This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2009) |
Moses Sheppard (1771-1857) was a Baltimore businessman, a Friend (Quaker), a philanthropist, and founder of the now-Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1771, Sheppard's family, loyal to England, lost a great majority of its property during the Revolutionary War, and Sheppard had to fend for himself at a young age. He began working as an errand boy and clerk for a merchant, John Mitchell. Within a few years, he became a partner with Mitchell, eventually taking over the business upon Mitchell’s death, [1] a business he retired from in 1832.
Like many Quakers of the time, he was active in the abolitionism movement and an active supporter of the Protective Society of Maryland to Protect Free Negroes, the American Antislavery Society, and the Society of Friends Indian Affairs Committee. Speaking before the Maryland Historical Society in 1854, he compared the treatment of slaves in America and Jamaica (to America's detriment). [2] He also helped in the payment for the education of several colored men who became important in the founding of Liberia, among them Dr. Samuel Ford McGill. Sheppard lobbied the Maryland General Assembly, stopping legislation that would have banished free African-Americans from the state.
In Baltimore, as well as being a prominent merchant, Sheppard was also commissioner of the prison. Through this activity, Sheppard became aware of the inhumane treatment accorded to persons with mental illnesses, or "lunatics," as they were then called. Appalled by this treatment and in accordance with the ideas of the Society of Friends, Sheppard sought to improve conditions for those suffering from mental illness. In 1851, he was visited by prominent social reformer Dorothea Lynde Dix, who enlisted Sheppard in her effort to establish a state institution for the humane care of the insane. Sheppard approached and obtained a charter from the Maryland General Assembly for the construction of an asylum to be located on a 340-acre (1.4 km²) farm in Towson, Maryland, just north of Baltimore. This facility, though, would be private and not a state-run institution.
Upon his death in 1857, Sheppard dedicated his entire fortune to building the asylum. [3] Sheppard stipulated the following: “Courteous treatment and comfort of all patients; that no patient was to be confined below ground; all were to have privacy, sunlight, and fresh air; the asylum's purpose was to be curative, combining science and experience for the best possible results; and that only income, not principal, would be used to build and operate the asylum.” Because of the financial restrictions that Sheppard put in place, the asylum, designed by Calvert Vaux, did not open until 1891, almost 34 years after Sheppard's death.
When opened, the asylum was known as The Sheppard Asylum, though that name would change in 1896 to The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, after fellow Baltimore merchant Enoch Pratt bequeathed a substantial portion of his fortune to the project. [3]
Johns Hopkins was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he remained for most of his life.
The Enoch Pratt Free Library is the free public library system of Baltimore, Maryland. Its Central Library is located on 400 Cathedral Street (southbound) and occupies the northeastern three quarters of a city block bounded by West Franklin Street to the north, Cathedral Street to the east, West Mulberry Street to the south, and Park Avenue (northbound) to the west. Located on historic Cathedral Hill, north of downtown, the library is also in the Mount Vernon-Belvedere-Mount Royal neighborhood and cultural and historic district.
Elias Hicks was a traveling Quaker minister from Long Island, New York. In his ministry he promoted doctrines deemed unorthodox by many which led to lasting controversy, and caused the second major schism within the Religious Society of Friends. Elias Hicks was the older cousin of the painter Edward Hicks.
Enoch Pratt was an American businessman in Baltimore, Maryland. Pratt was also a committed active Unitarian, and a philanthropist. He is best known for his donations to establish the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and expanding the former Sheppard Asylum to become The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital,, located north of the city in western Towson, county seat of Baltimore County. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he moved south to the Chesapeake Bay area and became devoted to the civic interests of the city of Baltimore. He earned his fortune as an owner of business interests beginning in the 1830s originally as a hardware wholesaler, and later expanding into railroads, banking and finance, iron works, and steamship lines and other transportation companies.
