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New York State Asylum For Idiots, Fourth Annual Report Of The Trustees

Creator: n/a
Date: January 23, 1855
Source: Steve Taylor Collection

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State of New York.

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No 33.

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In Assembly, Jan. 23, 1855

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FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT

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Of the Trustees of the New-York State Asylum for Idiots.

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To the Hon. the Legislature of the State of New- York:

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In conformity to the provisions of the law of July 10th, 1851, establishing an Asylum for Idiots, the undersigned, trustees of the said institution,

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RESPECTFULLY REPORT:

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In compliance with the suggestions of the Legislature at its last session, which authorized a sale of the site bought for the institution on the Troy road, and the purchase of another, if, in the judgment of the trustees it were deemed advisable, the board felt themselves bound to review their former action in relation to the location of the Asylum.

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Accordingly, at a meeting convened in April last, a committee was appointed, consisting of Messrs, Pohlman, Townsend and Leavenworth, to examine the various locations which had been suggested as adapted to the purposes of the institution in the neighborhood of Albany. This committee, after a careful examination of the several localities, reported that they had been able to find no spot which combined so many advantages as the site which the board had already selected; and that the chief objections which had been urged against its occupation, might, in their opinion, be obviated by the purchase of so much land as would give them an additional front of fifty feet.

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At a meeting of the board, convened to consider the above report, a communication was received from several of the prominent citizens of Syracuse, offering to give to the trustees a site for the proposed Asylum near their city, of not less than ten acres; or, as an equivalent, the sum of seven thousand and five hundred dollars, for the purchase of a site. This proposition was accompanied by a report from a minority of the above committee setting forth, at length, reasons in favor of a change of location, and of building the Asylum at the city of Syracuse.

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In view of said proposition, and of the reasons by which it was sustained, the trustees deemed it advisable to appoint a committee consisting of Messrs, Spencer, Cook and Titus, to visit Syracuse, and to examine the sites proposed for their acceptance. Accordingly, the above committee, with the exception of Mr. Spencer, who was prevented by ill health, accompanied by Dr. Wilbur, the superintendent, whose views in relation to the location of the Asylum were deemed of great value, visited Syracuse, and on their return, reported unanimously in favor of removing the institution to that city. After long and careful consideration, the board came to the same conclusion for, after it had been decided by a vote of more than two thirds that it was expedient to remove it from Albany, it was the opinion of the board that Syracuse was the most appropriate place. It is due to the Legislature, that the reasons which led to this conclusion should here be briefly given.

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The trustees in their last report assigned several reasons why they regarded Albany as the most fitting location for the new Asylum building. Principal among these, and in a measure underlying all the others, was the supposed intent of the act of the Legislature which established the Asylum in 1851. But the legislation of last winter, and especially the rejection of an amendment which restricted the trustees in their selection of a site to the vicinity of Albany, put a different interpretation upon the original act, and left the board at liberty to locate the institution in its permanent form, (in distinction from its experimental existence) in some other portion of the State.

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When the site near Albany was purchased, it was understood and agreed that mansions of a superior class would he erected in the immediate vicinity, and on a line with the proposed asylum, leaving a large open lawn between them and the Troy road. It was also expected that additional land could be procured in the rear at cheap rates. Both these expectations have been disappointed, and the great object of seclusion and privacy defeated. These circumstances furnish an irresistible argument for the removal of the institution.

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The offer of a site of ten acres, or the payment of seven thousand five hundred dollars, by the citizens of Syracuse; the central location of the city, about midway between Albany and Buffalo, on the two great thoroughfares of the State -- the Erie canal and the Central railroad -- and the beauty of the surrounding country, strongly attacked the attention of the board to that thriving city.

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More attention to the subject also impressed them very forcibly with the conviction that the humane institutions which are supported by the State should not be concentrated at the capital, or at any other one spot in the State, but that as the funds which support them are drawn from, and belong to the people of the whole State, they should all be allowed to partake freely of their advantages, and in order to effect that object, they should he scattered throughout its entire borders.

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