Starting in the late 1800’s various institutions serving alcoholics, drug addicts, tuberculosis patients, petty criminals, runaways and “women of ill repute” lined the ridge in what is now Inwood Hill Park. Of these bleak fortresses of infirmity, born of era when inebriates were often treated with hypodermic injections of nitrate of strychnine and married women could be sent away under lock and key for up to three years for simply dancing in public, Inwood’s House of Mercy was considered cutting edge.
The original House of Mercy, established in the 1850’s, was located at the foot of 86th Street near the current Riverside Drive in a building described as “the old Howland mansion.” The home for “abandoned and troubled women” was founded by Mrs. William Richmond, whose husband was the rector of Saint Michaels.
When the Sisters of Saint Mary took charge of the home in September of 1863 they were desperately poor. The nuns themselves were given a per Diem of just eight cents.
Founded by Harriet Starr Cannon (right), the first Mother Superior of the Sisterhood of Saint Mary; the early sisters had lofty notions as how to best care for their wards.
In a biography, Cannon said of those early days, “As the early spring and summer came we were able to give out-door pleasures to the girls, which helped them very much, for their confinement in the House during the entire winter was a little irksome to them.
In the early days of the Institution we did not know the best way to manage them. We gave ourselves more trouble and them more care than was really necessary. For instance, if any of the girls got away we would think it our duty to spend our time in search of them: entire days were spent by the Sisters in looking up a girl. Now, of course, it is quite different. We have only to send a description of the missing one to a police station, and she is very soon returned to us.”
The House of Mercy relocated to their uptown location, currently Inwood Hill Park, in May of 1891. Bishop Henry Codman Potter (left) himself consecrated the massive brick and white trimmed structure before several hundred clergy and lay persons as a vested choir sang “Onward Christian Soldiers.
“This home for women,” according to one description, received “destitute and fallen women upon their own application, or committed by the city magistrates.” The house was run, under the guidance of the Protestant Episcopal Church, by the Sisters of Saint Mary.
According to a New York Times article dated May 27th 1891, “The new House of Mercy has been erected on a plateau, one of the highest points at the northerly end of New York Island, a half mile north of Inwood Station, on the Hudson, and within 400 feet of the river, equal in area to eighty city lots. The building consists of a main structure 204 feet in length, facing the west and the river front, with wings at each end running at right angles to the rear and 104 and 128 feet respectively in depth.
The building is so arranged as to provide for three distinct divisions of the institution work—the House of Mercy proper, St. Agnes’s House, and a division for penitents. Each division has everything necessary for its proper and systematic working, and the inmates of one division are not brought into contact with those of the others. The House of Mercy and St.Agnes’s divisions are similar in arrangement and consist, on the first floor, of reception rooms, laundry and ironing rooms, packing, dining, and bath rooms, sister’s and lady associates’ dining rooms, reception rooms; and the chapel is also on this floor. The third floor contains dormitories and rooms for the sisters and penitents.”
A later Times article offered this description: “The view is beautiful, but the girls in the home do not see it. The windows of the rooms which they occupy command a view of a tangled mass of forest and, in some instances, a fleeting view of the Harlem….In spite of the architectural beauty of the buildings and the natural beauty of the surrounding country, the place is not a cheerful one to see…Iron gratings guard each door and lighter ones are fastened across each window. They are twisted and convoluted and intertwined in an artistic manner, but they are bars nevertheless, and strong ones at that.”
Initially the House of Mercy was built to house 154 female “inmates”. While conditions inside the House of Mercy might be considered inhumane by modern standards, these turn of the century women could have fared worse. The House of Mercy dealt with a “better class of fallen women” and the huge brick structure included such amenities as steam heat, light, ventilation and plumbing.
But despite Sister Cannon’s early idealism and the state of the art design and concept of the facility, the House of Mercy was also a product of its time.
Not long after the consecration reports began to surface claiming that cruel and unusual punishments, isolation cells, and bread and water diets were routine behind the walls of the House of Mercy.
Court papers accused the institution of “locking inmates in a small room or cell without food or water for periods varying from one to five days…corporal infliction by whipping, the use of a gag, handcuffs and a straight jacket….that inmates are not permitted to communicate with or to see friends for long periods of time.”
