Orphanage in Maryland has been abandoned since 1992

Home of the Friendless, Baltimore Maryland

Date added: November 10, 2023 Categories:

Built in 1870 for the Home of the Friendless, a private organization, 1313 Druid Hill Avenue provided a home for orphaned and deserted children for six decades. It was part of a three-building complex that housed from 100 to 200 children each year, representing an era when large numbers of unwanted children were institutionalized rather than raised in a home environment.

1313 Druid Hill Avenue was built as a home for orphan boys in 1870. It was the second of three buildings built by the Home of the Friendless on Druid Hill Avenue south of Lafayette Avenue. A nearly identical home for girls had been completed ten years earlier just to the north. Later, in 1900, a third building housing a hospital for the orphanage was constructed at the corner of Druid Hill and Lafayette avenues.

In the early nineteenth century, industrialization, immigration, and urbanization increased the number of needy children and, at the same time, decreased the aid and support that families and small communities traditionally extended to them. Reform movements inspired by Charles Dickens' description of children's lives in workhouses, led to the large-scale building of separate institutions for children. Orphanages were established to care for children with one or two deceased parents, as well as children who were abandoned or abused. Between 1778 and 1856, twelve orphanages were founded in Baltimore. All were private institutions.

On December 20^th, 1854, the "Home of Friendless Vagrant Girls" was chartered. Organized by a dozen ladies, the purpose of the institution was to provide "refuge and a Christian home for homeless, friendless and worse than friendless vagrant girls." If parents were "vicious" or utterly destitute, girls became permanent residents of the Home of the Friendless. If parents were virtuous and industrious, but unable to afford support, the girls were received in daily attendance, clothed, and provided with one good meal.

Girls were taught "the rudiments of English education, the use of the needle and general housework.... The objective of the organization was to train and prepare the children to enter the service of Christian families." The institution also provided an early form of daycare in a "nursery where women who go out to labor by the day can leave their young children and have them kindly cared for." Poor women also found employment in a sewing room for 12 ½ cents per day.

Some of the children brought to the home were enticed from the streets by the ladies who established this institution. Others were brought to the home by police officers or missionaries. Sometimes destitute parents brought children to the home. Most of the children came from the streets of Baltimore and about half were foreign born. Each year the Home of the Friendless cared for approximately 200 children. Many were placed in Christian homes, but about half remained in the institution on a continuing basis from year to year.

The Home of the Friendless was supported by donations of money and goods. An annual floral fair was established in 1855 to raise funds. By 1860, the institution began receiving government support in the form of appropriations from the Maryland General Assembly and the Baltimore City Council.

The home opened in a small house on Buren Street, and soon moved to a double rowhouse on Pearl Street where it operated until 1860 when land was purchased at Ross and Townsend streets (today Druid Hill and Lafayette avenues) to build a permanent home (since demolished). The cornerstone was laid on May 28^th, 1860, and the new Home of the Friendless was opened on April 21^st, 1861. An undated newspaper clipping identifies that Joseph Kemp (1815-1866) was the architect and William Ortwine, the builder. Kemp is credited with designing the Baltimore Equitable Society and a portion of Camden Station. The newspaper article described the general layout of the building with an office, dining room, kitchen and laundry on the first floor; two school rooms, the matron's room, sewing room and receiving parlor on the second floor; and an infirmary and dormitories on the upper floors.

In 1865, an adjoining lot to the south was purchased for a boys' home. By the end of 1870, a second building, 1313 Druid Hill Avenue, very similar to the girls' home was nearly complete, "two noble piles of stately and distinguished masonry without extravagance and yet without parsimony, admirably constructed and adapted for the successful accomplishment of desired ends." The new building for boys was dedicated in March 1871. The 1871 Annual Report of the Home of the Friendless does not provide any information on the architect of the boys' home, but acknowledges that William Ortwine, the superintendent of the new building, did not accept payment for his services. By the time the boys' home was built, Joseph Kemp had died. It is possible that William Ortwine simplified the plans of the original girls' home and adapted them for the boys' home.

In 1883, a substantial brick wall encircling the property was completed. By 1907, the Annual Report stated that "our buildings are old and in need of constant repair." The girls' building suffered a fire in 1918, but received nearly $5,000 in insurance for repairs. To provide a relief from hot Baltimore summers, in 1912 the institution built a summer home at Montevideo in Anne Arundel County.

