Tombs Angel: A One-Woman Social Service Agency

Rebecca Foster Salome was a middle-class woman who earned the apt name the “Tombs Angel” for her daily visits to the Manhattan courts and detention center in the 1880s-1890s. 

Known as the Tombs, The New York City Halls of Justice and House of Detention, was a surprising place for an upper middle-class wife to find herself. But there were no social service agencies to help the poor and newly incarcerated, and Rebecca Foster learned how she could help.

Why is her life important today? In the late 19^th century, Rebecca Foster addressed many of the same social issues we face—incarceration, prisoner rights, rehabilitation, and ways to help former prisoners integrate into society. Foster stepped in and proved that one person could make a difference.

Our system today is more complex than in Rebecca Foster’s day, but anyone looking for ways to advocate for justice and dignity, will find more entry points through which to help.

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New York City After the War

Life in New York City changed greatly after the Civil War.

The upheavals in Europe and the Great Famine in Ireland led many to flee their own countries to come to America for work. Industrialization was also on the upswing in America, and more people moved to the city for factory work.

There were few places to live, and both poverty and crime came hand-in-hand. This was the era that Jacob Riis documented compellingly with his camera. 

The Tombs

The Tombs in New York City is a name used by New Yorkers to refer to the original municipal building (New York City Halls of Justice and House of Detention) in lower Manhattan. It held the city’s courts, the police department, and the detention center.

The building itself was imposing. It was built in an Egyptian Revival-style, with huge columns in front. But the truly unsettling part of the Tombs was the fact that the area smelled dank and unpleasant.

In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, a pond, known as Collect Pond, was a clean water source for people in the area. But as more people were drawn to the area, Collect Pond became a sewage dump. The land was swampy, and the area smelled putrid.

Knowledge of land reclamation was rudimentary. Builders filled the pond with dirt from the area, but it was not as effective as they hoped.

People in neighboring housing moved out if they could afford to. The immigrants in the nearby neighborhood of Five Points where Italians, Blacks, Eastern Europeans, and Germans congregated had little choice. They couldn’t afford to live elsewhere.

City administrators decided the best use of the area was for civic buildings, including the courts and detention center. Unfortunately, the lower floors of the building always seemed damp and smelled dank.

This was not a place where most women would choose to spend any time. And yet, the need to help was so powerful for Rebecca Foster that she came to the buildings frequently—often daily.

Rebecca Foster’s Early Life

Rebecca Salome (Foster) (1848-1902) was born in Alabama in 1848. Her father was a planter. During Rebecca’s childhood, they moved to New York City.

Her future husband’s parents moved their family from Schoharie. New York, west of Albany around the same time.  John Armstrong Foster (1833-1890) grew up in New York City. He enlisted in the Union Army when he was 28. He was a good soldier and rose quickly in the military. By the time the war was over, Foster was a Union officer.

In 1865, when Rebecca was 19, she married Foster (1833-1890), now a brigadier general. They were wed in Calvary Church at 4^th Avenue and 21^st Street.  As time went on, Rebecca Foster found herself with a lifelong tie to the Church.

After the war, John Foster joined a law firm with friends. The men took all types of cases from petty larceny to murder.  But John Foster also had a drinking problem that was to cause trouble personally and professionally.

Family

The Fosters had four children. As with so many families of that era, not all the children survived to adulthood. For the Fosters, two daughters overcame the childhood illnesses that took their siblings.

After the death of her son in 1879, Rebecca Foster was quite undone, but the the reverend at Calvary Church, reached out to her. He encouraged her to join the community for weekly services. Over time, this worked well for both the church and for Rebecca Foster.

Five years later, additional ill fortune befell the Fosters. John Foster’s law firm partners restructured and excluded John Foster. His drinking was disruptive and made him undependable.

Foster continued to take cases on his own, but the family struggled to get by.

Rebecca Foster’s Life Takes a Turn

Rebecca Foster’s fate changed when two events collided. In 1884, her laundress came to Rebecca tearfully, explaining that her son was arrested for a theft he said he did not commit. Rebecca encouraged her husband to take the case, and he did.

But on the morning the case was to be heard, Colonel Foster was in no condition to appear in court. General Foster asked Rebecca to take a note to the judge requesting adjournment. When Rebecca arrived at the court, the case was already being heard. She stepped forward and spoke movingly of the boy and his family.

The presiding judge was impressed. He released the boy.

Another Request

That day the judge asked Mrs. Foster to help with another case. A young homeless girl was arrested for soliciting. She awaited sentencing.  She was so young, the judge wanted to help her, but there were no social agencies at that time. Judges had little access to the background of prisoners, or whether there was anyone who would take responsibility for a child.

The judge asked Mrs. Foster to look into the girl’s background. If he could find a way to keep her out of prison, he would do so.

