By Jim Lancaster

Have you ever heard people speak of the "Poorhouse?" Like the old sayings, "If you don't start taking care of your money - you'll end up in the poorhouse!" or, "He went from the penthouse to the poorhouse!"

Yes!  This is not just a saying or a cliché - there was such a thing as the poorhouse in early America and in Arkansas. The threat of the poorhouse was not just something like ghosts or the boogeyman that parents and old folks used to frighten children. Even today parents still warn children that their greedy demands are going to put them in the poorhouse. "My father used to tell me and my sisters when we were kids that we were going to put him in the poorhouse - but I didn't know that he was talking about a real place," said Pat (Hope) Lucas who in a hostess at the Grant County Museum.

County poorhouses were common throughout the United States in most of the 1800's.  State and Federal legislation called for tax-supported poorhouses or poor farms to provide for people that fell upon hard times and couldn't provide for themselves.

A U. S. Dept. of Commerce and Labor publication dated 1904 gives an outline of the laws governing poor relief in the United States and includes a summary of each state's legislation regarding paupers and poorhouses. 

Arkansas - Every county must relieve its own poor.  Sheriffs, coroners, constables, and justices of the peace shall give information to their respective county courts of the poor; and the county court has the duty of providing for such persons.  If satisfied that the applicants are paupers, the county court shall under their commitment to the poorhouse, there to remain until discharged by an order of the court.  County courts have the power to establish poorhouses, and when completed the court shall let them out annually to the lowest responsible bidder under bond for the faithful care of the inmates.  In counties without poorhouses, the court may let the care of the poor to the lowest responsible bidder.  The county is not liable for the support of any pauper who refuses to accept county aid in the manner provided above.  The county court may cause the employment of each able-bodied pauper on the work of the county.  (U.S. Dept. of Commerce & Labor 1904)

Prior to legislation setting up poorhouses, there was a position called "Overseer of the Poor" and there was even a process where poor people and even their families could be auctioned off for their keep and labor.

People who could not support themselves (and their families) were put up for bid at public auction. In an unusual type of auction, the pauper was sold to the lowest bidder (the person who would agree to provide room and board for the lowest price) -- usually this was for a specific period of a year or so. The person who got the contract got the use of the labor of the pauper for free in return for feeding, clothing, housing and providing health care for the pauper and his/her family. This was actually a form of indentured servitude. It sounds a lot like slavery -- except that it was technically not for the pauper's entire lifetime. And it had many of the perils of slavery. The welfare of the paupers depended almost entirely upon the kindness and fairness of the bidder. If he was motivated only by a desire to make the maximum profit off the "use" of the pauper, then concern for "the bottom line" might result in the pauper being denied adequate food, or safe and comfortable shelter, or even necessary medical treatment. And there often was very little recourse for protection against abuse. (Historical records)

Records indicate that the "Poorhouse System" was somewhat imported from England where the factory system had created a need for providing relief to paupers.  And there was a fervent popular belief in England that housing such people in institutions would provide the opportunity to reform them and cure them of the bad habits and character defects that were assumed to be the cause of their poverty.

By 1875, after the regulation of poorhouses in most states became the responsibility of the State Board of Charities, laws were passed prohibiting children from residing in poorhouses and removing mentally ill patients and others with special needs to more appropriate facilities.

The poorhouse population was even more narrowly defined during the early years of the twentieth century when social welfare legislation (Public Welfare, Worker's Compensation, Unemployment benefits and Social Security) began to provide a rudimentary "safety net" for people who would previously have been pauperized by such circumstances. Eventually the poorhouses evolved almost exclusively into nursing homes for dependent elderly people. But poorhouses left orphanages, general hospitals and mental hospitals - for which they had provided the prototype as their heritage.

