Court Decision on Plainfield's Access to Care

MI - Court Report Cover and FQHC Services

Federal Health Centers Are No Substitute for Hospitals

Federal Health Centers A Factor In Hospital Closings

Plainfield Mayor Leighton Calkins - Golf Innovator

Leighton Calkins

1868-1955

Leighton Calkins was the Mayor of Plainfield from  1915-1920,  and was instrumental in the completion of the  City Hall building.  A plaque in City Hall describes  the story of the building of Plainfield's City Hall.  Leighton Calkins' only son, Wolcott, is listed on Plainfield City Hall's World War I memorial as a casualty.

According to Plainfield Country Club's The First Hundred Years, "The origin of the modern handicap system comes from the one devised for Plainfield Country Club by Leighton Calkins in 1904."  This book also states that "Calkins coined the word "par" to describe the standard best score, borrowing from the financial phrase "the par value of stocks."

Leighton Calkins died in 1955, and his will was probated in Union County, New Jersey.

In the Third Paragraph of Will, there is beguest:  "to Muhlenberg Hospital, a corporation under the laws of the State of New Jersey and located in Plainfield, New Jersey, the sum of Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000) on condition that in consideration of this gift a room in the private pavilion be named as a memorial to my dear wife, Nella Bond Calkins, - marked by an appropriate tablet."

Questions:   What is by law the remedy for the loss of this

                     endowed room to the Plainfield community?

                     What happens to the inscribed memorial tablet?  

http://www.usga.org/news/2011/October/History-Of-Handicapping--Part-III/

Link to Smithsonian sculpture of Muhlenberg Architect Evarts Tracy

"As Major of Engineers Pioneer Camouflage Officer United States Army"

SI Collections Search Center: Evarts Tracy [sculpture] / (photographed by Louis H. Dreyer)

The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion

Plainfield's Forgotten Gem

by Nancy A. Piwowar

Hidden behind a stockade fence, set far off Randolph Road, on the Muhlenberg property is a red brick building with a large arched window and a scrolled keystone. The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion dates to 1903, and is Plainfield's forgotten gem.

A notice in the local newspaper, Plainfield Courier-News, in 1900, related the possibility of a new hospital building, and the response by the local residents was immediate. Public subscriptions were received. Then the decision was made by the Muhlenberg Board of Governors, to build a "new" Muhlenberg Hospital at a new site, and many distinguished men offered land. James E. Martine offered a lot on Thorton Avenue. Former Mayor of North Plainfield, John F. Wilson, offered a lot in North Plainfield, but this could not be accepted because it was in a different county. Finally the Muhlenberg Board of Governors took an option on farm land at the edge of the City on Park Avenue and Randolph Road.

Within four months of the discussions of a "new" Muhlenberg in the local newspaper, it was reported that J. Howard Wright in April, 1901, gave the largest and most generous donation of $10,000 for an operating pavilion for the "new" Muhlenberg in memory of his two grandsons. Howard Wright Corlies died at the age of 23 from pneumonia in 1899. Parker Wright Mason died at the age of 19 from typhoid fever in 1900. J. Howard Wright was a wealthy Standard Oil businessman from New York City, and his two daughters and families resided in Plainfield, for many years.

The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion also contained a sterilizing room, an etherizing room, a room for the X-ray instrument and a recovery room, which were all considered essential for a modern hospital.

The 1903 Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion retains many of its original exterior elements including inscription, large arched, scrolled keystone, and northern window. The only evident change is the removal of the roof line skylight. The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion was designed by Tracy and Swartwout, a New York architectural firm, and Evarts Tracy, one of the architects, grew up in Plainfield on West Eighth Street in the Van Wyck Brooks Historic District, and he later resided with his wife on Hillside Avenue, in the Hillside Avenue Historic District within sight of the "new" Muhlenberg and the Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion.

The 1903 Tracy and Swartwout Muhlenberg complex of buildings were not built squarely to face either Park Avenue or Randolph Road, but were "built squarely with the points of the compass." The purpose of this was "to have the operating room face North, so that it would have the full benefit of the North light." [Plainfield Courier-News, July 19, 1902, page one article.]

