In October 1849, a young seminary student in New York City rowed across the East River to preach. Charles Loring Brace had been charged to speak to terminally ill young women who resided at a charity hospital on Blackwell’s Island, a two-mile strip of land nestled between Manhattan and Queens.
Now known as Roosevelt Island, it once housed “undesirables” in institutions including a lunatic asylum, two almshouses, a charity hospital with a children’s ward, and a penitentiary. Brace knew many of the women he preached to were dying from venereal diseases contracted after they were driven into prostitution and shunned by society. Weeping as he spoke of Jesus’ love, Brace visited others on the island after his sermon and ministered to them as well.
