When Allenwood Had A Tuberculosis Camp

Devitt's Camp, Allenwood Pennsylvania

1912-1969

In 1912, Dr William Devitt, a physician in Philadelphia, could not find a sanatorium that would allow his tuberculosis patients family to move in with them.  At a time when sanatoriums were popping up all throughout the US, for treatment of the "White Plague", Devitt purchased 60 acres  near the town of Allenwood, as a place for his patients to recover in the fresh mountain air.  The first residents lived in a barn until cottages were constructed, but ten years later, Devitt's Camp was widely known as one of the best sanatoriums in the state - and the only one in the nation where families could live together as the patients recovered.

Aerial View Of Devitt's Camp [Today, White Deer Run Treatment Center]

"The first view one gets of the camp is on the road from Allenwood.  Among the trees one can see the various cottages of the 'Hillside City Of Hope', where many a battle is being fought to bring back to weakened lungs the vigor they should have.

As you wend your way up to the 'city' you now and then catch a glimpse of the fertile White Deer Valley, framed in history.  Extending to the west are the White deer mountains.  'Tis a beautiful place, this hillside city, and you feel that being so close to nature, breathing the ozone of the pine and hemlock forest must at any rate be pleasant to those persons who must of necessity give up the conventionalities of the city and town and live a life of freedom in the open where fresh air and proper living form the principal medicines." - The Lewisburg Journal, 1916

For nearly a millennia, Tuberculosis was the leading cause of disease.  Referred to as the "White Plague", "Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially serious infectious disease that mainly affects your lungs. The bacteria that cause tuberculosis are spread from one person to another through tiny droplets released into the air via coughs and sneezes."

"As more was learned about tuberculosis, the sanatorium movement began to have a major influence on the care that patients with all forms of tuberculosis received."

Hermann Brehmer, the acknowledged originator of the sanatorium movement, opened the first-ever high-altitude sanatorium to treat pulmonary consumptives in what is today Poland. Brehmer’s  facility encouraged "salubrious rest, chiefly in outdoor lounges and, when needed, using open-air shelters to provide optimal airy conditions; mild, calibrated exercise; and a healthful diet."

The first Sanatorium for pulmonary Tuberculosis in America was established in 1875, in North Carolina.  Eleven years later, Trudeau opened a facility in the Adirondacks, which became the best known institution of its kind in the United States. Expansion of sanatoriums in America was brisk. In 1904, 115 facilities with about 8,000 beds were operating. By 1923, the number had grown to 656 with more than 66,000 beds. In 1953, toward the end of their lifetimes, 839 institutions with over 136,000 beds were fully functioning.

When Dr William Devitt, a Philadelphia Dr with strong ties to Lewisburg, came in contact with patients from the Midvale Steel mills and other manufacturing plants of Philadelphia, he quickly saw the need for a location in the country where those afflicted with tuberculosis could rest and recover in the fresh mountain air.   At first there was no intention to form a "camp", merely a goal of curing three patients, including a man from Lewisburg.  One of the men refused to leave his family, and Dr Devitt could find no facility willing to allow family members.

A graduate of Bucknell University, Dr William Devitt was familiar with the Susquehanna Valley, returning to the area frequently on vacations.  He knew the mountains near White Deer would be an ideal location for his patients to recover, and in 1912, he was able to purchase 60 acres from George Weaver.  

William Devitt was born in Philadelphia in 1874, the son of William and Katherine (Blakely) Devitt.

Forced to leave school at the age of 13, he became a breadwinner in the mills of Manayunk.  After  working from 6am to 6pm he walked 12 miles to and from the city five nights of the week to attend night classes at Temple University.

In 1894, at age 20, he entered Bucknell University in Lewisburg Pa, graduating 3 years later in 1897.

The day he arrived on campus at Bucknell he had just $5 in his pocket, and he did all sorts of odd jobs on campus and around town to put himself through school. From there he went to medical school, having to withdraw after two years due to lack of funds, but earning his degree in 1902. He immediately set up practice in his hometown.

