Radio Script #1223

Little Talks on Common Things
December 30, 1979

During the early years of this program I had much to say about paupers, but I do not recall that I ever discussed the evolution of the farming-out system into the institution of poor farms, and their abandonment under the modern welfare system.

It is worth noting that, from the earliest colonial times to the present day, the towns and cities have always felt responsible for their poor citizens, although passing any of that responsibility on to the state or the federal government has been of recent development.

Early care of the poor was, whenever possible, in their own homes, whether actually in the paupers owned place or in rented quarters. As soon as a Maine town was incorporated, it had four major responsibilities: support of a settled minister, support of schools, building and maintenance of roads and bridges, and support of the poor. The law demanded that no needy family be left to starve. If a man could not support himself and his family, the town must help through general taxation.

When a poor family could not maintain its own home, the town faced the problem of finding a place for them to live. Long before the days of poor farms, the most common method was what was called “auctioning off the poor”. That was the plan used in Waterville until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century. Every head of family unable to support his own had his name brought up in town meeting noting the number and ages of persons in his family. Male residents voting in the meeting could then individually present bids for those paupers’ support. A bid meant that the bidder would take the pauper’s family into his own house for a certain amount per week paid by the town.

There are records showing that sometimes an aged couple was thus bid off for $1.50 a week, room and board for both. That was the guaranteed amount until the next town meeting. There is one Maine case of a family of four being taken for a total of $3.75 per week. One can well imagine what kind of food and lodging these poor people got. What made that particular case more pitiful was that 150 years ago there was no such thing as Workman’s Compensation – no state or federal program to care for permanent injury and the head of that $3.75 pauper family had been crippled by an accident when he worked on a lumber crew in the Maine woods.

Clothing the poor was cared for by the selectmen in their capacity as Overseers of the Poor. They persuaded people to hand over discarded garments, much as the Salvation Army does today, then stored them for distribution as needed. Because of many complaints about the uneven, and sometimes abusive, treatment of bid-off poor families, towns gradually came to the conclusion that the best way to care for paupers was on a town poor farm. Thus arose the doleful expression, “over the hill to the poor house.” At first, the poor house was little improvement over the auction system, because the agent was not paid a salary, but was allowed a substantial commission from the products of the farm. The town allowed him a weekly allowance of the surplus of food supplies. He was supposed to get all the work he could out of every pauper in his charge – they had to keep up the farm, and see that the cows, horses, pigs and hens were cared for. All the products not used on the farm he could sell and retain the allotted commission, sometimes as high as 20 percent, handing over the rest to the town treasurer.

So, the more surplus produce grown on the farm, the better the sale of milk, eggs, chickens, cows and beef, as well as vegetables and hay, the higher would be the agent’s pay. It was to his benefit to see that the inmates were fed just as little as he could get away with. The system became subject to about as much abuse as the old auction system. Because only the agent kept any detailed records and the state demanded no health inspections, the agent who ran the poor farm could get away with a lot of chicanery. Ruthless and corrupt practices became so common that changes had to be made.

As a result, soon after the Civil War, most Maine towns were paying the agent a fixed, annual salary, and the farm accounts were regularly audited. The town received credit for all the farm’s produce, and accepted responsibility for all expenditures. The agent and his family lived on the farm, and received as part of their pay, what they recorded of the farm’s produce. That system corrected many abuses. In 1880 the Waterville Mail said of that town’s poor farm, then located on the Webb Road: “The poor who are lodged there receive good treatment, and their standard of living is as good as the average family’s in town. They are clothed comfortably and are not overvorked, and are provided with good medical attention when they are sick.”

In the following week’s issue of the Mail, a selectman of Sidney insisted that the poor were just as well treated in that neighboring town as they were in Waterville. He invited folks to come to the Sidney Town Farm and see for themselves. The location of that farm was on what is still called the Town Farm Road, running between the River Road and the Middle Road in Sidney.

There were several reasons why the town farms were abandoned in the twentieth century. Laws passed soon after World War I made it more expensive to operate a poor farm than to care for poor people in their own homes. More important was the change in social attitudes that gradually led to social security and welfare programs that have made the United States today almost a completely socialistic welfare state. Before 1920 such assistance as Mother’s Aid and many other similar benefits were unheard of, to say nothing of Medicare, Medicaid, tax relief, and numerous other benefits. If today, a community tried to give equal care to a family on a poor farm, with inflationary costs, the expense would be crippling.

We have thus seen radical, wide-open changes in public attitude toward support of the poor. As late as 1850, a Maine man could be imprisoned for debt. Today debt seems fashionable. The discount stores all encourage it, and the banks are only too eager to loan money for all sorts of purchases. It is quite a different America we live in today from that of 250 years ago, when the colony of Georgia was founded by shipping British imprisoned debtors as settlers across the Atlantic.

Another old method of dealing with poverty was indenture. To escape imprisonment for debt a man would hire himself out, practically as slave, for a term of years. Indenture also was a common way for a European family to secure voluntary passage to America. To someone who would pay the cost of the family’s transportation. the head of the family would become an indentured servant. Of course, the practice more often affected single men rather than families. The effect of indenture bore most heavily upon children. Though colonial statutes did not permit child indenture before the age of 12, parents frequently lied about children’s ages, and authorities were inclined to enforce the law very loosely. A birth certificate was seldom required. The indenture required that the child be bound to his master until the age of 21. The master was obligated to provide suitable food, clothing and medical care, but there was no public supervision to see that he did. Hence there was a tremendous range of such experiences.

While some masters and mistresses treated those boys and girls badly and even cruelly, there were others who established such lasting, fond relations with their young charges that they were considered the true parents, doing better for those youngsters than their natural parents could have done. Often an indentured boy found a way to overcome the lying about his age. Since the law forbade indenture before the age of 12, if a bound out boy could prove he had been indentured for nine years, it was assumed he must be 21 years old. When a boy was sent by a father to work on a neighbor’s farm or with a crew into the woods, the pay was made to the father, not the son. I have examined hundreds of old account books that contain items like this: “John’s work for Abner Grant, 8 days at 50 cents, $4.25.” Sometimes a father could take the action called “giving a son his time, ” that is, releasing him to be on his own and retain his own wages before he reached the age of 21. In most cases the reason was clear. It was not an act of benevolence, but a move to get out of the house another mouth to feed.

There was a boom in those early releases at the time of the California Goldrush in 1849. But even then, the early release usually occurred only if the father could do better without the son’s wages than he could do with them. That, in substance, is the story of help for the poor during the years since the first settlements in America. Perhaps it shows that there is some truth in today’s frequent comment, “You have to be very rich or very poor to get along today.”

Year: 1979