of them being entirely ignorant of their alphabet when 
they came to us. 166 
THE REFORM SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. 
We have not oeen able to make as good a showing with the farm as we had hoped, 
owing to the condition of the land. For fifty years it has been allowed to remain in 
an uncultivated state, and was a vast wilderness of locust and undergrowth, requir 
ing much labor in grubbing and clearing. Notwithstanding this and a long, dry 
summer, we have grown nearly all the vegetables required for our use and sold $24 
worth of early potatoes. 
We also planted an orchard of six different varieties of fruit, 200 trees in all, 1 
acre of Early Rose potatoes, 1| acres late potatoes, one-half acre sugar corn, 4 acres 
of late corn, one-half acre of melons, one-fourth acre of tomatoes, one-eighth acre 
each of cucumbers, celery, squash, and pease, one-half acre of beaus, 4,500 heads of 
cabbage, one-half acre of strawberries, one-fourth acre of sweet potatoes, 1^ acres of 
turnips, one-eighth acre of beets, parsnips, and oyster plant. CHAPTER XIV. 
THE RELIEF OF THE POOR. 
WHE first appropriation made by Congress for the relief of the poor in 
A the District of Columbia is contained in act of July 4, 1864, appro- 
priating $2,000 for the relief of the victims of the explosion in the 
cartridge factory in the United States Arsehal, the amount being 
increased by $2,500 two years later. In 1867 the sum of $15,000 was 
expended, under the direction of the Freedmen's Bureau, for the tempor- 
ary relief of the destitute poor, and it was provided that where practi- 
cable the money should be used to give employment on public works. 
In 1869-70 $30,000 was expended under the direction of the mayors of 
Washington and Georgetown and the president of the levy court of the 
District of Columbia, and in 1870-71 the further sum of $30,000 was 
appropriated to enable the Secretary of War to provide for cases of 
absolute necessity among the poor of Washington and Georgetown, on 
recommendation of the Washington Association for the Improvement 
of the Condition of the Poor, or the National Freedmen's Belief Asso- 
ciation, or the Industrial Home School. The Secretary of War was 
empowered to agree with the benevolent institutions named, or with 
other persons, to furnish the supplies necessary, whenever he could do 
so advantageously. In 1872 the Secretary of War expended $12,000 on 
the care of destitute aged persons in the District of Columbia, and in 
1875 the Commissioners of the District of Columbia obtained an appro- 
priation of $10,000 to relieve the suffering poor.1 
Under the act chartering the Washington Market Company the 
annual rental of $25,000 paid by that company was set apart for the 
support and maintenance of the poor.2 Under this law the District 
(lovernment became a trustee of this fund. The company claimed that 
the rental was subsequently reduced to $20,000 by joint resolution of 
the 1 )istrict Assembly; and that, still later, the Board of Public Works, 
acting under a law of Congress authorizing it to purchase a site for 
a municipal building, purchased from the company the property imme- 
diately in front of the market building, agreeing as a consideration to 
further reduce the annual rental to a sum varying from $5,500 to $7,500, 
according to the amount of annual tax upon the market company; and 
1 Senate Ex. Doc. 84, Forty-fifty Congress, second session, pp. 119, 120. 
2 Act approved May 20, 1870. 
167 168 
THE RELIEF OF THE POOR. 
that the difference between the varying sum and the full amount of the 
poor fund should be paid by the District Government.1 From July 1 
to December 1, 1874, the amount received from this source was 
$3,257.44; of which sum $056.50 was paid for the treatment of the 
poor at the Freedmen's Hospital and $200 was paid to charitable 
institutions. 
This very heavy reduction in the amount received for the relief of the 
poor was accompanied by a change in the method of administering 
relief and by an economy that left the District rather benefited than 
injured by the new system. During the fiscal years 1871 to 1873, inclu- 
sive, the average annual expense was $18,406.92. Under the board of 
health during the three months ending November 30,1874, the expendi- 
ture was at the rate of $5,000 per annum. The number of persons 
treated by the physicians to the poor was 840, and the number of buri- 
als at public expense was 49. During the succeeding eleven months 
5,797 persons were treated, at a cost of $7,029.06 for physicians' serv- 
ices and $2,162.65 for medicines. Congress having failed to provide 
the necessary means to continue the work, the employment of physi- 
cians to the poor was discontinued August 31,1876. The number of 
people who died in the District of Columbia without medical attendance 
during that year was 689, as reported by the medical sanitary inspector. 
"What a comment upon a civilized community!"2 
IL 
The act of June 11,1878, providing a permanent form of government 
for the District of Columbia, abolished the board of health and cre- 
ated the health office, to be under the charge of a physician appointed 
by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and known as the 
health officer. Dr. Smith Townsend, the first incumbent of the office, 
in his first annual report called the attention of the Commissioners of 
the District to the fact that a number of people died annually in the 
cities of Washington and Georgetown for want of medical attendance 
and the want of medicine, while untold suffering was entailed upon many 
that survived. He held that the District of Columbia had a large 
pauper element, brought hither by certain peculiar causes which have 
affected no other city. In his first report Dr. Townsend says: 
There are at this time 40,000 negroes in the District, a majority of whom flocked 
to the seat of Government just after the war, expecting to gain an easy livelihood 
and find perpetual employment at the hands of those who gave them freedom; but 
the reaction came, and with it hard times, and these people found that freedom had 
its trials and tribulations as well as its joys and pleasures. Once imbued with the 
customs of city life, they were loath again to return to the farm and field, and they 
have remained in the shanties and huts which fill the alleys and back streets of 
Washington and Georgetown. Poorly clad, ill fed, and surrounded with filth and 
1 Report of William Birney, assistant attorney, District of Columbia, December 1, 
1874. 
2 Report of the Board of Health for 1897, page 9. PHYSICIANS TO THE POOR. 
169 
squalor, they fall an easy prey to disease and are a constant care to the health 
authorities. 
There is also a large number of poor whites who find the struggle for existence a 
hard one, and who, when sickness overtakes them, find difficulty in procuring med- 
ical attention. Many persons are annually brought to the national capital by reason 
of the tedious delays which sometimes attend legislation, or the procurement of 
official position, or through the failure of some cherished plan, and are thrown upon 
the charities of the District. Should disease overtake them in poverty there is no 
provision for their cases. There is no other city in the country of even half the 
population of Washington but that makes provision for the medical care of its 
indigent poor. That many die for lack of medical care is illustrated by the fact 
that the health officer is called upon daily to investigate the cause of death in cases 
where no physician had been in attendance, and where no medical aid whatever had 
been rendered. 
On January 15, 1879, authority was granted to the health officer to 
expend $1,200 in the care of the sick poor, that amount to defray the 
expenses of the service to March 31 following. Dr. Townsend set out 
at once to organize the service and systematize its workings. The first 
thing done was to appoint 9 physicians, at a salary of $30 a month each; 
then 12 druggists were designated and contracts entered into with them 
to furnish medicines upon prescriptions of the physicians to the poor 
at reduced rates. Knowing that the most rigid economy and closest 
surveillance would be necessary in conducting the service, the health 
officer issued explicit instructions to the physicians, stating that reliance 
would be placed upon their judgment in determining those properly 
entitled to this charity, and in judiciously selecting and prescribing 
medicines and appliances in the treatment of diseases, with a view to 
economy, as well as to the best interests of the patient and the public. 
A sick pauper entitled to their attention and prescription was defined 
in plain terms, and they were then instructed in cases of doubt always 
to lean on the side of humanity and sympathy for the suffering. 
A list of preparations ;wid the quantities designated were given as 
being believed to be adequate for the requirements of the service, and 
the contract druggists agreed to furnish, at a price not to exceed 15 
cents for each prescription, medicines of the best quality, properly pre- 
pared and put up, upon prescriptions of the physician to the poor, and 
to furnish to the health officer weekly statements of accounts upon 
blanks furnished for that purpose, prescriptions being retained as 
vouchers. The physicians were also required to make weekly reports, 
showing the name of patient, location, age, sex, color, social relation, 
whether the attendance was by office consultation or visit, and general 
remarks.1 
In the opinion of the health officer the system worked admirably, and 
in a short time everything ran smoothly, and the sick poor were well 
provided for. Before the expiration of the term for which the $1,200 
was furnished, an appropriation of $5,000 for this service was seemed 
and the work was continued on the same basis, better results ensuing 
1 The system then adopted is still in use. 170 
THE RELIEF OF THE POOR. 
than, in the opinion of the health officer, could have been accomplished 
by any other system. "Various methods have been urged as substi- 
tutes," the health officer says, "but nothing presented so far compares 
favorably with the one adopted." Some persons favored the establish- 
ment of a dispensary and the enlistment of a corps of volunteer physi- 
cians, but he thought the failure of volunteer enterprises of most kinds 
where considerable labor has been involved was a sufficient argument 
against this method. "Physicians, like most other mortals," he said, 
"like to be remunerated to a certain extent for their services, and when 
acting in a volunteer capacity prefer to go according to their own ideas 
rather than in conformity with any established rule set up by one acting 
as their director. System is required in all work, and unless the man 
is paid for his services he chafes under discipline. A paid corps of 
physicians for attendance on the poor is of all things necessary, and is 
as far superior to what it would be under a volunteer system as the 
paid fire department is in comparison with the old volunteer companies." 
In this connection the health officer disclaimed any reflection upon 
"that worthy, benevolent, and well-conducted institution, the Central 
Dispensary, which has rendered much assistance in taking care of 
those persons able to present themselves for treatment, and which was 
doing good work in its way. Volunteer physicians in this case attend, 
during certain hours of the day, all applicants who present themselves 
at the dispensary, but this does not reach the class attended by the 
physicians to tlie poor, and the kind of volunteer service here involved 
is very different from covering a certain piece of territory and being- 
bound to answer, day or night, any call that may be made." 
The health officer estimated that $7,000 annually was required to 
conduct the service properly. In addition to supplying the poor with 
medicines and medical attendance, the health officer, during 1879, 
supplied the sick poor with food, under an appropriation of $3,000. 
Through the medium of the physicians to the poor, a list of articles of 
diet, such as would be suitable for the sick person and his or her family 
as well, was made, and contracts were entered into with grocers at con- 
venient points in the various sections to furnish these articles upon 
orders of the physicians to the poor at reduced rates. The system 
worked to the entire satisfaction of the health office, the expenditures 
coming far within the limit of the expectation of the health' officer. 
The investigations of the office showed that the most worthy objects 
of charity were not those who proclaimed their needs upon the highway 
and asked alms of all they met. This class would bear watching. The 
public charities are the ones most preyed upon, and it was surprising to 
learn the class of persons who would apply for alms when it is known 
that any general fund was to be distributed. Hundreds of applications 
were made to the physicians to the poor for orders for food by persons 
who were not in the remotest degree entitled to the benefits of such a 
charity. Acting under instructions to investigate every case carefully TRANSPORTATION OF PAUPERS. 
171 
and satisfy themselves of the worthiness of applicants before giving 
orders, many of these unworthy ones were brought to light. When 
informed that they were able to take care of themselves, or that the 
fund was only intended for the really destitute, they said that they 
"heard it was being given out, and they thought they might as well 
get some of it as anybody else," or that they "had as much right to it 
as so and so," who had been helped, etc. 
III. 
On November 20, 3878, John Connell, sanitary officer of the Metro- 
politan police, reported that scarcely a week passed without two or three 
persons being brought to his office by officers of the Executive Mansion, 
or from the several police stations, who, upon examination by the proper 
medical officers, were found to be insane, and who had to be sent to the 
Government Hospital for the Insane at the expense of the District, 
although they were in no sense its proper wards. 
His office was also charged with furnishing transportation for non- 
resident paupers toward their homes. This class of paupers had 
increased very much during the past year, many of them being 
wounded soldiers or soldiers' widows, or the mother or sister of a 
deceased soldier, who were unable to provide themselves with the 
necessities of life owing to the general stagnation of business and their 
utter inability to obtain employment of any kind. In their necessity 
they were tempted to come to Washington in the hope of obtaining 
employment of some kind from the Government, or securing a pension. 
Failing to obtain work, and rarely obtaining pensions, they found 
themselves among strangers, without means to return to their homes. 
The amount allowed for the transportation of prisoners to the work- 
house and for paupers was but $2,000. The item of transportation to 
the workhouse amounted to $1,200, leaving a balance of but $800 for 
the transportation of paupers, which was entirely inadequate. The 
sanitary officer remarked that such people, by their personal appeals 
were frequently annoying, not only to individual citizens but to Mem- 
bers of Congress during the session; and he asked for an increased 
amount for the transportation of these poor people toward their homes. 
He reported that during the year he had sent to the Washington 
Asylum sick and destitute persons to the number of 361; to the Provi- 
dence Hospital, 140; to the Freedmen's Hospital, 107; to the Govern- 
ment Hospital for the Insane, 84; to the Columbia Hospital, 4; to the 
Colored Orphan Asylum, 2, and to St. Ann's Infant Asylum, 1, making 
a total of 699. 
IV. 
In January, 1881, a meeting was held at Willard Hall, and a fund 
was raised for the relief of the poor. The money was expended under 
the direction of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, through 172 
THE BELIEF OF THE POOB. 
their agent, the chief of police. The sum of $11,751.33 was received, 
and the disbursements were 50 cents in excess of the receipts. In 
addition to the cash receipts, a considerable quantity of supplies in 
the form of food, fuel, clothing, and bedding was contributed and 
distributed. 
This fund and the other contributions were the spontaneous mani- 
festation of sympathy with, and a desire to relieve, the suffering of the 
poor unprepared to bear the trials of a hard winter. More than 0,000 
families were relieved. Major Brock, the chief of police, directed bis 
men to examine into the wants of the poor within their respective pre- 
cincts, and upon reporting the necessities of an individual an order 
signed by the lieutenant of the preci net was good for whatever was 
most needed in the special case. The order was filled by the mer- 
chant to whom it was presented and returned by him to the lieutenant 
who issued it. On his approval it was paid by the chief of police. A 
committee of citizens, consisting of Reginald Fendall, F. B. McGuire, 
and Louis J. Davis, audited the accounts. 
On January 9, 1884, the major and superintendent of police repre- 
sented to the Commissioners of the District that so great distress existed 
among the poor of the District that extraordinary effort s were demanded 
for their relief. The Commissioners thereupon resolved to appeal for 
help to the citizens at large. On the evening of January 10 a public 
meeting was held at Masonic Temple, Commissioner Edmonds presiding. 
As the result of that meeting $7,095.45 was collected. The amount 
was contributed by the citizens at large, by the police, by the employees 
of the various Government Departments, ami by certain entertainments 
given for the benefit of the fund. After relieving all cases of distress, 
there remained a balance of $949.33, which amount was divided among 
the Washington City Asylum, St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum, and the 
German Orphan Asylum, in sums of $100 each, the remainder going to 
the Night Lodging House-in the opinion of the committee, a most 
deserving charity. 
In all, 2,715 families, averaging four persons each, were relieved. Of 
these, 793 families were white, and 1,603 families were colored. The 
average expense was $2 a family. The committee, consisting of R. Ross 
Perry, Reginald Fendall, and Simon Wolf, reported to Hon. Walter S. 
Cox, the chairman of the citizens relief fund, that ''while it was true 
that the cases relieved were generally worthy of relief, the committee 
would nevertheless urgently recommend the procuring of more strin- 
gent laws in connection with vagrancy and pauperism. A man who 
won't work and yet asks charity ought to be made to work. We trust 
that the Commissioners will consider this matter, and endeavor to pro- 
cure more effective and absolute legislation in the premises. The com- 
mittee expresses the belief that the plans proposed by the Associated 
Charities will, when properly matured and developed, render unneces- 
sary any future appeal to the citizens at large." CENTRAL RELIEF COMMITTEE 
173 
V. 
In December, 1896, the Commissioners of the District of Colombia 
invited a number of citizens to become members of a committee to 
take charge of and disburse such private contributions as might be 
made for the relief of the poor. This committee was requested also to 
consider and report to the Commissioners an effective plan for perma- 
nent relief of the poor of the District of Columbia, including such 
measures of relief as may come from the erection in Washington of 
convenient and comfortable homes to be let at reasonable rentals to 
persons of small means, having specially in view proper sanitary and 
helpful surroundings. In response to this invitation the following per- 
sons met at the rooms of the Board of Trade on Monday, December 7, 
1896, and formed a temporary organization: John F. Cook, C. B. 
Church, Rev. W. E. Parsons, James W. Somerville, James E. Fitch, 
Henry F. Blount, B. T. Janney, Hugh T. Stevenson, Col. John Tracey, 
Louis W. Ritchie, M. D., Surg. Gen. George M. Sternberg, Rev. Charles 
Alvin Smith, Mrs. J. W. Babson, Mrs. H. B. F. Macfarland, George S. 
Wilson, Mrs. Frederick McGuire, William Redin Woodward, A. T. 
Britton, Hon. Beriah Wilkins, Bishop Satterlee, John A. Baker, and 
T. A. Lambert. 
Hon. Charles C. Cole, who had been chairman of a former relief com- 
mittee, was unanimously elected chairman of the Central Relief Com- 
mittee; Mr. George S. Wilson, the general secretary of the Associated 
Charities, was made secretary, and Hon. Beriah Wilkins, treasurer. A 
plan of work was laid out and the Associated Charities was recom- 
mended as the one and only agency through which disbursements 
should be made. In explaining the reasons for recommending the 
Associated Charities as the sole agency for information, the committee 
stated that one of the great troubles and dangers of the past has been 
the fact that so many different societies were employed, duplicating 
information and work, leading to a great deal of trouble, and sometimes 
triple distribution to the same parties. If one agency only is employed, 
investigation will be more thorough and can more reliably be depended 
on, and frauds in a great degree will be prevented. Also the influx 
from neighboring States of the army of mendicants, who for the past 
few years have invariably Hocked to Washington, would be prevented. 
On March 12,1897, the Central Relief Committee reported that the new 
arrangements were very satisfactory and had prevented almost entirely 
the duplication of relief, and at the same time had enabled the committee 
to relieve the really needy. 
The great majority of applicants for relief were already known to the 
agents of the Associated Charities, and those cases were promptly 
passed upon, while the families that were not already known were 
promptly visited and the circumstances were examined by the agents 
of the society. Through this personal knowledge not only was fraud 174 
THE BELIEF OF THE POOL. 
prevented, but the lady visitors were able to find and relieve those fam- 
ilies who frequently were unwilling to make known their condition. 
These visitors were enabled to reach the quiet self-respecting families 
who shrink from making their wants known at a crowded relief agency, 
and such families were quietly relieved of their necessities. ()ver 2,000 
separate families were relieved, and the committee believe that few 
cases of real suffering were not attended to. With a fund of a little 
over $8,000 the work of the winter was accomplished and a considera- 
ble balance remained to be used for cases of emergency during the sum- 
mer months. This report was signed by Henry F. Blount, the chairman, 
and George S. Wilson, the secretary. 
The financial committee, of which Mr. James E. Fitch was chairman, 
reported that money had been raised by a general appeal through the 
press, by a special appeal by circular letter sent to a comparatively few 
persons, and also an appeal to the several Departments of the Govern- 
ment for 50-cent contributions from employees. The responses to these 
several calls were prompt and generous, that from the Departments, 
amounting to $2,610.52, being particularly so. The total receipts were 
$8,600.34, of which a balance of $4,867.77 remained in the hands of 
the treasurer unexpended, rendering unnecessary any further contri- 
butions from the public. 
Besides the work done by the Central Belief Committee the Commis- 
sioners expended through the police the sum of $1,000, taken from the 
fund for the relief of the poor, and $1,407.38, interest on the centennial 
inaugural fund, which fund is made up of the balances left in the hands 
of inaugural committees after paying the expenses of inaugurations. 
A further sum of $1,583.80 was realized from a charity concert given 
under the auspices of Mrs. Thomas C. Noyes, and was expended in 
relieving 6,000 persons, to whom orders for provisions, fuel, clothing, 
and shoes were given. Donations received and entered by the super- 
intendent of police upon his individual cash book and expended for 
provisions, fuel, and rent, upon vouchers submitted and approved, 
aggregated $2,130.58, and the total number of persons relieved is 
placed at 13,825. 
During the winter of 1897-98 the Commissioners of the District of 
Columbia placed in the hands of the Central Relief Committee the 
entire work of furnishing relief to the poor, and contributed to the funds 
of that committee $1,000 from the fund for the relief of the poor, thus 
relieving the police department of work that never properly belonged 
to it. 
VI. 
The Associated Charities is a private organization, supported entirely 
by voluntary contributions. It was incorporated under the general act 
in January, 1882, and has therefore been organized about sixteen years. 
For fourteen years the society worked as a relief-giving organization, CENTRAL RELIEF COMMITTEE. 
175 
collecting and disbursing funds for the relief of the poor, and through 
its agents and volunteer visitors endeavoring to teach the poor better 
habits of life, and, so far as possible, to raise them to a condition of 
self-support and independence. 
The society also has endeavored to bring about cooperation among 
the various charitable organizations in the community; but it was 
found that, being a relief-giving organization itself, the society could 
not procure the desired cooperation from other relief agencies, and in 
November, 1895, the society was reorganized and a new constitution was 
adopted, eliminating the relief-giving features from the organization. 
Since that time the society has endeavored more and more to act as 
a clearing house for charities and a bureau of general information 
regarding the poor of the community. It keeps on record a history of 
every poor family reported to its agents, and it makes investigations 
for societies and individuals when requested to do so. The informa- 
tion on tile in the oftice of the society is at the free disposal of all per- 
sons having a charitable interest in the poor. 
Since the reorganization of the society the amount of outdoor relief 
found necessary has been very greatly reduced, and duplication of giv- 
ing has in a large measure been prevented. 
The society also has organized a band of volunteer workers, who give 
their time and attention freely to the poor, not as almoners, but in a 
friendly relationship, studying the particular needs of each individual 
case and seeking the best methods of raising the family into a condi- 
tion of self-dependence; in short, looking rather to the permanent wel- 
fare than the temporary relief of the poor. 
The scope of the work done by the Associated Charities is illustrated 
by an appeal recently sent out, as follows: 
To most people, giving for charity means simply hand-to-mouth relief; their feel- 
ings are appealed to to allay sufi'ering, and they give to that immediate end only. 
There is a broader aspect of it, and that is its sociological value, which it is believed 
those who have contributed to the administrative branch of the Associated Charities 
have come to appreciate by intelligent study and reflection. 
To maintain the work it is necessary that we should retain a corps of workers in 
the field throughout the summer months, when so much preventive and constructive 
work can be done among the poor. 
If we can keep our agents in the field throughout the summer, a great deal can be 
accomplished in the way of finding employment, teaching habits of thrift and indus- 
try, and collecting savings from those employed, so that there may be something 
ahead to provide for the winter. Last year, with only three agents employed, a 
great deal was accomplished, and over two hundred poor families opened savings 
accounts, and many of these families have been able to help themselves through the 
present winter without applying for charity. The only hope of real progress in 
solving the poverty problem is along these lines. 
The general secretary of the society is Mr. George S. Wilson, who 
was called to Washington from Toledo, Ohio, where he had been suc- 
cessful in similar work. The officers are: Rev. B. L. Whitman, D. I)., 
president; John Joy Edson, treasurer; Chas. P. Neill, Ph. D., secre- 176 
THE RELIEF OF THE POOR. 
tary. Board of managers: Prof. B. T. Janney, chairman; Mrs. J. W. 