In 1912 Devitt used his life's savings, and a borrowed $400, to purchase the land, 60 acres for a total of $850,  from George Weaver. There was much skepticism among Devitt's professional colleagues.  Money was needed, and the chances of profit were decidedly remote. In addition, Tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the US, and was at the time believed to be incurable.  "Nearly everybody feared it." With no source of income for the Camp, Devitt continued his practice in Mayunuck, making a weekly trip to the camp,

Devitt's camp opened in April of 1912, and five "victims of the White Plague immediately took quarters there." At the time there were no cottages for the campers, and those first five residents "took up their abode in the barn." The lean to of the barn was used as a sleeping porch.

Three months later, ten “shacks” had been constructed. Patients could move in, along with their families, for a fee of $5 a month. The first cabins were “simple affairs, light but sturdy, and designed to admit the greatest possible amount of air and light. They were open to the front, where the ill practically lived on sleeping porches.” Accommodations for both the patient and their family were provided and treatment included daily sunbaths, regular activities, and exercise. Patients walked to the central dining hall for their meals.

Photo from the Lewisburg Journal, 1916

By the time the first ten cottages were constructed, it was obvious that a hall of some sort was needed, for residents to gather together. Every Sunday evening during the first summer, patients gathered on the hill and held a twilight service of song and prayer.  That worked well until the days turned cold, and the daylight hours dwindled.  Then residents crowded into one of the small cottages for the service.  As the rooms were small, they soon became overcrowded and overheated and the Doctor was forced to ask them to discontinue the meetings, as to not risk their recovery.

A "Rest Room" was soon erected. In 1916 it was reported to be, without exception, the best Rest Pavilion of any sanitorium in Pennsylvania.

Built 24x50 feet long, the building had a glass sash on all sides, with a large ventilator above each sash. A large air chamber ran the length of the building, keeping it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The room held a piano, a large Victrola, and a library of 400 books. The building was open to the residents all day long, with a party held weekly by Miss Michaels and services held each Sunday evening.

The benefit of the Devitt camp was that family members came along to the camp, to act as caretakers, under the supervision of the Superintendent, a registered nurse by the name of Miss Ella Michaels.

"A great number of the patients come to Camp Devitt with some member of the household to act as caretaker, thus lessening the chance of homesickness, which would greatly hamper the recovery of the victim. In addition, the family members were trained in the benefit of fresh air, rest and simple nourishment, thus "after they have been practically cured and go to their homes, the chance for relapse are much less."

The camp grew steadily over the years, with many donations from the community.  Twenty two additional cottages were built.   New features and convenience were added, and before long, sunny, comfortable cottages replaced the early "shacks".

"An open front sleeping porch is a feature of each one of the cottages.  The open front is provided with a heavy canvas curtain which is lowered in inclement weather.  On the sleeping porch are two beds and a reclining chair.  The remainder of the cottage is used as a living room, which is 12x12 feet, and a kitchen, which is 6x12 feet.  Between these two rooms is a large doorway five feet wide.  The rooms are ventilated by four large windows. The large doorway between the two rooms makes it easy to heat both of them by use of the stove in the kitchen.  The rooms, in spite of their smallness, are homelike and contain a cupboard, chairs, table, and a hanging lamp in addition to the stove.

From the cooling spring back of the camp running water is piped up to each of the cottages and a sink and faucet from which maybe  tapped the pursed of water is one of the conveniences of the cottages of this hillside city.  The water comes from a never failing spring several hundred feet up the mountain side.  Five of the newest cottages come equipped with bathrooms.

The patients in the cottages furnish their own bedding, table linen, dishes and cooking utensils.  With the aid of pictures and personal belongings the cottages are made to look cozy and homelike" 

- The Lewisburg Journal, February 1916

"The camp is a philanthropic one, this camp for the treatment of tuberculosis.  Organized with no other purpose than to be a benefit to the persons who are suffering with the dreaded White Plague, the camp has grown in the four years of its existence. Not an officer of the camp is paid a salary, and as the charter states, 'no financial profit shall accrue to the managers or officers', one can readily see the philanthropy of the project" - The Lewisburg Journal, 1916

Dr Devitt asked a number of those interested in the work of the camp to give 50 cents a month for a year, to help carry on the work.  As of 1916, only the Superintendent, A registered nurse, received any salary.  The donated funds helped to cover the expenses incurred in the running of the camp.  

