WHO WE ARE
History 1851-1900
"No department of our work requires greater care and judgment than that of securing permanent homes for the children. While our great endeavor is to make their home more home-like, it is not our desire to retain them, but to place them as soon as possible in other homes. " -Scrapbook, Annual Report, October 18821867
The Board of Lady Managers decides to receive children younger than two years of age. No other institution in Rochester accepts children so young and the Orphan Asylum Board Members feel compelled to do so because they have the room to "open their arms to these unfortunate babies."
1881
Potter Memorial Building is constructed with a gift of $12,000 from Henry S. Potter. This four-story building has a dining room and store rooms on the first floor, school rooms on the second floor, a large dormitory on the third floor, and hospital wards on the fourth floor. The old main building continues to be used as a dormitory and nursery space.
1887
Crestwood Children’s Center is originally founded as Infant’s Summer Hospital of Charlotte, a temporary shelter on the Shores of Lake Ontario serving children suffering from infants’ summer fever.
Officers were elected on July 21, 1887 and on July 23, 1887 the hospital officially opened.
From the Bound Volume “Infants’ Summer Hospital April 7, 1891 to April 6, 1914."
Entry date “Rochester NY June 10 1913”
“Dr. Edward M. Moore, father of Dr. Edward Mott Moore, Jr. formed the Infants’ Summer Hospital and for the first two or three years visited the infants at the hospital daily. Dr. Edward Moore, Jr. began to visit the hospital when his father's health failed.” “He said in his address as reported in the Buffalo Express of May 17 1892: ‘I have thought of it for years and years as we have mourned at the loss of life among little children. I was in doubt and fear for many years until the summer of 1887 brought with its intense heat a frightful death rate from summer complaint. With no promise of money, I and a few friends set out to see what we could do. We put up a tent on the shore of Lake Ontario.” I make this record in simple justice to that “Grand Old Man,” who loved to do good without seeking for praise or honor. " - Arthur S. Hamilton
1890
On September 16 what is now known as Crestwood Children’s Center is incorporated as Infants' Summer Hospital of Charlotte.