The Early Years

In the first twenty years or so of the annual reports, the names of the children as well as their guardians were not printed in the report. Some reports looked like these from 1862:

In the early years of the asylum, children were kept there for quite long periods -- these boys lived for nearly four and a half years in an institutional setting.

Perhaps these boys were the McCarty brothers, who are found in the 1870 census as young men. Dennis McCarty was 24 years old and working as a laborer on the farm of John Barnes near Sangamon, Piatt County and John McCarty was 27 years old and working on the farm of Amos Conard near Monticello, Piatt County.

The McCarty boys could just as easily have been this set of brothers:

This report gave an update on the children who had been sent to Illinois in September of 1860 and their condition and progress up to November 1861. Note that neighbors reported to the visiting agent, or Mr. Ebenezer Wright, that one of the boys was "not well used." This could have meant that the boy was not provided sufficient clothes, was not sent to school, or was physically abused. One wonders whether a warning from the visiting agent would have been enough to put an end to abuse. The families that the McCarty's worked for in 1870 may or may not have been their original guardians. Away from the institution and the obvious danger of recontamination in close living conditions, the brothers with "sore eyes" had reportedly been transformed into healthy boys!

The boys could be traced no farther than 1870 with any certainty.