In an era when segregation was the norm within Baltimore institutions, the Home of the Friendless only housed white children; however, the neighborhood surrounding it had become predominately African-American by the early twentieth century. In 1909, Booker T. Washington wrote in The Story of the Negro, "So far as I know there is no city in the United States where the colored people own so many comfortable and attractive homes to proportion to the population, as in the city of Baltimore. In what is known as the Druid Hill district of the city, there are, perhaps, fifteen thousand coloured people. For fifteen blocks along Druid Hill Avenue nearly every house is occupied or owned by colored people. In the later part of the nineties Dr. R. M. Hall, who is one of the oldest colored physicians and one of the wealthiest colored men in Baltimore, moved into 1019 Druid Hill Avenue. He was almost the first colored man to make his home upon that street. Since that time the white people who lived there have moved out into the suburbs and the colored people have moved in to take their places. I have been told that fully 50 percent of the colored people on Druid Hill Avenue own their homes, though, so far as I know, no systematic investigation has been made of the facts." [Note: Booker T. Washington lists "one home for friendless children" - a reference to this building - among the institutions located in the Druid Hill district in Chapter 14 of this book.]

By 1922 the Board and Managers and Trustees "decided to place the property at Druid Hill and Lafayette and at Montevideo openly on the market. It is strongly felt that we should look to the future and move away as soon as possible from an undesirable neighborhood to the suburbs consolidating the two homes and giving the children more room in every way."

In the mid-1920s, the Home of the Friendless joined other charitable institutions as a member of the Community Fund to raise funds for operations. It acquired property in Mount Washington, but merged in 1931 with another Community Fund agency, the Baltimore Orphan Asylum, to form the Children's Home of Baltimore, Inc. Eventually the institution merged into the Woodbourne Center. Today, Woodbourne serves 5,000 at-risk children and their families providing psychiatric, educational and social work services.

From 1870 to 1931, the years when the Home of the Friendless operated an orphanage at 1313 Druid Hill Avenue, most needy children were institutionalized instead of receiving at-home or foster care. Full orphans, (children who had lost both parents) were always a small minority in orphanages, which primarily housed half orphans, mostly those who were fatherless. During the twentieth century, with the development of welfare programs, widow's pensions, and social security, an increasingly large part of the orphan population remained at home with relatives or a living parent. Improved health care, such as the eradication of tuberculosis, reduced the number of orphaned children in the general population.

By the mid-twentieth century, most orphanages turned into shelters for abused, neglected, handicapped and homeless children. Later, improved methods of birth control and the availability of legal abortions further reduced the number of unwanted children. By the 1970s, foster care had become the norm, and orphanages as institutions had disappeared.

The Home of the Friendless at 1313 Druid Hill Avenue is a physical reminder of an era when orphanages housed large numbers of children in institutional settings in Baltimore and throughout the United States. The size of the building, the segregation of boys and girls, the racial make-up of the institution, and its urban setting are representative of orphanages prior to concepts of civil rights, gender equality, and foster care. By the early twentieth century, reformers called for childcare facilities in cottage settings far from urban centers. This new philosophy, and a desire to leave a community whose racial demographics had changed, led the Home of the Friendless, later the Baltimore Home for Children, Inc., to relocate.

After the departure of the Home of the Friendless, 1313 Druid Hill Avenue housed a series of public agencies. The federal Works Progress Administration occupied the building in the late 1930s. In 1938, it was purchased by the City of Baltimore for use by the Department of Health, which provided a variety of community health services continuously at this address until 1961, when it moved to a new, larger facility. The city housing department occupied the building until 1992. It has been vacant since that date.