And while the report by the New York Department of Social Welfare would vindicate the House of Mercy, the charges would not be the last to be leveled against the home on the hill.
In 1895, twenty-two year old Annie Sigalove, begged Judge Gildersleeve of the New York Superior Court to release her from the House of Mercy. According to a New York Times account, “she said she had been abused and ill treated at the home; that her head had been shaved, and that she had been prevented from seeing her parents for months at a time.” By today’s standards, the offense that led to Sigalove’s incarceration seems minor–the young woman had merely been caught enjoying a night out in a Coney Island dance hall. While Sigalove was eventually released, the Times reporter evidently thought her charges warranted a follow-up . The reporter must have been shocked by the candid answers he received from the Sister who answered the heavy wooden main door of the House of Mercy after ringing a gong whose “echoes would have disturbed the slumbers of Rip Van Winkle.”
Standing in the doorway facing “a woman wearing a uniform much like those worn by Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy,” the reporter peppered the indignant nun with questions as he scribbled away on his reporter’s notebook.
“Were the charges true?
“We make it a rule here to never deny any attack made upon us.”
“Had Sigalove been denied visits from her parents?”
“We find that not allowing them to see their parents is one of the best ways to keep them in order.”
“Was her head shaved?”
“We sometimes shave the girls’ heads.Occasionally it is done for sanitary purposes, sometimes for punishment. We find the girls do not like to lose their hair, and that the fear of having it cut off tends to make them more obedient.”
As the years passed, more and more girls complained, but conditions at the House remained more or less the same.
In August of 1896 nineteen year old Laura Forman brought charges against the House of Mercy. Forman claimed that she had been subjected to a bread and molasses diet and was often forced to wear a gag. The Asbury Park, New Jersey woman told the court said she had come into the city to visit her sister. While in the city, Forman said her father hauled her off to the House of Mercy where she had been held against her will.
Her lawyer argued for her immediate release on the grounds that no court had given the authority to commit her in the first place. Despite desperate pleas from Forman’s father to keep his daughter behind bars the trial judge agreed saying, “It may be right from every point of view excepting the legal one.” A free woman, Forman turned her back on her father’s outstretched hand as her attorney told reporters of a $25,000 lawsuit he planned to file against the House of Mercy for false imprisonment.
In 1902, another nineteen year old woman, Harriet Farnham, claimed she too had been kidnapped by her father and, with the help of police, committed to the House of Mercy. “My father looks like a saint,” Farnham told the court, “but he isn’t one; he’s a devil. He has eight children, and all but on of them he has committed to institutions.”
During a 1910 census, the House of Mercy counted 107 inmates with a capacity of 110. According to the 1910 document, “These come, some of free will, others by commitment…The women are given practical training in domestic service and do the work of the large laundry which is a source of income. Attention is given to recreation, religious training and to the life after leaving the institution.”
The House of Mercy also received prostitutes sentenced by the courts, many of whom were cast off children and orphans forced into a Dickens-like existence by adult predators who lurked in the shadows.
In 1912 the House received just four adult “women of ill repute“, but the juvenile population was staggering. According to a report published by the now defunct Bureau of Social Hygiene, 1912 also saw 57 girls under 16 sentenced to indeterminate terms in the House of Mercy. “Most, though not all of these cases were strictly related to prostitution.”
By March of 1919, the House of Mercy had fallen on hard times. A public plea for funding was issued, but the times, as Dylan later sang, were a changing.
By 1921, the storied building, ironically, was leased briefly to the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children until a more perminent home was completed on Fifth Avenue between 105th and 106th Streets. (All of the photos that follow were captured by Society members after they took possession of the facility.)
For about a year, life changed dramatically inside the House of Mercy. According to a report published by the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, “the average daily population in the Society’s shelter for the year was 152; the average stay was eight days. In the years before the Society came into existence, all children taken into custody, including the little victims of abuse and neglect, were kept in station houses and jails pending action by the authorities.”
No longer a dumping ground for New York’s unwanted women and children condemned to indeterminate sentences, if the near century old reports are to be believed, the old House of Mercy became a temporary safe-haven for children caught up in horrific circumstances.
Postscript
In 1933, New Yorker contributor Morris Markey made a trip to Inwood Hill Park and met up with the Murphy family, who had taken up residence in the ruins of the old institution.
