The First New York State Orphan Train Museum

Today, May 18th,2001 is a groundbreaking day. Joanne Peterson of the Clarkstown Parks and Recreation Department is assisting me in finding a home for the First New York State Orphan Train Museum. A site has been suggested in Congers, New York. It will be the first time New York State will officially honor the memory of the 273,000 children who left New York City in the largest mass relocation of children in American history. We hope it will develop into a research center and a home for orphan train memorabilia. On May 25th , 2010 I will assume the Presidency of the Rockland County Geneaology Society. There is a lot of work ahead of us preparing the site for public use.

Book Availability---ORPHAN TRAIN RIDERS, Vol 1 and ll

My two reference books,ORPHAN TRAIN RIDERS, Vol. l and ll should be in every genealogical library. They are are the outcome of my discovery of 26 boxes of a treasure trove of Americana dating from 1832-1929 in an old barn at the Rockland Historical Society in New City, NY in 1991. These Original Source documents were first catalogued by me. Realizing their historical importance the RHS later shipped the documents to Mary Ellen Johnson in Sprindale, Arkansas. The volunteers there helped indexed tens of thousands of the names of children sent on Orphan Trains. It was the largest single discovery of records related to the Orphan Train Era (1854-1929. It was also the cause for revision of historical thought about the work of early Temperance Societies. When social safety nets were absent in the 19th Century Christian Temperance Societies came to the aid of tens of thousands of destitute children in the slums and ghettos of the Five Points area of Manhattan. Find out about these amazing women and what the did for children.

Speech Before German Genealogy Group in Hicksvile, Long Island

I was invited to speak to the German Genealogy Group at their monthly gathering at the VFW in Hicksville about my books, ORPHAN TRAIN RIDERS, Vol. l and ll. At the meeting in which over 100 peeople attended I pointed out that the largest ethnic groups sent out on Orphan Trains were of English, Irish and German ancestry. I estimated that anywhere from 50,000-70,000 children who were placed on Orphan Trains were of full or part German ancestry. If we estimate from good sources that 400,000-600,000 children rode the orphan trains during a 75 year period (1854-1929) we can get an estimate that makes the Orphan Train Era relevant to genealogy groups. It also begs the question-who were these people and what do we know about them. Genealogy groups from around the country should devote more interest in these children who were in many ways America's forgotten children. They offer the genealogists a great challenge because some of these children changed their name to the loving foster parents who took them in and gave them a home. I ask genealogy groups everywhere to fill in the gaps left by these children lest they be orphaned twice, first by lost or uncaring parents, second by history and unknown ancestors.

Another view of the terrible conditions that existed in the Five Points District was expressed in an article in the May 14, 1951 edition of Newsweek. The article was entitled "Five Points to Happiness" and is reprinted below.
"When in 1850, the members of the Ladies Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Epicopal Church in New York discovered that the Rev. Lewis Pease had not preached a sermon in 2 days, they severed their connection with him. His mission stood near "Murderers Alley,' in lower Manhattan in an area known as the Five Points. Charles Dickens once described this section as an appalling 'world of vice and misery...men, women and boys slink off to sleep, forcing dislodged rats to move away in quest of better lodging.'
Mr. Pease believed in a neighbohood with 270 saloons and several times that many dance halls and bawdy houses, preaching the Gospel was not enough. The following year he established the Five Points House of Industry along with a Ladies Auxiliary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Its goal was to educate and find work for residents of the most dismal slum in America. Since then over 45,000 children have been helped by that institution.

Life in the Five Points

"How did they live in Five Points?" asked Gary Wills, one of America's finest journalists, in his article, "Salvage Archeology in Lower Manhattan." (Washington Post, Dec.29, 1991) The answer was, "Nastily, brutishly and often briefly. When after the 1832 cholera epidemic, the Mayor ordered the streets scraped of animal and human filth, a lady who had lived there all her life exclaimed, 'I never knew the strets were paved with stones.' In the 1849 epidemic, pigs rooting in the streets were, a report said, 'contaminated by the contact with children.' It was said that in death the victims continued the tenement system, buried six tiers deep."

Wills goes on to describe the conditions uncovered by "salvage archeology" at a construction site in lower Manhattan. "Most Five Points buildings, the rubble from which is now 15 to 20 feet below street level, contained a saloon. The police raided one in which 42 people were crammed in one small room, in the corner of which on a pile of dirty straw lay a woman just delivered of a child. Famous gangs like the Plug Uglies, Dead Rabbits and the Roach Guard fueled the riots of July 1863. They began as Draft riots, became race riots then turned to pillaging the rich."

The Orphan Train Era Moves into America's Consciousness

In America during a seventy five year period (1854-1929) over 400,000 homeless children were relocated by means of what were known as "orphan trains." Placing children to live with people other than their parents has gone on from the beginning of time. Known by various names, placing-out has come to be known as "foster care" today. The Orphan Train Riders were America's first documented foster children.

During my research on the formation of Happy Valley School I began to understand how life was in the teeming ghettos of New York City in the 1800's. Happy Valley School was an outgrowth of the work of the Five Points House of Industry, a private charitable foundation organized in the 1850's to relieve the terrible conditions of an area known as the Five Points District.

People poured into New York City from rural farms. Boatloads of immigrants crowded the docks and swams of peddlers hawked their wares in the city. The cacophony of languages was sweet music to the shrewd, enterprising denizens of lower Manhattan. Jobs were plentiful and acted as magnets to the poor. A man with grit, determination and imagination could succeed beyond his wildest dreams. The mansions lining Fifth Avenue acted as a beacon to able-bodied, aggressive men (and some women, too) whose vision and determination shaped our country to the powerhouse it is today.

This dynamic city had its dark side. Alcoholism, disease, poverty, and ruthlessness in pursuit of money scoured the underbelly of an economic giant. Street Arabs (the name given to homeless children) wandered the streets of the city in search of meager scraps of food and shelter. They engaged in gambling, drugs, prostitution, theft, and murder. Gangs roamed the streets of lower Manhattan. The Five Points area of lower Manhattan, long regarded as the toughest section in New York City, was recently featured in a major motion picture, "The Gangs of New York" starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Acknowledgments

Meaningful art results from a collaboration among many individuals. I would like to thank Mary Ellen Johnson for encouraging me to tell the story of the orphan train riders and for making available the index of names found in the Books of Surrender I found in an old barn in Rockland County, NY. The unamed volunteers of the Orphan Train Heritage Society of America who put in hundreds of hours computerizing the historical information found in those boxes deserve my deepest gratitude.

I would like to thank Connie Dipascuale for a "Partial List of Institutions That Orphan Train Children Came From" that was listed on the "The Orphan Trains of Kansas" website. I thank Gary F. Wills, one of America's finest journalist for the use of material from a newspaper article on "Salvage Archeology in Lower Manhattan."