The Lincoln Institution

Mary McHenry was born in 1827. She received a substantial inheritance through railroad investments. In 1856 she founded the Church Home for orphan boys and helped children living on the streets of Philadelphia, initially from her home. Her organizational talents became obvious when she managed the Restaurant Department at the 1864 Great Central Fair in support of local soldiers. The fair was located in Logan Square, Philadelphia. She then founded the Lincoln Institution in 1866.

In 1880 she married John Bellangee Cox, a prominent Philadelphia lawyer^D733. She was then known as Mrs. John Bellangee Cox using the naming conventions of the time. In 1883 they purchased Ivycroft in Tredyffrin township as their summer home. Her marriage was relatively short as her husband died unexpectedly in 1887. In this document we use the name Mary McHenry Cox for events after her marriage. Mary ran the Lincoln Institution from its creation in 1866 to her death in 1906.

Civil War Orphans

In 1863, in the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Pennsylvania Legislature debated how to handle the many Pennsylvanian orphans created by the Civil War. These were not orphans in our present sense of the word. They were children who had lost their fathers in the Civil War. Their mothers were usually still alive but there were very few opportunities for them to earn a living in those days and many of them could not support their children. The Legislature decided to allow privately owned, for-profit orphanages to be established which would be funded by the State and supervised by a State-appointed superintendent. The orphanages were segregated with one school for colored children and the remainder for white children^{SOS1, SOS2}.

The schools provided an education for the orphans. Those between 8 or 9 (as an exception the Lincoln Institution took in younger children) and 13 years old were in full time education. At the age of 13 they were sent out for work experience (in the Lincoln Institution’s case with Philadelphia center city firms while other orphanages only provided work experience in agriculture) and the children also attended night classes. The students aged out of the system at 16, but those in the Lincoln Institution were allowed to remain, paying a nominal rent.

The State Superintendent managed the arrival and departure of orphans from the schools, and you often find records for orphans returning home at their mother’s request.

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13 orphanages were initially set up^SOS1. The orphanages were located in rural areas, the nearest one to the Tredyffrin -Easttown area being at Chester Springs. The first superintendent was Dr. Thomas Burrowes.

The Superintendent then invited Mary McHenry to set up an orphanage for white Episcopalian boys, and the Lincoln Institution was born.

Does this sound as strange to you? Why would the Superintendent go out of his way to set up such a limited intake charitable orphanage and not make a similar offer to other religious groups?

Mary McHenry was not a meek woman who sat around waiting for events to happen. She made things happen.

We can postulate that it happened along these lines. Mary decided she wanted to set up an orphanage (she had previously helped children living on the streets of Philadelphia from her home), so she talked to her friends in the higher echelons of Philadelphia society, and to politicians and Episcopalian church leaders she knew. Then someone important whispered into the Superintendent’s ear that it would be a really good idea if he approached Mary with the offer to fund an orphanage if she would start one.

He did and everyone was happy.

Mary agreed with the Superintendent to take in 100 orphan boys. The first steps were to set up a controlling charity and to obtain accommodation. The Lincoln Institution was born in 1866. Mary McHenry purchased a building on 11th Street in center city Philadelphia for the charity. In 1871 the Educational Home was built, and finally the PoNeMah site in Wayne was created in 1884.

Institution Building in 2024

The Soldiers’ Orphans School, 1863 - 1884

Mary had previously run the Church Home for orphans out of her house in center city Philadelphia. The Lincoln Institution was only for white boys of Episcopalian parents (all the schools were racially segregated. There was a separate school for colored children), there were also non-denominational schools for both boys and girls.

In 1866 at least 78 boys were recruited for the school. After the first year the school usually had over 100 pupils. Originally the orphans were children of soldiers killed in the Civil War. Later the scope was extended to all orphans of soldiers who served in the Civil War. The names and details of over 500 orphans have been collected and can be searched. A property was purchased on Eleventh Street in Philadelphia for the Lincoln Institution. Mary McHenry, showing her amazing ability for collecting donations, managed to collect enough money to cover the total cost of the property. The location of the school is shown on the following map^GPGN:

Lincoln Institution location from Bromley’s 1895 atlas of Philadelphia

The Organizational Structure of the Lincoln Institution

The Lincoln Institution was set up in 1865 with a two-level organizational structure with a Board of Council and a Board of Managers. General George Meade, of Gettysburg Fame, chaired the meeting that set up the Institution and served as the first President of the Board of Council until his death in 1872. Many members of the Council were Episcopalian church leaders. The Board of Council was an all-male protective shield that allowed Mary McHenry Cox and her lady colleagues to run the orphanage through the Board of Managers, which was all-female^D871.