Markey described his encounter with the Murphy’s in his December 9, 1933 “A Reporter at Large” column:
“Just over the brow of Cock Hill I saw a pair of rusted iron gateposts, a rough road leading between them. Following the road, I came upon the ruin of a vast building. The inner wall of a chapel stood blankly to the sky, and on most of the windows old frames of iron grillework still hung. In a little cleared space between uneven piles of ancient brick a young Italian laborer crouched over a bit of fire, munching a thick sandwich, a bunch of white grapes dangling from his hand.
I said, “Was this the House of Mercy?” He shook his head. “Don’ know,” he said. “But I t’ink she bad house. Anyhow, she come down now.” He laughed at the towering, wrecked walls, the rumbled doorways.
I picked my way toward one such doorway, above it, a row of windows had the grillework still intact, and it was somehow monstrously ironic to observe the gewgaws, the rosettes and the curling scrolls, the faint-hearted attempt to pretend that the iron was something other than a bar to freedom.
For the unhappy wenches who found their way into this House of Mercy were prisoners. No less. I went through dark, cluttered halls and found the old laundry room with its slate walls. On them, dimly visible in that light, were messages of despair from forgotten souls who once wept above the suds.
“I wish I was dead.”
“God help me to get out of here.”
“I was put in this House of Mercy for nothing.”
I saw the little cells where they had lived and I saw the vestiges of the chapel where their sterner and more righteous sisters had ordered them to repent.
Yet it is the fabulous truth that the one merry tale in all Inwood, the one fine and warming episode, worked itself out between these same depressing walls. I speak of the Murphys.
Seven years ago, the House of Mercy people decided that they, too, had had enough of Inwood Hill. They moved away to Valhalla and sold their property to the City. Mr. Murphy applied for the job of caretaker, and got it. Thereupon, with Mrs. Murphy and ten small Murphys, he moved out of his five-room tenement flat on the East Side and into the two-hundred reverberating rooms of the castle in the heights.
No ten children that ever lived had such a time as the Murphys. There was air and sunshine and Indian caves, almost limitless space in which to play, fine and terrifying ghosts always on tap. The long galleries of the prison made perfect roller-skating, and in winter, when the pipes froze and burst, a smooth glassy surface covered the floors in the largest rooms, giving them a perfect indoor rink for ice-skating. For seven years there was never a lack of sport, for each new exploration of the vast building suggested a new game. And there were delightful neighbors.
Three of four hundred yards away, on the northern slope of the hill, Mr. Michael Fesslian had his farm. He had myriads of bees that made honey for him, and he could always get a Murphy or two to help. Down at the bottom of the Clove, on the banks of the Canal, the houseboat colony was a grand place to visit. There wasn’t much money in the houseboat colony, but the people were merry and lived in little floating homes that seemed marvelously snug and adventurous after the great reaches of the empty castle. In several of the abandoned gardens of the abandoned villas, nice fellows had built little shacks where visitors were always welcome.
The beginning of the end of the Murphy paradise, after the seven golden years were almost done, came when the authorities drove out the squatters, or shack people, as the Murphy children called them. Then the houseboat colony was dispersed. Then, alas and alack, the men came to tear down the castle itself.
That, of course, did not drive the Murphys out at once. They just lived on. Even after the sweet-pea bed had been trampled down and the great lilac bush they loved so well had been cut away, as long as there was a bit of roof, one room left so that a man could have a bit of privacy, they delayed their departure. But then, finally, the house was caving in about them and they had to go. I shall always think of it as a tragic spectacle, that day when Mr. and Mrs. Murphy and the ten children, hampered with precious little baggage, trooped out of the falling gateway for the last time, and went slowly down the hill, back into the city from which they had escaped so miraculously.” (New Yorker, December 9, 1933)
Recently one the Murphy descendents, Danny Hammontree, wrote into Myinwood.net.
“My name is Danny and I live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida… When I grew up my grandmother always told me stories of when she lived up on the hill in NYC. The stories she told me didn’t sound like NYC because it was a 200-room house in the middle of the woods! These stories really screwed up my idea of what NYC was like in the early 1900s.
