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- Deaths from the New York Evening Post, 1801-1890
9/17/1827 Today 16th inst Thomas Eddy, 70.
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The Irishman Thomas Eddy
For New York to join the vanguard, all that was needed was someone to assert leadership. That someone was Thomas Eddy. Eddy was born in Philadelphia in 1758 to Irish immigrants. He later settled in New York City and, after achieving financial success as an insurance broker, was able to devote himself to his many philanthropic interests. He opposed imprisonment for debt, served on Quaker committees to aid American Indians, and helped found the House of Refuge for paupers and the New York Bible Society. In 1805, he helped establish a free school for poor children in New York City, a step toward a public school system. He was an active supporter of the New York Hospital and helped found the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane.
But Eddy was chiefly known as a penologist and was called "the John Howard of America" by his contemporaries. Prompted by outbreaks of disorder in the New York City jail, he traveled to Philadelphia in 1796 with General Philip John Schuyler, the father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton and a member of the New York State Senate, to examine the Walnut Street Jail, founded six years earlier by Quakers and already famous as the foremost correctional institution of the times. Eddy and Schuyler were fully taken with the Jail's enlightened philosophy, its orderly and humane management, and its claims of success in bringing about safer conditions on the streets of Philadelphia. On their return to New York, it was short work to persuade the State Legislature to rewrite the penal code and to establish prisons on the Philadelphia model.
Thomas Eddy
EDDY, Thomas, philanthropist, born in Philadelphia, Pc., 5 September 1758 ; died in New York City, 16 September 1827. His parents, who were Friends, emigrated from Ireland about 1758. Thomas received a limited education, and in his thirteenth year was apprenticed to a tanner, but remained with him only two years. On 4 September 1779, he went to New York, being resolved to become a merchant, though his possessions only amounted to ninety-six dollars, and he was totally ignorant of business. He began by buying small quantities of goods at auction, and soon established a trade, but failed in 1784 through an unfortunate speculation, and about 1790 entered the insurance business, in which he made a large fortune.
In 1796, with Philip Schuyler and Ambrose Spencer, he prepared a bill for establishing a penitentiary system, which was passed. Mr. Eddy had sole charge of the erection of the first building, and served as its director for four years, substituting cleanliness and discipline for former abuses. To Mr. Eddy is due the plan of providing a separate cell for each convict, instead of confining several together. He was chosen one of the governors of the New York hospital in 1793, induced the legislature to make liberal grants in its aid, and in 1815 was one of the founders of the Bloomingdale insane asylum. In 1798, with John Murray, he was appointed by the Society of Friends to visit the Indians in New York State, and did much to improve their condition. He labored earnestly for the construction of the Erie Canal, being second only to De Witt Clinton in his efforts, and was also one of the originators of the New York savings bank and the New York Bible society. His labors in these various directions earned for him the title of the "American Howard." He published a work on the " State Prison of New York " (1801). See " Life of Thomas Eddy" by Samuel L. Knapp (New York, 1834).
Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright
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1758 - 1827 (69 years)