Rebecca Foster agreed immediately. She later reported back on the girl’s situation and asked the judge to assign Mrs. Foster custody of her. He did so, and Foster went on to find a safe place for the girl to live.

Thus began Rebecca Salome Foster’s lifelong dedication to helping the poor and the imprisoned.

Her Work Begins

Soon other judges at the Tombs began calling upon Rebecca Foster to help. Did the person appearing before the court have a place to live? Were there relatives who could help them? Did they have work? Were there mitigating circumstances behind the described crime?

For Rebecca Foster, the work started with the prisoner. She talked to the person and then traveled to the neighborhoods where she or he lived or were arrested. Were there family members or friends there?  Mrs. Foster became familiar sight in the Five Points area—not a place where most well-dressed women would be.

“Is Mrs. Foster in the Room?”

“Is Mrs. Foster in the room?” became a frequent query from judges on the bench.

She was an early proponent of the belief that people could be rehabilitated. Her preference for cases was generally young women whom she viewed as victims of circumstance. For these women, Foster established safe lodging where she could take them. She established a couple of places in Westchester County (Pelham Hall in New Rochelle was one), and she worked with St. Barnabas Church for help within the city.

Though she was an active member of the Calvary Church, she never proselytized. She felt that prisoners needed to follow their own beliefs, and she left them alone. Because of this, people of all backgrounds were comfortable coming to her. Many were Jewish immigrants who often didn’t have other options.

She also became connected with the legal community. When a prisoner needed an attorney, she prevailed upon men new to the profession who were willing to take the jobs for the experience (and no pay).

General Foster Fails

As his wife undertook what became meaningful work for her, General Foster continued to fail. In 1888, Foster moved out of the house, abandoning his family. He moved aimlessly around the city for a time, eventually finding an old military friend who provided a floor on which he could sleep.

To Rebecca Foster, General Foster’s exit from the home meant he was dead to her. She dressed in mourning. Her two living children were still at home, so she took a job at the Presbyterian City Mission Society to provide for them.  During her spare time, she continued her volunteer work.

In February 1890, General Foster died. His wife was called upon to identify the body. Several weeks later, she applied for the pension that was due her for being the wife of a Union soldier.

Rebecca Foster’s Daily Schedule

Foster’s first order of the day was attending a morning service at Calvary Church. In the newspaper, The New York Tribune, a sexton was quoted as saying there were generally several people waiting to see after services, according to A Life of Service: Remembering the Tombs Angel, by John F. Werner and Robert C. Meade, Jr.

As people began noticing her work, funds and items were contributed for her. The Church provided space for donated items, ranging from shoes to household needs.

After she left church in the morning, she went straight to the courts. Though she was always welcomed, Rebecca Foster always checked in with the sheriff before visiting prisoners in court or in cells.

Her cases ran from shoplifting to murder, and she was always there to provide everything from clean clothes for court appearances to doing what she could to provide counseling.

At first, the judges were concerned that she would be overly sympathetic, but as they followed her cases, they saw that she was a reliable source.

Raising Money

Foster was not a wealthy woman, but she gave freely whenever she could. Eventually friends whom she met, primarily through church, holding events to raise money for her. They formed the Friends at Court at Calvary Church.

Those who donated were reported to include the elite families of New York, including the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, de Peysers, Van Rensselaers, Burdens and Astors.

Sewing Schools and Women’s Hostels

Rebecca Foster saw that many of the women whom she encountered needed work. They were willing to take jobs in order to help provide for their families. She noted that seamstresses were needed in tailoring shops as well as some of the new factories being built in the city.

Working with God’s Providence Mission, she helped establish a sewing school at St. Barnabas House on Mulberry Street. One of the wealthy women she she knew paid for the building. Soon Foster had sewing machines for 250 girls and women to be taught sewing. 

Moved From Her House

 At some point, Rebecca Foster took rooms at the Park Avenue Hotel near 34^th Street, presumably selling her house.  The hotel rooms must have been affordable, and she was likely close enough to her work for it to be manageable.

On the evening of February 22, 1902, she returned to the hotel. She saw that a major fire burned just a block away at the 71^st Regiment Armory at Park Avenue and 33^rd Street.  Firemen were there fighting the fire.

Fire was always a major danger for buildings in that era, but the Park Avenue Hotel was modern and considered “fireproof.” However, this was a windy, cold night. Sparks from that overpowering fire must have blown over to the hotel. Soon the fire was traveling through the hotel via the elevator shaft. Guests were attempting to get down the stairs.

Rebecca Foster exited her room. She got to the street, where she realized that an elderly lady who lived in the hotel had not come out. Foster went back into the building to save the other woman. She died in the process.

Twenty-one people perished as a result of the blaze.

Later, a jury determined that the sparks from the fire at the 71^st Street Armory had caused the hotel fire. The jury also faulted the hotel for not having adequate provisions for escape.