Thomas George Pratt was a lawyer and politician from Annapolis, Maryland. He was the 27th governor of Maryland from 1845 to 1848 and a U.S. senator from 1850 to 1857.
Green Mount Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Established on March 15, 1838, and dedicated on July 13, 1839, it is noted for the large number of historical figures interred in its grounds as well as many prominent Baltimore-area families. It retained the name Green Mount when the land was purchased from the heirs of Baltimore merchant Robert Oliver. Green Mount is a treasury of precious works of art, including striking works by major sculptors including William H. Rinehart and Hans Schuler.
The Religious Society of Friends began as a proto-evangelical Christian movement in England in the mid-17th century in Ulverston. Members are informally known as Quakers, as they were said "to tremble in the way of the Lord". The movement in its early days faced strong opposition and persecution, but it continued to expand across the British Isles and then in the Americas and Africa.
Abigail Hopper Gibbons, née Abigail Hopper was an American abolitionist, schoolteacher, and social welfare activist. She assisted in founding and led several nationally known societies for social reform during and following the American Civil War.
Moses Brown was an American abolitionist and industrialist from New England who funded the design and construction of some of the first factories for spinning machines during the American industrial revolution, including the Slater Mill which was the first modern factory in America.
Isaac Tatem Hopper was an American abolitionist who was active in Philadelphia and New York City in the anti-slavery movement and protecting fugitive slaves and free blacks from slave kidnappers. He was also co-founder of Children's Village with 23 others.
Thomas Kelso was an Irish-American philanthropist and businessman, who was born in Clones, a market town in the north of Ireland, August 28, 1784. He died on the morning of July 26, 1878 at his home of many years on East Baltimore Street in Baltimore, Maryland, at the age of 94.
The free-produce movement was an international boycott of goods produced by slave labor. It was used by the abolitionist movement as a non-violent way for individuals, including the disenfranchised, to fight slavery.
The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, known to many simply as Sheppard Pratt, is a psychiatric hospital located in Towson, a northern suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1853, it is one of the oldest private psychiatric hospitals in the nation. Its original buildings, designed by architect Calvert Vaux, and its Gothic gatehouse, built in 1860 to a design by Thomas and James Dixon, were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971.
William Rush Dunton Jr was a founder and early president of the American Occupational Therapy Association. He is also recognized for his collection of, and scholarship about, American quilts.
Edward Nathaniel Brush was an American physician, a mental hospital administrator, and an editor of psychiatric journals.
Sheppard Pratt at Ellicott City was a private psychiatric hospital located in Ellicott City, Maryland. It had a 20-bed adult unit, an 18-bed co-occurring disorders unit, an 18-bed crisis stabilization unit, a 22-bed adolescent unit, and an adult day hospital. The hospital was owned and operated by the Towson, Maryland based Sheppard Pratt Health System
Martha Ellicott Tyson was an Elder of the Quaker Meeting in Baltimore, an anti-slavery and women's rights advocate, historian, and a co-founder of Swarthmore College. She was married to Nathan Tyson, a merchant whose father was the emancipator and abolitionist Elisha Tyson. She was the great-great grandmother of Maryland state senator James A. Clark Jr. (1918–2006). She was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 1988.
Lafayette Square, is a historic city park and district in the Sandtown-Winchester area of West Baltimore, Maryland. It is bounded by Lanvale Street and Lafayette, Arlington, and Carrollton Avenues.
Elisha Tyson was an American colonial millionaire and philanthropist who was active in the abolition movement, Underground Railroad, and African colonization movement. He helped African American's escape slavery by establishing safe houses, or Underground Railroad stations, on the route from Maryland to Pennsylvania. He purchased the freedom of African American's at slave auctions. He also initiated lawsuits for kidnapped African American's and created a group of vigilantes to prevent African American's from being kidnapped and enslaved. He also returned some kidnapped people from Liberia to their home country.
Hilda Pauline Holme was an American Quaker relief worker in Europe after World War I, and a book collector.