Many times I’d ask her about the house and when I asked her where it is, and if it was still there, she told me it was torn down but that there was a park there now. I recently took my son to NYC and asked my uncle if he could find out the address of the park so I could go check it out. His research with family members got me the address of the old house so I got online to learn as much about this House on the Hill as I could find.
I found your website and WOW! so much more than I had ever expected… I then went a researched the Murphy family of Inwood Hill and House of Mercy and found a 1933 article in The New Yorker about my Great Grandfather becoming the caretaker of the house in it’s final years and his wife and ten children that lived there…
Last month I drove up to New York to visit this park and try to find the spot where the house once was… I had found many photos including aerial photos which actually lead me to the wrong area… Since coming home to Fort Lauderdale I found a great NYC website that allows me to see clearly where the house used to be located and also how the land was extended out into the Hudson River before 1950 which is what I think through me off to begin with…
I want to plan another trip there soon so I can visit the park again.
Danny was kind enough to share the following photo of his Inwood Hill ancestors:
I hope more photos will follow…
The ruins of the House of Mercy were eventually removed for the creation of Inwood Hill Park.
In the fourth photo in this article, the building is actually the Jefferson-Levy House situated on Bolton Road. The tower of the House of Mercy can be seen jutting out over its roof, because the House of Mercy was located north of the Jefferson-Levy House.
I used the photo because of the spire in the background. The photo seemed to go with the generic copy it lies next to. Thanks for the info on the house in the foreground. Please feel free to write in with more info on either structure. -Cole
Wow! Thx for that truly interesting story.
Taken from Wikipedia:
Jefferson Monroe Levy (April 16 1852 – March 6 1924) was a three-term U.S. Congressman from New York, a leader of the New York Democratic Party, and a renowned real estate and stock speculator.
Born in New York City, Levy attended public and private schools and graduated from the New York University Law School in 1873. He was admitted to the bar and practiced in New York City. In 1879, after he bought out the other heirs, Jefferson Levy purchased Monticello (formerly the estate of Thomas Jefferson). At the time the house and grounds were in severe disrepair. Levy, who owned the house until he sold it to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation in 1923, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars repairing, restoring and preserving Monticello.
He was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-sixth Congress, serving from March 4 1899 to March 3 1901. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1900. After this, he resumed the practice of law in New York City. He was later elected to the Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses, from March 4 1911 to March 3 1915. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1914. He resumed the practice of law in New York City and died there, and was interred in Cypress Hills Cemetery.
Cole: This is the most information I’ve ever read about the H of M. I’ve always been fascinated with the idea that a structure so imposing seems to have disappeared completely from the face of the hill. I used to think that the logical place for it would have been the rather flat meadow that leads to today’s overlook, but from the map and other things I’ve read, it looks as if it was further south. I tried looking up various combinations…House of Mercy, Espiscopal Church in Inwood, etc., and never got too much from any search. There is still extant an Inwood House on the east side, and I think it is still a social services agency. Now you have to go to work on the House of the Redeemer and/or the Memorial Hospital – I think it was first one and then the other, and I think that the House of the Redeemer might also have been known as the Magdalen House. This was nearer to Dyckman Street in the area where the off-ramp of the HHP is (but I’m sure you know that). I’m looking forward to more of your great reporting from days of yesteryear!
I just finished reading a great book I got from my local Library called “The Girls with No Names” by Serena Burdick just written and published in 2020. It is the story of Effie Tildon locked into the House of Mercy around 1912. Look the book up and read it having stories about the inmates and how they were treated.
Cole: This is the most information I’ve ever read about the H of M. I’ve always been fascinated with the idea that a structure so imposing seems to have disappeared completely from the face of the hill. I used to think that the logical place for it would have been the rather flat meadow that leads to today’s overlook, but from the map and other things I’ve read, it looks as if it was further south. I tried looking up various combinations…House of Mercy, Espiscopal Church in Inwood, etc., and never got too much from any search. There is still extant an Inwood House on the east side, and I think it is still a social services agency. Now you have to go to work on the House of the Redeemer and/or the Memorial Hospital – I think it was first one and then the other, and I think that the House of the Redeemer might also have been known as the Magdalen House. This was nearer to Dyckman Street in the area where the off-ramp of the HHP is (but I’m sure you know that). I’m looking forward to more of your great reporting from days of yesteryear!