There were two treasurers, one for each board, and two financial reports were produced each year.

The Lincoln Institution was the only charity school; all the other schools were run as for-profit organizations. The State of Pennsylvania provided funding.

Educational Home

In 1871 Mary Gibson donated over 6 acres of land on 49th Street in Philadelphia to the Lincoln Institution. The details of this transaction are unclear, with differing reports. This land had been part of the original Bartram estate. It was given the name of the Educational Home. At the time of the donation the property was on the edge of the city.

Educational Home location from Bromley’s 1895 atlas of Philadelphia

The Educational Home was incorporated as a separate non-profit organization from the Lincoln Institution and the organizational structure was duplicated. The reason for this structure is unclear. This meant there were then four Boards and that four financial reports were produced each year.

The property was split into 4 quadrants. One quadrant was sold or leased to the Philadelphia Traction Company; 2 quadrants had houses built on them, the rents and leases being used to bolster the Educational Home finances. The fourth quadrant was the site of the Educational Home. There was also a dairy farm probably in this quadrant as reported in the annual reports.

For around $40,000 a building was constructed on part of the site and occupied in 1878. The cost of the building was a huge amount for those days but Mary McHenry, with her prowess in eliciting donations, seemed to have no trouble obtaining the necessary funds. A description of the interior of the Educational Home is available^D873, and the following lithograph of the building^LI3.

Lithograph of the Educational Home from the 16th Annual Report of the Lincoln Institution, 1888

After the contraction in the size of the Indian school in 1900, the Educational Home was sold in 1903. The home was torn down and replaced by housing.

Finances & Education

The school provided an education for the boys. Those less than 13 years old were in full time education. At the age of 13 they were sent out for work experience with Philadelphia center city firms and also attended night classes. An amazing number of over 180 local firms participated in this program. At the age of 16 the boys aged out of the orphan’s system, but a number stayed at the Institution while having full time employment.

The funding by the State of Pennsylvania initially was $110 per child per year, later raised to $130. The Lincoln Institution soon realized that this funding was inadequate to cover the costs in center-city Philadelphia. The rural for-profit organizations, however, seemed to be able find it sufficient to operate. The program was altered to make the orphanage more self-sufficient and to structure the donations in order to make them more stable. These changes were adequate during the Soldier’s orphans’ phase of the Institution but became a significant problem during the Indian School phase.

The main features of the self-sufficiency effort were:

• Food production on farms
• Baking, mainly bread
• Shoe-making and weaving for the orphan’s use
• Broom-making for sale
• Clothes washing

It was estimated that the actual cost per student was nearer $130 in 1867^LI4. The gap was funded through scholarships and donations. There were many other donations, mainly of non-monetary items, such as food, coal, and railroad tickets^LI5.

As well as an academic education the boys were also given military instruction, mainly in the form of marching.

Scholarships^D867

After Mary McHenry’s instigation in 1870 the local Episcopalian churches, such as St. Lukes, James, and Mark funded annual scholarships. General George Meade donated the first endowment. Scholarships were generally $150. Individuals also funded scholarships, some under their own names, some under other titles, for example the West Chester Scholarship was funded by Miss Susan Gorgas, who also funded 3 other scholarships. At the peak there were 46 scholarships in one year, covering nearly half of the orphans at the Institution. Some individuals donated the whole $150 themselves, while others collected smaller donations to add up to $150. The scholarships continued as long as there were soldier’s orphans at the Institution.

Later, the Institution received from the State $150 per year for those children between the ages of 13 and 16. These boys received up to $3 a week for their work at outside organizations which was placed in savings accounts for them.

