Biography:

Founded by three white Quaker women in 1836, the New York Colored Orphan’s Asylum housed destitute African American orphans. Founders Anna and Hanna Shotwell and Mary Murry purchased a small building at 12th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and began housing 11 black orphans rescued from almshouses. In 1843, the organization moved to larger house at 43rd and Fifth Avenue, which had a much larger capacity.
In the summer of 1863, New York City saw the largest armed insurrection outside of the Civil War: the New York Draft Riots. The riots were fueled by underlying racial and class tensions in the city, and broke out after Congress passed new laws allowing men to pay $300 to hire a replacement.  Beginning on July 13th a white, majority-Irish mob took to the streets and began burning buildings, smashing windows, and pulling up cobblestones in the streets. A mob seized the Orphan’s Asylum at around 4 PM, stealing everything of value, including donated infant’s clothing, before setting the building ablaze. Overall in the draft riots that week, there were 120 deaths and 2000 people injured.
All 233 children and in-house staff survived the attack, and the organization was forced to begin again on Randall’s Island (now Roosevelt Island), after all its assets were destroyed in the fire, an estimated loss of $80,000. The Asylum opened a new home in Harlem in 1867, and then relocated again to Riverdale, in the Bronx, in 1907. It continues to exist today as Harlem-Dowling Children’s Services.