Eighty cents and four nuns began St. Peter's

When we think of the Albany Diocese, most of us think of parishes and schools. But many of us don't think about all the healthcare facilities the Diocese is involved with, such as St. Peter's Hospital in Albany.

The beginning of St. Peter's goes back to 1863 when four Sisters of Mercy boarded a Hudson River day liner in new York City for the trip to Albany. They had been sent by their mother superior to establish a new convent outside Albany in Greenbush.

On the steamship, the four sisters met to discuss their plans for the new convent and realized they had only 80 cents among them. That was just enough to get them to their destination, but then the nuns had to rely on donations to see their dream of an upstate convent become a reality.

Hospital opens

Six years after arriving in Albany, the Sisters of Mercy were able to expand their mission to tend to the sick and lessen human suffering. On the Feast of All Saints, November 1, 1869, the Sisters of Mercy, with financial help from the Albany Diocese, established St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, and their doors have remained open ever since.

From the beginning, it has always been the mission of St. Peter's Hospital to go where the need for health care is the greatest. That explains why the hospital began in the waterfront area of Albany at the corner of Broadway and North Ferry. The hospital building, dating from the mid-1700s, was one of the oldest structures in the commercial district.

During that time, industrial injuries and manufacturing mishaps were commonplace. Within a few blocks of the hospital, there were two railroad depots, the Erie Canal, the lumber district and the Albany Basin of the Hudson River. The need for medical care was obvious, and the hospital's horse-drawn ambulance saw plenty of action.

Peter who?

The hospital was named for Peter Cagger, a prominent Albany lawyer, politician, civic leader and philanthropist. His widow and daughter contributed $10,000 and $5,000, respectively, as a memorial shortly after Mr. Cagger's death.

The hospital site was selected by Bishop John J. Conroy and Mrs. Cagger. The bishop and the Albany Diocese were influential in raising additional funds to make the acquisition possible.

St. Peter's was an upstart institution with just seven doctors on its staff. The hospital was best known for its outstanding nursing staff. The hospital's nursing care was entrusted to the Sisters of Mercy, and the new hospital was formally turned over to the Sisters by the bishop prior to its opening.

The hospital began with 33 beds and two private rooms. All cases were accepted, regardless of race, religious denomination or other factors. The hospital staff dispensed more than $100 worthy of medicine free-of-charge to the poor during the first two months of its operation. On many occasions, the physicians also donated their services.

EnlargingBY 1886, 17 years after its inception, St. Peter's Hospital was a bustling medical facility. More than 25,000 people had received medication at its dispensary, and even Albany itself was a city on the move. Its population had multiplied nearly 20 times since the beginning of the 19th century, and many of its residents þ as well as those from Troy and Cohoes þ came to St. Peter's for treatment because of its growing reputation for treating the sick and the poor regardless of their ability to pay.

The hospital's original building was expanded several times, more than doubling the hospital's capacity. By the late 1920s, the Albany community had grown steadily through immigration, industry and commerce. The need for health care had grown, too. In 1928, Bishop Edmund F. Gibbons, head of the hospital's advisory board, approved construction of a new St. Peter's Hospital that could serve the growing community and would offer the latest in hospital facility design and equipment.

Following people

Some thought the bishop's choice of New Scotland Avenue as the new location put the hospital too far away from downtown, making accessibility a problem for patients, and some people felt St. Peter's was turning its back on the poor community in its old neighborhood.

But that was not the case. The downtown industrial core where the original St. Peter's was located had become a congested, noisy and unhealthy place for a hospital. The new site offered open space and a quieter environment.

Today, St. Peter's Hospital is a 447-bed, not-for-profit, community teaching hospital with a wide range in the most up-to-date healthcare services. But despite all of its modernization, the hospital's vision has not changed from 1863 when the four Sisters of Mercy arrived in Albany. St. Peter's Hospital still continues to respect human dignity and respond to human needs by assuring services to all and by putting the patient in the center of its care efforts.

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