Mourning Her Death

People from all walks of life mourned Rebecca Foster’s sudden death.  Judges, prosecutors, attorneys, and prison officers were all stunned to lose a person whom they relied upon so heavily. Prisoners who worked with her were devastated.

On the day of the funeral, the courts opened at a later hour. So many people from the Tombs wanted to attend the funeral. The court administration recognized that many of their staff members wanted to remember a woman who had truly been a “tombs angel.”

The sewing school students took a streetcar to the funeral service. One of the conductors told them that if there were a way to halt the train service for a time, the streetcar employees would have gone, too.

Every seat in the church was filled. Some mourners simply stood outside to pay their respects.

Unfinished Business

Because Foster’s death was unexpected, she left unfinished business. The night of the fire, she took two women to St. Barnabas to stay for the night. She requested that shoes be provided for the women; she said she would pay for the shoes when she picked the women up for court the next day. 

The shoes were provided by the staff of St. Barnabas. Everyone knew that this would one of her dying wishes.

The Warden of the Tombs told one newspaper reporter: “Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of first offenders were saved by her [Mrs. Foster] from adopting a criminal career.”

Ended Friends at Court

Without Rebecca Foster, there was no way to keep the Friends at Court going at Calvary Church. Even if funds were raised, who would reach out to the prisoners?

Those who knew her desperately wanted to remember her. The first tablet installed in her memory was unveiled in God’s Providence Mission later that year.

Elsewhere there was a call for a larger public tribute to Rebecca Foster.  A committee formed and funds were raised for what was to be an elegant wall-mounted monument. Australian- American sculptor Karl Bitter was chosen for the marble work. He was to create a bas-relief of an angel, and a separate cameo of Mrs. Foster. A bronze renaissance-style frame created by Bitter’s collaborator, Charles Rollinson Lamb, would contain the angel sculpture as well as the likeness of Mrs. Foster. Beneath the work was a plaque where it was written: “On Her Lips Was the Law of Kindness.” Rebecca Salome Foster, 1848-1902) 

The monument was unveiled at the City Club on January 1, 1904, before it permanently installed at the Criminal Courts Building.

Where Are the Women?

Flash forward to late in the twentieth century. A public art committee in New York City was formed in the 1980s, tasked with identifying monuments to women in the city. The answer was very depressing. Even in New York’s 840-acre Central Park, there were no historical women at all. Two fictional women, Alice in Wonderland and Juliet from Romeo and Juliet, are there amongst many, many statues of men. The same situation held true throughout the city.  (As of 2020, a women suffrage movement was added to The Mall that runs through the lower section of the park.)

In a report, the committee read of a monument to a woman from history, Rebecca Salome Foster, the Tombs Angel. She was memorialized in 1904, but the committee report noted that the monument was nowhere to be found. In the mid-1930s, a new building replaced the Tombs, and the monument was placed in storage. When the building was completed, it was never taken back out.

After the survey, administrators went on a hunt to locate the memorial. When the wall monument was unearthed, they found that it had not been carefully packed. Parts of the marble were damaged.

The repair was undertaken by the Metropolitan Museum. When it was returned to the court building, the administrators realized that no one had thought to order a frame.  (The original bronze frame and the “cameo” likeness of Mrs. Foster were both misplaced at some point when the art was being moved around.)

Again, the monument was returned to storage.

Looking Again

In the early 2000s, a grandniece of Rebeca Foster was serving on a judicial commission, so she was in and out of the building regularly. As a child, she had fond memories of the family scrapbook that described Mrs. Foster’s accomplishments. The grandniece asked the whereabouts of the monument. Again, a search was necessary.

At that point, there was added help from an attorney. In 2014, John F. Werner, chief clerk and executive officer of the Supreme Court (1989-2019) who was very interested in court history, spearheaded a new search-and-rescue process.

The monument was retrieved from storage. More funds for additional restoration were allotted from the Municipal Art Society, the New York Public Design Commission, and the Department of Citywide Administration Services. And funds were finally set aside for a bronze frame.

In late June 2019, the central bas-relief section of the three-part memorial was placed in the refurbished lobby of the New York State Supreme Court.

John Werner also became so taken by Foster’s life and career that he and his deputy, attorney Robert C. Meade, successfully completed a biography about Rebecca Foster and her life: By John F. Werner & Robert C. Meade, Jr. A Life of Service: Remembering the Tombs Angel: Rebecca Salome Foster” by John F. Werner, Esq. and Robert C. Meade, Jr., Esq., 2021.

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I am indebted to the detailed research done by John F. Werner, Esq. and Robert C. Meade, Jr., Esq. to create “A Life of Service: Remembering the Tombs Angel,”. Their much longer, more detailed article appears on the website of the Historical  Society of the New York State Courts (posted 2021)

I hope my shorter version will help new riders hear her story. Anyone who wants the complete story should click here.

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