Lincoln Institute and the PoNeMah school

Timeline for the Lincoln Institute

Also see Lincoln Institute Indian Pupil Numbers

• 1856 Mary McHenry sets up the Church Home.
• 1866 Mary McHenry sets up the Lincoln Institute to care for Orphans from the Civil War¹.
• 1871 Lincoln Institute receives donation of land at 49th Street in Philadelphia; creates the Educational Home corporation and builds a building on the site.
• 1880 Mary McHenry married John Bellangee Cox, a Philadelphia lawyer.
• 1883 Mary McHenry Cox purchases a tract of 14 acres in Tredyffrin and creates the Ivycroft estate.². Lincoln Institute contracts with the government to take 100 Indian girls and 100 Indian boys.
• 1884 Lincoln Institute in Philadelphia accepts its first Indian girls. Spread Eagle Inn used for the PoNeMah school over the summer.³
• 1886 10 acres of land purchased for the Lincoln Institute in Upper Merion⁴
• 1887 Report on the state of the Lincoln Institute⁵. John Bellangee Cox dies.
• 1890 8 acres of land purchased for the Lincoln Institute in Tredyffrin⁶
• 1899 Lincoln Institute decides to no longer accept government money, and starts downsizing.
• 1900 Census lists the Indian children at the Lincoln Institute in Central Philadelphia. The government grant for the children was withdrawn from the school, although the grant program continued in other places. A small percentage of the children listed in the 1900 census transferred to the Carlisle School.⁷
• 1903 Lincoln Institute purchases an additional 4 acres of land in Tredyffrin⁸
• 1906 Mary Cox died.⁹
• 1907 It is proposed to restore the institution to its original purpose, the education of white boys.¹⁰
• 1919 Alba Johnson sells 16+ acres of land (previously the Ivycroft estate) to the Jefferson Hospital¹¹. Lincoln Institute to revert to its original purpose, helping war orphans¹²
• 1922 Lincoln Educational Institution merged with Big Brother Association
• 1924 Emily Exley, a singlewoman, purchased the Lincoln Institute property in Tredyffrin and Upper Merion from the Big Brother Association.¹³
• 1933

  
  Emily Exley and Jefferson Hospital properties, 1933 Chester Count Atlas.

• 1956 Emily Exley sets up a trust for the use of the Tredyffrin ex-Lincoln Institute property by the Paoli #1 Scout troup.¹⁴

Future Research

• Try to understand how the Upper Merion property was used from 1900 to 1924.
• Research the sale of the Upper Merion property by Emily Exley.
• Research the records of the Indian Rights Association at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

References

See Thomas Symons Patent table S.3 for an extended deed history of the Ivycroft estate.

and Thomas Symons Patent table S.5 for the Lincoln Institute site details.

See Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Institute for more general information on the Indian Schools.

1. See references #3 and #6
2. Chester County deed Q9-315 (date:1883-01-31).
3. Philadelphia Times, April 13, 1884. For a shortened version of the article in another newspaper report see here.
4. Montgomery County deed 294-460
5. Chester County deed T10-116 (1890-07-26).
6. Newspaper report - Lincoln Institute 21st annual meeting
7. See 1900 census and ah-nen-la-de-ni's (aka Daniel Le France) autobiography extract. The complete autobiograph can be found at full autobiography
8. Chester County deed S12-40 (1903-06-24)
9. See Mrs. Cox's obituary
10. See Newspaper report - Lincoln Institution's Work, dated 4 February 1907
11. Chester County deed M15-269 (1919-06-13).
12. See newspaper report Charity will Resume its Original Purpose
13. Chester County deed K16-598 (1924-07-11) and Montgomery County deed 926-444
14. Chester County deed T25-270 (1954-01-15).

Acknowledgements

Roger Thorne provided support and significant documents from his collection. Meg Weiderseim performed newspaper searches.