"The camp is not a money-making institution. When it was first organized it was placed in the dividend bearing class of corporations, but over a year ago [in 1914] it was taken out of that class and placed in the hospital class. No man or woman was allowed to leave the camp because his money has become exhausted, if the authorities know that a longer stay would restore his health. Sometimes it has been a very hard proposition to raise the necessary funds for these cases, but up to the present time [February 1916] the camp has accomplished it."

Between 1912 and 1925, the camp cared for nearly 700 patients.

Over the years the camp had many financial troubles, but it always managed to pull through with the assistance of benefactors who believed in the vision of Dr Devitt.  The surrounding communities also contributed.

In 1921, electricity was installed at the camp, and donations from the Montgomery American Legion paid for a "moving picture machine".  Donations from the Milton Rotary Club paid for the  installation of cement sidewalk

The camp had a telephone, and the butcher, baker and milkman all made daily stops to serve both the patients and those residing in the nearby village.  A general boarding house provided meals for those patients who were alone at the camp.

Following World War I, Devitt's Camp was chosen by the Federal Government to be one of the institutions to receive soldiers who contracted tuberculosis "as a result of gassing or some other source" during their service.  The camp was greatly expanded to accommodate a large number of new patients.

Devitt's Camp Dining Hall

In 1922, Dr. Devitt and his wife moved to the camp permanently and raised their two children, Helen and William Jr., there. Memories from "Bill" Devitt, from growing up at the camp, included:

“when the big flood came and cut us off [from civilization] for about two weeks. The creek at Allenwood was so high that groceries for camp had to be delivered by rowboat.”

“Sometime in the late 1930s, we kids ran down the hill from camp to an open field halfway to Spring Garden where a small single-engine plane had landed.  We had never seen an airplane up close and it was quite a thrill to walk around it and touch it.”

“On the road to the farm was a potato cellar where I would help shovel stored potatoes into buckets, take them to the camp and then help peel the potatoes in a spinning machine that ground off the skins.  There was also a foot-operated grinding stone to sharpen the kitchen’s knifes as well as the scythe blades used for cutting the saplings on the ‘fire break.’  All around the upper side of the camp was a wide swath where trees had been removed to prevent a forest fire from approaching the camp buildings.  Ashes from the various furnaces were continually dumped to smooth the rocky area, but saplings continued to grow and needed cutting on a continuing basis, which I did to earn pocket money as a teen.   There was also a dump for all the waste and debris out in the woods.  There, we kids got our target practice on the plentiful rats, first with BB guns and later with 22’s.”

Bill’s parents paid tuition for him to attend school in Watsontown. At the end of the day, he would catch a ride with other children in the panel truck that made daily trips into town for groceries.  “We sat on crude wooden benches in the back amid the boxes and bags.  Some days we stopped at the Sheffer ice plant in Dewart to get a load of six or eight 150-pound blocks of ice that tended to move around on the bed of the truck, requiring us to keep them at bay with our feet!” 

“During wartime, my dad had me join him in the room beside the theater at camp where all the patient’s X-rays were stored.  We methodically opened each large envelope and stripped off the lead foil covering the packing paper the unexposed film had come in and which had been left to put the exposed X-ray film in.  We rolled it up into about a dozen balls each nearly 2-ft diameter and took it to town for lead scrap along with the bales of newspapers, boxes of flattened tin cans, balls of string, piles of lead toothpaste tubes and any scrap iron we could find.  Everything was needed and many people in Watsontown, and elsewhere, lost their cast iron fences to this effort.”

“During the war, we watched with interest the massive construction at the now off-limits Ordnance Depot. I used a brass extendable telescope, and after the war was over, we continued to watch as large quantities of stored explosives were piled up and detonated. Our house windows would always rattle from the blasts even though we were a couple miles away.”

 When camp director, Herbert Norton, died in 1925, Dr. Devitt took over the camp’s operations until William Jr. was appointed superintendent of his father’s camp in 1936. By then, patients were charged up to $30 per week and the camp was considered one of the premier TB treatment facilities in the eastern United States.

By 1935, the camp included "a fine and roomy recreation building, ample cottages and dormitories, a nurses home, physicians residence, modern medical and operating equipment, and everything needed for the cure of tuberculosis." A 42-bed hospital facility, a dormitory for nurses, a recreational building, and a dining hall were constructed, thanks to community donations and other fundraising efforts.