Babson, Bev. J. H. Bradford, Gen. Geo. H. Harries, Col. Archibald 
Hopkins, ALiss K. P. Hosmer, F. L. Moore, Chas. P. Neill, Ph. D., Dr. 
M. 1). Peck, Bev. Chas. A. Smith, Thos. W. Smith, Miss F. P. Spofford, 
Geo. Truesdell, S. W. Woodward. 
VII. 
Under the general head of the relief of the poor may be elassed the 
work done by the Washington Humane Society. By virtue of the 
authority contained in an act approved February 13,1885, the Commis- 
sioners of the District of Columbia were authorized to detail a police 
officer as agent of the Humane Society for the purpose of preventing 
the neglect and abuse of children. This work was taken up before the 
establishment of the Board of Children's Guardians. The police officer 
detailed investigates cases of neglect and takes up children, for some 
of whom he finds places in the various charitable institutions of the 
city, while the remainder he turns over to the Board of Children's 
Guardians. Under the law adverted to the officer is required to bring 
the children before the courts and have them committed; but it has 
been the uniform practice of the officer to ignore this portion of the 
law and to deal with the children as seems to him for the best interests 
of the individual child, making a report of the same to the Humane 
Society. The society exercises no supervision over the officer beyond 
receiving his report, and expends no money on the work of child caring 
for in the District. 
The society has its office in the Sun building. The president is 
Mr. A. S. Pratt; Mr. W. F. Stowell is the secretary; Mrs. H. B. F. 
Macfarland is the financial secretary, and Mr. Edwin M. Truell is the 
treasurer. CHAPTER XV. 
THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITIES. 
FTIHE report of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia for 
1 the year 1875 invites the attention of Congress to the suggestions 
of the commissioner of the Washington Asylum for the reorganiza- 
tion of the public charities of the District, to the end of having them 
put under the control of a commission, to whom shall be intrusted 
the disbursement of all moneys, whether appropriated by Congress 
or contributed by the District for the support of such charities, and 
who shall account for the same to the District authorities, under such 
regulations as shall be prescribed by law. 
In discussing this subject, Col. Timothy Lubey, commissioner of the 
Washington Asylum, calls special attention to the necessity that then 
existed for a thorough reorganization of the whole system of charities 
of the District. A matter of so much interest, he says, ought not to be 
deferred. Under the system as it then existed the District of Columbia 
sustained and governed a few institutions, the General Government a 
number, and there were private institutions of like character receiving 
yearly support both from the District and the General Government. 
"Such a system," says Mr. Lubey, "does not produce the best results, 
nor is there in it much unity of action. Concentrated effort should be 
the end desired." 
From the tables given it appeared that during the preceding two 
years the sum of $379,246.73 had been appropriated for various institu- 
tions, each one of them under a distinct form of management. To 
harmonize the managements and to increase the efficiency of control, 
he recommended that all public charitable institutions, including the 
hospitals, be placed under the control of the District Government, and 
managed by a board selected from among the best citizens of the Dis- 
trict, of both sexes, who should have general charge; that all appro- 
priations of public moneys be made in the aggregate and be distributed 
by them, and that they should have at all times the right of inspection 
of all charities, public and private. 
These recommendations having borne no fruit, the District Commis- 
sioners in their report for 1877 recommend a greater unification of the 
charities of the District, and the appointment of a board of charities. 
Such a board, wisely chosen from the best citizens of both sexes, they 
say, could make this great subject of pauperism and charity a matter 
7260 12 
177 178 
THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITIES. 
of careful study, availing themselves of every obtainable light and 
observation at home and abroad for their guidance and enlightened 
action. 
In their report for 1879-80 the Commissioners again recommend that 
they be authorized to appoint a board, consisting of five citizens of 
recognized integrity and intelligence, to serve without compensation 
and subject to the control of the Commissioners, who shall have the 
power, and whose duty it shall be, to visit, inspect, and supervise all 
charitable, reformatory, and penal institutions supported in whole or 
in part by the District of Columbia, and under whose supervision and 
direction also all moneys for the relief of the poor shall be expended. 
In their report for the year ending June 30, 1880, the Commissioners 
repeat their recommendation for the appointment of a board of chari- 
ties. "It is impossible for the Commissioners," they say, "with their 
other imperative and engrossing duties, to give the attention to this 
subject which its importance demands." The appointment of such a 
board would also, they think, "tend to harmonize and concentrate in 
more stable and effective methods the benevolent forces of the commu- 
nity, which are now greatly impaired by unnecessary divisions and 
rivalries. Our institutions are numerous, but generally feeble and 
unstable." 
In their report for 1883-84, the Commissioners once more call attention 
to the fragmentary and incomplete character of the charity adminis- 
tered through private institutions and by separate volunteers boards, 
without correlation of unity of purpose; and to the difficulty of the 
supervision of such a system, or lack of system, as was then in force. 
Until a better system can be devised, to enable the Commissioners to 
more thoroughly perform the duty of investigation devolved upon 
them by law, they recommend that they be authorized to appoint an 
inspector of charities, who should devote his time thereto and report 
thereon as required, and upon whose recommendation moneys appro- 
priated might be paid or withheld, and relief given in needy cases not 
specially provided for, and mendicancy driven from the streets. 
Again, in their report for 1884, the Commissioners state that the total 
appropriations for charitable purposes, and chargeable to the District 
expense for the year 1884-85, were $235,212. About $114,000 of this 
amount was appropriated for institutions managed by private boards 
of trustees, "doubtless upon the theory that public money is only given 
to supplement and encourage private donations." While this might be 
true in the cases of the Children's Hospital, St. Ann's, St. John's, and 
the German Orphan asylums, yet the Reform and Industrial schools, 
the Columbia Hospital and the Asylum for Colored Women and Chil- 
dren were almost wholly maintained from the public treasury. Other 
institutions were demanding aid, but the Commissioners were not suf- 
ficiently advised to .judge of their comparative merits or necessities; 
and they express regret that " our institutions are not managed by a A BOARD OF CHARITIES. 
179 
common board of control, so that one kind of charity need not be 
duplicated, or overdone, to the neglect of others. Demands in the 
name of charity, the Commissioners say, are so great that close scru- 
tiny is needed to limit the relief from the public treasury to the require- 
ments of actual necessity and public advantage. Inasmuch as the 
common control of the various private institutions seemed to be 
thought unpractical, the Commissioners again suggested the appoint- 
ment of an inspector of charities. 
In 188(5 the District Commissioners renewed their suggestion that 
the public expenditures for charities being so large it would be expedi- 
ent to appoint an officer to devote his time to that service, with the 
accompanying legislation authorizing the Commissioners to withhold 
appropriations in case of needless extravagance, or failure to fulfill the 
reasonable expectation of public benefit on the part of the beneficiary. 
During the year 1883, acting under the instructions of the superin- 
tendent of police, the board of police surgeons visited the various 
charitable institutions with the view of ascertaining their sanitary 
condition.1 
At the Children's Hospital the sanitary condition and management 
of the institution were found to be wholly satisfactory in every respect. 
There were 47 patients in the hospital, and the daily average of dis- 
pensary patients was 30. The Women's Christian Association Home 
was found to be badly ventilated, its general condition was unclean, 
and the dormitories, especially those of the female children, were 
overcrowded. The diet was not as ample as it should be, and the 
variety of food was insufficient. There were no means of protection 
against fire. The institution was divided into two separate depart- 
ments, one for adults and one for children. The average number of 
inmates in the adult department was 28, of whom 7 were free inmates. 
In the children's department were 32, of whom 6 were free. The man- 
agement and general condition of the National Association for the 
Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children were found to be 
excellent, and especially satisfactory from a hygienic standpoint. The 
building was found to be unsafe, being a perfect tinder box. It was 
lighted by oil lamps and stoves, and there was no protection against 
fire. The medical attendant, Dr. I). Darling, of the physicians to the 
poor, resided at Brightwood, entirely too far from the institution to be 
available in cases of necessity. It was suggested that the association 
be provided with a corps of attending and consulting physicians, and 
thus be placed on an equal footing with similar institutions in the 
District. The number of inmates were-boys, 58; girls, 38; women, 4; 
total, 100. At St. Ann's Infant Asylum the sanitary condition and 
management were found entirely satisfactory. It was suggested that 
the institution be supplied with fire extinguishers. The number of 
'This report is to be found on page 417 of the Report of the Board of Commis- 
sioners of the District of Columbia for 1883-84, and not on page 270, as indexed. 180 
THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITIES. 
children in the building was 80, and the number out with wet nurses 
25. The building of the Church Orphanage of St. John's Parish was 
found to be not suited for the purposes of an asylum. The ventilation 
and heating were imperfect, the dormitories were overcrowded, and 
the children, though looking healthy, were untidy. There was no pro- 
tection against fire. Most, if not all, the shortcomings mentioned were, 
in the judgment of the surgeons, the result of the want of funds to 
carry out the measures required for the best interests of the inmates. 
The number of inmates was 60, comprising children from 3 to 16 years 
of age. The sanitary condition and management of the Industrial 
Home School were found entirely satisfactory. Number of inmates- 
adults 6, children 67. This report was signed by Drs. S. A. H. McKim, 
Johnson Eliot, G. L. Magruder, and II. A. Kleinschmidt. 
The following year the board made a second examination, with the 
result of finding the sanitary condition of the Industrial Home School 
all that could be desired; the hygienic conditions at St. Ann's Infant 
Asylum good in every respect; the church orphanage of St. John's 
parish little improved, excepting that there was a greater degree of 
neatness and cleanliness in the inmates and the rooms. Columbia 
Hospital was found entirely satisfactory. The Emergency Hospital 
was undergoing repairs, but making all due allowances for such a state 
of affairs, the board was disappointed; everything was in an exceed- 
ingly crude state, and with the exception of the reception room, pre- 
sented a very uninviting appearance. The building was not well 
adapted to hospital purposes, as any rented building is apt not to be, 
being dependent upon the caprice of the landlord for repairs and nec- 
essary alterations; and while the amount of work done was far in excess 
of the appropriations, still more and better work could be done in prop- 
erly arranged quarters. At the Children's Hospital the conditions 
were found in the main excellent, but the prorection against fire 
was insufficient. At the German Orphan Asylum the board found 
a frame edifice erected, and for a time used for a private residence. 
Laboring under the disadvantages of overcrowding and want of adapta- 
bility, everything was found in as good condition as could be expected. 
Plans were prepared for a brick addition looking to the real needs of 
the institution; and while there was much to commend, the board 
hoped the shortcomings would soon be removed by the contemplated 
addition. The home of the Little Sisters of the Poor presented a pleas- 
ing appearance. More room was needed to prevent crowding. The 
colored department, consisting of two brick buildings improvised into 
a home, needed the appropriation that had been made for the erection 
of a new building for the inmates. The Women's Christian Associa- 
tion showed a marked improvement over the past year in every de- 
partment, and the inspection was a gratifying one. The sanitary 
arrangements were very good. In the Foster Home for Orphans the 
shortcomings of the previous year appear to have been remedied, but REFORMS A D FOCA TED. 
181 
a fire escape was needed. The surroundings of the hospital were com- 
mended to the attention of the health department. 
The visit to the Reform School was made during a most busy season, 
when every one was engaged in either picking, canning, preserving, or 
shipping for the market the fruits raised on the farm. Everything con- 
nected with the school in the building and about the grounds deserved 
and received commendation, and several things which would have 
received notice as needing attention were found to be in course of cor- 
rection or improvement. Neatness and order prevailed everywhere. 
The diet was good and the choice of articles and their preparation .judi- 
cious. The building occupied by the colored inmates was equal in all 
respects to the one used by the whites, aside from the overcrowding. In 
this connection the board suggested that while purchasing the addi- 
tional grounds needed for the school, a favorable opportunity might be 
seized to erect also a building to be used as an inebriate asylum-an 
institution so much needed and so much talked of in this District. 
The board further suggested that the hospital at the Washington 
Asylum should be separated from all official connection with the work- 
house and almshouse, and be created into a general hospital in fact as 
well as theory, and from its location and surroundings should be so 
inviting as to receive all who might desire hospital service at a mod- 
erate charge or as a charity. This would be a city hospital, and could 
be made to meet a growing want and fill a gap in the hospital accom- 
modations of Washington.' 
The board of police surgeons on November 4,1885, reported that the 
German Orphan Asylum was found in an improved condition over that 
of last year. The board suggest that "future appropriations, if made, 
should be for a fireproof building and not for the enlarging of a perish- 
able, combustible one." The Washington Asylum was found to be in 
excellent condition, the blemishes of the preceding year having been 
removed. The Little Sisters of the Poor objected to any official visit 
from the board, stating that the spirit of their order prevented them 
from receiving aid for the support of the home or any patient in the 
home; that it was supported by personal gifts and not by Government 
aid, although the building had been put up by money from the Govern- 
ment. It was the desire of the management to be free from both aid 
and official inspections, but anyone could visit and would be cheerfully 
shown through the home at any time. Unofficially the board reported 
a pleasant visit and everything in excellent condition. 
The Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children was occupying 
a new building that provided ample air space and good ventilation. The 
children were in an excellent condition. An attending physician to the 
institution had been appointed, thus very properly relieving the physi- 
cians to the poor. There were 95 children and 6 old women in the home 
'See report of Drs. Hurd and Chapin in report of the joint select committee, Sen- 
ate Report No. 700, Fifty-fifth Congress, second session, page 55. 182 
THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITIES. 
at the date of the visit, some of whom were still occupying a portion of 
the old building. At the Children's Hospital there were 41 patients, 
with an average daily attendance at the dispensary of upward of 20. 
The requisite precautions against fire had been taken since the preced- 
ing report. The Church Orphanage of St. John's Parish was providing 
for 55 children, who were happy and healthy. The addition provided 
since the last report had done away with overcrowding. The Industrial 
Home School was found in excellent condition, as was also St. Ann's 
Infant Asylum and the Columbia Hospital for Women. 
The Emergency Hospital had been much improved since the former 
visitation. The number of patients treated in the dispensary was 
between 5,000 and 6,000, and the average number of emergency cases 
30 per month. The board suggested that, while the hospital was doing 
a large amount of good, great care should be exercised to see that the 
charities thus extended should in all cases be given to such only as 
are not able to make proper compensation. 
At the Reform School there was a lack in the water supply and over- 
crowding in the dormitory of the colored boys. Forty boys sleep in 
one room 60 by 40 feet, and 48 in another of the same dimensions. As a 
remedy for this evil the board advised the erection of another building. 
The Women's Christian Association Home showed marked improve- 
ments in all departments. 
A clause in the District appropriation act approved July 5, 1884, 
prescribed that "the Commissioners should thereafter investigate the 
management of all institutions of charity within the District which 
may be appropriated for out of the District revenues in whole or in 
part, and require an itemized report of receipts and expenditures to be 
transmitted with the annual report of the Commissioners to Congress, 
together with such recommendations as they might deem proper con- 
cerning the necessity for such institutions, together with a plan for 
their organization and management and extent of appropriation 
necessary for their maintenance." 
In order to carry out these provisions Mr. W. S. Matthews was 
detailed to visit the various institutions. Mr. Matthews's report, dated 
November 29, 1886, was mainly historical and statistical. The main 
feature in it was the conclusion (which the Commissioners adopted as 
their own, and to which the attention of Congress was called), as follows: 
/ would call the attention of the Commissioners to the fact that many of these institu- 
tions are duplicating each other's work, and, as a necessary consequence, are much more 
expensively managed than they would be if the efforts in favor of the objects were more 
concentrated. It is my opinion that some plan of general control and unification should 
be adopted whereby the large amounts appropriated out of the District revenue for these 
various charities could be more prudently, more economically, and more satisfactorily 
applied to the objects for which the money was appropriated. 
The District appropriation act of 1887 again called on Congress for 
information in regard to the District charities, and again the Com mis- DUPLICATION OF CHABITABLE WOBK. 
183 
sinners made reply that they were unable for lack of time to give to 
the subject the attention it deserved. They pertinently say: 
The range of the enactment could not well he broader. It [the inquiry] takes in 
all kinds of relief as well as all kinds of discipline, and requires not only a thorough 
knowledge of the public needs but also exact ascertainment of the methods and 
scope of the numerous public and private establishments. Different institutions in 
some cases seem to be doing a like class of work, and it is desirable to know whether 
it would be advantageous to consolidate or modify the administration of those 
agencies, and to what extent. 
The Commissioners are not prepared to discuss in detail the systems of manage- 
ment now pursued in these institutions. In order to do so with justice it would be 
necessary to give to them an amount of observation and study utterly impracticable 
with the limited time and opportunity at their command; and without such obser- 
vation and study, as they believe, such discussion would not accomplish any very 
important results. The Commissioners are without available means of providing 
for the employment of an agent to make such full and complete investigation as the 
subject demands, and are therefore obliged to be content for the present with the 
reports with which they have been furnished. 
As far as practicable they have visited personally these institutions, and have 
caused them to be visited by a subordinate District official during occasional oppor- 
tunities offered by abatements in the requirements of regular duties; still they are 
satisfied that a comprehensive idea of the value of and necessity for these institu- 
tions can only be derived from such constant and intimate observation as could be 
given to their workings by an intelligent municipal supervisor, specially charged 
with that sole duty, and having the l ight of necessary access to premises and rec- 
ords. They submit a draft of a bill for the appointment of such officer, and pre- 
scribing his fluties. 
The institutions existing in the community, and especially referred to in the act 
aforesaid, seem to accomplish, to the extent of their capacity, a very valuable work 
in a manner generally acceptable. In the opinion of the Commissioners, no sub- 
stantial prejudice would result to any interest involved if the present status were 
permitted temporarily to continue, w ith the prospect of such future legislation con- 
cerning the institutions and their relations to some general system as may be found 
advisable upon information received through such a system of inspection as that 
hereinbefore proposed. 
IL 
The District of Columbia appropriation bill approved August 6,1890, 
created the office of superintendent of charities, and under the pro- 
visions of the paragraph Mr. Amos G. Warner was appointed and took 
the oath of office on the 11th of April, 1891. Uis first report bears 
date August 30, 1891, after an acquaintance of but four months with 
the charities of the District. In this report Mr. Warner calls attention 
to the fact of his recent coming to Washington, and says that many of 
the persons who were actively engaged in the charities of the city were 
away from home, and that it had been for the most part impossi- 
ble to secure meetings of the boards of directors and other official 
bodies whose advice and criticism may have aided him in the formula- 
tion of definite regulations. The report, however, discusses the whole 
system of District charities in a comprehensive manner, and is the first 
real contribution made to the proper organization of the charities of 
the District. 184 
THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITIES. 
In his second annual report Superintendent Warner notes the enact- 
ment of two laws relating to charities, the first being the act of July 26, 
1892, to provide for the care of dependent children and to create a 
board of children's guardians, and secondly, the act of June 25, 1892, 
enlarging the laws relating to the prevention of cruelty to children and 
animals in the District. 
In regard to the organization of charities, Superintendent Warner 
said it was erroneously supposed by some that the superintendent of 
charities when appointed would act as a centralizing influence, but this 
work of effectively organizing the public and private charities of the 
city is beyond the power of any public official. It has been, and no 
doubt will hereafter be, the duty of the superintendent of charities 
to offend many people, whereas an agency which has to organize the 
charities of the city must have the friendship and cooperation of all. 
He also notes that the limitation which obliges the President to 
appoint some one from outside the District as superintendent of char- 
ities is a source of irritation to many, and in view of the other limita- 
tions imposed by the act creating his office, should possibly be repealed. 
Further, he says, in view of the rapidity with which his department 
has recently grown, and of the fact that by many the superintendent 
of charities was looked upon as a temporary expedient for getting a 
neglected department into better and more effective shape, it would 
seem that it would be the wisest course not to tinker with the office, 
but to abolish it, and to establish something more nearly like that which 
is to be found in several States, namely, a District board of charities 
and corrections.1 
Superintendent Warner accepted a call to the Leland Stanford Junior 
University, and on April 10, 1893, was succeeded by Col. John Tracey, 
who continued in office until his death., and was succeeded on July 3, 
1897, by Mr. Herbert W. Lewis, the present superintendent of charities, 
who had been the agent of the Board of Children's Guardians from 
the beginning of that organization. 
1 For a criticism of the charities system in the District of Columbia, see American 
Charities, a Study in Philanthropy and Economics, by Amos G. Warner, Ph. D., 
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 1894. 
See also The Care of Dependent, Neglected, and Wayward Children, edited by 
Anna Garlin Spencer and Charles Wesley Birtwell. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins 
Press. 1894. CHAPTER XVI. 
THE BOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
AS soon as the first superintendent of charities had become familiar 
with the methods of admitting children to the several institutions 
provided for the care and education of destitute and abandoned children 
in Washington, with the character of the work done with the children 
in such institutions, had observed the want of authority and continuity 
in such work, and had witnessed the embarrassment of the courts of 
the District in attempting to deal justly and humanely with children 
charged with being vagrants or with petty offenses, he became con- 
vinced that another agency was required in order that the reception of 
children to be supported at public cost should have placed about it 
certain safeguards; that the child-caring and child-saving work of the 
District should reach those whose condition furnished the strongest 
appeal for protection, and that those to be supported at public expense 
should become public wards, for whom somebody should be responsible 
continuously during their minority.1 
He therefore prepared the bill which became Senate bill 2034, entitled 
"A bill to provide for the care of dependent children in the District of 
Columbia, and to create a board of children's guardians." The bill 
was referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia, was sent 
from that committee to the Commissioners, and was by them referred 
to the superintendent of charities. Superintendent Warner returned 
the bill to the Commissioners with the following report, which gives his 
views of the situation at that time and his reasons for urging the crea- 
tion of a public agency for the care of children: 
Office of the Superintendent of Charities, 
District of Columbia, 
Washington, D. C., February 9, 1892. 
Gentlemen : Herewith I hand you Senate bill 2034, a bill to provide for the care 
of dependent children in the District of Columbia and to create a board of children's 
guardians, which you yesterday referred to me, and recommend that its passage at 
the present session of Congress be strongly urged. My reasons for so recommending 
are in part as follows: 
(1) It is desirable that there should be some more accurate measure of service 
rendered to the public by the subsidized charitable institutions for children than at 
1 This chapter was prepared by Mr. Herbert W. Lewis, the agent of the Board of 
Children's Guardians, from its beginning until July 3, 1897, when he was appointed 
by President McKinley superintendent of charities in the District of Columbia. 
185 186 
THE BOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
present exists, and that the amount of public aid should then in each case bear a 
fixed proportion to the amount of public service so rendered. 
At present each institution admits such children as its managers or officers think 
proper to receive. Frequently there is no adequate investigation of the case, but 
the account given of the child and of its destitution by those who desire its admis- 
sion is accepted without verification. The institutions then base their claims for 
public aid in a general way on the number of children cared for. There is, how- 
ever, no definite proportion established between the amount of aid and the num- 
ber of inmates; nor, while present diverse and irresponsible methods of admission 
prevail, does it seem desirable that there should be. In ray recommendations of 
estimates last September I kept as close as possible to the precedents of previous 
years; not because I considered this condition of things satisfactory, but merely to 
gain time until some proper method of apportioning public aid in proportion to 
public service could be found. If the present system were to continue there are 
other institutions for children receiving nothing that would be equitably as much 
entitled to subsidies as those now receiving them. For instance, the Children's Aid 
Society receives a large number of destitute and vagrant children directly from the 
police court and provides for them permanently; or, again, St. Joseph's Male 
Orphan Asylum has 32 children received from St. Ann's Infant Asylum. The lat- 
ter institution is supported almost entirely by public money; the former receives 
nothing at all. 
