A Cornerstone of Healing

The cornerstone is laid for the new St. Joseph’s Hospital at Behring and Sophia (now Burling and Dickens) streets.  The institution began in 1868 when Bishop James Duggan invited the Daughters of Charity, based in Maryland, to come to Chicago to tend to victims of cholera.  The Daughters of Charity opened what was then called Providence Hospital in a two-story cottage at the corner of Clark Street and Diversey Avenue, which at that time was a quarter-mile north of the city limits.  That building, situated just beyond the burnt district, will shelter refugees from the great fire.