Plainfield's forgotten gem has survived over one hundred and seven years, and is passed by daily on the way to the satellite emergency department without nearly a second glance because it is behind a stockade fence. The wall inscription is obscured by the fence, and according to newspaper articles, behind the cornerstone of operating pavilion is a copper box that contains various items including: local and New York newspapers, Muhlenberg Hospital annual reports, photographs of J. Howard Wright's grandsons, photographs of doctors, nurses, employees, and of the old hospital buildings, names of the contractors, to name a few items.

The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion serves as a grand monument to Mr. Wright's Plainfield family, and the Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion is one of the only known surviving separate, stand alone operating room buildings extant in New Jersey and most likely in the United States. It is important to preserve The Muhlenberg Operating Pavilion because it is a monument to the Wright family, Muhlenberg heritage and medical culture, and Muhlenberg's doctors, nurses and staff.

Albert C. Stebbins

Albert C. Stebbins was born in Massachusetts on September 19, 1845, and he came to Plainfield in 1887, and located the site for the Pond Machine Tool Company.  He was vice-president of the Niles-Bement-Pond Company which was a division of Pond Machine Tool Company.  He was also vice-president of the Plainfield Savings Bank for fifteen years.  He was interested in civic affairs, and served two years on the City Common Council.  He died February 28, 1917, and is buried in a Plainfield area cemetery.

Mr. Stebbins left the bulk of his estate to Muhlenberg Hospital.  In the Eighth Paragraph:  "All the rest residue and remainder of my estate..., I give, devise, and bequeath to Muhlenberg Hospital, ..., to be held forever as a permanent endowment fund to be invested and kept safely and securely invested by it, the net income only to be used by it as it may see fit, in carrying on its work."

As reported in the Sixty-Ninth Annual Report for the year ending December 31, 1946, of Muhlenberg Hospital, on the inside back cover, the Albert C. Stebbins bequest was the largest gift yet received, total amount as reported was $226,000. 

Almost 30 years after the receipt of this Stebbins permanent endowment fund it was still being talked about in writing and was being used as an example to encourage others to leave bequests through wills.

Questions:  What happened to the money appropriated for the Stebbins' permanent 

                    endowment?

                    What is by law the remedy for the loss of this funded endowment to the 

                     Plainfield community?

                 

The Muhlenberg Independents

New Jersey hospital closings have exposed a mergers and acquisitions strategy, popularized by rogue nonprofits, who remove social services and endowments accumulated over decades, while robbing all levels of government of tax revenue, as they enrich themselves personally. Muhlenberg was started 131 years ago after a train accident, beginning a tradition of bequests and endowments long before government was expected to provide for charity care. Residents upheld a long tradition of leaving bequests and endowments they expected to compensate for charity care.

The Muhlenberg Independents are researchers that believe the salvation of Muhlenberg lies in the protection of those assets that include an astonishing amount of real estate outside of Plainfield. Muhlenberg exposes a fatal flaw in the protection given to endowments, after the benefactor’s death. Wall Street tactics of mergers and acquisitions have spread and redefined the practices of a new generation of profiteers. Utilizing the barely scrutinized and rarely regulated structures of nonprofit corporations, the plundering of old richly endowed facilities, like Muhlenberg Hospital, is turning into a tragic loss of history and multiple generations of philanthropy. We must honor the sacrifice of people who made provisions to care for the poor and disenfranchised or return those assets to the appropriate heirs.

The Muhlenberg Independents are in possession of a small mountain of financial documents that prove the violation of donor intent and the failure of the State of New Jersey to protect the substantial donated assets of old hospitals that the state is closing. Muhlenberg remains an asset even in its current state. It does not matter if the hospital has been gutted and the cost of keeping such an old building functional are high. The only thing that cannot be replaced is the land.

The community deserves a fair price and an uncompromised sale with Solaris relinquishing all control over the assets of Muhlenberg. Solaris was voted control of Muhlenberg’s substantial assets without payment or promises to continue to serve the community. Is their refusal to participate in a good faith effort to find a buyer indicative of their alternative agenda or the legal lack of standing to sell a facility that they control, but do not own? Did Solaris even have the legal standing to apply for a certificate of need to close Muhlenberg?