Most of the institutions for children do two classes of work-public work and 
church and private work. By public work I mean the care of children who are 
absolutely destitute and properly chargeable to the District, for whom no relative, 
or friend, or church, or private charitable association is willing to provide, and for 
whom the District taxpayers can therefore properly be asked to provide, both as a 
matter of humanity and as a defense against the propagation of pauperism. By 
church or personal work I mean the care of children for the purpose of securing 
their education in a particular faith or for motives of personal sympathy. To carry 
on church or personal work, as such, by means of public money is improper, for it 
leads to a great increase in the number of dependent children and needlessly burdens 
the taxpayers. 
The board of children's guardians provided for by the inclosed bill will be charged 
with the duty of investigating thoroughly the case of each dependent child. If a 
child is found to be a proper subject for public care, it will be placed in an institu- 
tion or otherwise provided for by the board, and each institution will then be entitled 
to public money in proportion to the number of such children that it cared for. 
(2) It is desirable that careful and thorough experiments should be made in the 
placing out of children in the community 
The subject of placing out was briefly referred to in my annual report. It con- 
sists of boarding children in private families instead of placing them in institutions, 
or in finding for the older children homes where their services are an adequate return 
for their support. It also involves the adopting of children into private families 
whenever this can be accomplished with safety. The sooner a dependent child can 
be grafted into a good home the better it is for the children and the community. 
Many children on becoming dependent can be placed in homes at once, and the evils 
of institution life avoided altogether. This is true of all classes of children from 
nursing infants up. In leaving the institutions, also, great care is needed in select- 
ing homes for the children, and systematic visiting is necessary in order to see that 
the child is adapted to the home and to make sure that he is not neglected or abused. 
In Washington this work of placing children when they can not be longer kept in 
the institutions is done by committees and by matrons or other resident officials, 
chiefly during the summer months. Such persons are hurried with other duties, and 
at the best are not experts in the work of placing out. It thus often happens that 
the time and money spent in reclaiming a waif are eventually wasted and the future HART FARM SCHOOL- REAR VIEW. 
HART FARM SCHOOL-BARNS AND STOCK. THE NEEDS STATED. 
187 
of the child ruined because it is not properly placed and watched over on leaving 
the institution. To secure good results it needs a specialist in this work, who can 
attend to placing and visiting his wards all the year round. 
The considerations apply to the placing of children liberated from the reform 
schools as well as to the dependent children who leave the charitable institutions. 
The Reform School for Boys is overcrowded, and it is possible that, through the 
board of children's guardians, many now sent to that institution might otherwise 
be provided for. The recent experience of the Children's Aid Society of Pennsyl- 
vania indicates as much. At any rate, the creation of the board, as herein pro- 
posed, would give our courts an option in the matter that might be of use should 
first experiments have satisfactory results. 
The board of guardians would be an efficient agent for the placing out of children 
in this community, and this, as indicated, is the second reason for desiring its 
prompt establishment. 
(3) It is desirable that for juvenile delinquents, especially girls, there should be 
some suitable place of detention other than the station house or jail pending trial, 
or after trial, and before removal to the reformatory. 
Such a place of detention the temporary home, under the management of the 
board of guardians, would supply. 
(4) It is desirable that it should be possible for the courts to make legal and bind- 
ing commitments to private reformatory institutions, such as the House of Mercy 
and the House of the Good Shepherd. 
Even after the establishment of the Girl's Reform School, these institutions will be 
of great use in dealing with selected cases, especially offenders against chastity. At 
present the court can send a juvenile offender to such a private institution only as a 
matter of compromise, and the commitment is not binding. Under the provisions of 
the inclosed bill such an offender could be committed to the board of guardians until 
becoming of age and would be placed by the board in the appropriate institution. 
(5) It is desirable that there should be some place where the agent of the Humane 
Society or any other member of the police force may take a child of any age, color, or 
condition with the assurance that it will be temporarily and properly cared for, and 
then passed on to the institution or agency best fitted to receive it. Such a place 
will be provided in a temporary home managed by the board of guardians. 
(6) It is desirable that a systematic record should be kept of all children that come 
under State care, their parentage, the residence of their parents, the causes of depend- 
ency, or delinquency, their conduct during minority, and the probable influence of 
their training on their subsequent lives. 
Only when such facts have been systematically collected for a series of years can 
we begin to check the amount of our expenditures by the results known to have been 
obtained; only then can we trace the causes of destitution and set in operation the 
preventive charities that shall free us from an increasing burden of crime and pau- 
perism. As matters now stand, children drift into institutions and out again, and 
no one can speak with sufficient definiteness of the results that come from the work. 
We are doing business without any adequate system of bookkeeping. When a 
former inmate of the Reform School becomes a minister of the gospel, or when 
another is about to be hung for murder, the friends of the institution in the one case, 
and its critics in the other, point to the facts as proving either that the institution 
is a glorious success or an expensive failure. As a matter of fact such isolated cases 
prove nothing. We must have a large body of information better systematized before 
we can have firm foundations for any conclusions whatever. The board of guardians 
would be able to collect this fuller and more accurate information. 
(7) Finally, the passage of the inclosed bill is desirable, because, while it provides 
for great improvements, it does not call for increased expenditure. The sums now 
annually appropriated for the care of dependent children will be adequate under 
the new arrangement, and it is even more probable that an absolute reduction of 
expense will be possible. 188 
THE BOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
I shall be glad to answer, as far as possible, any questions which you or the Con- 
gressional committees desire to ask regarding the proposed measure, and to describe 
at length the result of similar experiments in other communities. 
Respectfully submitted. 
A. G. Warner, 
Superintendent of Charities. 
The Commissioners, District of Columbia. 
II. 
The bill was subsequently amended by striking out the provision for 
the lease of buildings and for the employment of agents, and provid- 
ing that the expense of caring for children under the guardianship of 
the board should be paid out of appropriations made by Congress for 
the support of the various institutions in which such dependent chil- 
dren might be placed; and by striking out the provision for the com- 
mitment of juvenile delinquents and habitual truants.1 The amended 
bill, as reprinted below, was passed by Congress and received final 
approval July 26, 1892: 
[Public-No. 156.] 
AN ACT to provide for the care of dependent children in the District of Columbia and to create a 
board of children's guardians. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of A merica 
in Congress assembled, That there shall be created, in and for the District of Colum- 
bia, a board to be known as the board of children's guardians, composed of nine mem 
bers, who shall serve without compensation, the said board to be a body politic and 
corporate and to have the powers and to be constituted in the manner hereinafter 
provided. 
Sec. 2. That the members of the board of children's guardians shall be appointed 
by the judges of the police court anti the judge holding the criminal court of the 
District of Columbia, met together for that purpose, the assent of a majority of such 
judges being necessary to appointment in each case: Provided, That there shall 
always be at least three representatives of each sex upon the board. Of the nine 
members first appointed after the passage of this act, three shall be appointed for 
one year, three for two years, and three for three years. Thereafter all appoint- 
ments, except such as shall be made for the remainder of unexpired terms, shall be 
for the term of three years. The judges of the police court and the judge hold- 
ing the criminal court, or a majority of them, when met together for that purpose, 
may remove for cause any member of the board: Provided, That such member shall 
be given an opportunity to be heard in his own defense. 
Sec. 3. That the board shall elect from its own members a president, vice-presi- 
dent, and secretary, who shall severally discharge the duties usual to such offices, 
or such as the by-laws of the board may prescribe. The board shall have the power, 
subject to the approval of the Commissioners, to employ not more than two agents, 
at an annual compensation not exceeding two thousand four hundred dollars for the 
two, and prescribe their duties, and to conclude arrangements with persons or insti- 
tutions for the care of dependent children at such rates as may be agreed upon. 
Sec. 4. That said board shall have the care and supervision of the following 
classes of children: First. All children committed under section two of the act 
approved February thirteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-five, entitled "An act 
for the protection of children in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes." 
•See Senate lieport 842, Fifty-second Congress, first session. HART FARM SCHOOL-FARMHOUSE. 
HART FARM SCHOOL-LOG HOUSE. J BOARD APPOINTED. 
189 
Second. All children who are destitute of suitable homes and adequate means of 
earning an honest living, all children abandoned by their parents or guardians, all 
children of habitually drunken or vicious or unlit parents, all children habitually 
begging on the streets or from door to door, all children kept in vicious or immoral 
associations, all children known by their language or life to be vicious or incorrigi- 
ble, whenever such children may be committed to the care of the board by the police 
court or the criminal court of the District; and power is hereby given to these 
courts to commit such children when not over sixteen years of age to said board: 
Provided, That the laws regulating the commitment of children to the reform schools 
of the District shall not be deemed to bo repealed in any part by this act. Third. 
Such children as the board of trustees of the Reform School for Boys or the Reform 
School for Girls may, in their discretion, commit to the board of children's guard- 
ians, and power is hereby given the board of trustees of the said reform schools to 
commit any inmate of their respective institutions to the said board of guardians, 
conditionally upon the good behavior of the child so committed. Fourth. Under 
the rules to be established by the board children may be received and temporarily 
cared for pending investigation or judgment of the court. 
Sec. 5. That the board shall be the legal guardian of all children committed to it 
by the courts and shall have full power to board them in private families, to board 
them in institutions willing to receive them, to bind them out or apprentice them, 
or to give them in adoption to foster parents. Children received from the Reform 
School shall be placed at work, bound out, or apprenticed, and at any time before 
attaining majority may be returned to the school from which they came, if in the 
judgment of the board of guardians such a course is demanded by the interest of 
the community or the welfare of the child. All children under the guardianship 
of the board shall be visited not less than once a year by an agent of the board, 
and as much oftener as the welfare of the child demands. Children received tem- 
porarily may not be kept longer than one week, except by order of the police court 
or the criminal court. 
Sec. 6. That the antecedents, character, and condition of life of each child received 
by the board shall be investigated as fully as possible, and the facts learned entered 
in permanent records, in which shall also be noted the subsequent history of each 
child so far as it can be ascertained. 
Sec. 7. That the Commissioners of the District shall have authority to prescribe 
the form of records to be kept by the board of guardians, and the methods to be 
employed by them in paying bills and auditing accounts; and an annual report of 
its operations hereunder shall be made by the board to the superintendent of chari- 
ties. The superintendent of charities shall have full powers of investigation, and 
report regarding all branches of the work of the board, as well as over all institu- 
tions in which children are placed by the board and it shall be his duty to recom- 
mend annually the appropriations which in his judgment are necessary to the carry- 
ing on of its work. 
Approved, July 26, 1892. 
On the 16th of September, 1892, the judges designated by this act as 
the appointing authority met for the consideration of the appointment 
of members of the Board of Children's Guardians. The result of this 
meeting was the appointment of Crosby S. Noyes, Joseph J. Darlington, 
and Miss Harriet B. Loring for a term of three years; of B. Pickman 
Mann, Simon Wolf, and Mrs. Lucy S. Doolittle for a term of two years, 
and of Albert A. Wilson, George W. Moore, and Mrs. H. B. F. Macfar- 
land for a term of one year. Subsequently Mr. Wilson and Mr. Moore 
having declined to serve, William J. Miller and John F. Cook were 
appointed in their stead. 190 
THE BOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
A preliminary meeting- of the board was called by the superintendent 
of charities, after consultation with members, and assembled at the office 
of the Humane Society, in the Sun Building, on F street NW. on 
January 11, 1893. At this meeting a temporary organization was 
effected and committees appointed. The superintendent of charities 
addressed the board as follows: 
Members of the Board of Children's Guardians, ladies and gentlemen: While the 
superintendent of charities has no official connection with your board, except the 
right to inquire regarding the operations and to report upon them, yet as I have 
been interested in the establishment of the board from the first, I have ventured to 
take the first step in calling this meeting, and to act as secretary to the judges who 
make the appointments. After your organization is complete there will, of course, 
be no further occasion for such intervention on my part, but I shall hope still to 
work with you in the accomplishment of our common purposes. 
Permit me to respectfully submit a memorandum of some of the things it will be 
desirable for you to consider in perfecting your organization, and arranging to begin 
active operations. For the convenience of reference they will be more fully enu- 
merated as follows: 
(1) Preliminary organization. 
(2) Permanent organization and election of officers. 
The drafting of by-laws. 
(4) Becoming acquainted with all provisions of the organic act creating the 
board, and with the institutions for children, with which it will be your duty to 
deal. In this connection it should be said that unless great care is exercised by you, 
misunderstandings may result at the beginning of your work which will seriously 
interfere with it. The change from the old system of making specific appropriations 
to the several institutions, to that of paying specific amounts for the care of children 
who may be assigned to them, will require great tact, full information, and much 
patience. When the readjustments are made I hope they will be satisfactory to all 
concerned, but the transition will require much careful attention on your part to 
avoid unfortunate misunderstandings. 
(5) By committee or otherwise it would seem to be desirable that you should 
acquaint yourselves with the work of child-caring institutions of similar character 
in other cities. Especially in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Indianapolis 
there are workers from whom very valuable information can be obtained. 
At my office there is much literature bearing upon child-saving work in the Amer- 
ican States and cities, which I shall be very glad to place at your disposal. While 
the experience of other cities will have to be adapted to local conditions, yet it will 
be a very useful guide in the organization of your work here. 
(6) No money will be available for the employment of agents until the passage of 
the District appropriation bill. That, however, provides that the money for admin- 
istrative expenses shall be immediately available upon the passage of the bill. You 
will have probably from the 1st of March until the 1st of July to make investiga- 
tions of the cases of children preliminary to beginning operations under the new 
system on the latter date. The time is none too long, and you should know as soon 
as may be whom you desire to employ as agents, in order that no time may be lost 
after the money is available. 
I would respectfully suggest that an effort be made to secure some person of 
experience in this particular line of work, and someone who sees it in larger pos- 
sibilities than the mere drawing of a salary. There are coming to be a large num- 
ber of persons of education and intelligence who take up the work of charity as a 
career, and if one of these could be obtained the work of your board would be 
lightened and the benefits from it would be very much enhanced. It would also 
seem to be desirable that in case two agents have to be employed, one should be a EFFECT OF SENATE CHANGES. 
191 
woman and one a man. It might be well for the committee collecting information 
about local conditions, or the work in other cities, to keep in mind and possibly to 
mention the fact that pay workers will be employed as soon as money is available, 
and to collect any suggestions they can obtain as to the proper persons to fill the 
places. 
(7) There will be held in Philadelphia on January 25 and 26 a conference on child- 
saving work, and if any members of the board could attend the conference many 
useful suggestions could no doubt be obtained. 
(8) As to the office for the board itself and for its agents, it might be well to 
appoint a committee to see if an office can not be obtained in the building occupied 
by the police court, which has been recently enlarged by the addition of another 
story. 
(9) In considering the bill establishing this board the Senate struck out a proviso 
that you should be allowed to establish a home for the temporary care of children 
brought to your attention, and it will therefore be necessary for you to make arrange- 
ments for such care with some of the existing institutions. It was suggested while 
the bill was pending, and has been frequently suggested since, that arrangements 
for the temporary care of children pending investigation could be best made with 
the Children's Aid Society, that is doing a work somewhat resembling that which 
you now undertake. With offices in the police court building and arrangements for 
the temporary care of children at the home of the Children's Aid Society, arrange- 
ments would be very nearly complete for beginning work so soon as an agent should 
be appointed. 
lu conclusion allow me to express to you the high hopes which I entertain of the 
results of your work in benefiting the dependent children of the District. From 500 
to 700 of these wards will doubtless come under your care, and it will be your duty 
to know the best of all that has been learned regarding the care of dependent chil- 
dren ami to apply the wisest principles that have been worked out in bringing 
them to the highest standard of character and industrial efficiency when they shall 
come of age. You are a part of the District government. It will not be necessary 
to take anxious thought about ways of obtaining money. You can therefore give a 
large measure of time and thought to improving the service for the dependent chil- 
dren of the District. With full confideuce in your care of these interests, allow me 
to offer you every assistance which I am able to give in making your work pleasant 
and helpful. 
III. 
A second meeting of the board was held on the 3d day of February, 
1893, which would not call for special mention in any historical sketch 
except for the fact that at that time the bill making appropriations for 
the expenses of the District government, and consequently for the sup- 
port of the work of this board, was pending in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and that at this meeting it was deemed advisable that the 
members of the board should person ally «urge the appropriation of full 
$(>,090 for the administrative expenses of the board. Thus early did 
the board recognize the fact, ever since insisted upon, that its mission 
was the accomplishment of a large amount of real work which must be 
done by employees who gave their whole time to it, and who must be 
personsof such character, judgment, and ability as to make their services 
of great value, and only to be secured by offering such compensation as 
would be offered for like service in any other great business enterprise. 
A third meeting of the board was held at the office of Hon, Simon 192 
THE BO AUD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
Wolf, 926 F street NW., on February 28, 1893, at which a permanent 
organization was effected by the unanimous election of Hon. Simon 
Wolf as president, Miss Harriet B. Loring as vice-president and 
B. Pickman Mann as secretary. A permanent order of business was 
adopted and steps taken looking to the employment of an agent. The 
necessity of care in the selection of an agent was emphasized. 
At a meeting of the board on March 25, 1893, the secretary reported 
that, in accordance with authority previously given, the officers of the 
board had engaged Mr. Herbert W. Lewis, of Minnesota, as agent, his 
employment to date from the 1st day of May, 1893. It was stated 
that Mr. Lewis had been employed as placing and supervising agent of 
the Minnesota State public schools for about five years and was highly 
recommended. This action of the officers was ratified by vote of board. 
By the 1st of May other meetings had been held; the members of 
the board had made themselves familiar with the provisions of the 
law under which they were to work; several informal conferences had 
been held with officers of institutions, and office rooms had been secured 
and furnished at 512 F street NW. The District appropriation bill 
had been passed, and by it the direct appropriations which had been 
made for support of the child-caring institutions the previous year were 
reduced by 10 per cent, and the sum of the amounts so withheld from 
them was placed at the disposal of the Board of Childrens' Guardians. 
Five thousand dollars had been appropriated for administrative pur- 
poses and had been made immediately available. 
The agent arrived, took charge of the office, and prepared such rec- 
ords and forms as experience had shown to be essential to the proper 
administration of the affairs of such a body. 
On the 17th of May the following letter was addressed to the man- 
aging boards of all institutions whose direct appropriations had been 
reduced: 
Washington, I). C., May 17, 1893. 
Sirs and Mesdames: 
The act approved March 3, 1893, making appropriations for District of Columbia 
expenses for the fiscal year to end June 30, 1894, gives your institution somewhat 
less for maintenance than was given for the current year; and the institution is 
remitted, with others, to the act of July 26, 1892 (Public No. 156), "to provide for 
the care of dependent children in the District of Columbia and to create a Board of 
Children's Guardians," "for all rights and benefits which" it may have under the 
provisions of the latter act. Such rights and privileges are deemed to be that your 
institution may enter into a contract with the Board of Children's Guardians for the 
care and support of children, the wards of the board, at rates of compensation to be 
agreed upon. By such means your institution may receive more than the amount 
by which the direct appropriation has been diminished or it may receive less. 
The Board of Children's Guardians has now been organized, has secured an office 
and appointed an agent, and is ready to consider applications from institutions, 
with a view to the making of contracts. The board is not charged with any duties 
or responsibilities in regard to the children now in institutions, these children 
being already provided for and not having been committed to the board by the 
methods specified in the act. Should your institution wish to transfer to the board 
the control and responsibility for the support of any now in your charge, it may THE POLICY OF THE BOARD. 
193 
apply to the courts to have the board declared the legal guardian of such children. 
Should this application receive the approval of the court, due proceedings being- 
had, your authority over and responsibility for the children, and the authority and 
responsibility of parents and natural guardians would be terminated. The board 
would then be in a position to board the children "in private families, to board 
them in institutions willing to receive them, to bind them out or apprentice them, 
or to give them in adoption to foster parents," or it may leave them where they 
now are. 
The board expects to have committed to it many children uow in institutions. 
For these it must provide places in private homes, institutions, or elsewhere. It 
wishes to be able to so arrange that none of the institutions whose appropriations 
have been diminished for the coming year may be injured or inconvenienced by the 
change, and to that end solicits the good offices and cooperation of all. It can not 
undertake any charge for the support of children until July 1, 1893, but wishes 
meanwhile to make all possible preliminary arrangements. 
The agent of the board, Mr. Herbert W. Lewis, will call upon you at your insti- 
tution. We solicit for him a favorable reception, with the view of inception of 
friendly relations. 
By order of the board. 
Very respectfully, 
B. Pickman Mann, 
Secretary Board Children's Guardians, District of Columbia. 
This letter is important in the history of the board, because it clearly 
sets forth the policy of the board as then determined upon. In it are 
recognized the principles set forth by the superintendent of charities 
in his report, urging the passage of the bill creating the board, and in 
his subsequent address to the board upon the occasion of its first meet- 
ing. In the first he said to the Congress: 
It is desirable that there should be some more accurate measure of service rendered 
to the public by the subsidized institutions for children than now exists, and that 
the amount of public aid should then in each case bear a fixed proportion to the 
amount of public service so rendered. * * * The Board of Children's Guardians 
provided for in the bill will be charged with the duty of investigating thoroughly 
the case of each dependent child. If a child is found to be a proper subject for 
public care it will be placed in an institution or otherwise provided for by the board, 
and each institution will then be entitled to public money in proportion to the num- 
ber of such children that is cared for. 
In his address to the board he said: 
The change from the old system of making specific appropriations to the several 
institutions to that of paying specific amounts for the care of children whom you 
may assign to them will require great tact, full information, and much patience. 
The authorized letter of the secretary of the board to the various 
boards managing the institutions whose appropriations had been 
reduced shows with what marked fidelity the ideas of the author of 
the bill creating the board had been followed in the inception or its 
work. 
IV. 
On the 7th of July eight boys, inmates of the National Colored 
Home, were committed to the guardianship of the board by the police 
7260 13 194 
THE BO ABD OF CHILDBEN'S GVABDIANS. 
court, and were speedily provided with homes in the families of suitable 
persons willing to receive them. On July 20 officers of the Indus- 
trial Home School presented ten children for commitment to the guard- 
ianship of the board. A hearing was appointed to take place on the 
26th, and upon that occasion the whole question of the commitment of 
children already inmates of the institutions was fully discussed. Mr. 
John I). McPherson and Mr. Lewis Abraham appeared for the Indus- 
trial Home School, Mr. R. Ross Perry and Mr. Lewis represented the 
Board of Children's Guardians, and Mr. Alexander R. Mullowny the 
United States. The result was the commitment of the children, who 
were at once returned to the Industrial Home School, and the institu- 
tion was thereafter paid from the funds of the Board of Children's 
Guardians for their maintenance until homes were provided for them 
by the agent of the board. Other children were afterwards committed 
from the National Colored Home, who were also returned to the insti- 
tution and supported at the expense of the board until such time as 
suitable family homes were found for them. 
Thus the commitment of institution children to the guardianship of 
the board was formally approved by the courts authorized to commit, 
and thus the institutions which were willing to yield to the provisions 
of the new law suffered but little inconvenience from it, while the 
children committed received the benefit of the continuous guardianship 
of the board and the watchful care of its agent after they were placed 
out. Other institutions, however, objected that they were unable to 
receive from the board any considerable part of the amount by which 
their direct appropriations had been reduced. Another letter was 
therefore sent out on September 13, by which it was sought to remove 
some of the difficulties which had attended the commitment of children 
at first, and additional opportunities were offered for any itstitution 
which was supporting from its reduced income any children for whose 
support the District of Columbia was properly chargeable to make 
known how many such children it desired to have transferred to the 
guardianship of the board, in order that the board might legally pay 
the institution for the support of the children until homes for them 
were secured. To this letter there was no response whatever. 