Thanks for the great and informative article. I was wandering up on the hill in the park and near to one of the overlooks and got talking to a park ranger about why the area east of the overlook had no trees. She explained that, left on it’s own, most places with soil more than a few feet deep will regrow as forest in this part of the world. However, if the soil is shallow, large trees won’t grow there. Based on the map in this article it looks like this “clearing” at the top of the hill is over the former foundation of the H of M building. I’d formerly thought that part of the foundation remained along a path south of there, near a stand of evergreen pine trees. Do you happen to know what this remaining wall was part of? You may have come across something on the maps. It’s a fascinating park, Inwood Hill. In spite of being billed as “wild” and “old growth” there are many layers of history near the surface. Is there any story behind all the cast iron streetlamps that line the paths? Was there a park heyday when it was as well-lit as night as neighboring Fort Tryon Park? So many questions! Thanks for your casting a little bit of light here.
Paul: Your idea about the H of M being further south of that meadow is, I thnk, the correct one. There is a stone wall which runs north/south and I’m not sure that wasn’t built when they were laying out paths in the park or whether it was, in fact, part of a boundary marker for the H of M. There is also that stand of pine trees a little to the east and south.
There is also a stone wall which looks like the same type of stone which goes east west
among the trees, and if you snoop around especially during the winter, there is some cement and brick sections which could have been part of a building. There was also back during the 50s a park house up there which is near the cement and brick I referred to, and the park house was located at the top of the hill past the potholes, up a little rise to the right, and then alongside the first path going east west (with the pine trees on the north side of that path) There was also a water fountain there, and you can still see the piping for that. Are you confused yet?
For Cole: There is another curious spot in the woods, and it is up the stone steps in back of the tennis courts. At the top of the steps, there is a pretty flat dirt road which opens out to a plateau with some large flat rocks. I often wondered if there wasn’t some building there. Now the park rangers have fenced some of that area off, and they have planted some new saplings there.
Paul: Your idea about the H of M being further south of that meadow is, I thnk, the correct one. There is a stone wall which runs north/south and I’m not sure that wasn’t built when they were laying out paths in the park or whether it was, in fact, part of a boundary marker for the H of M. There is also that stand of pine trees a little to the east and south.
There is also a stone wall which looks like the same type of stone which goes east west
among the trees, and if you snoop around especially during the winter, there is some cement and brick sections which could have been part of a building. There was also back during the 50s a park house up there which is near the cement and brick I referred to, and the park house was located at the top of the hill past the potholes, up a little rise to the right, and then alongside the first path going east west (with the pine trees on the north side of that path) There was also a water fountain there, and you can still see the piping for that. Are you confused yet?
For Cole: There is another curious spot in the woods, and it is up the stone steps in back of the tennis courts. At the top of the steps, there is a pretty flat dirt road which opens out to a plateau with some large flat rocks. I often wondered if there wasn’t some building there. Now the park rangers have fenced some of that area off, and they have planted some new saplings there.
I never knew about The House of Mercy. It’s funny but the nuns that taught us at Good Shepherd were the Sisters of Mercy.
I never new about it either, Danny Mooney told me about it…
we are going up to find the exact spot …….
Good luck in your quest. Try looking at the hill using Google Earth. Look at a shot taken during a winter month when the leaves are off the trees. I feel like I’ve seen the outline of the structure, but I could be mistaken. Cole
For whatever it’s worth…I grew up in Inwood, lived on Payson Avenue until 1939 and on Riverside Drive from 1940 through 1966. I have a memory at age five or six (1940?) of watching a fire (a building burning) in Inwood Park at the top of the park walk that starts at Payson Avenue north of Beek Street (past several small houses that at the time, I think, belonged to the Catholic Church and housed nuns). Might this have been related to the House of Mercy?
This is so incredibly interesting. I lived in the corner of Seaman Avenue and Dyckman Street from 1949 to 1960, but my parents moved into the building in 1942. I had never heard of the House of Mercy until reading this story yesterday. On warm summer days back in the late 1950s my mother and I along with neighbors used to trek up through Payson Park to that plateau-like area overlooking the Hudson to picnic. It was a great place, but even as a youngester I used to question why there were no trees there after walking through the heavily treed park. Maybe after all these years I finally have my answer. I also recall seeing a pavilion-like structure deep into Payson Park where men used to sit and play cards on stone tables and benches. I believe the structure burned down in the 50s and eventually the tables and benches were removed leaving just a concrete slab. Again I used to wonder why something like that was built so far up into the park and not easily accessible. There were and probably still are narrow stone staircases throughout the area that had to be built for a reason. Maybe after all these years my questions from the 1950s are being answered.
