By Daniel Ladue • Photo and research information supplied by the Clinton County Historical Association’s Historian, Dr. Anastasia Pratt
In the early winter of 1874, Miss Marcia Brown, newly hired as the ladies’ principal of the Plattsburgh Academy, paid a disturbing visit to the area’s poorhouse. What appalled her most was the plight of an infant, poorly dressed in thin calico, with nothing more to protect it against the unheated and frigid confines of mid-19th century poverty.
On Valentine’s Day, she pleaded with the ladies of Plattsburgh on the front page of the Plattsburgh Republican. “Are there no ‘sheltering arms,’ no ‘helping hands’ in this locality” to care for this child? Can some organization of ladies be formed that will assume the responsibility of providing a home where children can be cared for, where their moral nature will not be contaminated at the very threshold of their existence?”
Within days, twelve women answered the call. All were wives of influential men in Plattsburgh, who organized themselves quickly and within a month founded and chartered the Home for the Friendless. The initial mission of the Home was to meet the immediate needs of children and women. Getting them off the streets and into a safe environment was its primary goal.
Marcia Brown recognized that women, children, and the elderly were valuable to the community and that the community had a responsibility to care for its less abled neighbors. Her words have echoed down the years. “Willing hearts I am sure are not wanting. Heaven grant that ready hands may be found.”
The Home’s first location, a small house on Rugar Street donated free of charge, was outgrown in two years. The second Home was a larger framed building on Oak Street. By 1882 it too was outgrown. The third location (above), a handsome brick structure, was just east of what is now the Plattsburgh Middle School on Broad Street. In 1913 that site was sold to the Board of Education and five acres of land with a house located on the corner of Bailey Avenue and North Catherine Street, was purchased. Over the next two decades additional buildings were constructed on the site. The Home continued to operate until the mid-1950s.
Now, 150 years after Marcia Brown’s goal was realized, Behavioral Health Services North is carrying on the Home’s mission of “doing right for the community.” That is exactly what Brown had in mind when she appealed to the ladies of Plattsburgh in 1874. Willing hearts have been there since its inception. Willing hearts will be there for years to come.
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