The board transmitted its first report to the superintendent of chari- 
ties under date of August 22, 1893. Superintendent Warner had 
resigned the office in the spring of 1893 and was succeeded by Col. John 
Tracy. This report, which is signed by Hon. Simon Wolf as president 
and Mr. B: Pickman Mann as secretary, says: 
During the present year a fraction of the sum hitherto usually appropriated to 
charitable institutions in the District of Columbia has been appropriated to the use 
of the board, while the remainder has been appropriated to the institutions as before. 
There is now no occasion for the courts to send a single child properly chargeable 
upon the District of Columbia to any private institution for care and support. The 
Government has established an agency of its own competent to care for every such 
child, and as a matter of fact, since the courts have had the authority, they have HART FARM SCHOOL-INTERIOR OF LOG HOUSE. 
HART FARM SCHOOL-OFFICERS AND TEACHERS. 195 
REAL DEPENDENTS PROVIDED FOR. 
thrown the whole burden of the support of such children upon the board.1 There is 
no public reason therefore why the Government should subsidize in future any private 
charitable institution for the care of children in this District. 
It will thus be seen that this public agency was willing to undertake 
the care of all children who could be shown to be necessarily dependent 
upon the District and believed itself able to discharge that duty 
creditably. 
By the close of its first fiscal year there had beeu committed to the 
guardianship of the board 203 children, of whom 90 had been already 
removed from the dependent class, having been received as members of 
their families by persons found upon investigation to be such as could 
safely be trusted to perform the duties of parents toward the helpless 
little children placed in their custody. 
The supervisory work provided for by the statute had been faithfully 
performed, and the record being kept regarding each child under guard- 
ianship showed that notable success had been attained in securing 
permanent settlement of children placed out. 
The provision of free homes for this large proportion of the children 
received had resulted in considerable economy of funds appropriated 
for their support, and the board returned to the Treasury of the United 
States the sum of $6,054.45 as an unexpended surplus. 
During this year the agent of the board was called upon to consider 
applications on behalf of 290 children whom it was desired should be 
taken in charge, with the result that 96 of them were presented before 
the courts of the District for further and more authoritative examina- 
tion as to their necessities, the remaining 494 being, in the judgment of 
the agent, in no such condition as demanded the intervention of public 
authority for their protection or relief. 
On October 7, 1893, members Miller and Cook and Mrs. Macfarland 
were reappointed for the term ending September 16, 1896. 
March 2,1894, the board was notified of the resignation of Mr. Perry, 
and on May 5 Mr. Orrin B. Hallam took his seat as Mr. Perry's successor. 
At the annual election, held on October 9, 1893, the officers for the 
past year were reelected-Hon. Simon Wolf, president; Miss Harriet B. 
Loring, vice-president, and B. Pickman Mann, secretary and disbursing 
officer. 
On November 4, 1893, Mr. Wolf resigned the presidency, and Miss 
Loring became president. During this year the board also began the 
practice of placing all infants committed to its care in the hands of 
hired nurses, and of providing skillful medical attendance for all such 
children. At the close of the year the indications were that this experi- 
ment would be highly successful. 
'There was no arrangement in force by virtue of which the courts could send chil- 
dren to charitable institutions before the creation of the Board of Children's Guard- 
ians. The institutions reserved the right to say which and how many children they 
should receive, the court could not commit without their consent, and no such com- 
mitment had taken place in several years, 196 
THE BOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
During the year ending June 30, 1895, applications were made on 
behalf of 307 children who were represented as being in need of insti- 
tution care or permanent public guardianship. Of these the agent of 
the board, after investigation, recommended the commitment of 89, the 
remaining 218 being nonresidents, not dependent, or applications on 
their behalf were withdrawn. 
The whole number committed during the year was 110, which, with 
the 175 remaining under guardianship at the close of the previous 
year, made a total to be accounted for of 285. 
Of these there were in institutions 45 
In family homes where board was paid 58 
Total on expense for maintenance 103 
In family homes on indenture, on trial, and at work for wages 143 
In hospital . 1 
Unsettled but self-supporting 8 
Total self-supporting 152 
Passed from control of the board 30 
Total 285 
For this year the appropriation of the board was reduced from 
$24,200, for the year before, to $17,000, to which was subsequently 
added a deficiency appropriation of $3,000. It was found impossible 
to conduct its affairs for the amount appropriated, and the year was 
closed with a deficit of $1,699.28, which amount was due the Pennsyl 
vania Training School for Feeble-minded Children, for the care and 
attempted training of defectives sent to the institution, principally by 
the Secretary of the Interior, before the creation of the board, but for 
whose support the board became chargeable under the appropriation 
act of 1890. 
The watchful care of the board had been extended to all its placed- 
out children, with the result that of the 201 children residing in family 
homes, 133 were known to be doing well, while regarding only 12 had 
bad reports been made by the visiting agent. 
The per capita expense of the children for whose support the board 
paid during the year was $104.23, as against $124.10 for the year 
before, while the administrative expenses divided among those residing 
in family homes, both paid and free, were $22.87, as against $58.80 for 
the year 1894. 
For the better support of its administrative work for the ensuing 
year the board made an urgent appeal. 
September 21,1894, Messrs. Mann and Wolf and Mrs. Doolittle were 
reappointed for the term ending September 20, 1897. 
October 6, 1894, Miss Loring notified the board of her resignation, 
and April 6, 1895, Miss Katherine Trescott was appointed as Miss 
Loring's successor. ADMINISTRA TIVE EXPENSES. 
197 
At the annual election, October 6, 1894, Hon. Simon Wolf was again 
elected president; Mrs. Mary L. 1). Macfarland, vice president, and 
B. Pickman Mann, secretary and disbursing officer. 
For the fiscal year 1896 there was a sharp increase over 1895 in the 
number of applications for public care of children, the number being 
for this year 371. Of these, 71 were recommended to the courts for 
commitment and 390 were turned away as having no sufficient claim 
upon the bounty of the people of the District. It has always been a 
rule of the board that whenever application for care of a child under 
the board is not thought to merit favorable recommendation to the 
court, the person making the application shall be informed of the rea- 
sons of the agent for refusing to make such recommendation, and that 
it is the business of the court to entertain and hear a petition for the 
commitment of a child, no matter by whom presented; so that refusal 
of the agent to promote commitment could never prevent the proper 
consideration of a worthy case by the court. It has been found that in 
at most three or four isolated instances, children in whose cases the 
agent of the board refused to recommend commitment, favorable action 
has been taken by the court upon a petition filed by some one else; 
while on the other hand in almost every case the recommendations of 
the agent regarding commitments to the board received the approval 
of the court, only one failure of such approval having occurred during 
the year 1896. 
The whole number of children committed during this year was 93. 
Examination of the table of causes for commitments shows that 33 of 
this number were rescued from vicious and immoral associations, or 
were taken from drunken and unfit parents, or were committed for 
vagrancy and petty offenses. These it is believed could not have been 
dealt with in any helpful way without the exercise of authority. 
At-the close of the year the number of children under guardianship 
was 312, of whom 198 were no longer dependent upon charity for 
their daily bread, having been absorbed into the population of the Dis- 
trict and surrounding States and thus restored to their normal social 
status. For 109 the board was still procuring maintenance at public 
cost, while 4 were maintained in institutions without cost to the board. 
V. 
The appeal for additional funds for administrative expenses having 
failed to secure the much-needed increase, the board was unable to do 
the work among its placed-out wards required by the statute, and the 
report shows that 56 such children had not been visited during the 
year as required. The condition and conduct of the placed out children 
seems however to have remained excellent, as shown by the following 
summary, which includes all those residing in family homes, both paid 
and free. 198 
THE BOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
Doing well 132 
Doing fairly 62 
Bad report 12 
Not visited 56 
Total 262 
The boarding out of infants continued to lie an extraordinarily suc- 
cessful undertaking, the ratio of deaths being less than half that usually 
encountered in foundling asylums. 
Another branch of work which assumed considerable importance 
during this year was the temporary care of children for not longer than 
seven days without authority of a committing magistrate, and for any 
length of time by such authority. Seventy children were under such 
temporary care during the year, and were disposed of as follows: 
Finally committed to the board 19 
Restored to parents 29 
Discharged 4 
Absconded 7 
Died 6 
Sent to sanitary officer 1 
Delivered to Humane Society 1 
Still under temporary care 3 
Total 70 
The cost of the work per child was again reduced. The appropria- 
tion for the year was $20,000, to which was added a deficiency appro- 
priation of $3,801.36. A balance of $206.41 reverted to the United 
States Treasury. 
September 20, 1895, Mr. Hallam and Miss Trescott were reappointed, 
and Mr. Theodore W. Noyes was appointed for the term ending Sep- 
tember 16, 1898. 
January 28, 1896, Mr. Noyes resigned his membership and February 
28, 1896, Mr. William Redin Woodward was appointed to fill the 
vacancy. 
At the annual election October 5 the officers then holding were 
reelected. 
During the year 1897 the work of the board followed the plans and 
worked in obedience to the principles which had governed its opera- 
tion for previous years, with the exception that, for lack of facilities 
for doing the necessary work among ifs placed-out children, the trans- 
fer of its wards from institutions and boarding homes to free family 
homes was suspended, the children accumulated in the institutions 
where their board must be paid, and the expense of sustaining the 
whole undertaking was considerably increased. 
There was another sharp increase in the number of children on whose 
behalf charitable care was sought, and about the same proportion were 
found to have no real claim upon the charitable resources of the Dis- 
trict. The whole number reported was 454, and the number presented VISITATION AND SUPERVISION. 
199 
to the courts by the agent of the board for commitment was 97. In 96 
of these cases the children were brought into court, with the result 
that 93 of them were committed or placed under temporary care. 
Looking again at the causes of commitment, it is found that 44 chil- 
dren were rescued from vicious and immoral associations or were taken 
from drunken and unfit parents. 
Could there be a more striking illustration of the necessity for the 
establishment of some agency in such a city as Washington through 
whose efforts children might be rescued from conditions which would if 
permitted to continue doom those children to lives of pauperism, crime, 
and degradation? 
Eighty-eight new wards were received during the year, and the total 
number to be accounted for was 401. Of these, 209 were located in free 
family homes, 7 were in free institutions, and 15.were self-supporting 
but not settled, making a total of 240, for whom the only expenditures 
were for the salary and expenses of the agent who did what he could 
toward supervising them and guarding their interests. 
One hundred and forty were still maintained at the expense of the 
appropriation. 
The number of feeble-minded children under care had been materi- 
ally augmented, and the maximum rate paid for their maintenance had 
been reduced from $250 to $225 per year per child. 
The boarding out of infants continued a most satisfactory way of 
providing for them, and through the means employed many lives were 
saved. 
Ninety-two were under temporary care, of whom 38 were subse- 
quently made permanent wards. Twenty-two were placed under care 
by the courts for fixed periods^ averaging three months, and were after- 
wards restored to their parents, the conditions rendering public care of 
the children necessary having been removed. 
The visitation and proper supervision of the homes in which children 
had been placed and the placing of others were greatly retarded, and 
much of what should have been done was not done because of an arbi- 
trary division of the appropriation, which prohibited the use of more 
than $4,060 for all office and sundry expenses, for the salaries and 
traveling expenses of agents, and for the transportation of children. 
Still, the showing is good, and the present agent of the board says 
that but few cases of dissatisfaction and bad adjustment are found as 
he goes about among the placed-out children. 
The office of the board has been furnished and equipped with a special 
end in view-that is, the collection, arrangement, and preservation of 
every scrap of available information concerning the children dealt 
with-and the family and individual history of every one can be turned 
to in a moment. Histories are added to from time to time. Incidents 
likely to affect the welfare of any child are recorded as they occur, and 
the result is what the agent of the board believes to be the most com- 
plete set of records of its kind in existence. 200 
THE BOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
On October 8, 1896, Messrs. Miller and Cook and IMrs. Macfarland 
were reappointed members of the board for the term ending September 
16, 1899. 
At the annual election, October 31, 1896, President Wolf declined to 
accept reelection and Mr. William Redin Woodward was elected presi- 
dent. Mrs. Lucy S. Doolittle was elected vice-president, B. Pickman 
Mami secretary, and Samuel S. Parkman disbursing officer. 
On May 12, 1897, Mr. Wolf notified the board of his resignation as a 
member. On June 2 Rev. Louis Stern was appointed to fill the vacancy. 
At the close of the year Mr. Lewis resigned the office of agent of the 
board and Mr. Samuel S. Parkman was employed in his stead. Mr. 
John W. Douglas, formerly a teacher and assistant superintendent at 
the Industrial Home School, was employed as chief clerk. 
Summary of work done, by years. 
1894. 
1895. 
1896. 
1897. 
Total. 
Applications on behalf of children to be taken 
Number of above recommended for commitment ... 
Number committed, recommendations from all 
sources 
290 
96 
203 
90 
85 
126 
$124.10 
$58. 80 
$107. 72 
307 
89 
110 
143 
103 
201 
$118. 66 
$22.87 
$73. 65 
371 
71 
93 
203 
109 
262 
$113.15 
$16.99 
$62. 55 
454 
97 
88 
233 
140 
298 
$120.14 
$14. 29 
$56.13 
1,422 
353 
494 
Number self-supporting at close of each year 
Number on expense for maintenance at close of 
each year 
Number to be supervised in family homes at the 
close of each year 
Cost of maintenance for each child supported 
(Jost of administration based on number to be su- 
pervised 
Cost per child, based on total expense and total 
number of wards 
VI. 
In common with every other great city, Washington has its problems 
yet unsolved. The duties of its individual citizens to the whole body of 
the people and the duties of the whole body of the people to individual 
citizens have never been completely defined, enumerated, or acknowl- 
edged. One set of reciprocal duties has, however, been recognized, and 
the discharge of them has been entered upon with general heartiness; 
for in the matter of agencies for the rescue and protection of children 
the attempt has been made to so provide that no child need long remain 
in any such condition as involves his exposure to hurtful poverty 
or moral depravity. The municipality, acting through its legislative 
agencies, has recognized its duty in this regard and has established cer 
tain public agencies for the doing of the needful work, and individual 
citizens have recognized their duty by establishing other agencies and 
contributing to their support. 
The provision has nevertheless been incomplete, for it has been found 
that there was no place where colored children over 10 years of age 
could be sent to be housed, clothed, fed, instructed, and prepared for 
return to the general body of useful people, from whom they had become HART FARM SCHOOL-POTOMAC INLET. 
HART FARM SCHOOL- KENTUCKY THOROUGHBRED " PHALLAS." A FA UM SCHOOL. 
201 
separated by reason of poverty, orphanage, or want of salutary home 
restraint. 
The Board of Children's Guardians, to whom the guardianship of 
such childreu was commonly given, found itself unprepared to deal 
with them, because it had no place under its own control where they 
could be kept while the work was being done for and with them which 
was necessary in order to fit them for reception by families. Under 
these circumstances the board placed out many such children without 
previous training, and did as well by them and by the persons who 
took them as was possible. 
Special difficulties were encountered with regard to securing educa- 
tional advantages for such children after they were j)laced, the public 
schools in much of the territory open to them being commonly de- 
nounced, by those in position to know the facts in that regard, as being 
worse than useless; and, on the whole, the undertaking with this 
special class could not be said to be more than fairly successful. The 
board became, therefore, more and more reluctant to accept the guar- 
dianship of such children, especially since its funds for the employ- 
ment of agents who might supervise children placed in families became 
more and more inadequate to the demands made upon them. 
Matters drifted along in this way and settled back into much the 
same condition as prevailed before the board was created, children 
being not infrequently sent to prison or to reformatories when the only 
thing they needed was a chance and proper direction to enter upon 
orderly and useful lives. 
A farm school for the training of colored boys from Washington has 
been the thing hoped and striven for for many years by many earnest 
friends of the colored race. 
The following announcement, which appeared in the Washington Post 
on November 10, 1897, gave .the public assurance that a way had been 
provided for putting the experiment to a fair test: 
A problem which has perplexed the Board of Children's Guardians, the care of col- 
ored boys committed to its care, has at last been solved. The plan proposed, it is 
believed, is what has long been needed, and what will prove of great benefit to the 
colored race in the District. In the near future all the destitute little ones turned 
over to the board will find an ideal home on a farm down the Potomac, where they 
will be taught to become useful, industrious men. 
At present there is no institution in the District where colored boys can be pro- 
vided for. The asylum for destitute colored women and children, on Eighth street 
extended, is the nearest approach to a home for boys, but the management excludes 
all those over ten years of age. The plan of the Board of Children's Guardians, of 
placing the boys in homes in States adjoining the District, has proven a failure on 
account of the utter lack of training for those so provided for. 
For two years the board has been considering plans for the proper care of colored 
boys. In his last report the idea of a farm was suggested by President William 
Redin Woodward. Then the question arose as to where the money for such a place 
was to come from. Just at that time William H. H. Hart, a colored man, who until 
recently was employed in the Congressional Library, came forward with a proposi- 
tion, which was at once favored by the board. Mr. Hart offered to the board the use 202 
THE BOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. 
of a 300-aere farm which he owns, adjoining Fort Washington. While the title was 
to remain in him, the farm was placed at the board's disposal, rent free. 
Superintendent of Charities Lewis and President Woodward went down the river, 
and, after a thorough inspection of the farm, made a satisfactory arrangement with 
the owner. On the farm there are 20 houses, several cows, pigs, poultry, and an 
abundance of farming and timber land. It is in every way suited to the purpose to 
which it will soon be put. While the plans of the board are yet incomplete, it has 
been decided to have on the farm a practical farmer, a wheelwright, a blacksmith, 
and school-teachers to look after the training of the boys. 
Mr. Hart will live on the place, and will take a deep interest in the experiment 
which his liberality has made possible. The farm has an assessed value of $15,000, 
and was bought by Mr. Hart out of his savings of many years. The details of the 
plans for the farm are now being worked out by Superintendent Lewis and Presi- 
dent Woodward. 
Certainly this is a fortunate opening. The plans put into operation 
are such as the Board of Children's Guardians is authorized to adopt, 
and provide that boys shall be selected by the board upon considera- 
tion of their history, conduct, and needs, to be placed under the con- 
trol of Professor Hart, to be housed, clothed, fed, disciplined, taught, 
and made useful under the supervision and to the satisfaction of the 
board. The rates to be paid for this service are less than the annual 
per capita cost of boys at the Reform School of the District of Colum- 
bia, and less than the average per capita cost of inmates in the whole 
group of institutions of a reformatory character in the District of 
Columbia. 
This is to be a place of labor, restraint, and discipline; a place in 
which a definite and special effort, earnest ami long continued, is to be 
made to inculcate and stimulate those ideas of personal honor, industry, 
self-control, and right of property to which these boys are total strangers. 
For their physical comfort adequate provision has been made, and the 
boys already on the farm are thoroughly happy and contented. 
Tt is believed that Professor Hart is specially well adapted to secure 
and maintain such control over the boys placed in his charge as will 
be for their good. As soon as the number of boys is sufficient to justify 
such a move, a graduate of the Hampton Institute or the Tuskegee 
Normal and Industrial Institute will be engaged as a master under 
Professor Hart. 
The affairs of the farm are to be administered without rigor and 
without sentimentality, and it is confidently expected that it will 
enable the public authorities to place under proper and salutary sur- 
roundings hundreds of boys now growing up in this community under 
circumstances which can not fail to add them to the pauper and crimi- 
nal portion of the population if permitted to continue. 
Should experience justify the expectation of the present promoters 
of this plan, the Congress will be asked to secure to the proper authority 
the title to the property, and to provide such additional substantial 
and inexpensive buildings and appliances as will make possible the 
enlarged usefulness of the school. INDEX. 
Abbott, Dr. A. P.. 64. 
Abbott's Medical Directory of the District 
of Columbia, 64. 
Abraham, Lewis, 194. 
Acker, Dr. G. N., 83, 90. 
Adams, Dr. A. C., 86. 
Adams, Dr. Samuel S., 83, 90. 
Addison, Mrs. Murray. 100,132. 
A Grandfather's Legacy, by W. W. Cor- 
coran, 148. 
Aged Women's Home, sketch of, 150. 
Alabama, insane in, 12. 
Aldrich, Mrs. Jessie, 165. 
Alexander, Mrs. Charles, 90. 
Alexandria, yellow fever in, in 1798,1, 32. 
Alienist and Neurologist, 14. 
Allen, Rev. William, 144. 
Alley, Miss E., 138. 
Allison, Senator William B., 66. 
Allyn, T. M., 27. 
American Charities, by Amos G. Warner, 
184. 
American Journal of Medical Sciences, 84. 
American Medical Association, 20. 
American Public Health Association, 20. 
American Register, Paris, contains list of 
subscribers to Garfield Memorial Hos- 
pital, 60. 
Ames, Mrs. J. G., 138. 
Andrews, Mrs., 108. 
Andrews, E. F., 114. 
Andrews, William T.,27. 
Annapolis, children of, contribute to Chil- 
dren's Hospital, 89. 
Appich, Jacob J., 134, 135. 
Appleby, Dr. J. F., 124. 
Appropriations for emancipation of 
slaves, 61. 
Architect of the Capitol, 156. 
Arison, John R., 103. 
Arnies, Mrs., 133. 
Arminius Lodge, No. 25, F. A. A. M., 135, 
136. 
Armory Square, 32. 
Army Medical Museum, 36. 
Army of the Tennessee, 63. 
Arthur, President Chester A., 92. 
Ascension Church, 32, 33. 
Ashford, Dr. Francis A., 46, 47, 83, 85, 90; 
seeks to change management of Alms- 
house Hospital, 45; sketch of, 52. 
Associated Charities, 92, 137, 150, 173; 
sketch of, 174,175. 
Association of Medical Superintendents 
of American Institutions for the Insane, 
propositions of, 15. 
Association for Works of Mercy, sketch 
of, 143. 
Audenried, Gen. Joseph C., 97. 
Audenried, Mrs. Mary J., 95, 97. 
Augur Hospital, Alexandria, 34. 
Atkins, A. B., 122. 
Attorney-General, the, 163; refuses to ap- 
prove the Columbia Hospital land pur- 
chase, 77. 
Atwater, Mrs. R. H., 133. 
Babson, Mrs. J. W., 173,176. 
Babcock, Gen. Orville E., 77. 
Baden, Grand Duke and Grand Duchess 
of, 60. 
Bailey, Charles B., 70, 73, 111. 
Bailey, Marcellus, 51. 
Baird & Co., M., 27. 
Baker, Rev. Dr., 53. 
Baker, Henry M., 70. 
Baker, George E., 126. 
Baker, Mrs. George E., 127. 
Baker, John A., 47, 48, 53,173 
Baker, Mrs. L. Y., 140. 
Baldwin, Mrs. C. W., 149. 
Baldwin, W. H., 91. 
Ballantyne, Miss M., 138. 
Ballantyne, William, 152. 
Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station 
proposed for hospital, 46; mite box at, 
55. 
Baltimore, insane asylum in, 8. 
Baltimore as a tobacco market, 144. 
Bancroft, Dr., superintendent New Hamp- 
shire State asylum for insane, 19. 
203 204 
INDEX 
Bangor, Me., Freedmen's Aid Association 
of, 129. 
Bank of Columbia, 144. 
Bank of the Metropolis, 145. 
Bank of the United States, 144,145. 
