Veith House

Veith House is an organization whose mission is to meet the needs of children, individuals and families, with empowerment as an ever-present goal. It is located at 3115 Veith St in the North End of the Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is just down the hill from one of Halifax's landmarks, The Hydrostone.

Veith House
The former Halifax Protestant Children's Orphanage still stands today as it was rebuilt two years following the Halifax Explosion
Country Canada
Province Nova Scotia
MunicipalityHalifax Regional Municipality
Planning areaHalifax Peninsula
Established1857
Demolished by the Halifax Explosion1917
Rebuilt1919
Time zoneUTC-4
Present at the time of the explosionOne staff and twenty children
Number of survivorsSix
Places in Nova Scotia

History

Veith House's history dates back to the 1800s. The Halifax Protestant Orphanage (also known as the Protestant Orphan's Home) was in existence from 1857 to 1969. The orphanage was founded by Reverend Robert Fitzgerald Uniacke (rector of St. George Church) in 1857 and was previously located on North Park Street. This became home to a countless number of children, both girls and boys. Among those who worked there as staff during the 1890s was matron Lucy Anne Rogers Butler, an educator and social worker who had spent her early 30s documenting her 1870s travel experiences with her sea captain husband.[1][2]

The orphanage was relocated to Veith Street where it was destroyed in the Halifax Explosion in 1917, claiming the lives of both children and staff. Of the 21 people present in the building at the time of the explosion, only six survived. At this site, a monument has been erected commemorating the lives of the children and staff members lost in the disaster.

Post-explosion

Post-explosion, the orphanage was rebuilt, but by 1969 the orphanage closed its doors. The property was then transferred to the Halifax Children's Foundation, to be used as the Veith House Community Centre and is still running today.

References
  1. Laidlaw, Toni Ann. "Rogers, Lucy Anne Harrington", in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto/Université Laval, accessed May 1, 2018.
  2. "An Act to amend and consolidate the Acts relating to the Halifax Protestant Orphans' Home." The Statutes of Nova Scotia Passed in the Forty-Ninth Year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Being the Fourth General Session of the Twenty-Eighth General Assembly Convened in the Said Province, pp. 227-228. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: Commissioner of Public Works and Mines, Queen's Printer, 1886.

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