Work Experience

Generally, the Pennsylvania Orphan schools had rural locations. This made it almost impossible to give the boys job experience at businesses, so they were employed in agriculture. That situation prevailed until 1895 when a site at Scotland, Franklin County, was set up. The Lincoln Institution, on the other hand, being in center city Philadelphia, was surrounded by a variety of businesses^D877. Mary McHenry Cox and her helpers took advantage of their location and placed virtually all the boys over 13 years old with local businesses^D874. In several of the annual reports the location of their work is listed. There were 270 employers of Lincoln Institution orphans, in the 1870s and early 1880s, including the employer’s addresses.

From this data we have created a Google Maps application^map that shows the distribution of the employers, most of them located EAST of Broad Street. This area is where most of Mary McHenry Cox’s team lived.

Location of Student’s employers - overview

When you zoom in you obtain this view.

Location of Student’s employers - detailed

Farming

640 acres of land in the Dakotas (now South Dakota) were purchased and in 1880 a group of older orphans travelled from Philadelphia to the Dakotas to set up the Meade farm^D872. The farm did not survive for long.

Additionally, there was a farm including a dairy, likely part of the Educational Home, 49th street site, which is mentioned in the 1884, 1886, and 1887 annual reports.

Farming also took place at the Ponemah site, (which was initially in Wayne, it then moved to Upper Merion and later extended into Tredyffrin) and is noted in the 1885, 1895, and 1910 decade annual reports.

How the Children were treated (1881)

The Institution had a library with books, games, and magazines. There were also entertainments throughout the year^D876. The issue of discipline among the older boys always seemed to be a problem.

Around 1875 William Hugg was appointed as Superintendent of the School. His wife took the position of matron.

In 1881 complaints were made by some of the children about how they were treated at the School. The Philadelphia Times took on the case and interviewed several of the children at their places of work.^D799 Hugg was man who easily lost his temper and become violent. He assaulted the children and whipped them with knotted ropes and other instruments. Children were also put in chains, placed in solitary confinement in a “dungeon”, fed only bread and water, and with the rats being their only companions.

A committee was set up to review the facts^D794, ^D796, ^D800. The descriptions by the children and by Hugg were very similar. Hugg said this was how he maintained discipline in the School. Hugg retained the confidence of Mary McHenry Cox and few changes were made. There are no signs that the Church leaders at the head of the Board of Council had a problem with how the school operated. It was acceptable for a boy to be whipped for going to church as he was disobeying orders^D799, ^D792. There were no resignations from the Board of Council, but a number of church organizations withdrew from providing scholarships. There was a short review of the case in the 1882 Lincoln Institution annual report, which distorted the facts.

The scholarship scheme was renewed and a number of new scholarships were created. Another significant change was made. The Institution no longer accepted any older orphans into the School. This, and the aging out of orphans, caused a reduction of the number of boys in the school from 100 in 1881 to 37 in 1885. This reduction set the foundations for the next stage in the Institution’s existence, that of an Indian school.^D785

The End of the State Orphans’ Schools

The state scheme for orphans continued until 1885 when a scandal and corruption at the for-profit schools was uncovered.^SOS2

The names and other details of over 550 Orphans who were part of the Lincoln Institution have been collected as a spreadsheet and can be searched. Contact the authors if you would like to search this resource. It is planned to make the information available in the form of a searchable database.

The first Government Indian school was organized in 1879 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania by Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, an army officer. Its goal was to destroy Indian culture, identities, languages, and traditions through assimilation and espoused the slogan “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”^CAR1. The students had their hair cut short and were given majority-culture apparel to wear. They were assigned Americanized names and the use of Indian names was banned. They were forced to use the English language, being punished if they used their native tongue. Indian rituals were banned, and the students forced to attend Christian services.

The Indian Schools continued to be run using this philosophy until Pratt was removed from his position in 1904. The schools continued after that time but with more Indian input on how they were run was allowed over time. In 2022 the Department of the Interior published a review of the Indian Schools^LI10.

Richard Pratt

In 1883 a group of students from the Indian school in Carlisle stayed at the Lincoln Institution for a few days while visiting an exhibition in Philadelphia. By this time most of the orphans from the Civil War were “aging out” of the Lincoln Institution (and other) schools. To stay in existence the Lincoln Institution would have to take on a different role. The Institution decided to convert to being an Indian school as part of the government assimilation program and contracted with the Federal Government to take 100 Indian girls and, a little later, an additional 100 Indian boys. The Federal Government paid $167 per year for each student.^D909 Some students were transferred from the Carlisle School while others were recruited directly from tribes. Mary McHenry Cox visited the Indian reservations and promoted the Institution, while others were recruited by agents.