Paul – I’ve heard that the street lamps were put in during the late 1930s as the Henry Hudson Parkway was being built. Workers would walk down through the Clove (where the old lamps are) down to the 1 train.
Comment on the lamps along the paths in Inwood Hill Park. The lamps were installed in 1968 during attempts by the Lindsay Administration to beautify the park. Some of us referred to them in a mocking fashion as “Lindsay Lights.” We knew that the hoodlums who ranged through the park would soon destroy them all. I have a photo which I took in the fall of 1968 which shows two lamps along the wide steps above the handball courts already smashed. The project was never completed. If you look around you will see that only a few of the paths have lamps installed. New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy as the 1960’s came to an end, and certainly the money for luxuries such as lamps in the deep woods of Inwood Hill Park soon dried up.
If you come up the hill from the clove past the glacial pot hole, and bear right, you will come upon an area which also used to contain a large lawn area and decorative plantings, including a very large horse-chestnut tree, a large cherry tree, and 3 peach trees. Here was once also a water fountain. Here still remains a long stone wall which runs east-west, and here there was once a red brick park house, which was burnt by hoodlums. This site originally contained the House of Rest for Consumptives, a facility where they brought tuberculosis victims to spend their final days in clean country air before they were consumed by their illness. The wealthy neighbors of this building were very concerned about the TB germs that wafted through the breezes in this region and infect them as well.
I’m curious as to whether or not any digs have been conducted at any of the sites mentioned or have been proposed. About 20 years ago I was lucky enough to participate in a dig at the site of a former Dutch farmhouse near Wave Hill and we found many artifacts considered garbage by the original inhabitants. It was a much smaller site than those mentioned in these wonderful articles about Inwood. How would a dig be proposed? Thanks for the great work writing these informative pieces.
It’s amazing the intimate knowledge of the park here. I wish I knew how to identify the Clove, the glacial pot hole and the species of trees that describe specific areas. I’m heading up there today with a friend. I’m definitely going to be looking for some of these things! Thanks so much–wonderful!
The person who shared about the nuns at Good Shephard Church in Inwood being “Sisters of Mercy” should note that the “House of Mercy” was run by an order of Episcopal nuns who were connected to the Episcopal Church in the United States. Many people do not know that the Episcopal church has monastic orders just like the Roman Catholics.
I am an “”associate” member of one of those orders,” The Sisters of St. Helena”. They formerly had a convent in Vail’s Gate, New York but are now headquartered in Augusta, GA. Have no first-hand information about the order that ran the “House of Mercy”, but all the Episcopal orders I do have first -hand knowledge about, are exeptionally humane and benign women who
quite literally “wouldn’t hurt a fly”. I’d say I’d have to agree with the commenter who characterized this institution and it practices as reflecting the harshness and prejudices of the times.
You can use the areila photo feature on the NYC DOITT map to see the location of the House in 1924.
http://gis.nyc.gov/doitt/nycitymap/
[…] Washington Heights, the location of the Cloisters, and Inwood Park, unlit and possibly full of the ghosts of unhappy teenagers) and one okay one (Isham Park). It’s where we play trivia and go to the greenmarket and eat […]
[…] Washington Heights, the location of the Cloisters, and Inwood Park, unlit and possibly full of the ghosts of unhappy teenagers) and one okay one (Isham Park). It’s where we play trivia and go to the greenmarket and eat […]
I went to Good Shepherd and was taught by the Sisters of Mercy in the 1950’s. While in the 4th grade we were hit every day with rulers and yardsticks for no reason other than we existed. I remember the nun going up and down the aisles and we had to hold our hands out to be wacked by a ruler. I hated the nuns and I was always nervous going to school every day. My classmate, Peggy Roberts, was hit and slapped and beat with a yardstick almost everyday. This nun really had it in for Peggy; I often wonder whatever became of her. I did have a very kind nun in the 8th grade which was quite a relief to me. I don’t know why the nuns were so cruel to us; we were just children. My brother was also beaten up a few times by the Christian Brothers while in the 7th and 8th grades. Enough said for a Catholic School Education!!!