Records of poorhouses in Arkansas are difficult to find and no records have been found for poorhouses in what is now Grant County.  There are records regarding paupers and poorhouses in Pope and Green Counties.  These records are mostly about people being declared paupers and committed to the poorhouse or poor farm.  The following are examples of the records from Pope County:

Oct. 7, 1881 -- Mrs. Caroline Tinsley declared a pauper and Mr. Campbell ordered to deliver said Mrs. Tinsley to the poor house keepers.

Oct. 7, 1891 -- G.A. Gideon brings Emeline Morris before the court and she is declared a pauper. Gideon is ordered to deliver Morris to H.L. Bowers, the keeper of the paupers.

March 28, 1892 -- Peter Huggler receives $60 for burying a pauper.

March 29, 1892 -- Ephaim Stinnett, "unable to work and earn a living by   manual labor," is declared a pauper and ordered delivered to the poor house keeper.

January 1893 -- Mary E. Hampton, 3, and Cleveland Hampton, 5, abandoned by their father two years prior, are declared paupers and are to be "clothed, maintained and otherwise supported by the County of Pope."

Jan. 16, 1894 -- Anna McLaren is declared a pauper and ordered delivered to the poor house keeper.

Oct. 2, 1894 -- G.W. Berryman, county judge, reports 11 paupers supported by the county at a charge of $6.75 per head (per month).

From Green County came this record.    Before the "poor farm" was established, people who fell on hard times would be taken care of by someone who was reimbursed by the county. This entry, taken from History of Greene County, Arkansas by Vivian Hansbrough, is a sample: "On this day it is ordered by the court that Richard E. Bearden be allowed the sum of Eight & 50/100 Dollars per month from this date for keeping Lucy Lumpkin a pauper for the remainder of the year 1877, for which warrants may issue quarterly on the Pauper fund, and that said Bearden enter into sufficient bond conditioned for the faithful discharge of his duties as keeper of said pauper."

The old Grant County Courthouse records at the Grant County Museum list the "Paupers Fund" but make no mention that Grant County had a designated poorhouse.  The 1892 records of the paupers fund listed six ledger pages of activity and a balance of $1155.13 with annual disbursements of $753.93.  These listings for payments only showed notations of "paid to warrant" for each of the entries. By 1904 the closing balance of the paupers fund showed $138.29; and by the year 1910 the fund showed a balance of only $37.00.  This indicates that the paupers system was rapidly changing by the turn of the century.

Since what is now Grant County was a part of Saline County until 1869, it is likely that any poorhouse of that era would have been in the Benton area, since Benton was the county seat.  This may be the reason that Grant County didn't have a poorhouse or poor farm when many other counties of Arkansas did.  

The poorhouse may not have been the as awful as it sounds - there are records that indicate some famous people of the past at some time in their lives spent time in the poorhouse.  The best examples are Annie Oakley of wild-west fame, Anne Sullivan who taught blind and deaf Helen Keller, and Calamity Jane, another feminine hero of early America who was known for her riding and shooting skills.

Perhaps in the 21st century the word "poorhouse" is most often used by people to make jokes - people that have little knowledge of this period of American and Arkansas history when poor farms and poorhouses were very real.

WHAT WERE POORHOUSES?

(often also called Poor Farms -- and several similar terms --
      or referred to with the older term -- Almshouses)

Poorhouses were tax-supported residential institutions to which people were required to go if they could not support themselves. They were started as a method of providing a less expensive (to the taxpayers) alternative to what we would now days call "welfare" - what was called "outdoor relief" in those days. People requested help from the community Overseer of the Poor ( sometimes also called a Poor Master) - an elected town official. If the need was great or likely to be long-term, they were sent to the poorhouse instead of being given relief while they continued to live independently. Sometimes they were sent there even if they had not requested help from the Overseer of the Poor. That was usually done when they were found guilty of begging in public, etc.

[One misconception should be cleared up here; they were not technically "debtors' prisons." Someone could owe a great deal of money, but if they could still provide themselves with the necessities for remaining independent they might avoid the poorhouse.]

Source -  HISTORY OF 19th CENTURY AMERICAN POORHOUSES