Transition

The change from the Soldiers’ Orphan School to the Indian School did not mean that the orphans were moved out of the school, rather that no additional orphans joined the school. The 1893 annual report shows there were still three orphans in the school.

There was publicity of the change. Professional photos were taken of the girls at the Spread Eagle Inn, and of the temporary chapel in Wayne; a reporter was recruited to write an article on the school^D854 and articles appeared in the local Philadelphia papers^{D725, D726, D734}.

The girls lived at the Lincoln Institution site on 11th street in Philadelphia and at the Ponemah site in the summer, while the boys were accommodated at the Educational Home on 49th street. Some of the boys worked and lived on farms during the growing season.

The Challenges of an Indian School

Providing education of the Indian children was a much more difficult task than for the Soldier’s orphans. The main reasons for this were the following:

• The Indians had to first learn English. Some became proficient but others struggled with the language and were likely sent back to the reservations. The girls seemed to be overall better linguists than the boys.
•  
• At a minimum some of the culture of the employers would need to be accepted by the Indian boys in order to train for a job.
•  
• The financial situation was grim. The government stipend was inadequate and there was little enthusiasm by the public to donate to the Indian cause. No scholarships were set up for the Indians. This was unsurprising since the Indian Wars were recent memories (Custer’s defeat at Little Big Horn and the Sioux Black Hills War both occurred in 1876), and fighting was continuing at a generally lower level (the Wounded Knee Massacre was not until 1890). Geronimo and his group of Apaches did not surrender until 1886^LI12. In 1893 and 1896 there were financial panics and resulting depressions may very well have affected the finances.
•  
• The equipment for the boy’s job training and the availability of apprenticeships were inadequate. The result was that boys had nothing to do for many months. A recipe for trouble.
•  
• The skills taught^D917, for example, the type of farming, were not necessarily related to the state of the reservations the students returned to.
•  
• Assimilation as portrayed by Richard Pratt was a one-way process. The Indians only had to accept the white man’s society. In fact, it is a two-way process, the society has also to accept the group that wants to become assimilated. The evidence is that in the late 1800s the major part of Philadelphia society was unwilling to accept Indians (see Luther Standing Bear article as an example).

Recruitment and Length of Stay

Initially a number of the Indians were transferred from the Carlisle School. In 1890 Mary McHenry Cox visited Indian Reservations to better understand the situation and to recruit; there were agents who recruited others,^D914 and some were sent as representatives of their tribes^D798. The standard lengths of stay at the Lincoln Institution was either 3 or 5 years^D879. Some students left earlier. The reasons for them leaving are unknown. There was also a minority who stayed longer than 5 years. Again, the reasons are unclear but some seemed to be retained as they were star pupils that could be brought out for visitors to show what a good job the Institution was doing.

A similar initiation process was used at the Lincoln Institution as at the Carlisle school. Ah-nen-la-de-ni, aka as Daniel La France, in his autobiography^D729, describes the procedure for the boys. “The first thing that happened to me and to all other freshly caught young redskins when we arrived at the institution was a bath of a particularly disconcerting sort. We were used to baths of the swimming variety for on the reservation we boys spent a good deal of our time in the water, but this first bath at the institution was different. For one thing, it was accompanied by plenty of soap, and for another thing, it was preceded by a haircut that is better described as a crop.

The little newcomer, thus cropped and delivered over to the untender mercies of larger Indian boys of tribes different from his own, who laughingly attacked his bare skin with very hot water and very hard scrubbing brushes, was likely to emerge from the encounter with a clean skin but perturbed mind. When, in addition, he was prevented from expressing his feelings in the only language he knew, what wonder if some rules of the school were broken.

After the astonishing bath the newcomer was freshly clothed from head to foot, while the raiment in which he came from the reservation was burned or buried. Thereafter he was released by the torturers, and could be seen sidling about the corridors like a lonely crab, silent, sulky, immaculately clean and most disconsolate.