This is SOOOO wild. I grew up in Inwood. And this sure was one REALLY WELLKEPT SECRET. We used to play on what was left of the foundation. Thanks to Eva for sharing your fire memory. Had no IDEA what it wad. We used to wonder aloud.
[…] — in reality if would be another asylum of stone and concrete whose neighbors would include the House of Mercy and a home for tuberculosis patients. But to the outsider, the home must have had a magnificent […]
[…] The House of Mercy: The granddaddy of our Institutional tour, where young girls, inebriates and ladies of ill-repute endured cold nights on the windswept hill on strict diets of bread, molasses and water. […]
[…] The order was formally founded in 1865 and was dedicated both to prayer and service. Their initial primary areas of service were St. Mary’s Free Hospital for Poor Children and the House of Mercy, a home for “wayward” girls and young women. This latter endeavour, after it moved to larger quarters in what is now Inwood Park in Manhattan in 1891, primarily housed girls sent there by the courts for indefinite sentences, and was no stranger to controversy. […]
[…] Bishop Henry Codman Potter consecrates the Inwood House of Mercy on the ridge of Inwood Hill. This imposing home for wayward girls is the first of three […]
Josephine McCallum Murphy and Sydney Christie were my grandfathers sisters; and they were the ones who were the caretakers; just discovered this article …Thanks!
Our group; McCallumRelatives on Facebook is collecting all the living relatives and expanding our family history knowledge
My name is Sean Murphy, this is amazing.Thanks for sharing that picture of aunt Teresa. Aunt Rose and Mema (Josephine Murphy) told me about life at that old house too. It had to be so hard to be that poor, and to think our great-grandfather was one of the lucky ones back then. We’ll I am glad I found this little piece of family history.
You said the House of Mercy moved to Valhalla. Did it retain that name or become something else. Curious as I lived in Valhalla as a teen, but don’t remember anything by that name, although there was a home for girls nearby that took in girls who in this day and age would probably be fostered.
A fascinating fictional account set in the House of Mercy is “The Girls with No Names” by Serena Burdick. I found this site when researching the setting of the book.
Just finished the book, I had no idea it was based on a real place and time in our nation’s history. How sad to think of all those young women and girls that suffered inside those walls. So tragic!
Cole! Thank you for this, and your amazing book. I’m writing about a resident of the House in 1906, and just wondered if you had a citation for the ‘court records’ you mention above (‘Court papers accused the institution of “locking inmates in a small room or cell without food or water for periods varying from one to five days…corporal infliction by whipping, the use of a gag, handcuffs and a straight jacket….that inmates are not permitted to communicate with or to see friends for long periods of time.’).
I’d love to read the original document, if you happen to be able to refer me to it!
Cole: I would like to know if this information about The House of Mercy was taken from a book or if it’s only available in article format. I am very interested in reading more about The House of Mercy and would welcome any information you may have about books on the subject. Thank you in advance for your help!
My comments/questions keep getting deleted, if that means the answer to my question is no, then I’d rather receive an answer and not have my question disappear. I was asking if anybody knows who has the records for the old inmates,
My great aunt was institutionalized there, my family knows very little about her life, abd being able to see her file, and garner any information, even the smallest morsel would be helpful.
Thank you.
Inmates were counted during the State and Federal census. You might find a name and a few details there assuming she was there during the time of the Census. I’ve never come across any records, but the religious order does still exist.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_St._Mary
Thanks for this great article. I lived in Isham Gardens from 1939 to 1970. Inwood Hill Park was a wonderful area to explore. I never knew about The House of Mercy, The Girls with No Names is on my list of books to read.
Hi, I just learned my grandmother was one of the girls in the 1915 census. Can you direct me to any other sources, to get more information about the House of Mercy on Bolton Road.
Hi Cindy, I too just learned of my grandmother being there from the 1910 census. I wish there were records kept that would still be accessible. It is frightening to think places like this existed not all that far in the past.
There is a book titled The Girls With No Names by Serena Burdick which is a fictional work based on her research of the conditions at Mercy House around 1910. I am waiting for it to be delivered.