Baptist Church Hospital, Alexandria, 33. 
Barber, Miss Lorena, 73. 
Baring Bros. & Co., 145. 
Barker, Captain, 63. 
Barker, Dr. E. M., 43, 44. 
Barker, Dr. H. H., writes an open letter to 
Dr. Busey relative to Central Dispen- 
sary and Emergency Hospital, 51, 90, 
91,92, 94. 
Barker, J. W., 91. 
Barlow, Joel, 32, 35. 
Barnard, Job, 70, 73. 
Barnes, Dr. Joseph K., U. S. A., 75, 76. 
Barnes, L., 124. 
Baron de Hirsch fund, 92. 
Barr, Mrs. H. D., 137. 
Barr, James R., 154. 
Barr, Dr. R. D., 57. 
Barrett, Mrs. Kate Waller, general secre- 
tary of the Florence Crittenton mis 
sions, 142. 
Barrows, Dr. Joseph, 4. 
Barry, Dr. R. T., 4. 
Barry, Gen. William F. Garrison, R. A. 
N. U., 38. 
Barthel, Mrs. C., 136. 
Bartlett, Rev. William Alvin, 53, 54, 79. 
Barton, Dr., 83. 
Bates, Benjamin E., 27. 
Bates, I. L., 86. 
Baxter, Mrs. F. T., 130. 
Bayne, George, 32. 
Bayne, Dr. John W., 44,51. 
Beatrice, Sister, in charge of Providence 
Hospital, 44. 
Behan, George, 97. 
Belgium, King and Queen of, 60. 
Bell, Prof. Alexander Graham, 53, 57,163, 
Bell, Mrs. Alexander Graham, 54. 
Bell, Alonzo, 69. 
Bell, Charles J., 98,152. 
Bell, Mrs. E. Snowden, 99. 
Bell, Dr. Luther V., 11. 
Bell, Dr. Ralph, 85. 
Bell, Mrs. Schuyler Johnson, 54. 
Bell, Senator, 13. 
Bellevue Hospital, 88. 
Bellhaven Female Institute, 32. 
Belt, Rev. Addison, 144. 
Bently, Mrs. A. J., 53. 
Benton, Senator Thomas, 13. 
Bergland, Mrs. E., 132. 
Berret, James G., 145. 
Bessler, George J., 135. 
Beverly, Mrs., 32. 
Biddle, Clement, 27. 
Billings, Surg. .John S., U. S. A., 52, 53, 55, 
57, 58, 85,104. 
Binney, Hon. Horace, 27. 
Birch, William Taylor, 118. 
Birney, Mrs. A. A.. 73. 
Birney, William, assistant attorney, Dis- 
trict of Columbia, 108. 
Bittinger, Mrs. Isabella M., 69, 70. 
Blackburn, Senator J. C. S., 80. 
Blackford, Mrs. Huldah W., 123, 125. 
Blackford, J. S., 122. 
Bladensburg as a tobacco market, 144. 
Blagden, Thomas, 14; letter of, to Miss 
Dix, 15,110. 
Blaine, Hon. James G., 53, 60; appeal of, 
for Garfield Hospital, 47. 
Blair, Mrs. Eliza M., 49, 53,139. 
Blair, Mrs. II. J., 53. 
Blair, Mrs. Mary E.,53. 
Blair, Senator Henry W., 53. 
Blake, Dr. James Heighe, 3,107. 
Blockley Hospital, 84. 
Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, 18. 
Blount, Representative James H., 49, 173, 
174. 
Board of Children's Guardians, 130, 131, 
132, 141,143,164,165,176,184; work of, 
185-202. 
Board of health organized, 2; abolished, 
168. 
Board of public works, 167. 
Boardman, William J., 99, 100, 119. 
Boardman, Mrs. William J., 100. 
Boarman, Dr. C. V., 91, 92. 
Boettcher, Mrs. M., 136. 
Bohrer, Dr. Benjamin S., 4, 17, sketch of, 
17. 
Bomford, General, 32, 35. 
Borie, Hon. A. E., 27. 
Borie, C. & H., 27. 
Boston High School, 30. 
Botsch, Mrs. Rosa, 134,136. 
Bovee, Dr. J. Wesley, 44, 81, 82, 83 
Bowden, Margaret, 102. 
Bowen, Sayles J., 126,154. 
Boyd, Dr. T. J., 4. 
Bradley, Mrs. George L., 99. 
Bradley, Joseph H., jr., 83, 85. 
Bradford, Rev. J. IL, 151,170. 
Breckinridge, Gen. J. C., 39. 
Breckinridge, Mrs. J. C., 107, 109,133. 205 
INDEX 
Breed, Dr. Daniel, 63, 64,126. 
Breed, Mrs. G., 128. 
Breitbarth, George, 135. 
Brent, John Carroll, 91,116. 
Brewster, H. A., 156. 
Bridge, Mrs. II., 128. 
Briel, Michael, 101. 
Brigham, Dr. Amariah, 18. 
Bright, Miss, 128. 
Brisco, Dr. R., 4. 
Briscoe, Dr. W. C., 92. 
Broadhead. John M., 154. 
Brock, Major, superintendent of police, 
93; advocates reformatory for women, 
162; distributes relief for the poor, 172. 
Brockenbrough, Dr. Austin, 91. 
Brothers of Nazareth, 121. 
Brown, Mrs. Adelaide, 108. 
Brown, Dr. A. J., 44. 
Brown, Mrs. A. J., 75, 83. 
Brown, Mrs. Frederick T., 127. 
Brown, Hon. George T., 108, 129. 
Brown, Mrs. Henry B,, 139. 
Brown, James R., 151. 
Brown, Mrs. Marshall, 86,108. 
Brown, Rev. Obadiah, 110. 
Brown, Mrs. Obadiah, 107. 
Bruen, W. L., 143. 
Bruen Home, 143. 
Bryan, Dr. Joseph H., 60,154. 
Buckley, M. V., 122, 123. 
Bullinch, Architect, 111. 
Bulkley, Dr. J. W., 44. 
Bullard, Miss Sarah F., 130. 
Bumford, Mrs. Colonel, 108. 
Burchell, N. W., 156, 160. 
Bureau of Refugees and Freedmen, 65. 
Burleith Addition to West Washington, 
141. 
Burnett, Dr. Swan M., 44, 55, 83, 90, 92, 93, 
94, 97,108; performs first surgical oper- 
ation at Garfield Hospital, 55. 
Burns, David, land commissioner District 
of Columbia, 144. 
Burns, II. W., 151. 
Burns, J. F., 27. 
Burr, D. V., 156. 
Burris, Mrs. William, 149. 
Busey, SamuelC., M. D., LL. D., president 
Medical Society of the District of Co- 
lumbia, 2, 17, 20, 31, 47, 51, 52, 53, 78, 79; 
starts project for a children's hospital, 
83, 85, 90; memoirs and reminiscences 
of. 7, 46, 49, 52, 84, 90. 
Bushnell, Dr. J. H., 64. 
Butchers' Association of the District of 
Columbia, 135, 136. 
Caldwell, Dr. Elias B., 2. 
Caldwell, Rev. Josiah, D. D., 107. 
Caldwell, Mrs. Josiah, 107. 
Caldwell, J.E.,27. 
Callan, Nicholas, 116. 
Callan, Dr. C. V. N., 44, 51. 
Campbell, Miss, 111. 
Campbell, Miss Charlotte, 140. 
Campbell Hospital, 32, 64. 
Camp Barker, 63. 
Candler, Mrs. Ida C., 53. 
Capitol of the United States, hospital in, 
32. 
Carberry, Thomas, 115,116. 
Carey, Albert, 134. 
Carlisle, Mr., 96, 97. 
Carlisle, Mrs. Calderon, 148. 
Carlisle, Mrs. J. C., 117. 
Carlisle, James M., 145. 
Carlisle, Mrs. James M., 95,146,148. 
Carlisle, Mrs. J. S., 117. 
Caron, Mrs. Bertha, 136. 
Carpenter, JohnE.,vice-president Reform 
School for Boys, 156,160. 
Cartter,Chief Justice David K., 49, 51,103. 
Carrington, Miss, 111. 
Carrington, Mrs. E. C., 117. 
Carroll, Daniel, 144. 
Carroll, Sarah M., 102. 
Carver Hospital, 32. 
Caspari's Hotel Hospital, 33. 
Castleton's Medical College, 19. 
Caswell,George A.,commissioner of Wash- 
ington Asylum, 161. 
Catlin, Mrs. B. R., 138. 
Catlin, Mary E., 142. 
Causins, Dr. N. P., 4. 
Cecil, Dr. W. W. L., 55. 
Central Committee for the Relief of the 
Poor, 173,174. 
Central Dispensary and Emergency Hos- 
pital, 49,56; historical sketch of, 90-98, 
170; sanitary condition of, 180,182. 
Central Hospital, 4. 
Central Union Mission, 153. 
Chaipmau, N. P., 91. 
Chamberlin, Miss G. B., 90. 
Chambrun, Mme. de, 99. 
Channing, Dr. William E., 11. 
Chapman, Mrs. E. M., 101. 
Charity in the District of Columbia, mis- 
application of, 77. 
Chalmers, Mrs., 107. 206 
INDEX 
Chapin, Dr. John B., 181. 
Charity Ball, 89. 
Charlesworth, Dr., 10. 
Chase, B. F., 151. 
Chester, Cecil, 132. 
Chester, Jane, 132. 
Chester, Miss Josephine, 138. 
Chester, Machlin, 132. 
Chickering, Miss F. E., 138. 
Children's Aid Society, 186,191. 
Children's Country Home, 101, 106. 
Children's Hospital, 16, 45, 49; first sug- 
gestions in regard to, interests of Dr. 
William P. Johnson in, 83; incorpora- 
tion of, interest of Dr. Hall in, 84; first 
home of, first board of directors of, 85; 
board of lady visitors of, reports of 
President Niles, 86; reorganization of, 
enlargement of, 87; changes in presi- 
dency, trained nursing at, 88; enlarged 
appropriations for, infants, w a r d s 
started, 89; officers of, 90; sanitary 
condition of, 178,179,180,182. 
Childs, Mrs. A. F., 69, 70. 
Childs, Miss F. G., 133. 
Childs, Francis E., 139. 
Childs, George W., 27. 
Childs, Mrs. George W., 133. 
Childs, Jane L., 133. 
Childs, Thomas S., 133. 
Childs, Mrs. T. S., 133. 
Cholera, deaths from, in 1832, 4. 
Cholera hospitals in 1832, 4. 
Choate, Mrs. Rufus, 72. 
Christiani, Mrs. Charles, 140. 
Christ Church, 145. 
Chubb, Mrs. E. C. Warrington, 120,143. 
Church Orphanage of St.John's Parish, 
sketch of, 118-121,178; sanitary condi- 
tion of, 180,182. 
Church reservation, 4. 
Church Mission to Deaf Mutes, 23. 
Chute, Mrs., 131. 
Circle General Hospital, 33. 
Cissel, David T., 148. 
City Hall General Hospital, 33. 
Claflin, James, Treasurer of the United 
States, 60. 
Claggett, William H., 104. 
Clagett, Mrs., 108. 
Claghorn, James L., 27. 
Clara, Sister (Nora Maloney), 125. 
Claremont Hospital, 33. 
Clark, Mr.. 53. 
Clark, Mrs., 54. 
Clark, Clarence H.,27. 
Clark, Edward, Architect of the Capitol, 
156. 
Clark, Richard H., 116. 
Clay, Col. Cecil, president Reform School 
for Boys, 160. 
Clayton, William McKendree, 148. 
Cleveland Medical College, 64. 
Cleveland, Mrs. Grover, unveils portrait 
of Mrs. Madison, 114. 
Clements, Alexander, 4. 
Clements, W. D.,85. 
Clephane, Lewis, 69, 70. 
Clephane, Mrs. Lewis, 72. 
Clift, Mis. Walter L., 139. 
Cliffburn Hospital, 33. 
Clover, Beatrice, 131. 
Clover, Dora, 131. 
Clover, Mrs., 131. 
Cogswell, Alice, first pupil of Dr. Gallau- 
det, 29. 
Cohen, Robert, 148. 
Coleman, Miss Sarah, 54, 86, 146,148. 
Colignon, Joseph, 136. 
Collins, Dr. Charles R., 108. 
Collonization of freedmen, 61. 
Colored children, needs of, in Washing- 
ton, 201. 
Colored Widow's Home of St. Matthew's 
Parish, 150. 
Colt. Mrs. Samuel, 27. 
Colton, Mrs, Francis, 105. 
Columbia Hospital for Women, 49, 52, 89, 
90,92, 171, 178, 182; limitations of, 45; 
organization of, Dr. J. Harry Thomp- 
son's reports on, free beds in, 74; hospi- 
tal started, first report of, 75; directors 
of. medical and surgical staff of, sup- 
ported by the Government, 76; title to 
real estate vested in the Government, 
bounty of Congress toward, real-estate 
transactions of, 77; changes in surgeon 
in chief, 78; training school for nurses 
advocated, cost of hospital work at, 
pay-patient fund of, 79; friction be- 
tween board of trustees and staff, com- 
mittee to visit hospitals, 80; changes 
in administration, 81; pay patient, 82; 
nurses' training school, 83; sanitary 
condition of, 180. 
Columbia Hospital Dispensary, 83. 
Columbia hospital proposed, 3. 
Columbia Institution for the Deaf and 
Dumb, deaf and dumb children brought 
from New York, interest of Hon. Ames INDEX 
207 
Columbia Institution for the Deaf and 
Dumb-Continued. 
Kendall, land-grant bill vetoed, inves- 
tigation of New York cases, 21; incor- 
poration, beginnings of the institution, 
provisions of the charter, finances, 23; 
transfer of moneys of the Washington 
Manual Labor School and Male Orphan 
Asylum, industrial education at, appro- 
priations for, establishment of the col- 
lege, 24; change in the presidency, rec- 
ord of graduates, 25; free scholarships, 
transfer of the blind children, 26; dor- 
mitories erected, purchases of lands, 
27; normal school, 28; Kendall School, 
29; management of the institution, 30. 
Columbian College or University, 5, 7, 
32, 41; hospital of authorized to occupy 
insane asylum, 5, 34, 81, 100,145,146. 
Cole, Hon. Chas. C., 173. 
Combe, Airs., 108. 
Commissary Hospital, Alexandria, 34. 
Commissioners of the District of Colum- 
bia, 122, 123, 160; care for poor, 171; 
control Washington Asylum Hospital, 
73; recommend a board of charities, 
178. 
Commissioners of the Freedmen's Bureau. 
Commissioner of Public Buildings, 7, 42. 
Conger, Mrs. Frank B., 105. 
Conger, Senator Omar I)., 53. 
Conger, Mrs. Stella B., 53. 
Connecticut retreat for the insane, 23. 
Connell, John, sanitary officer, Metropol- 
itan Police, 171. 
Conner, Mr., 111. 
Convalescent Camp, Alexandria, 34. 
Convent of the Sacred Heart, Paris, 61. 
Cook, Dr. G. W., 59. 
Cook, John F., 130,173, 180, 200. 
Cooke, Hon. Henry D., 22, 75, 76, 145, 156, 
157, 159; his relations as treasurer of 
the Reform School for Boys, 158. 
Cooke, Mrs. Henry D., 117,128,130. 
Cooke & Co., Jay, 26, 27,118,156,157,158, 
159. 
Coolidge, Mrs. Richard H., 146,148. 
Coombs, Rev. J. N., 76. 
Cooper, Mr., 111. 
Copenhaver, Mrs. M. A., 138. 
Corcoran Art Gallery, 144,146. 
Corcoran & Riggs, 145. 
Corcoran, James, 144. 
Corcoran, Louise Morris, 145. 
Corcoran. Thomas, sketch of, 144. 
Corcoran, jr., Thomas, 144. 
Corcoran, William Wilson, furnishes 
building for national medical college, 
5; 26; founds free scholarship for deaf 
and dumb, 26; 32, 34 ; trustee of Colum- 
bia Hospital, 76; endows bed at Chil- 
dren's Hospital, 86; furnishes building 
for St. Ann's Infant Asylum, 102; pre- 
sides at dedication of Hall Memorial 
Building, Washington Orphan Asylum, 
107; president Washington Hospital 
for Foundlings, 110; gives site for Prot- 
estant Orphan Asylum, 111; gift of 
lands to Washington Orphan Asylum 
acknowledged, 112; gifts to Washing- 
ton City Orphan Asylum, 114; gifts to 
German Orphan Asylum, 134; founds 
Corcoran Art Gallery and Louise Home, 
his early education, begins business for 
himself, his failure in the panic of 1823, 
pays his creditors in full with interest, 
manages his father's property, takes 
charge of the suspended debt of the 
Bank of the United States, 144; colo- 
nel in the District militia, declines 
command of militia, his marriage, 
death of his children, establishes bro- 
kerage business, removes his family to 
Washington, firm of Corcoran & Riggs 
purchase old United States Bank, firm 
takes loans made by the United States, 
places United States bonds in Europe 
with great success, withdraws from 
banking business, begins the erection 
of public art gallery, building occu- 
pied by the Government for military 
purposes, its restoration, 145; Corcoran 
Art Gallery established and incorpo- 
rated, his friendship with prominent 
men, visits Europe, gifts to Washing- 
ton Orphan Asylum and other charita- 
ble institutions, gift to William and 
Mary College, death of Mrs. Eustis, 
founds the Louise Home in memory of 
his wife and daughter, welcomed home 
from his third visit to Europe, gift to 
Columbian College, his death, 146; gift 
of Oak Hill Cemetery, 148. 
Corey, Dr. W. F., 73. 
Cornell, Rev. Mr., 132. 
Corson, Miss Ida, 99,131,132,133. 
Costello, Theresa A., 102. 
Cox, Richard S., his land confiscated for 
the use of the National Association for 
the Relief of Destitute Colored Women 
and Children, 128; pardon of, 129. 
Cox, Hon, Walter 8., 122,148,172. 208 
INDEX 
Coxe, John R., 2. 
Coxe, Mrs. R. T., first directress Washing- 
ton Orphan Asylum, 113. 
Coyle, Fitzhugh, 85. 
Cragin, Dr. Charles IL, 80, 91. 
Craig, David P., 151. 
Crunch Hospital, 33. 
Crandell, Mrs. Germond, 129. 
Crew's History of Washington, 16. 
Crittenton, C. N., 142. 
Crittenton, Florence, 142. 
Cruikshank, Colonel, 128. 
Crook, Dr. Harrison, 44. 
Cullen, establishes insane asylums in 
Scotland, 18. 
Cunningham, Mrs., 132,133. 
Curriden, Samuel W., 55. 
Curriden, Samuel W., treasurer Reform 
School for Boys, 160. 
Cushing, Representative Caleb, 9,11. 
Custis, Dr. George W. N., 142. 
Custis, Dr. J. B. G., 70. 
Cuthbert, Dr. Middleton F., 44, 60. 
Cutler, Capt. L. B., 153. 
Daily, O. A., 91. 
Daingerfield, Mrs. Edward, 34. 
Daingerfield Hospital, 34. 
Daisy Chain Guild, 89. 
Dallas, Vice-President, 13. 
Dalzell, Representative John, 70. 
Dalzell, Mrs. John, 72, 139. 
Darling, Dr. D., 179. 
Darlington, Joseph J., 108,189. 
Dartmouth College, 19. 
Davidson, Samuel, land commissioner 
District of Columbia, 144. 
Davis, Miss, 90. 
Davis, Senator, 13. 
Davis, Mrs. A. H., 70. 
Davis, Dr. C. A., 73. 
Davis, Louis J., 47, 53, 85, 90, 172; sug- 
gests memorial hospital to Garfield, 46. 
Day, Rosalie, 131. 
Day, Sherwood S., 131. 
Day ton Soldiers' Home, 151. 
Deagle, Matthew, 115. 
Deale, Dr. Henry B., 60,100. 
Dean, Mills, 163. 
De Grain, Mrs. M., 136. 
Delano, Hon. Columbus, Secretary of the 
Interior, 157. 
Delaware, deaf and dumb of, 29. 
Denison & Co., 145. 
Denison, James, instructor of the deaf, 23. 
Dennison, Mrs. William, 92. 
Dent, Commissioner, 93. 
Dent, Josiah, 47,53. 
Department of State, 48. 
Desmares Hospital, 34. 
Didden, C. A., 134, 135. 
Diet kitchen, the, 101. 
Diggs, Mrs. Dudley, 107. 
Dingman, Mrs. Harrison, 70. 
Dinsmore, A. F., 151. 
Dionysia, Sister, 102. 
Diplomatic and consular officers of the 
United States, 48. 
Dispensary, first established in 1843, 6. 
Dispensary for women and children estab- 
lished in connection with Columbia 
Hospital, 76. 
District assembly, 167. 
District Commissioners, 100. 
District of Columbia, destitute persons 
in, in 1875,167; freedmen in, 65; public 
charities in, 1. 
District Militia, 145. 
Dix, Senator, 13. 
Dix, Gen. John A., 13. 
Dix, Miss Dorothea Lynde, begins her 
work at the East Cambridge House of 
Correction, enlists the aid of Dr. Howe 
and Charles Sumner, horrible condition 
of the insane in Massachusetts, memo- 
rial to Massachusetts legislature, 11; 
her work in Rhode Island, New Jersey. 
Pennsylvania, and other States, life of, 
by Rev. Francis Tiffany, 12; her memo- 
rial to Congress, five million acres bill, 
its passage by Congress, 13; vetoed by 
President Pierce, establishment of the 
Government Hospital for the Insane, 
obtains site from Thomas Blagden, 14; 
her birth and early life, 13; her death, 
12, 146. 
Dixon, Miss, 131. 
Doctors in Washington, early, 31. 
Dodge, William C., 163. 
Dole, Mrs. E. G., 130. 
Dolph, Miss, 54. 
Dolph, Mrs. Joseph N., 53. 
Donaldson, Miss M. A., 127. 
Doolittle, Mrs. Lucy S., 130,180,196, 200. 
Doolittle, M. H., 122. 
Dorothea, Sister, 143. 
Dorsey, Emma E., 139. 
Douglas Hospital, 32, 34, 35. 
Douglas, John W., 200. 
Douglas, Hon. Stephen A., 32, 34. 
Dove, Dr. G. M., 117. 
Drew, Mr., 94. 
Drexel. A. J., 27. 209 
INDEX 
Drinkard, Dr. William B., 78, 83, 85, 90. 
Dunbarton Street Church, 32. 
Dunbarton Street Church Hospital, 33. 
Duncanson, Mr., 94. 
Dungan, W. W., 122. 
Dunkhorst, Mrs. W., 136. 
Dunlop, William L., 148. 
I )unn, Mrs. M. E. M., 140. 
Dunn, William H., 153. 
Dunn, Gen. William McKee, 95. 
Durant, T. J., 92, 94, 95. 
Duvall, Andrew B., 148. 
Dyer, Dr. John I., 51. 
E Street Baptist Church Hospital. 32, 33. 
Eastern Dispensary, 100. 
Eastern Hospital, 4. 
Eaton, General, 140. 
Eaton, Senator, 66. 
Eaton, Mrs. D. B., 53, 54,140. 
Eaton, D. L., 158. 
Eaton, jr., Brevet Brig. Gen. John, 63. 
Ebenezer Church, 32. 
Ebenezer Church Hospital, 33. 
Eberly, Anton, 131. 
Ebersole, Miss S. C., superintendent of 
nurses, Freedmen's Hospital, 68. 
Ebbitt House, 49. 