After my bath and reclothing and after having had my name taken down in the records I was assigned to a dormitory, and began my regular school life, much to my dissatisfaction. The recording of my name was accompanied by a change which, though it might seem trifling to the teachers, was very important to me. My name among my own people was ‘Ah-nen-la-de-ni,’ which in English means ‘Turning crowd’ or ‘Turns the crowd,’ but my family had had the name ‘La France’ bestowed on them by the French some generations before my birth, and at the institution my Indian name was discarded, and I was informed that I was henceforth to be known as Daniel La France.

It made me feel as if I had lost myself. I had been proud of myself and my possibilities as ‘Turns the crowd,’ for in spite of their civilized surroundings the Indians of our reservation in my time still looked back to the old warlike days when the Mohawks were great people, but Daniel La France was to me a stranger and a nobody with no possibilities. It seemed as if my prospect of a chiefship had vanished. I was very homesick for a long time.”

Daniel La France

The process for the girls was similar and is described in a newspaper article where the house mother was interviewed^D854:

The Indian girls seem to progress well with some being transferred to the local Philadelphia school where they successfully advanced. A few of the boys were also transferred to a local school.

Unlike the situation with the Soldiers Orphans, there was difficulty getting employers to accept Indian boys for apprenticeships so not all the older, teenage boys had work to go to. This was a recipe for trouble, but the situation seemed to hold until 1895.

The PoNeMah site^LI13

Mary McHenry Cox decided that the Indian girls needed to move out of the city in the summer to escape the heat and humidity. Mary and John Bellangee Cox had a summer home in Tredyffrin called Ivycroft. The Institution refurbished the nearby colonial era Spread Eagle Inn in nearby Radnor Township for the girls. The Inn accommodated the girls in the summers of 1884 and 1885.

Indians and staff at the Spread Eagle Inn in 1884

There are many interesting features of this photo. We originally thought that the woman in black on the left-hand side of the balcony might be Mary McHenry Cox, but now we think it is probably Mrs. Sievwright, the House Mother^D854. The group of men and boys in the lower right-hand side of the photo are also intriguing. The orphans wore coats with big brass buttons during their marching practice so the boys are likely to be some of the orphans, but we have little idea of why they were at the Spread Eagle. We suspect that the 3 Indian men sitting in the front row could be translators.

The site was named Ponemah, a word used by Longfellow in his poem ‘The Song of Hiawatha’.^LI14 Meanwhile Mrs. Cox looked for permanent accommodation as the Inn could not be purchased. Eventually a plot of land was acquired in Upper Merion, very close to the Cox’s summer estate. In 1886 accommodations on the Ponemah site were built and occupied that summer. Later the site was extended into Tredyffrin township.

Ponemah site from 1887 atlas

Extract from Muller’s 1908 atlas

Finances

The government money of $167 per student was insufficient to provide adequately for the children and, in contrast to the Civil War orphans, it was much more difficult to solicit donations.

In 1886 twenty Indian boys were placed on farms. Unlike some of the other Indian schools, the wages of five dollars a month were kept by the Indians, four dollars were placed in an individual Saving Fund, while the fifth dollar was kept by the boy for spending money. This system seemed to be in place at least until the Institution stopped accepting Federal money.

The Educational Home was focused on self-sufficiency as can be seen from the description of activities from 1893:

• Bread making - 66,337 pounds of bread, 92,245 rolls, 52,620 cakes, 4,978 pies. Some of this bread was sold to the Lincoln Institution bringing in $957.
• Clothes washing for the Lincoln Institution brought in $382.
• Shoe making and repairing – 403 pairs of shoes made, 777 pairs mended, 12 pairs of boots made (all for internal consumption).
• Tailoring – 96 coats made, 80 vests, and 181 pants (again for internal consumption).
• In other years there was broom and whisk making and weaving; the brooms being sold externally.

Funding Difficulties

In 1895 the Senate budget proposal did not include money for either the Lincoln Institution or the Hampton School (who were the two schools not part of the Department of Indian Affairs). They were both charged with sectarianism. After a deal of argument, the appropriation was included in the budget. A similar argument occurred in 1896. Then in 1899 the discussion of the budget proposal was disrupted by a complaint against the Institution. Eventually, in 1900, the Institution withdrew its request for funds and downsized.

