Presbyterian Children’s Village history

1851 The New York Juvenile Asylum (which became The Children’s Village) was founded to provide residential care for orphans and “juvenile delinquents” roaming the streets of Manhattan.

1855 The New York Juvenile Asylum was one of three agencies in New York City that sent children to the Midwest to distance them from the dangers of life on the streets.

1856 The Washington Heights campus, purchased for $33,000 was completed and became home to 1,200 boys.

1861 The Washington Heights campus became racially integrated.

1864 – Synod of Alabama adopted a proposal to establish a home for children.

After several years of struggling to raise the money needed to open the doors, the Home accepted its first children in 1868.

1892 – Needing more space to grow in a more central location, the Home moved to its current location in Talladega, Alabama.

1901 Using the increase in the value of the Washington Heights property, the agency bought a 277-acre farm in Dobbs Ferry, NY. The campus could accommodate only 300 children (down from 1,000 in Washington Heights), so some children were transferred to other agencies.

PCV hosted its donors and RHS members at the former Glencoe estate built in 1906 as a country home for Thomas McKean, Jr., namesake and descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

During the 1920’s, Children’s Village also opened the National Training School for Institution Executives and Workers, the first facility of its kind.

The orphanage moves to the former Glencoe estate in Rosemont, PA, a donation from Samuel Robinson, co-founder of Acme Markets, and his wife Mary Park Hill, a Board member of the orphanage since 1926.

1927 The Children’s Village became the first child care agency in the country to establish a psychiatric clinic on its campus.

The orphan train movement, an ambitious yet later seen as a controversial effort, continued until 1929.

The Presbyterian community builds and opens a new orphanage campus in Southwest Philadelphia, where it operates until 1960.

1970 The first Therapeutic Recreation Internship program in the US began.

The Village now had nearly 100 children entrusted to its care. Thus, in 1983 a new on-grounds' special education program was designed by Kemmerer Village and the Assumption School District.

1984 The Work Appreciation for Youth (WAY) program was established to teach work ethics and provide the first long-term aftercare program for troubled youth.

In 1989, the Fergusson Educational Center opened, expanding the number of classrooms for on-campus students and providing the school with a building for its sole use.

The campus renovation project was completed: twenty cottages were renovated; two new cottages built; the administration building, gutted by fire in 1994, rebuilt; and a new medical center constructed.

The Home opened its own school, now named Ascension Leadership Academy, in 1997 to meet the educational needs of its residents and the greater community.

In 2002, these two beloved Texas children’s agencies merged to create Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services (PCHAS) of Texas and Louisiana.

2004 – The school opens to private-pay students from the community.

In May of 2014, Kemmerer Village celebrated it's 100th anniversary since accepting our first child.

2015 –Thrift Store opens.

2016 Inwood House, a nonprofit that specializes in pregnant and parenting teens and pregnancy prevention, merged with The Children’s Village.

2017 –Family Bridges program opens.

Gemma Services was formed in 2019 when Silver Springs – Martin Luther School and theVillage united to operate as one single organization serving children, families, and communities across the Philadelphia region.