Eckington Hospital, 32, 34. 
Eclipse Park, bicycle parade at, 99. 
Eddy, Mrs. Maria M., teacher of the blind, 
23. 
Edgar, Mrs. A. M., 130. 
Edmonds, Commissioner, 172. 
Edson, John Joy, 70, 72, 175. 
Edwards, Brevet Col. and Surg. L. A., 63. 
65. 
Ehleider, Dr. Thomas, 73. 
Eliot, Dr. Johnson, 51, 78, 85, 87,90,91. 
102,180. 
Eliot, R. K., 110. 
Elliot's Historical Sketches, 3, 107. 
Elliott, Mrs. Dawes, 128. 
Elliott, Dr. Lewellyn, 51. 
Elliott, Mrs. T. D., 128,129. 
Ellis, Mrs. John, 69. 
Ellis, Dr. William P., 64. 
Ellison, Miss Mary H., 72. 
Emancipation in the District of Colum- 
bia, 61. 
Emery, Hon. Matthew G., 43, 91,152. 
Emery, Mrs. M. G., 108. 
Emery, Mrs. M. W., 53. 
Emery, Mrs. Samuel, 79. 
Emery, Mrs. William H , 53. 
Emory Hospital, 34. 
Emperor Augustus, of Germany, 60. 
Empress Eugenie, 60. 
Endicott, William C., jr., 164. 
Endicott, Mrs., 127. 
Engineer Commissioner of the District 
of Columbia, 163. 
English Female Seminary, Georgetown, 
34. 
English, Mrs. Earl, 53, 54. 
English, Miss L. S., 34, 54. 
Ennis, Gregory, 116. 
Epiphany Church, 32. 
Epiphany Church Home for Aged Wom- 
en, 150. 
Epiphany Church Hospital, 33. 
Ermold, Mrs. Elizabeth, 136. 
Ermold, Henry, 136. 
Ernst, Miss, 99. 
Eruptive Fever General Hospital, 34. 
Euphrasia, Sister, 116. 
European reformatory institutions for 
women. 161. 
Eustis, Hon. George, 145. 
Eustis, Hon. George, jr., 145. 
Eustis, Mrs., 146. 
Evans, Mrs. A. E., 149. 
Evening Star, 46, 132. 
Everett, Dr. C. M., 43. 
Everett, Edward, 146. 
Everett, Mrs. Katharine, 99. 
Everett, Percival L., 27. 
Ewell, Dr. Thomas, 3. 
Executive Mansion, insane at, 171. 
Fahenstock, Mr., 75. 
Fahenstock, Mrs. H. C., 117. 
Fairfax Seminary General Hospital, 
Alexandria, 34. 
Falls, A. J., 139. 
Farnham, Mrs. Robert, 117. 
Farnsworth, Calvin, 151. 
Farnum, John, 27. 
Female Boarding School Hospital, Alex- 
andria, 34. 
Fendall, Reginald, 47, 53 86. 90, 108, 172. 
Feran, Thomas, 116. 
Ferree, Newton, 151. 
Ferris, Mrs. Cornelia W., 53, 54, 79. 
Fessenden, Edson, 26, 27. 
Fez, Africa, insane asylum at, 18. 
Fillmore, President Millard, 18. 
Finley Hospital, 34. 
First Baptist Church, 107,112. 
Fisher, George P., 91. 
Fisher, Louisa, 102. 
Fisher, Thomas J., 105, 152. 
Fitch, James E., 77,152,160, 163, 173,174. 
Five million acres' bill, 13. 
7260 14 210 
INDEX, 
Fleck, Mrs. Elizabeth K., 142. 
Flint, Mrs. James M., 125. 
Florence Crittenton Homes, 142. 
Florence Crittenton Hope and Help Mis- 
sion, sketch of, 141,142. 
Flower, Representative Roswell P., 70. 
Floyd, John B., Secretary of War, 128. 
Ford, John T., 36. 
Ford's Theater, 36. 
Foreign countries represented at Women's 
Christian Home, 139. 
Foreign subscriptions to Garfield Me- 
morial Hospital, 61. 
Forwood, Lieut. Col. W. H., 37. 
Foster, Charles E., 125. 
Foster, Rose A., 133. 
Fourth Presbyterian Church Hospital, 
32, 33. 
Fowle, W. IL, 34. 
Fowler, Mrs., 108. 
Fox, Mrs. G. V., 99. 
Fox, Robert C., 85, 90. 
Fox, Thomas F., 28. 
Fox, Dr. William IL, 100. 
Francis, Mrs. B. G., 130. 
Francis, George, 58. 
Frank, J. A., sanitary officer Metropolitan 
police, 44. 
Franklin, Miss C. L., 130. 
Freeman, Mrs., 54. 
Freeman, Mrs. Delia A., 139. 
Freeman, Mrs. F. L., 69. 
Freeman, Mrs. Margaret C., 86. 
Freedmen's Aid Society of Worcester, 
Mass., 128. 
Freedmen's Bureau, 35, 62, 63, 64, 65, 128, 
129,167. 
Freedmen's Hospital, 37; in part an asy- 
lum, 45, 49; established, 62, 168, 171; 
investigation of, 66; one of three ad- 
mitting colored physicians for medical 
training, 68; sketch of, 63-68; trans- 
ferred to the Interior Department, 67. 
Freedmen's Hospital, Richmond, Va., 65. 
Freedmen's Village, 64. 
Frelinghuysen, Hon. Frederick T., Secre- 
tary of State, 48. 
Frelinghuysen, Mrs., 54. 
Frelinghuysen, Miss M. J,, 53. 
French, Hou. Benjamin B., 22, 23, 26, 103, 
154. 
French, Daniel C., sculptor, 29. 
French, Mrs. S. B., 138. 
Frost, M iss, 118. 
Fry, Dr. Henry D„ 60, 81. 
Fuller, Mrs. Melville W., 139. 
Fuller, Mrs. Sarah S., 101. 
Fulton, Robert, 32, 35. 
Gaddis, Miss, 97. 
Gales, Joseph, 32, 34. 
Gales, Mrs. Joseph, 107. 
Gallaudet, Dr. Edward Miner, 22, 131,133; 
becomes president of the Columbia In- 
stitution's; sketch of, 23. 
Gallaudet, Mrs. E. M., 132, 133,138. 
Gallaudet, Rev. Thomas Hopkins, 22, 23; 
statue of, 28. 
Gallaudet, Mrs. Thomas Hopkins, 23. 
Gallaudet's historical sketch of Columbia 
Institution, 26. 
Galt. M. W., 83, 85, 88, 90, 99,118. 
Galt, Mrs. M. W.,85, 90. 
Galt, William M., 86, 95, 97, 111. 
Gangewer, A. M., 122. 
Gangewer, Mrs. A. M., 127. 
Gantt, Dr. Edward, vaccinates persons in 
the White House, 2. 
Garfield, President James A., 42, 60; as- 
sassination of, on Hebrew Sabbath, 
46,47; statue of, on west front of Cap 
itol, 46. 
Garfield, Mrs. James A., 58. 
Garfield Memorial Church, 46. 
Garfield Memorial Hospital, 69, 92, 118; 
inquiry into the management, 58; value 
of the property, 59; relations of the 
Government to the Garfield Memorial 
Hospital, 60; royal subscription, 61; 
conditions requiring such an establish- 
ment, 45; efforts of Dr. Ashford, sug- 
gestions of Louis J. Davis and A. S. 
Solomons, assassination of President 
Garfield, 46; public meeting called, 47; 
appeal by Secretary of State, 48; action 
of the Medical Society, 49; transfer of 
the Soldiers and Sailors' Orphans Home 
funds, 50; protest of certain doctors, 
51; plan of organization, 52; Ladies' 
Aid Association, 53; hospital opened, 
55; early reports, 56; changes in man- 
agement, 57. 
Garnett, Dr. A. Y. P., 53, 55, 76, 78, 90. 
Garnett, Mrs. A. Y. P., 108. 
Garnett, Henry Wise, 47. 
Geiger, H., 27. 
General Hospital, first opened in Wash- 
ington, 6. 
George, C. B., 173. 
George Maulsby Memorial Home, the, 131. 
Georgetown as a tobacco market, 144. 
Georgetown Almshouse, 124,161. 
Georgetown Asylum, 122. 211 
INDEX, 
Georgetown College, 52, 91, 92, 97,100. 
Georgetown College Hospital, 34. 
Georgetown Hospital, 4. 
Georgetown Ladies' Aid Society, 99. 
German-American citizens, 133. 
German Lutheran Church, Concordia, 133. 
German Orphan Asylum, 172, 178, 181; 
donations for, 134; keeps open house 
on Sunday, 135; sanitary condition of, 
180; sketch of, 133-136; title to lands 
defective, 133. 
Germania Maennerchor, 135,136. 
Gibbons, Mrs. A. 11., 127. 
Gibson, H.C., 27. 
Gibson, Mrs. Randall, 53. 
Gideon, Mrs. George S., 108. 
Gideon, Jacob, 17. 
Giesboro Point General Hospital, 34. 
Gilbert, Dr. Charles B., 70. 
Gilfillan, Hon. James, Treasurer of the 
United States, 47, 48. 
Gillette, D. D., Rev. A. D., 75, 76, 112. 
Gillis, Mrs., 108. 
Gilliss, Dr. Thomas IL, 2. 
Gilman, Z. D., 103. 
Gilman, Mrs. Z. D., 108. 
Gilmer, Dr. Washington. 64. 
Glazebrook, Dr. L. W., 108. 
Gleunan, Assistant Surg. Patrick, 64. 
Glover, Charles C., 89. 
Godding, Dr. W. W., 14, 18; appointed 
Superintendent Government Hospital 
for the Insane, sketch of, by Dr. Nichols, 
19; letter of, relative to foundation of 
Government Hospital for the Insane, 14. 
Godey, L. A., 27. 
Goldsborough, Dr. Charles W., 2. 
Gonzaga College, 16. 
Good Hope Hill, Anacostia, 133. 
Gotwald, D. D., Rev. W. IL, 151. 
Government farm, 154. 
Government Hospital for the Insane, 21, 
31, 32, 39, 57, 65,164,171; beginnings of, 
10; work at, Dr. Nichol's report as to, 
15; first board of visitors, presidents 
of, 17; erects ward for Africans, 18; 
regulations of, 16. 
Government hospitals and asylums, 31. 
Gowie, Miss, 111. 
Grace Church, 32. 
Grace Church Hospital, Alexandria, 33. 
Grace Church Hospital, Washington, 33. 
Gracie, Rev. Father, 144. 
Graff, Charles, 133, 134. 
Grand Army of the Republic, 151. 
Grant, President Ulysses S., 111. 
Grant, Mrs. U. S., 117. 
Gray, Mrs. Frederick, 73. 
Gray, Dr. W. M., 43, 44. 
Green, Mrs. Edwin, 108. 
Gresham, Hon. Walter Q., Secretary of 
State, 68. 
Grimes, Senator J. W., 63. 
Grimes, Mrs. E. S., 127. 
Grimke, Rev. F. L., 130. 
Groot, Dr. Simon I., 70. 
Grosvenor House Hospital, 34. 
Guardian Society, The, 154. 
Gunnell, Francis M., U. S. N., 119. 
Gunning, Amos J., 151. 
Gunther, of Chicago, 54. 
Gurley, D. D., Kev. D. P., 17, 76. 
Gurley, Dr. Phineas, D., 110, 112,113. 
Gurley, William B., 98,125. 
Gurley, Mrs. William B., 140. 
Guynn, Lucy, 102. 
Haas, Dr. J. Carleton, 100. 
Hackett, Frank W., 119. 
Hagner, Hon. Alexander B., 119. 
Hagner, Mrs. Alexander B., 132,148. 
Hagner, Dr. Charles E., 108. 
Hagner, Dr. Daniel R., 43, 90. 
Haiti, colonization in, 61. 
Halifax, insane in, 12. 
Hall, D. D., Rev. C. H„ 75, 76. 
Hall, David A., 22. 
Hall, Mrs. David A., 117. 
Hall, Mrs. George A., 137. 
Hall, H. A., 139. 
Hall, Dr. .James Crowdhill, 2, 83, 84, 85, 90, 
103, 107, 110, 145; makes Washington 
City Orphan Asylum and the Chil- 
dren's Hospital residuary legatees, 113. 
Hall memorial building, 107,114. 
Hallam, Orrin B., 195, 198. 
Hallowell, B., Alexandria, 34. 
Hallowell, James S., Alexandria, 34. 
Hallowell, William, Alexandria, 35. 
Hamilton, Dr. Charles B., 2. 
Hamilton, Dr. J. B., 96. 
Hamlin, Mrs., 133. 
Hampton Institute, 202. 
Hampton Soldiers' Home, 151. 
Hannegan, Senator, 13. 
Hanson, Olof, 28. 
Harewood Hospital, 32, 34. 
Harkness, John C., 85, 110, 112; his his- 
torical sketch of Washington Orphan 
Asylum, 107. 
Harkness, Mrs. John C., 83,108. 212 
INDEX 
Harlan, Mrs. James, 117. 
Harlan, Hon. John M., president of Gar- 
field Memorial Hospital, 58, 131. 
Harlan, Mrs. John M., 139. 
Harlan, Hon. William, Secretary of the 
Interior, 112. 
Harper, Mrs. E..L, 149. 
Harries, Gen. George H., 176. 
Harris, Dr. J. D., 67. 
Harrison, President Benjamin, 53. 
Harrison, Mrs. Benjamin, 53. 
Harrison, Mrs. C. S., 53. 
Harrison, Dr. George Byrd, 96, 97,108. 
Harrison, Mrs. George B., 108. 
Harrison, Dr. J. Stewart, 51,134. 
Harrison, Mrs. Jane L. Stone, 114. 
Harrison, J., jr., 27. 
Hart, Mrs. M. C., 129. 
Hart, Prof. William H. IL, 201. 
Hart Farm School, 202. 
Hartig, Gustave, 133,135. 
Hartigan, Dr. J. F., 51. 
Hartsock, Mrs. S. M., 119. 
Harvard Divinity School, 11. 
Harvard University, 28. 
Harvey, James S., 116. 
Hatch, Mrs. H. M., 130. 
Haupt, Miss, 140. 
Hausmann, Theodore, 151. 
Haw mansion, 53. 
Hawkes, Dr. W. H., 44, 97. 
Hawley, Mrs. Dr., 108. 
Hawley, William, 110. 
Hawley, Mrs. William, first directress 
Washington Orphan Asylum, 112. 
Hawxhurst, Dr. Howard IL, 73. 
Hay, Mrs. John, 132. 
Hazleton, Mrs. G. C., 140. 
Head, Mrs. George M., 108. 
Headley, Mrs. S. F., 128. 
Heald, Mrs., 132. 
Health office created, 168. 
Hearst, Mrs. W. R., 99. 
Heath, Miss, 14. 
Heath, David W., 154. 
Heiberger, Dr. Ida, 140. 
Helen, Dr. Johnston, 41. 
Heminway Gymnasium, Harvard Uni- 
versity, 28. 
Henderson, Mrs., 108. 
Henderson, Dr. Thomas, 84. 
Henry Wilson Post, G. A. R., 38. 
Hepburn, Miss, 54. 
Hepburn, Representative, 54. 
Hepburn, Mrs. William P., 53. 
Herbert, Lieutenant, 54. 
Herron, Mrs. W. W., 140. 
Heurich, Christian, 134,135. 
Hickey, William, 115. 
Hickling, Dr. D. Percy, 73. 
Hickman, Dr. G. W. V., 85. 
Hicks, John, 123. 
Higinbotham, Peter N., 154. 
Hill, D. B., 151. 
Hill, Dr. Gardner, 10. 
Hill, Mrs. Stephen P., 146,118. 
Hill, Mrs. W. C., 139. 
Hill, Charles, sr., 34. 
Hill mansion, 75. 
11 ine, Hon. L. G., 43. 
Hislop, Dr. Margaret, 73. 
Hitz, John, 122. 
Hobbie, Mrs., 33. 
Hodge, Mrs. J. L., 100. 
Hoeke, W. IL, 140. 
Holmead estate, 35. 
Home for the Aged of the Little Sisters 
of the Poor, 149,150,181; sanitary con- 
dition of, 180. 
Home for Friendless Colored Girls, 143. 
Hood, Dr. James B., 125. 
Hood, Mary E., 130,133. 
Hooper. Mrs. A. L., 127, 129. 
Hooper, Miss Anna M., 127. 
Hopkins, Mrs. Archibald, 100. 
Hopkins, Col. Reginald, 176. 
Horwitz, Dr. J. P., U. S. N., 75, 76. 
Hosmer, Miss Katharine P., 176. 
Hospital facilities in Washington in 1861, 
74. 
Hospital for refugees, 63. 
Hough, Miss Frances R., 73. 
House of the Good Shepherd in Balti- 
more, 162,165. 
House of the Good Shepherd in Wash- 
ington, 143,165, 187; sketch of, 141. 
House of Mercy, 165,187. 
Howard, Dr. Flodoardo, 76,78. 
Howard, Dr. J., 91. 
Howard, Miss L., 117. 
Howard, Gen. Oliver O., 32, 103, 128, 129. 
Howard, Mrs. Oliver 0., 63. 
Howard, Dr. Robertson, 91, 94. 
Howard University, 45, 65, 143. 
Howe, Dr. S. G., 11. 
Howell, Rev. Mr. and Mrs., 131. 
Howells, Mrs. Louisa, 127. 
Howland, Miss Emily, 127. 
Howland, Miss Phebe Jane, 128. 
Hughes, Dr. Thomas, 2. 
Humane Society, the, 92, 130. 
Hunter, Mrs., 107. 213 
INDEX 
Huntington, Adoniram J., 163. 
Huntt, Dr. Henry, 2, 4. 
Hurd, Dr. II. M., 181. 
Hutchinson, Elias S., 69, 70. 
Hutchinson, H. M., 47. 
Hutchinson, Mrs. IL M., 105. 
Hyde, Anthony, 145. 
Hyde, Thomas, 99, 100,148. 
Illinois, insane in, 12. 
Illinois State board of health, 68. 
Imhof, Fred., 135. 
Indiana, insane in, 12. 
Industrial Home School, 167,178,182,191, 
200; sanitary condition of, 180; sketch 
of, 122-125. 
Influenza of 1789-80, 1. 
Ingleside, rented for Washington City 
Orphan Asylum, 114. 
Insane, hospitals for, in various States, 8. 
Insane asylum, appropriations for, 5. 
Insane asylum, provided for. 9. 
Insane asylums in the United States, es- 
tablishment of, 10. 
Insane in the District of Columbia, 8. 
Insane patients confined in jails and 
almshouses, 5 
Insane persons, 8. 
Insane placed under control of Secretary 
of Interior, 9. 
Interior Department, controls Freedmen's 
Hospital, 66; Dr. J. Harry Thompson's 
reports to, 76. 
Irish, Mrs. Mary J., 53. 
Irwin, Capt. D. A., 37. 
Island Hall Hospital, 35. 
Jackson, President Andrew, makes an 
isolating room in the White House and 
nurses a body servant, 2, 84. 
Jackson, Mrs., 99. 
Jacobs, Major, 131. 
Jail, old, 9. 
Janney, Prof. Bernard T., 125,176. 
Janney, Dr. Edward, 70. 
Jarsohn, Dr. Philip, 59. 
Jarvis, Thomas, 142. 
Jefferson, President Thomas, receives 
vaccine lymph, 2; 144. 
Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, 84. 
Jefferson Medical College, 20. 
Jenkins, Dr. Ralph, 70, 73. 
Jenner, Dr., discoverer of vaccine lymph, 
2. 
Jenner, James C., 154. 
Jewell, Mrs. C. B., 138. 
Jewish Synagogue Hospital, 35. 
Johns Hopkins Hospital, 35. 
Johnson, Representative, 9. 
Johnson, President Andrew, 128. 
Johnson, Miss E. B., 53. 
Johnson, Dr. G. W., 97. 
Johnson, Dr. H. L. E., 97. 
Johnson, Mrs. I. La Rue., 108. 
Johnson, Rev. J. T., 35. 
Johnson, Dr. Joseph Tabor., 67, 81,138. 
Johnson, Dr. Richmond., 4. 
Johnson, Dr. Stuart., 73. 
Johnson, Mrs. W. R., 127. 
Johnson, Dr. William P., 5, 43, 76, 83, 84, 
85, 90. 
Johnson, Dr. William W., 52, 55, 59, 83, 85, 
90. 
Johnston, James M., 119,148. 
Johnston, Dr. George W., 96. 
Johnston. Miss Susie, 140. 
Joint Select Committee on the Charities 
and Reformatory Institutions of the 
District of Columbia, 44. 
Jolliffe, Mrs. John, 128. 
Jones, Jacob P., 27. 
Jones, Miss Mary Blake, 118. 
Jones, Mrs. S. C., 137. 
Jones, Dr. S. Preston, 17. 
Jones, Mrs. Walter, 107. 
Joscelyn, Mrs., 54. 
Jose, Jacob, 133,134,135. 
Journal of Insanity, 19. 
Judiciary Square, 5. 
Judiciary Square Hospital, 35. 
Kalorama Hospital, 32, 35, 36, 64. 
Kauffmann, S. II., 85, 90. 
Kauffmann, Mrs. S. II., 90. 
Keen, Dr. P. T., 91. 
Keene, Mrs. T. P., 138. 
Keetch, Mrs. Thomas A. R., 79. 
Kellogg, Mr., 111. 
Kellogg & Co., 101. 
Kelly, Moses, 76. 
Kendall, Hon. Amos, 21, 27,154; sketch of, 
22. 
Kennedy, Miss Agnes, 140. 
Kennedy, James C., 83, 85, 90,145. 
Kennedy, Mrs. John C., 86. 
Kennedy, Mrs. M. A. B., 90. 
Kennon, Mrs. Beverly, 116,148,150. 
Kentucky, insane in, 12. 
Kerr, Dr. James, 44, 97. 
Kettler, Louis, 133,135. 
Kettler, Mrs. R., 136. 
Kettler, William, 133,135. 
Keyser, B. U., 92, 93, 94, 95. 
Kibbie, Miss, gives land for Washington 
Home for Incurables, 99, 140. 214 
INDEX 
Kidder, H. P., 27. 
Kidwell & Son, 86. 
Kimball, Day, 131. 
Kimball, Mrs. Marcus, 131. 
King, Dr., in charge of Cumberland Val- 
ley Hospitals, 66. 
King, Dr. A. F. A., 82, 83, 90. 
King, Helen W., 133. 
King, Dr. William R., 73. 
King George of Tonga, 61. 
Kingsman, Dr. Richard, 73,149. 
Kirkbride plan of insane asylum, 19. 
Kirkley, J. W., 151. 
Klakring, Mrs. Emma, 136. 
Kleinschmidt, Dr. C. H. A., 20, 45, 78, 91, 
92,180. 
Klingle, J. P., 105. 
Knapp, Charles, 26, 75, 76. 
Knight, Octavius, 139. 
Knowles, Letitia K., 142. 
Kober, Dr. George M., 91. 
Koch, Edward W., 135. 
Koch, Werner, 135. 
Krogstadt, Dr. Henry, 70, 73. 
Ladies' Aid Association of Garfield Hos- 
pital, 53. 
Ladies' Aid Society of German Orphan 
Asylum, 134. 
LaFetra, Mrs. S. D., 142. 
Lamb, Dr. Charles H., 4. 
Lambert, T. A., 173. 
Lamon, Mrs. W. H., 105. 