Training

In 1895, out of 103 boys, 9 boys were learning trades outside the Home: 1 blacksmithing; 1 piano making; 2 Harness Making; 2 carpentering; 2 shoe-making; 1 printing. 20 boys were learning trades in the Home: 7 shoemakers, 6 engineers, 5 bakers, and 2 tailors. 21 boys worked part time on farms. It is unclear what the other 53 were doing.^D917

1895 - 1899

The period from 1895 to 1900 was when the financial issues of running the school hit home. Perhaps that was the aftermath of the panics and depressions of 1893 and 1896? There was insufficient money to recruit staff of any experience or expertise. There was also insufficient money to provide decent meals for the boys and their clothes were rags.

Richard Pratt was initially very supportive of Lincoln Institution but, over the years, his position changed, and he was very antagonistic.^D731

How the Children were treated (1895)

Problems surfaced with the appointment of George Jackson as superintendent in November 1895. He was a sadist brute, merciless flogging the boys for the slightest deviance from the rules. A complaint was made to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Jackson was interviewed (together with the matron and teacher, who saw and heard nothing).^D883 He used the same excuse for the violence that former Superintendent Hugg had done with the Orphans, that this was the way he kept order in the school. Many testimonials of the treatment doled out by Jackson were collected.^D915 Before the investigation was completed Jackson disappeared, taking with him money that the boys had earned at work.

After Jackson there was a continuing, rapid turnover of staff.

Daniel La France – “The length of the agreement with the recruiter was unclear, normally it was 5 years^D879 but in some cases it was extended. The reason why I and others like me were kept at the school was that we served as show scholars -- as results of the system and evidences of the good work the Institute was doing. When I first went to the school the superintendent was a clergyman, honest and well meaning, and during the first five years thereafter while he remained in charge the general administration was honest, but when he went away the school entered upon a period of changing administrations and general demoralization. New superintendents succeeded each other at short intervals, and some of them were violent and cruel, while all seemed to us boys more or less dishonest. Boys who had been inmates of the school for eight years were shown to visitors as results of two years' tuition, and shoes and other articles bought in Philadelphia stores were hung up on the walls at public exhibition or concert and exhibited as the work of us boys. I was good for various show purposes. I could sing and play a musical instrument, and I wrote essays which were thought to be very good. The authorities also were fond of displaying me as one who had come to the school a few years before unable to speak a word of English.”

Then in 1898, Daniel and a couple of other children had made a complaint about their treatment to the Indian Rights Association.

How the Children were treated (1898)

The charges made were: a) uncleanliness in the school; b) insufficient and ill-cooked food; c) lack of proper clothing; d) inefficiency on the part of the Superintendent and occasional undue violence in punishments; e) lack of any real industrial training and of systematic teaching, with consequent undue idleness in the school. This incident has been described by Lena Lannutti in her article entitled “We Have No Tribes”.^LI15

The Indian Rights Association investigated the complaint and eventually produced a report which was a devastating critique of the operation of the Boy’s School at the Educational Home.^D782 In the end, Mrs. Cox had little choice but to withdraw the request for Government Funds and in 1900 she downsized the Indian School so it could exist using only private donations.

In response to his complaint, Ad-nen-la-de-ni was put in the Institution ‘jail’ (a converted stable) and given only bread and water. Someone sympathetic to his situation left the jail door open which allowed him to escape. He travelled to New York and was accepted into a nursing school, but he lost all the money in his saving fund.

The names and other details of over 900 Indians who were part of the Lincoln Institution have been collected as a spreadsheet and can be searched. Contact the authors if you would like to search this resource. It is planned to make the information available in the form of a searchable database.

The only photograph of a group of Indian boys from the Institution that has been found is a group of Wichita boys.^D943 As well as the 1884 photo of the Indian girls, there is also a photo of a small group of girls by Julius Sache.^D120

Bereft of government money, the Indian School reduced its size, to around a quarter of what it had previously been, so that it could survive financially on the available donations. Many of the Indians were moved to the Indian School in Carlisle.^D763 The remaining pupils were mainly girls. As part of the contraction of the Indian School the Educational Home building and site were sold in 1903 leaving the 11th Street and Ponemah sites.

