Chester meets Crozer Hospital !! Lots of history happenings this month!

The Robert Crozer addition to Chester Hospital about 1930.

 

 

 

NOTE: For years, the Crozer family gave 100's of 1,000 of dollars to Chester City for parks, libraries and yes, a hospital. The Crozer's were always very generous.

 

 

 

CHESTER TIMES – July 1, 1920 

 AGREEMENT REACHED FOR A NEW HOSPITAL FOR THIS COMMUNITY 

 Institution Will Be Known as the Robert H. Crozer Hospital and Deeded to Chester Hospital

                Another hospital for Chester was announced this morning, to be known as the “Robert H. Crozer Hospital.”

                The new structure will be erected upon the grounds of the Chester Hospital, and under the terms of the agreement reached yesterday at a special meeting, the new hospital will be deeded to the Chester Hospital for a term of ninety-nine years.

                Final satisfaction of the terms of the agreement ended a long series of conferences between the executors of the Crozer will and the Chester Hospital Board of Managers regarding the bequest of the sum of $200,000 by Mr. Crozer upon his death several years ago, for the “erection of a hospital in Upland or Chester.”

                In his will, Robert H. Crozer declared:  “I give and bequeath to my executors and the survivors and survivors of them shall appoint by last will and testament….the sum of two hundred thousand dollars, in trust, to invest the same and keep the same invested as a first lien on good real estate securities and in their discretion either at once or when the proper time in their judgment shall have arrived, in trust to organize a corporation for the purpose of maintaining a hospital in the Borough of UPLAND OR IN THE City of Chester, in which such of my executors as shall be then alive shall be included  and to apply the principal with its accumulations to the founding and endowing of a hospital…to be conducted to the Allopathic system of practice, devoting such part of the legacy as may seem to them proper to the erection of buildings and to equipment.”

                Since the bequeathing of the $200,000 the sum has grown to $240,000.  The executors declared their intention of making available the fund for the immediate erection of a hospital, provided that arrangements could be made for the maintenance and operation of the hospital when completed.

                Thereupon, the Chester Hospital made known its willingness to provide the necessary land upon which such a hospital and could be built, and to undertake the operation and maintenance of the hospital when complete3d.

                PROVISION OF AGREEMENT- The agreement reached yesterday provided that the Chester Hospital “shall convey by good and sufficient assurances unto the said party of the first part in fee simple absolute the following described lot or piece of ground in the city of Chester, to wit:

                “All that certain piece of ground….beginning at a point 246 feet north of Ninth Street and 198 feet and 7 inches west of Penn Street, thence extending northwardly parallel with Barclay Street, 168 feet to a point, thence eastwardly parallel with Ninth Street, 41 feet to a point; thence southwardly parallel with Barclay Street 168 feet; thence westward with Ninth Street 41 feet.”

                The agreement provided for a sufficient right of way for persons and vehicles over the Chester Hospital lands proper from the piece of ground into Penn Street, and a similar right of way into Barclay Street.

                The new hospital will be constructed on plans passed upon by the Robert H. Crozer executors for complete hospital buildings, “with dispensary and other accompaniments to be usually found in first class hospitals, together with all necessary equipment, except bedding, linen and surgical apparatus.”

                Upon the completion of the new hospital, the Crozer executo9rs will execute an agreement of the lease and land upon which the hospital will be erected, leasing the new hospital tot the Chester Hospital for a term of ninety-nine years, at a rent of $1.00 per year, with renewal privilege under the same terms.

                In other words, the directors of the Robert H. Crozer Hospital will build a hospital, as per the desire of Robert H. Crozer, and upon its completion will turn this over to the Chester Hospital, defined as the Robert H. Crozer Hospital, but in reality a very valuable adjunct to the present Chester Hospital, which will manage and conduct the new hospital on virtually the same plan as the Houston Memorials have been accepted and merged as a part of the Chester Hospital.

It was very specifically declared at yesterday’s special meeting that no part of the moneys raised in the recent campaign for the Chester Hospital will be devoted to the new hospital, the sums contributed by the people of Chester being reserved for the powerhouse, equipment and other expenses of which the contributors were told of during the campaign.

Work is scheduled to start as soon as bids are received and the contract awarded for the building, plans for which will be approved by Robert H. Crozer Hospital.  Upon the completion of the structure and its merging with the Chester Hospital, the new addition will give the city one of the finest hospital plants in the State and will go a long ways in gaining a position commensurate with the rapid growth of the city in the last decade and the consequent expansion of hospital needs.

 

 

 

. Crozer Hospital will build a hospital, as per the desire of Robert H. Crozer, and upon its completion