A booklet, "The Story Of Devitt's Camp", was formally presented to Dr William Devitt as a ceremony held in his honor in 1936. "The impressive ceremony marked the completion of a campaign stated by former patients to honor Dr Devitt on the occasion of the camps 25th anniversary."  The first booklet, specially bound in leather, was presented to Dr Devitt by it's editor, James H. Coogan, a former patient. The publication traced the history of the camp from its beginning, to "its present standing as one of the leading tuberculosis sanatoria in the east."

The camp offered employment to many local residents. By the late 1930s, roughly 60 employees, including doctors, nurses, technicians, and maintenance staff, lived and worked at the camp. 

During the summer months, area schoolgirls were paid $9 a week  in 1943, to work in the kitchen of the camp.  

An interview with Aunt Betty (Truckenmiller) Bower in 2017 was published by Northcentral Pa News:

"Betty Bower was 16 years old when she and several of her friends from Watsontown High School were hired to help prepare meals and deliver food trays to the patients’ rooms. Leona McCormick was another one of the girls who received free room and board and rose early – by 5:00 AM – to help shell beans, peel potatoes, and prepare meals using produce purchased from local farms. During their few hours of free time, Betty and Leona recall afternoon strolls to nearby Spring Garden and Allenwood to buy ice cream with their friends. At the end of their summer at Devitt’s Camp, the girls returned home with plans on how to spend some of their well-earned money. “After all,” says Betty, “a tube of lipstick was 10 cents back then!”  "

When I asked family members about Aunt Betty working there, a cousin recounted the following story, about the harrowing road leading up to the camp:

"Aunt Myra [Betty's sister] worked there as well. Uncle Bill told me once, he rode his bicycle up to the camp to meet Aunt Myra after work.. Aunt Myra was on the handle bars and while going down the hill he lost the coaster brake on the bike. He said Myra screamed all the down the hill, and when they got to the bottom he had to turn left. He said they coasted all out to the highway before he stopped."

The End Of Devitts Camp

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The  advent of successful medical treatment for tuberculosis came in the mid 1950s, rendering the services of Devitt's Camp obsolete.

In 1956,  the Devitt family sold the camp to the United Church Of Christ, operators of the Phoebe Home in Allentown Pa.  Phoebe, a facility for the elderly, planned to expand their services to the Allenwood area. The camp was sold for $1, with the condition that the Devitt name be retained.  In June of 1956, the new  Devitt Home dedication took place with 2,200 people in attendance.  . Renovations on the old, neglected camp buildings were begun immediately and, by 1960, 109 residents were enjoying the pleasant rural surroundings in central Pennsylvania.

The Aspden Building - t Devitt Home

Phoebe Home for the Aged Of The United Church Of Christ

The Devitt Home continued the tradition of having staff live on the property.  

One resident was Isobel Foresman, from Alvira.  After training as a nurse in Philadelphia, she served in the Nurse Corps during WWII.  After the war, she worked as a private nurse in Philadelphia, before returning to the area nad working at the former Muncy Home For Women.

In 1958, Isobel was hired as a registered nurse for the Devitt Home, where she was offered housing in a private cottage.  Her younger sister, and parents came to live there with her, her parents having been displaced when their home in Alvira was taken for the war effort.

When the Devitt Home closed in 1969, Isobel went to Allentown to continue working for Phoebe there.

In 1969, with the facility needing major renovations, Phoebe made the decision to close their Allenwood location, moving the 85 elderly patients in residence to the facility in Allentown. The Devitt home was auctioned off , bringing less than  $100,000. 

In the early  1970s,  the location became an alcohol and drug rehabilitation facility, known as the White Deer Run Treatment center.

1956

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For More Stories & History Of Allenwood:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2020/12/allenwood-pennsylvania.html

For More Stories & Histories from Local Towns:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/p/history.html

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Devitt was a tuberculosis hospital back in the 40s. It was bought in the 50s by “Phoebe” and became a nursing home facility. Some time in the 60s it moved to Allentown. It is now White Deer Run

Beginning in 1907, Christmas Seals were first sold through U.S. post offices, and later directly through the mail. Purchasers affixed the seals to Christmas greeting cards and gift wrappers. Proceeds supported sanatoriums for the treatment of tuberculosis. This image shows one of several posters commissioned by the American Lung Association to promote sales of Seals. George V. Curtis is the artist. Image courtesy of the American Lung Association.