Very little information is available on this period in the Institution’s history as no annual reports have been found, though there are a few newspaper reports.^LI16 For example, it is unclear how students were recruited and how much they were allowed to follow their culture.

After Mary McHenry Cox’s death in 1906 the Institution reverted to its original scope - to be an orphanage for white, protestant boys. The Ponemah site continued to be used and some Indians continued to be accommodated as can be seen from the newspaper reports, ^LI17 and the annual reports from the 1910s.

The annual reports of the Lincoln Institution for the period 1911 to 1919 include several photographs of the orphans, many appearing multiple times. The dates when these photographs were taken are unclear, but probably in the 1910s. Some of the photos were taken at the 11th Street building in Philadelphia^D788. The following photographs were taken at Ponemah and provide views of the site that are otherwise unavailable.

Summer Garden at PoNeMah

Farming at PoNeMah

One of the Farmers

Vegetable Garden at PoNeMah

Emily Exley 1924 to 1956

The Lincoln Institution merged with the Big Brother organization in 1922. In 1924 the Ponemah site was sold to Emily Exley,^D766 who already owned an adjacent property. Over the following decades, Emily sold portions of the property, presumably for housing development. In 1956 she transferred the remainder to a trust to benefit the Boy Scouts Paoli Troop #1, who are located on the site.

Ivycroft

After Mary McHenry Cox’s death the Ivycroft estate became associated with the Jefferson Hospital as is shown in the following atlas extract:

Extract from 1926 Mainline Atlas

PoNeMah site, 2024

Information Sources

Annual Reports

Forty-five annual reports for the Lincoln Institution and its later sister organization, the Educational Home, have been found, dating from 1865 to 1917.^LI19 The biggest gap in these reports is from 1899 to 1910. The reports have all been digitized and analyzed. It is important to realize that these reports, many of which are from 30 to 40 pages long, are promotional material, and that negative facts are ignored or quickly passed over or sublimated.^LI18

The reports typically included:

• A list of the committees and their members
• Reports from the Chaplains and Physicians
• A Secretary’s report
• Financial reports from the Treasurers
• A list of students
• A list of life members
• A list of donations
• Work done in the Institution
• Produce of the farm(s)
• Subscriptions to Scholarships

In 1871 the Educational Home was created as a separate charity from the Lincoln Institution although it was run by the same group of managers. The Home produced its own annual reports. The Educational Home housed the older boys during the Soldiers orphan’s period. During the Indian School period the Home housed the Indian boys, while the 11th Street site housed the girls.

Cemeteries and Graves

The Lincoln Institution received a donation of plots at the Woodlands Cemetery. Documents and images related to the Woodlands Cemetery and the Orphans and Indians buried there can be found at D833.

Later Fernwood Cemetery was used for burials. No details on the location of the graves at Fernwood have been found.

An Analysis of Orphan’s Deaths at the Lincoln Institution can be found at D837. An Analysis of Indian Deaths at the Lincoln Institution can be found at D801. The last 2 references also link to the death certificates.

Also see the article ‘When Death Records Reveal a Whole Lot More’ by Heidi Sprout.

Lists of Orphans and Indians

A list of the orphans known to have attended the Lincoln Institution can be searched here. A list of the Indians known to have attended the Lincoln Institution can be searched here.

A spreadsheet containing all the information found about orphans at the Lincoln Institution can be found at LI20

A spreadsheet containing all the information found about Indians at the Lincoln Institution can be found at LI21

List of Employers

A categorization of the employers of the orphans in Philadelphia can be found at D877. Testimonials concerning orphans employed by center-city Philadelphia Businesses can be found at D874.

No information has been found on orphans or Indians who were employed on local farms during the summer months.

Location of Indians in 1898

As part of the campaign to retain Federal funding in 1898, a list was created of Indians who had been at the Lincoln Institution together their present location and employment. This information has been added to the spreadsheet of Indians which can be found here.

Additional Material

Additional material has been found in newspaper reports, and reports from other related organizations, which are available through the Internet. Over 180 documents have been transcribed and loaded onto the Document Database, where they can be read and searched.^LI2