Lander, Mrs. J. M., 53, 54. 
Lane, Senator, of Indiana, 63. 
Langdon, Mrs. LeDroit, 138. 
Langston, Hon. John M., acting president 
Howard University, 66. 
Larned, James, 110. 
Larned, Mrs., 107. 
Larner, J. B., 140. 
Laurie fund, the, 113. 
Laurie, Mrs., mother of Dr. Hall. 107,108. 
Laurie, Rev. Dr., 84, 109, 111. 
Lawrence, Caroline M., 139. 
Lawson, William, 134. 
Lear, Mrs., 107. 
Lecky's History of European Morals, 18. 
LeDroit Park, 64. 
Lee, Blair, 90, 108. 
Lee, Dr. William, 96, 97. 
Lee, Gen. Robert E., 128. 
Lee, Mrs. S. Phillips, 79,83, 108; first di- 
rectress Washington Orphan Asylum, 
113. 
Leech, Dr. D. Olin, 55, 149. 
Leighton, Benjamin F., 148. 
Leighton, Mrs. C. C., 127. 
Leiter, Mrs. Z. T., 89, 132. 
Leland Stanford Junior University, 184. 
Lemmon, Hanna, wife of Thomas Corco- 
ran, 144. 
Lemon, George E., 152. 
Lenthal Home for Widows, 150. 
Lentz, J. 8., & Co., 27. 
Leonard, Rev. Dr., bishop of Ohio, 118. 
Lewis, HerbertW., 184; superintendent of 
charities, 184. 
Lewis, Herbert W., 185, 194; agent Board 
of Children's Guardians, 192. 
Lewis. Mrs. J. C., 137. 
Liberia, colonization in, 61. 
Library of Congress, 13. 
Liebermann, Dr. C. H., 83, 85, 90. 
Lincoln Asylum, England, 10. 
Lincoln, Dr. Nathan S., 43, 44, 55, 59, 90, 
73,103, 117. 
Lincoln, Fort, 156. 
Lincoln Hall meetingto organize Garfield 
Hospital, 47, 84. 
Lincoln Hospital, 35, 66. 
Lincoln, President Abraham, 24, 36, 63, 84, 
128,154. 
Lincoln, Mrs. Abraham, 129. 
Lincoln, Mrs. N. S., 99. 
Lindsly, Dr. Harvey, 5. 
Linnaean Hill, 104, 
Lionel Laboratory and Library, 97. 
Lipscomb, Miss S. A., 140. 
Little, Mrs. .1.0., 139. 
Little Sisters of the Poor, 149. 
Lloyd, Samuel Jones, 145. 
Loeffler, Andrius, 134. 
Logan, Mrs. John A., 53, 54. 
Loose, Dr. C. R., 44. 
Lord Justice Sir Henry Hawkins, 61. 
Loring, Dr. F. B., 90. 
Loring, Miss Harriet B., 189,192, 195. 
Lothrop, Dr. E. S., 149. 
Louise Home, sketch of, 144-148. 
Louisiana, insane in. 12. 
L'Ouverture Hospital, 33, 35, 64. 
Lovejoy, B. G., 53, 55, 57. 
Lovejoy, Dr. J. W. IL, 89, 90. 
Lovejoy, William G., 47. 
Lowell, John Amory, 27. 
Lowell, W. .1., 58. 
Lubey, Col. Timothy, 153, 161; advocates 
reform school for women, 160; recom- 
mendations of, as to organization of 
charities, 177. 
Luckett, Belle S., 142. 
Luquer, Nicholas, 119. INDEX, 
215 
Lutheran Eye, Ear, and Throat Infirm- 
ary, 101. 
Lyceum Hospital, Alexandria, 35. 
Lydecker, Maj. G. J., 79. 
Lyman, Hon. Charles C., 27, 73. 
Lyman, Mrs. Theodore, 54. 
McAll, Louis, 55. 
McArthur, Arthur, 47. 
McArdell, Dr. T.E.,49. 
McCabe, James E., 151. 
McCammon, James K., 133. 
McCauley, Edward, 119. 
McChesney, J. D., 80. 
McClain Asylum, Somerville, Mass., 10, 
McCulloch, Mrs., 133. 
McDowell, Mrs. W. G., 149. 
McGowan, Mrs., 107. 
McGuire, Fred B., 83, 85, 87, 90, 108, 110, 
172. 
McGuire, Mrs. Fred. B., 90. 
McGuire, F. C., 152. 
McGuire, Dr. James C., 22, 60, 86,145. 
Mcllhenny, George A., 97. 
McKean, H. P., 27. 
McKee, Mrs. David R., 92. 
McKee's Compilation, 8. 
McKelden, John C., 91. 
McKeon, Michael, bequest of, to Home for 
Incurables, 99. 
McKim, Dr. Randolph, 140. 
McKim, Dr. Samuel A. H., 44, 51, 78,154, 
180. 
McKinley, President William, 185. 
McKnew, William H., 142. 
McLanahan, George W., 133. 
McLanahan, Mrs., 131, 132, 133. 
McLaughlin, Dr. Thomas M., 51. 
McLean, Mrs. Allen, 148. 
McLean, John R., 55. 
McMillan, Senator James, 85. 
McPherson, John D., 194. 
McPherson, Mrs., 108. 
McPherson, Miss Mary A., 125. 
McVeigh, J. H., 35. 
McWilliams, Dr. Alexander, 3,4. 
MacDonald, Dr. T. L., 73. 
Macfarland, Henry B. F., 132, 133. 
Macfarland, Mrs. Henry B. F., 173,176, 
189,195,197, 200. 
Macfarland, Mrs. I. F., 133,140. 
Macfarland, Mrs. Noah C., 53. 
Mackall, jr., Dr. L., 78,91. 
Mackay-Smith, D. 1)., Rev. Alexander, 
119,131,132,133. 
Mackay-Smith, Mrs. Alexander, 133. 
Mackay-Smith, Gladys, 132. 
Mackay-Smith, Helen, 132. 
Mackay-Smith, Virginia, 132. 
Mades, Charles, 134, 135. 
Madison, President Janies, 3,109,144. 
Madison, Mrs. James, 107, 108,109,114. 
Magruder, Miss A. C., 85, 90. 
Magruder, Dr. G. L., 44,51,90,91,92,94, 
96, 97,102,180. 
Magruder, Dr. W. B., 4. 
Malian, Dr. T. F., 44. 
Maloney, Nora (Sister Clara), 125. 
Mann, B. Pickman, secretary Board of 
Childrens' Guardians, 189, 192, 193,194, 
195,196, 197, 200. 
Mann, Horace, 11. 
Mann, Miss Maria, 127. 
Mansion House Hospital, 35. 
Marble, Mrs E. M., 72. 
Marbury, Dr. Charles C., 44. 
Marbury, Dr. William, 43. 
Marbury, sr., Mrs. John, 146, 148. 
Mariana, Sister, 126. 
Marine-Hospital Service, patients of, in 
Washington, 44. 
Marlatt, Mrs. C. L., 140. 
Marmion, Dr. W. V., 90. 
Martin, Mrs. Thomas H., 70. 
Mary, Sister, 143. 
Maryland Hospital for the Insane, debt 
due to, 9. 
Maryland, insane in, 12. 
Maryland Institution for the Blind, 27. 
Maryland patients at Children's Hos- 
pital, 87. 
Maryland provides for the education of 
pupils at the Columbia Institution, 25. 
Masonic fraternity, 111, 112. 
Masonic Temple, meeting for relief of 
poor at, 172. 
Massachusetts Hospital for the Insane, at 
Taunton, 19. 
Matheson, Mrs. F. M., 140. 
Matthews, Charles M., 148. 
Matthews, Rev. Father, 115. 
Matthews, H. S., 148. 
Matthews, W. S., report of, as to unsat 
isfactory condition of charities in the 
District of Columbia, 182. 
Matthews, William, 115. 
Mattingly, W. F., 105. 
Maulshy, Mrs. Anna M., 131. 
Maury, Mrs. J. W., 108. 
May, Dr. John Frederick, 2, 4, 55, 57. 
Mayor of Georgetown, 155,167. 
Mayor of Washington, 155,167. 
Mear, Dr., 67. 216 
INDEX 
Mechlin, Mrs. Joseph, 107,109. 
Medical and Surgical History of the 
War of the Rebellion, 36. 
Medical Association of the District of 
Columbia, 16, 84. 
Medical Society of the District of Colum- 
bia, 2, 8, 49, 84; labors to arrest the 
spread of smallpox, 2. 
Memorial of 85 physicians, 46. 
Meriwether, Mrs. M. L., 130. 
Merriam, George, 26. 
Merrick, Mrs. Richard T., 146,148. 
Merrick, Judge William, 107. 
Merrick, Airs. William M., 108. 
Methodist Episcopal Church, 148. 
Methodist Episcopal Church Hospital, 
Alexandria, 33. 
Methodist Home of the District of Co- 
lumbia, 148, 149. 
Metzerott, Henrietta C., 133. 
Metzerott, William G., 47,53; gilt of, to 
Garfield Hospital, 55. 
Mexican War, 37. 
Meyers, Miss A., 90. 
Meyers, William F., 136. 
Michigan State Public School, 123. 
Middleton, D. W.,98, 103. 
Middleton, D. W., jr., 91, 92. 
Middletown Plate Company, 54. 
Miller and Cook, 195. 
Miller, Miss, 140. 
Miller, Dr. B., 4. 
Miller, Mrs. John F., 53. 
Miller, Mr. Justice, 53, 130; inaugural 
address of, 46; sketch of, 57. 
Miller Memorial Building, 58. 
Miller, Miss Sallie C., 83. 
Miller, Dr. T. R., 4. 
Miller, Dr. Thomas, 5,15,17, 52, 74, 76, 83, 
85, 90; sketch of, 16. 
Miller, Miss Virginia, 83, 89, 90. 
Miller, William J., 189, 200. 
Mimmack, B. P., 100. 
Minnesota State public schools, 192. 
Mills, Dr., in charge of St. Louis hospi- 
tals, 66. 
Mississippi, insane in, 12. 
Missouri, insane in, 12. 
Mitchel], John T., 77,152. 
Mohun, F. B., 95, 96. 
Monroe, Mrs. James, declines position of 
first directress Washington Orphan 
Asylum, 109. 
Montana, deaf and dumb of, 29. 
Moore, George W., 189. 
Moore, F. L., 90. 
Moore, Mrs. F. L., 79. 
Moran, Dr. John F., 81. 
More, John Leo a, his Geographical His- 
tory of Africa, 18. 
Morgagni, establishes insane asylums in 
Italy, 18. 
Morgan, Miss Carrie, 140. 
Morgan, Dr. Carroll, 51. 
Morgan, Dr. E. C., 91, 95, 96. 
Morgan, Eugene. 98. 
Morgan, Dr. J. Dudley, 20. 
Morgan, Dr. James E., 51, 91. 
Morgan, Thomas P., 139, 163. 
Morgan, Maj. Thomas P., superintendent 
Metropolitan police, advocates reform- 
atory for women, 161. 
Morrill, Senator Justin M., 64. 
Morris, Commodore Charles, 145. 
Morris, II. G., 27. 
Morris, Louise Amory, wife of W. W. Cor- 
coran, 145. 
Morrison, James, 145. 
Morrison, W. M., 91. 
Moses & Son, W. B., 134. 
Mount Hope Asylum, Baltimore, 14. 
Mount Lincoln, 156. 
Mount Pleasant, 99. 
Mount Pleasant Hospital, 35. 
Muehleisen, Mrs. W., 136. 
Mullen, Miss Margaret, 58, 97. 
Mulliken, Mrs. N., 108. 
Mullowny, Alexander IL, 194. 
Municipal Lodging House. 153. 172. 
Munson. Dr. Reginald, 73. 
Murphy, Dr. J. Patrick, surgeon in chief 
of Columbia Hospital, 51, 79, 80. 
Murray, Dr. T. Morris, 96. 
Murtagh, W. J., 91. 
Mussey, R. D., 139. 
Myers, Mrs. Mary H., 131, 133. 
Nairn, J. W., 86 
National Association for the Relief of 
Destitute Colored Women and Chil- 
dren, 62, 67, 171, 178, 179, 181, 193, 194; 
sketch of, 126-130. 
National Deaf-Mute College, 24. 
National Era Building Hospital, 35. 
National Freedmen's Relief Association, 
167. 
National Homeopathic Hospital, sketch 
of, 68-73; Ladies' Aid Association of, 69. 
National Intelligencer, 3. 
National Lutheran Home, 150. 
National Medical College, 5,16. 
National Medical Review, 20. 
National Red Cross Association, 92. INDEX 
217 
National Relief Association of New York, 
127. 
National Soldiers and Sailors' Orphan 
Home, 51; sketch of, 117; property 
conveyed to Garfield Memorial Hos- 
pital, 118. 
Nativity of patients at Providence Hos- 
pital, 44. 
Naval Hospital, 37, 39, 40. 
Naval Observatory, 122. 
Naylor, James G., 85,112. 
Neal, Representative, chairman House 
Committee on the District of Colum- 
bia, 49. 
Neil, Dr. Charles P., 175,176. 
New Hallowell Hospital, Alexandria, 35. 
New Jersey, insane in, 12. 
Newman, Dr. H. M., 44, 51. 
Newman, Dr. W. G. 11., 51, 91,102. 
Newman. Mrs. William G. H., 79. 
Newsboys and Children's Aid Society, 
sketch of, 130-133. 
New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, 
112. 
New York, deaf-mutes from, 23. 
New York Institution for the Instruction 
of the Deaf and Dumb, 23. 
New York patients at Children's Hos- 
pital, 87. 
New York State Asylum for the Insane, 
18. 
Nichols, Dr. Charles H., selects site for 
Government hospital for insane, 14,17; 
sketch of, 18; his work at Government 
Hospital for the Insane, 19. 
Nichols, Mrs. C. H., 140. 
Nicholson, Major, 41. 
Nicholson, Mrs. W. L., 129. 
Night Lodging House Association, 92. 
Niles, Samuel V., president Children's 
Hospital, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90. 
Noble, Miss, 99. 
Noland, Dr. William, commissioner of 
public buildings, 5. 
Nordhoff Guild, 72, 73. 
Nordhoff, Mrs. Charles, 53, 69, 70. 
Norment, Samuel, 57, 89. 
North Carolina, insane in, 12. 
North Carolina Medical Journal, 2. 
Northrup, Nehemiah B., 154. 
Nourse, Mrs. Emily L., 125. 
Nourse, James B., 125. 
Nourse, John R., 154. 
Noyes, Crosby S., 133, 160, 189. 
Noyes, II. O., 152. 
Noyes, Theodore W., 198. 
Noyes, Mrs. Thomas C., 174. 
Nurses' training school at Columbia 
Hospital, 83. 
Odd Fellows' Hall, 113. 
Odd Fellows' Hall Hospital, 35. 
Old Capitol Prison Hospital, 35. 
Old Hallowell Hospital, Alexandria, 35. 
Old jail, 9. 
O'Meara. J., 151. 
Organization of charities, 177-184. 
Orphans' court, 21. 
Overend, Gurney & Co., 145. 
Owen, Edward, 26. 
Page, Dr. Charles G., 5. 
Pairo, Mrs. Richard, 140. 
Palfrey, John G., 11. 
Palmer, Dr. G. S., in charge of Freedmen's 
Hospital, 66. 
Palmer, Miss Sophia S., 57. 
Palmer, Dr. W. G., 47, 53, 67; sketch of, 66. 
Pansy Magazine, 106. 
Pansy societies, 106. 
Paret, Bishop William, 79. 
Paret, Mrs. William, 79. 
Parke, Gen. John G., 86. 
Parke, Mrs. John G., 79,118. 
Parker, Col. M. M., 105. 
Parker, Maj. Richard C., 37. 
Parkman, Miss, 54. 
Parkman, Samuel S., agent Board of 
Children's Guardians, 200. 
Parrott's woods, 148. 
Parsons, Dr. John, 51. 
Parsons, Dr. Mary, 138. 
Parsons, Rev. W. E., 173. 
Patent Office Hospital, 35. 
Pathological Society, 16. 
Patterson, Mrs. David T.. 117. 
Patterson, Dr. G. S., 67. 
Payne, James G., 119. 
Peabody, Miss Elizabeth, 127,128. 
Peabody, George, 145,146. 
Peixotte, Benjamin F., United States con 
sul at Lyons, France, 60. 
Pennsylvania, insane in, 12. 
Pennsylvania patients at Children's Hos- 
pital, 87. 
Perkins, C. Lawrence, 131. 
Perry, A. E., 85, 90. 
Perry, Mrs. A. E., 83. 
Perry, Dr. George N., 142. 
Perry, R. Ross, 89, 107, 110, 172, 194,195. 
Peter farm, afterwards Fort Lincoln, se- 
lected as site for reform school, 158. 
Peter, Robert, land commissioner District 
of Columbia, 144. 218 
INDEX 
Petty, James T., 142. 
Phelps, Mrs. S. Ledyard, 79. 
Phemus Club, 132. 
Philadelphia Hospital, 97. 
Phillips, Mrs. E., 99. 
Physicians in Washington, early strug- 
gles of, 41. 
Pierce, Hon. Edward L., 63. 
Pierce Guild, 105. 
Pierce, Joshua, 104. 
Pierce, President Franklin, vetoes bill for 
insane; 14. 
Pierre, Mrs. John A., 143. 
"Pinafore," benefit performance of, 93. 
Pinel, Dr. Phillipe, establishes insane asy- 
lums in France, 10, 11, 18. 
Pitts, Mrs. H., 137. 
Plant, George H., 91. 
Plummer, Miss N. A., 130. 
Poesche, Mrs. Emma, 134, 136. 
Police surgeons, care for accidents, 94. 
Polk, President James K., his position on 
land-grant bills, 13. 
Polk, Mrs. James K., 13. 
Pomeroy, Mrs. M. S., 127,130. 
Pomeroy, Senator S. C-, 128. 
Pomeroy, Mrs. S. C., 53, 54. 129, 138,139. 
Poorhouse, 2, 74. 
Poorhouses in 1838, 8. 
Pope, Mrs. A. L., 73. 
Pope, Miss G. I., 81. 
Pope, Dr. Gustavus W., 69, 70. 
Porter, the Misses, 111. 
Potter, Mrs., 127. 
Powell, E. D., 139. 
Powell, Acting Assistant Surgeon Wil- 
liam P., 64. 
Powers, Representative, report of, 3. 
Powers, Thomas IL, 27. 
Pratt, A. S., 70, 176. 
Prentiss, Dr. D. Webster, 90. 
Prentiss, Stephen, 154. 
President of the levy court, 155,167. 
President of the United States, 61. 
Princeton College, 144. 
Protestant Church Hospital, George- 
town, 33. 
Prostetant Episcopal Theological Semi- 
nary Hospital, Alexandria, 34. 
Protestant Orphan Asylum, 86. 
Protestant Orphan Asylum, Chicago, 68. 
Providence Hospital, 16, 49,52,57,74,92, 
171; a pay institution, 46; governed by 
Sisters of Charity, 45; established by 
Sisters of Charity from Emmitsburg, 
Md., 41; preliminary announcement of, 
Providence Hospital-Continued. 
befriended in Congress, appropriations 
for, 42; new building for, management 
of, free public wards in, admissions to, 
how regulated, classification of patients 
of, medical staff of, 44. 
Public hospital, need of, 3. 
Purman, Miss, 100. 
Purvis, Mrs. A. M., 130. 
Purvis, Dr. Charles B.,130; appointed 
hospital dispensary steward at Freed- 
men's Hospital, 64; appointed surgeon 
in chief Freedmen's Hospital, 67. 
Queen Victoria, 58. 
Quaifi'e, Mrs. A. R,, 70, 72. 
Queen of Spain, 60. 
Ramsburgh, Dr. Jesse, 44. 
Ramsey, Mrs. Andrew, 107. 
Randall, Representative Samuel J., 42. 
Randolph, Mrs. Eliza, 127. 
Randolph, W. F., 111. 
Ratcliff, Daniel, 17. 
Rathbone, Miss, 111. 
Rawlins, Secretary of War, 66. 
Rector, Mary, 142. 
Reed, Representative, 9. 
Reform School for Boys, 114; sketch of, 
154-160, 178, 181; sanitary condition of, 
181. 
Reform School for Girls, 160-166, 178,187. 
Relief of the poor, first appropriation for, 
167. 
Relihan, Sister Elizabeth, 103. 
Retreat for the Insane, Hartford, Conn., 
10. 
Reyburn, Dr. Robert; 44, 62, 61, 65, 66, 67, 
76, 78, 94,119. 
Reynolds, Mrs. H. S., 83. 
Rhode Island, insane in, 12. 
Rice, Mrs. L. L., 128. 
Richards, A. C., 103,152. 
Richards, Mrs.'Z., 137. 
Richardson, Dr. Charles W., 44. 
Richardson, Mrs. Charles W., 132. 
Richardson, George C., 27. 
Richmond and Louisville Medical Jour- 
nal, 79. 
Ricketts, Mrs. James B., 53, 54, 86. 
Riggs, Miss Alice, 141. 
Riggs, Dr. Daniel IL, 70. 
Riggs, Elisha, 145. 
Riggs, E. Francis, 47, 53, 99,100. 
Riggs, Mrs. Fannie, 53. 
Riggs, George W., 22, 26, 86,145. 
Riggs, Mrs. George W., 146,148. 
Riggs & Co., 145. INDEX 
219 
St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum, 41,102,125, 
172; aided by General Government, 
sketch of, 115. 
Sampson, Dr. J. C., 51. 
Samson, Rev. G. W., 76,103. 
Sanburn, Dr., of Colorado, 54. 
Sanitary officer of the Metropolitan po- 
lice, 51. 
Sarah, Sister, in charge of church orphan- 
age of St. John's parish, 118,121. 
Sargent, Dr. D. A., 28. 
Sargent, Nathan, president board of trus- 
tees of Reform School, 156,157. 
Sargent, Senator, 66. 
Satterlee, D. D., Right Rev. Henry Yates, 
119. 
Saville, James H., 47, 90. 
Saxton, John R., 62. 
Schaefer, Mrs. C., 136. 
Schaefer, Dr. E. M., 55. 
Schneider & Pelz, 96. 
Schneider, Dr. A. A., 60. 
Schneider, John F., 135. 
Schneider, L. H.,53. 
Schroth, Charles, 136. 
Schubert, B. F„'136. 
Scott, Dr. J. Foster, 80, 83. 
Scott, General Winfield, 37,146. 
Scudder, Mrs. Nancy B., 71. 
Scudder, Mrs. J. W., 130. 
Second Presbyterian Church Hospital, 
Alexandria, 33. 
Secretary of the Interior, 23, 26,117,155, 
156, 157, 159; controls admissions to 
Freedmen's Hospital, 68. 
Secretary of State, 146. 
Secretary of the Treasury, 138, 146. 
Secretary of War, 127, 146,163; controls 
Freedmen's Hospital, 67; provides for 
poor of Washington and Georgetown, 
167. 
Sellers & Co., William, 27. 
Semken, S., 85. 
Semmes, Dr. Edward, 2. 
Seufferle, George J., 134,135. 
Sewall, Dr. Thomas, 2, 4, 5. 
Seward, Hon. William H., negotiates for 
building of Washington Orphan Asy- 
lum, 112. 
Shadd, Mrs. A. P., 130. 
Shallenberger, Col. Geo. A., superintend- 
ent Reform School for Boys, 160. 
Shea, Catherine, 102. • 
Shellabarger, Miss Anna, 140. 