The Miltonian, 1931

1920

The Miltonian, April 1922

Lewisburg Journal, 1916

The Altoona Tribune, 1936

1925

1925

1955

1955

Lewisburg Journal 1936

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 Reminisces of Jack Devitt, grandson of Dr William Devitt:

Jack says, “This was such a big attraction that Dad finally bought one for our home from John Ravert. John ran the Gulf gas station in Watsontown which included a budding new business selling TVs.”

With his older brother, Bill, attending the same Watsontown school 13 years earlier, Jack also spent his elementary school years at the 8-room grade school on 8th Street.

“In grades 5 and 6, I was getting old enough to have a bit of a social life, so periodically, I would have one of my schoolmates stay overnight at Camp, and sometimes I would go spend a day or two at their house ‘in town’, which was a pretty big deal for a kid like me.  In grade 6, I also encountered  my first real girlfriend, Kaye, and I will ever remember our first real ‘date’ going together to the Watsontown movie theatre to see William Inge’s ‘Picnic’, and afterwards - being a fine summer evening – we strolled hand in hand along the canal bank, thinking that the world right then was pretty well perfect.  Little did I know at the time that such moments were to be rare and treasured times in my life.”

But, according to Jack, the highlight of his 6th grade year occurred late one morning “when the fire alarms went off and smoke started drifting through the cracks in the doors to our classroom.  We were all dutifully marched down the front steps, leaving all our coats and school things behind, and out of the building, where we watched for the next several hours while the fire trucks made a feeble and unsuccessful effort to extinguish the blaze.”

“Finally, the excitement being over, volunteers delivered the kids home who lived out of town..  I will never forget the puzzled look on Mom's face when she asked me what I was doing home at that hour.  My reply, of course, was "The school burned down". Finally, after his mother was convinced that he was telling the truth, they piled into her spiffy green '49 Pontiac convertible and went to view the ruins.  Jack finished the remainder of the school year in the basement of one of the local churches.

Jack recalls a favorite spot to go in Watsontown was the "BD" - the Blue Diamond café -  for a cherry soda or a "CMP" (a chocolate-marshmallow-peanut sundae).  Jay Muffley's barber shop was the place to go for a good haircut, and Ken Becker's 5 &10 cent store was the place to shop for odds and ends. 

Jack recalls that Allenwood was “easily accessible by bicycle from Camp.  A favorite ‘hang out’ for us kids was Butts Jamison’s café. It was on the river side of the main highway and almost across from the intersection where the valley road to Camp commenced.  Butts was a great bear of a man with a jolly, round face and a bald pate, and an ever present mischievous smile, and would always try to bedevil us kids by serving our ice cream cones upside down over our heads.  We would cringe and he would roar with laughter.  He had a great pinball machine by the counter which was always a treat and challenge to play without setting off the "tilt" alarm.  I still remember a sign posted on the wall facing the counter, ‘Don't knock our coffee.  You may be old and weak yourself someday’.”

Jack remembers another favorite haunt for bike riding was the old covered bridge crossing Spring Garden Creek. “We kids loved to race back and forth on our bicycles and play hide and seek in the massive support timbers underneath.  Sadly, it is now gone, replaced by a modern bridge some ways distant from the old location.”

“We would always go across the creek and stop at Dave Jamison’s house. He had a huge asparagus garden between the back of his house and the creek, and, in season, always had plenty to give away.  I was always interested in exploring the trails on the mountain above our house at Camp, and old Dave was the expert, so I would take my government topography maps down to him and get him to tell stories about the places on the maps that I was curious about.”  

“Once, I asked him about a trail marked on the map as ‘Bridle Trail’, and he regaled me with a wonderful story about how, long ago, an Indian Chief Bridle had made this trail through the forests and was one day ambushed and killed there.  It was not till long after, when the topic again came up with my Dad, that I realized that old Dave had been pulling my leg, and had made the whole thing up as entertainment for us, and probably more so, for himself!”