Building Description

The Home of the Friendless is a three-bay wide, five-story high Second Empire-style brick building constructed in 1870 as an orphanage. It is located in a dense urban rowhouse neighborhood just northwest of downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The front facade features stretcher bond brick walls, brick rustication on the first floor, brick quoins to define each of the three building sections, a date stone marked "1870" centered above the fourth floor, and a mansard roof. The central bay holds the entrance, comprising double wooden entry doors; paired four-over-four windows define the flanking bays. (All openings are currently boarded as the building awaits rehabilitation.) The side elevations are similar to the front, but are less decorative and feature chimneys projecting through the mansard roof. Wooden porches and exterior stairs project from the rear building walls. An eight-foot tall brick wall surrounds the small rear and narrow side yards. A small park adjoins the building to the north. On the interior, a central hallway bisects the plan. The interior features a decorative front entrance stair leading the second floor, wood wainscoting, wood floors and plaster walls. The building stood vacant for many years, and the interior shows the effects of vandalism and the elements with collapsed plaster ceilings and peeling paint. Twentieth-century alterations to the building include an elevator, fluorescent light fixtures, drywall partitions and an altered rear stairway. The exterior wood trim is deteriorated with peeling paint and damage to the frieze and cornice. Despite these alterations and deterioration, the building retains substantial integrity, with much of its original appearance and fabric intact.

The Home of the Friendless features symmetrical fenestration on the front facade. Rusticated brick defines the base of the building. The roofline is characterized by a large wooden cornice and mansard. Brick quoins projecting slightly from the building facade define each of the three building sections.

The stone foundation walls of the front facade are punctuated by triple-light casement windows sharing a common stone lintel. Above four granite steps, wood and glass double doors are flanked by sidelights. Grouped pairs of four-over-four windows punctuate the first-floor rusticated brick walls. Between the first and second floors, a plain wooden belt course spans the first-floor facade.

On the upper floors, similar pairs of four-over-four windows are located on the outer bays. The windows share a common wooden mullion, stone sill and splayed brick lintel. Two, four-over-four windows punctuate each story of the central bay. They are fully arched set into stone sills and surmounted by brick window hoods. A painted wooden frieze and cornice surmounts the building walls. Above the central fourth-floor windows is a date stone depicting "1870." An arched cornice completes the central bay.

The mansard roof is covered by asphalt shingles and is punctuated by three dormers. The outer bay pedimented dormers feature pairs of four-over-four windows. The smaller central dormer is rounded and features a single arched window. Wood molding caps the mansard. Early photos show a window's walk above the mansard, but it no longer exists. An elevator shaft, not visible from the front facade, projects above the mansard roof. It is a simple brick structure with a steel door and eight paned window.

The side elevations are less decorative than the front. Each side elevation is three bays wide with common bond brick building walls and three dormers along the mansard roof. Three brick chimneys, two of which are slightly truncated, project above the roof. A fire escape provides an alternative means of exit on the southern elevation.

Wooden porches on the rear elevation are supported by six sets of square wooden piers ending with simple caps on the upper level. Solid wood panels protect the porches between the piers. A wooden stair provides access within the porch. Above the porch, five pedimented dormers project through the mansard.

An eight-foot-high brick wall surrounds the rear and side yards. The yards are paved in brick, but are overgrown with weeds. A decorative iron fence provides access to the side yard to the south of the building. To the north of the building, contemporary structures have been demolished and replaced with a park. The park has paved walkways, seating areas, some trees and bushes.

The interior plan features a wide central hall and rooms flanking the hallway. At the front entrance, a decorative wooden stair with newel post, spindles and curved railing leads to the second floor. The rear stair features a metal banister with a wood handrail. It spans each floor level of the building. Wood wainscoting decorates the first-floor hall and stairs leading to the second level. Wood floors and plaster walls have been damaged since the building has been open to the elements. An elevator, apparently dating from the 1940s is located beyond the front stairway. Wood-paneled doors and simple wood surrounds are featured on the first-floor level. None of the original fireplace mantels remains.

A second-floor front room has a tin ceiling, but all the paneled doors on the second floor have been replaced by more modern hollow core doors. The third and fourth floors have also been altered. Wallboard covers the original plaster walls and the hallway has been bisected by a partition. Less alteration has taken place on the fifth floor. Wood paneled doors with transoms survive; the plaster ceiling has collapsed in the hallway and conditions are generally deteriorated. A wooden ladder in the hall leads to an unfinished attic and roof hatch.

The building's rough stone foundation walls are visible in the basement. Large archways punctuate brick walls that support the upper-level interior walls along the hall. The elevator shaft runs through one of these arched openings.

Although the interior has been damaged by vandalism and neglect, significant details such as wainscoting and the first-floor front stair are extant. Alterations to the interior were made first around 1940 when the building was renovated as a health center, and again after the 1960s when it was used for offices of the city housing department. The exterior has not been significantly altered; some windows have been removed and the openings boarded.