The Birth of the Orphans' Home

As Middletown became more urban in the mid-19th century, and poverty became a common situation for those living in the city, institutions were developed to meet the needs of the less fortunate. Sometimes the local government or even the state provided solutions, as was the case with the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane (1868) and the Connecticut Industrial School for Girls (1870).

The Middlesex County Orphans' Home was started by a group of concerned women in Middletown in 1876, led by Mrs. E.W.N. Starr. In that year, a nine-month-old girl was being abused by her parents. Mrs. Starr was not able to intervene as she wanted to, and the young girl died. This lesson was a painful one, and Mrs. Starr held a meeting at the Russell Library and invited a dozen or so women from town who might be sympathetic to the plight of children.

At the time, there was no state institution for what they described as "half-orphans, neglected or destitute" children. Mrs. Starr's committee of women immediately set about to create one in Middletown. They raised money and finally incorporated as the Middlesex County Orphans' Home in February of 1877.

Of course all the incorporators were men, and all were prominent businessmen or scholars related to Wesleyan. Their wives and the other women were "associate incorporators."

Their articles of incorporation identified the role of the organization, which was typical for the time period.  The incorporators were the legal guardians of the children that they saw as "suitable objects of charity," and the children could be "surrendered" by parents or any town in the state. It also gave the incorporators the right to "bind out" any child to be apprenticed or to be instructed in a trade.  The latter part should be read as, essentially, slave labor, although well intentioned.

The women acted as managers of the home. They rented a place on Hanover Street in 1787 and began operations. Each incorporator donated money and goods to help run the home, and children bound out brought in wages to help toward the home's expenses. Financially, the home was self-supporting.

Partly because of the incorporation of the Middlesex County Home, the state passed an act to establish homes for destitute children in 1883, and the one in Middletown fell under the control of the state.

In 1890, the orphans' home bought the old Wells house on Wyllis Avenue, shown here, for the children. (This building was torn down by Wesleyan within the past 20 years.)

I am not certain when the home on Wyllis Avenue closed, but my mother, who went to kindergarten on Wyllis Avenue, was certain it wasn't there in the mid-1920s when she was growing up. Eventually, the children at this home were sent to the County Orphanage that was opened in Haddam in 1887 and which operated until 1955.