Shellabarger, Samuel S., 163. 
Shepard, Judge Seth, 108. 
Riggs House Hospital, 33. 
Riggs National Bank, 145. 
Riley, Dr. John C., 43. 
Riley, Dr. Joshua, 4, 76, 91. 
Richie, Dr. J. A., 78. 
Richie, Dr. Louis W., 45, 51, 80, 81,173. 
Rives, Wright, 103. 
Rives, Mrs. Wright, 108. 
Roberts, Dr. Grace, 70. 
Robertson, T. B., Alexandria, 35. 
Robbins, Mrs. N. A., 133,139. 
Robbins, Zenas C., 154. 
Robbins, Mrs. Z. C., 90. 
Robinson, F. V., 101. 
Robinson, Miss Eleanor, 128, 130. 
Robinson, Miss Margaret, 127,129. 
Rockhill, Mrs. A. F., 53, 54. 
Rodgers, Miss Frederica L., 101. 
Rodgers, Dr. John, 2. 
Rodgers, Mrs. Admiral John, 138. 
Rogers, D. S., 28. 
Rogers, Mrs. John, 108. 
Rogers, Miss M. L., 90. 
Rogier, Charles G., 135. 
Ropes, J. S., 27. 
Ross, Dr. W. H.j 91, 92. 
Roy, Miss Kate L., 101. 
Ruffin, Dr. Sterling, 100. 
Ruppert, C. H. R., 134. 
Russia, Grand Duke Constantine of, 60. 
Ryan, Catherine, 102. 
Ryan, Mrs. Philip J., 140. 
Ryland Chapel, 32. 
Ryland Chapel Hospital, 33. 
St. Aloysius Church, 32. 
St. Aloysius Hospital, 36. 
St. Ann's Church for Deaf-Mutes, 23. 
St. Ann's Infant Asylum, 49, 102,116, 171, 
178, 182, 186; number of inmates of, 
medical staff of, 103; sanitary condition 
of, 179,180. 
St. Elizabeth Hospital (see also Govern- 
ment Asylum for the Insane), 32, 36. 
St. Felicitas Guild, 73. 
St. George Society of Washington, 47, 58. 
St. John, Ancel, 76. 
St. John's, insane in, 12. 
St. John's College Hospital, 66. 
St. John's Church, 119, 145. 
St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asylum, 103, 
186; sketch of, 116. 
St. Mary's College, 20. 
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Alexandria, 
33. 
St. Rose Industrial School,103; sketch of, 
125. 220 
INDEX 
Shepherd, Alexander R., 158. 
Shepherd, Arthur, 91. 
Sheriff, George L., 103. 
Sherman, Miss Ann, 117. 
Sherman, William T., 47, 48, 60, 62, 63. 
Sherman, Mrs. William T., 79,117. 
Shippen, Rev. Rush R., 79, 80. 
Shiras, jr., Mrs. George, 139. 
Shrieber, Peter S., 115. 
Shuster, William M., 91,104. 
Shuster, jr., William M., 160. 
Sibley Memorial Hospital, 100. 
Sickel Barracks Hospital, Alexandria, 35. 
Sim, Dr. Thomas, 2. 
Simms, G. G.,'86. 
Simpson, Edward F., 152. 
Sims, Dr. Thomas, 4. 
Sisters of Charity, 7, 51, 74,126. 
Sisters of Charity of Emmitsburg, Md., 
41,43. 
Sisters of the Good Shepherd of Balti- 
more, 141. 
Sisters of the Holy Cross, 116. 
Sisters of Mercy, 6, 41. 
Sisters of St. Margaret, 101. 
Skillman, Dr. H. M., 132. 
Slaveay in the District of Columbia, 61. 
Sleman, W. J. B., 111. 
Slough Barracks Hospital, Alexandria, 35. 
Smallpox in 1828,1833,1846, 2. 
Smallwood, Dr. Samuel N., 2. 
Smith, Miss, 108. 
Smith, Mr., his grounds occupied by 
Freedmen's Hospital, 64. 
Smith, Addison M., 139. 
Smith, Admiral, 141. 
Smith, Miss Anna E., 141. 
Smith, Rev. Charles A.. 176. 
Smith, Miss E. C., 53, 54. 
Smith, F. H., 80, 89. 
Smith, F. L., Alexandria, 36. 
Smith, Francis H., 139. 
Smith, Henry, 109. 
Smith, Secretary Hoke, 67, 68. 
Smith, Mrs. J. C., 117. 
Smith, J. Hubbard, 95. 
Smith, Mrs. John C., 137. 
Smith, Mrs. Samuel H., 107, 108. 
Smith, Mrs. T. C., 149. 
Smith, Thomas, 26, 27. 
Snell, Mrs. William B., 79. 
Snyder, Dr. Arthur A., 100. 
Society of Friends Church Hospital, 
Alexandria, 33. 
Soldiers' Home, 37. 
Soldiers' Home Temperance Union, 38. 
Soldiers' Rest General Hospital, 36. 
Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphan Home, 49. 
Solomons, A. S., 42, 53, 92, 95, 152; advo- 
cates establishment of Garfield Me- 
morial Hospital, 46; proposes resolu- 
tions in regard to hospital, 47; sketch 
of, 92. 
Solomons, Miss, 92. 
Somerville, James W., 173. 
Somerville, Thomas, 43. 
Sondheimer, Mrs. L., 136. 
Sosithee, Sister, 150. 
South Carolina, insane in, 12. 
South worth, Mrs. E. 1). E. N., 128. 
Sowers, Dr. Z. T., 44, 51, 78,105. 
Sowers, Mrs. Z. T., 108,148. 
Spackman, Mrs. Dr. M. D., 138. 
Spain first establishes insane asylums, 18. 
Specific payments for specific service, 6. 
Speed, Mrs. James, 117. 
Spencer, Anna G., 184. 
Spencer, Mrs. Sara A., 69, 70. 
Spofford, Miss F. P., 54, 176. 
Sprague, William, 26. 
Sprigg, Dr. W. M., 55. 
Springfield Armory, 118. 
Stands, Dr. A. R., 133. 
Stanley, Brig. Gen. David S., 37. 
Stanley, Representative Edward, 6. 
Stanton, lion. Edwin M., Secretary of 
War, 62,127; furnishes Columbia Hos- 
pital, 75. 
Stanton Hospital, 36. 
Stanton, Dr. J. O., 51, 78. 
Staples, Orren G., 163. 
State Department, child born on steps 
of, 74. 
State Department MSS., 2. 
States represented at Woman's Christian 
Home, 139. 
Stearns, Dr. S. S., 70. 
Steaveley, Dr. Albert L., 60. 
Stephens, Miss, 54. 
Stephenson, Dr. J. S., 91. 
Stern, Rev. Louis, 200. 
Sternberg, Surg. Gen. Geo. H., 32, 44, 173. 
Stettinius, Joseph S., 103. 
Stevens, Dr. Bela N., 17. 
Stevens, Mrs. Robert, 69. 
Stevens, Hon. Thaddeus, 42. 
Stewart's portrait of Mrs. Madison, 114. 
Stickney, Mrs. Jeannie K., 139. 
Stickney, William, 103. 
Stickney, Mrs. William, 83,137,138. 
Stier, Miss, 111. 
Stinemetz, Miss, 108. INDEX 
221 
Stinemetz, B. H., 91. 
Stockbridge, W. S., 124. 
Stoddard, Miss Maria. 143. 
Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher, 127. 
Stone, Dr. D. S., 81, 83. 
Stone Hospital, 36. 
Stone, I. W., 151. 
Stone, Mrs. Margaret, 148. 
Stone, Mrs. Robert K., 88, 89,90. 
Stone, William J., 4, 36,110. 
Storum, Miss, 130. 
Stoutenburgh, Dr., 83. 
Stoutenburgh, Walter IL, 73. 
Stovell, Dr. M., 64. 
Stowell, W. F., 176. 
Strang, Henry L., 148. 
Street, Dr. D. B., 149. 
Street, Mrs. D. B., 148. 
Strong, Miss, 108. 
Strong, Mrs. Justice, 138. 
Stroud, Mrs. M. J., 100. 
Sumner, Senator Charles, 62, 63. 
Sunderland, D. D., Rev. Byron, 22,49,53, 
103,140. 
Sunderland, Miss Laura. 137. 
Surgeon-General of the Army, 42, 43, 44, 
51,75; admits patients to Providence 
Hospital, 46. 
Sutherland, Dr. Charles, U. S. A.. 89. 
Swaim, Gen. D. G., 47. 
Swan, Miss L. S., 130. 
Swartzell, George W. F., 148. 
Sweeny, Hugh B., 116. 
Swormstedt, Dr. Lyman B., 70, 73. 
Sypher, Mrs. J. Hale, 73. 
Talty, Mrs. J. E., 149. 
Tasker, Mrs. J. C., 149. 
Tayloe, Benjamin Ogle, 110. 
Tayloe, Mrs. Benjamin Ogle, 108,146,148. 
Taylor, Mrs. Caroline, 143. 
Taylor, Mrs. Charlotte, 117. 
Taylor, Mrs. J. Y., 100. 
Taylor, Hon. R. W., First Comptroller of 
the Treasury, 156. 
Taylor, Thomas, 122. 
Teel, Mrs., 132. 
Teller, Mrs., 133. 
Temple, Edward, 55,90, 98,110. 
Temple, Mrs. M. G., 108. 
Temple, Miss Mary, 108. 
Temporary Home for ex-Union Soldiers 
and Sailors, 151. 
Tennessee, insane in, 12. 
"The Care of Dependent and Neglected 
Children," 184. 
"The Debutantes," benefit performance 
of, 95. 
The Lolie Wolcott ward at Home for 
Incurables, 99. 
Thirteenth Street Baptist Church, 32. 
Thirteenth Street Baptist Church Hos- 
pital, 33. 
Thom, Mrs. Christopher, 148. 
Thomas, A. A., 97. 
Thomas, Artemisia II., 133. 
Thomas, Miss E. D., 128. 
Thomas, Dr. John M., 4, 5. 
Thomas, Dr. Samuel S., 58, 59. 
Thombs, Mrs. A. L. S., 81. 
Thompson, Dr. J. Ford, 43, 47, 52, 53, 55, 
60, 78. 
Thompson, Dr. J. Harry, 74, 75, 76; re- 
ceives leave of absence to visit hos- 
pitals of Europe, locates in Rome, 
attached to Vatican staff of physicians, 
resigns from Columbia Hospital, death 
of, war record of, 79. 
Thompson, James H., war record of, 79. 
Thompson, Dr. John W., 47, 53, 55, 91. 
Thompson, Mrs. John W., 138. 
Thompson, Miss M. L., 83. 
Thompson, Mr. William, 58, 114: gift to 
Washington City Orphan Asylum to 
establish Thompson fund, 114. 
Thompson, William S., 85, 86, 87, 90,160. 
Tiffany, Rev. Francis, his life of Miss 
Dix, 12. 
Todd, Dr. Seth J., 110,117. 
Todd, William B., 110, 156. 
Todd. Mrs William B., 108.117. 
Todd, William B., jr., 103. 
Tompkins, Dr. E. L., 97. 
Toner, Dr. Joseph Meredith, 1, 5, 6, 20, 32, 
41, 42, 43, 52; his work at Government 
Hospital for the Insane, connection with 
District hospitals, inspires the found- 
ing of St. Joseph's Male Orphan Asy- 
lum, St. Vincent's and St. Ann's orphan 
asylums, sketch of, 20. 
Toner Collection in Library of Congress, 
20, 46. 
Toner Medical Lectures, 20. 
Toner's Medical Register of the District 
of Columbia, 40, 64, 76. 
Toner, Dr. Ralph, 55. 
Towers, Mrs. Sarah, 90. 
Townsend, Gen. E. D., 85. 
Townsend, Dr. Smith, 47; first health offi- 
cer, his reports, 168; organizes work 
among sick poor, 169. 222 
INDEX 
Towson, Nathan, 110. 
Towson, Mrs. General, 108. 
Tracy,Col. John, 173,194; Superintendent 
of Charities, 184. 
Transylvania University, 57. 
Treasury Department, 63. 
Treiber, E. F., 135. 
Trenton Asylum, New Jersey, 12. 
Trescott, Miss Katherine, 196, 198. 
Trinidad given to Columbian College, 146. 
Trinity College, 23. 
Trinity Episcopal Church, 32. 
Trinity Episcopal Church Hospital, 33. 
Trinity Methodist Church Hospital, 33. 
Truell, Donald M., 176. 
Truesdell, Col. George, 176. 
Tryon, Surg. Gen. J. R., U. S. N., 40. 
Tuke, William, 10,11. 
Tulee, Miss, 111. 
Tullock, Mrs. Miranda, treasurer Garfield 
Hospital, 49. 
Tullock, Mrs. Thomas L., 53, 58. 
Tupper, Dr. A. C., 64. 
Tupper, J. B. T., 125,133. 
Turnbull, Miss Jeannie, 148. 
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Insti- 
tute, 202. 
Tweedale, Mrs. John, 72. 
Tyler, George F., 27. 
Tyler, Dr. Grafton, 17, 43, 76, 83, 85, 87, 90, 
148. 
Underhill, Miss Ella, 82. 
Union Chapel, 32. 
Union Chapel Hospital, 33. 
Union Hotel Hospital, 36. 
Union Printing Office Building, 5. 
Unitarian Church, 32. 
Unitarian Church Hospital, 33. 
United States Arsenal, explosion at, 167. 
United States Government committed to 
Garfield Memorial Hospital, GO. 
United States hospitals in 1812, 3. 
United States loan of 1848, 145. 
University of Pennsylvania, 84. 
Utermehle, Mrs. George W., 134. 
Utermehle, Mrs. Sarah, gift to Washing- 
ton City Orphan Asylum, 114. 
Vanderbilt, Mrs. M. E., 55. 
Vanderlip, Mrs. W. L., 72. 
Van Buren, President, 23. 
Van Ness, Miss, 108. 
Van Ness, John P., 110. 
Van Ness, Mrs. John P., 107,112. 
Van Ness, Mrs. Marcia, elected directress 
Washington Orphan Asylum, her death 
from Asiatic cholera in the service of 
Van Ness, Mrs. Marcia-Continued, 
the asylum, portrait of, placed in the 
asylum, 109. 
Van Rensselaer, Dr. J., 83. 
Van Rensselaer, Mrs., 140. 
Verdi, Dr. Tuleo S., 70. 
Vermont Academy of Medicine, 20. 
Vicksburg, Miss., Freedman's Hospital in, 
65. 
Vincent, Dr. Thomas N., 44. 
Virginia patients at Children's Hospital, 
87. 
Vogt, John L., 133,134,135. 
Wade, Mrs. Benjamin F., 128, 129. 
Wadsworth, Tertius, 27. 
Waite, Miss M. F., 93, 108. 
Waite, Matthew, 154. 
Waite, Chief-Justice Morrison R.,69, 130. 
Wall, Mrs. William, 90. 
Walsh, Dr. R. S. L., 91. 
Walsh. Dr. Ralph, 51, 91, 92, 94, 95. 
Walter, Dr. John, 51, 92,133, 135. 
Walter, jr., Dr. J., 134. 
Walters, W. T., 146. 
War Department, 63. 
War Department issues rations to Freed- 
men's Hospital, 65. 
War Department, list of hospitals, 33. 
War of 1812, orphans of, 107. 
War of the rebellion, 7, 31, 41. 
War of the rebellion hospitals, 32. 
Ward, Miss, 132. 
Ward, William H.. 116, 118. 
Warden, D. B., author of A Chorograph- 
ical and Statistical Description of the 
District of Columbia, 31. 
Warder, Benjamin H., 96,139. 
Waring, Dr. James, 4. 
Warner, Dr. Amos G.; 188,194; lirst super- 
intendent of charities, 183; prepares 
bill for Board of Children's Guardians, 
185; reports of, advises abolition of his 
office, 184. 
Warner, Brainard H., 89, 95, 96, 97,125. 
Warren, Samuel D., 27. 
Wartman, Miss S. W., 71. 
Washington, Mrs. Dr., 108. 
Washington, President George, 144. 
Washington, Miss Margaret, 79, 83, 148. 
Washington, debt of, in 1832, 4; health- 
fulness of, health of, in 1797,1; hospital 
population of, 45; pauper population 
of, in 1838, 8. 
Washington Association for the Improve- 
ment of the Condition of the Poor, 
167. INDEX. 
223 
Washington Asylum Hospital, 3, 45, 73, 
124,160,171,177,181. 
Washington Board of Trade, 173. 
Washington City Orphan Asylum, 84,115, 
116,146,172; sketch of, 107-115. 
Washington Capital (newspaper) ac- 
count of opening of Garfield Hospital, 
53. 
Washington City Post Hospital, 37. 
Washington Directory for 1843, 10. 
Washington Hall General Hospital, 36. 
Washington Hospital for Foundlings, 59, 
103; bequest of Joshua Pierce, 104; 
appropriations for, 105; support of, 106. 
Washington Home for Incurables, 59, 99; 
organization of, hospital opened in 
Mount Pleasant, interest in, 99; officers, 
100. 
Washington Humane Society, 176,190. 
Washington Infant Asylum, 102. 
Washington Infirmary, 5, 6, 7, 35, 36, 41; 
established, 2; occupied as army hos- 
pital, destroyed by fire, 7. 
Washington Ladies' Aid Society, 99. 
Washington Manual Labor School and 
Male Orphan Asylum, 24. 
Washington Market Company, rentals 
from, set apart for relief of the poor, 167. 
Washington Medical Institute, 16. 
Washington Navy-Yard, 39. 
Washington Night Lodging House, 152. 
Washington Post, 201. 
Washington Saengerbund, 135,136. 
Washington Seminary, 16. 
Waterhouse, Dr. Benjamin, sent vaccine 
lymph to Jefferson, 2. 
Waters, Mrs. E. N., 132. 
Waters, Joseph, 36. 
Waters, Dr. N. W., 4. 
Webb, H. Randall, 96. 
Webster, Mrs., 127. 
Webster, Daniel, 146. 
Weed, Mrs. C. A., 108,137,138. 
Weightman, Mrs. Roger, 107. 
Weightman, William, 27. 
Welles, Mrs. Gideon, 117. 
Welling, Elsa, 131. 
Welling, J. C., president Columbian Uni- 
versity, 28,107. 
Welling,' Mrs. J. C., 131. 
Welling, Willie, 131. 
Wellington, Dr. John R., 100. 
Wells, Henry, 73. 
Wellsher, Miss, 54. 
Welsh, Miss, 131. 
Welsh, Samuel, 27. 
Welsh, William, 27. 
Wesley Chapel, 108. 
West, Miss Roberta M., 97. 
Westcott, Mrs. A. P., 138. 
Western Hospital, 4. 
Western Pennsylvania University, 20. 
Weyss, Maj. John E., 133,134. 
Wheatley, Mrs. Walter, 140. 
Wheeler, Charles, 27. 
Whelan, Dr. William, U. S. N., 17. 
Whitaker, Mrs. J. H., 72. 
Whitall, J. M., 27. 
Whiting, Harry C., 143. 
Whiting, Hon. William, 112. 
Whitman, D. D., Rev. B. L., 175. 
Whitney, Mrs. N. J., 137. 
Whittemore, Mr., 96. 
Whittlesey, General, 132. 
Whittlesey, Mrs. E., 139. 
Wight, Hon. John B., 133. 
Wight, Mrs. John B., 72. 
Wilbur, Mrs. M. E. C., 133. 
Wilcox, G. H., 69. 
Wilcox, Mrs. G. S., 69. 
Wilder, Dr. James M., 130. 
Wilkeson, Mrs. Samuel, 127. 
Wilkinson, Mary G., 139. 
Willard, C. C., 97. 
Willard, Henry A., 47, 53. 
Willard, Mrs. Henry A., 53, 54, 90. 
Willard, Walter J., 97. 
Willard Hall, 109; meeting for relief of 
poor at, 171. 
Willet, Richard H., 148. 
William and Mary College, 146. 
Williams, Mrs. General, 117. 
Williams, Senator, 8. 
Williams, Senator, report of, on general 
hospital, 4. 
Williams, Mrs. A. E., 130. 
Williams, Dr. Daniel H., appointed sur- 
geon in chief, Freedmen's Hospital, 67. 
Williams, Elisha W., 122. 
Williams, George H., Attorney-General, 
156. 
Williams, Mrs. John S., 53. 
Williamson, Miss H., 105. 
Williamson, Mrs. Passmore, 128. 
Williston, J. P., 26. 
Wilson, Albert A., 189. 
Wilson, Miss B. Mordaunt, 132,133. 
Wilson, Mr., 94. 
Wilson, Postmaster-General, 131. 
Wilson, George S., 173,174,175. 
Wilson, Mrs. Henry, 127. 
Wilson, J. Ormond, 53,125. 224 
INDEX. 
Wilson, Mrs. James F., 53. 
Wilson, Jesse B., 91, 95. 
Wilson, Col. John M., U. S. A., 80. 
Wilson, Joseph, 70. 
Wilson' Mrs. L. B., 149. 
Wilson, Dr. Lawrence, 91. 
Wilson, Nathaniel, 79, 139. 
Wilson, Mrs. Rennis C., 72. 
Wilson, S., agent Humane Society, 135. 
Wilson, Mrs. Thomas, 137, 139. 
Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave 
Power, 63. 
Windom, Hon. William, 47, 53, 60. 
Windom bill for incorporation of Gar- 
field Hospital, 61. 
Wirt House, 49, 52, 55. 
Wolcott, Mrs. Edward, 99. 
Wolcott, William, 54. 
Wolf, Mrs. Caroline, 135. 
Wolf, Hon. Simon, 134, 135, 172, 189, 192, 
194,195,196,197. 
Woman's clinic, 101. 
Woman's dispensary, 100. 
Woman's issue of the Times, 99. 
Women's Christian Association, 182; sani- 
tary condition of, 179, 180; sketch of, 
137-139. 
Women's exchange, 138. 
Women's Hospital of New York City, 55. 
Women's Union Christian Association, 
143. 
Wood, Alfred, 142. 
Wood, Dr. Robert C., U. S. A., 17. 
Wood, Miss Sarah, 117. 
Woods, Miss F., 138. 
Woodward, Mrs. S. M., 108. 
Woodward, S. W., 176. 
Woodward, Dr.William C., health officer. 
District of Columbia, 73. 
Woodward, William Redin, 70,198. 
Worcester, Mass., Insane Asylum, 11. 
Worthington, Mrs., 54. 
Worthington, Augustus S., 163. 
Worthington, Dr. N. W., 4. 
Wright, Mr., 129. 
Wright, Mrs. E. B., 69, 111. 
Wright, Dr. J. Buddington, 108. 
Wyman, Dr. Walter, Surgeon-General 
Marine-Hospital Service, 44. 
Yale College, 29. 
Yarnall, Charles, 27. 
Yarrow, Dr. H. C., 58, 59. 
Yellow fever in 1793, 1. 
Yoemaus, Mrs. S. D., 140. 
Young, Dr. James T., 44, 51, 78. 
Young, Mrs. James T., 140 
Young, Dr. Noble, 4, 7, 91. 
Young, Notley, land commissioner Dis- 
trict of Columbia, 144. 
Young, Dr. William P., 17, 90. 
Young Women's Christian Home, 139-140 
Youngs, Elphonzo, 139. 
Zeilen, Mrs. Colonel, 108. 
Zeilin, Mrs. J., 83. 
Zevely, Rev. A. N., 83, 85,103,122. 
Zickle, S., 135.