Last week, I wrote about the old County Home in Loysville, which was recently demolished. I was curious about the demise of such a proud building, so I went digging in my favorite histories of Perry County, Silas Wright’s (1873) and H.H. Hain’s (1922).
Wright mentions a fabulously expensive brick edifice outside of Loysville—“for the use of the poor—” that was being built as his book was going to press, in 1873. Hain completes the story of the construction, writing, in 1922, that the total cost of the four-story structure was roughly $60,000—in other words, a fortune in 1870s dollars. The Home was the most expensive, and possibly the grandest, building in Perry County.
This led me to wonder why such public largesse had been lavished on what was then called “the Home for the Destitute.”
Hain’s history of the county home went all the way back to the formation of Perry County. Back in the early 1820s, when Perry County was still Cumberland County, there was already an almshouse in Loysville, under the administration of the Directors of the Poor and of the House of Employment.
I have to confess that I found some of these concepts—including the job title “Director of the Poor—” a bit…alien.
For instance, an “almshouse.” I understand what it means to give alms. December is a great month for alms-giving. The holidays bring with them countless appeals for charity. Okay, I thought, an almshouse must be a place of charity.
But if an almshouse was a place of charity, why were its residents called “inmates?”
Hain quotes an account, dating from April 14, 1824, from the Perry Forester:
“About forty of the paupers belonging to Cumberland County, passed through Landisburg this morning from the poorhouse in this county, on their way to Cumberland, attended by the commissioners and some of the overseers of that county. About ten of the Cumberland poor have been left by the overseers to be boarded…in the Perry County poorhouse at present.”
Aha! So it wasn’t an almshouse. It was a poorhouse.
But what was the difference? More research was in order.
It turns out that the problems of taking care of the poor and incapacitated were already well rehearsed in this country by 1824. Carving a civilization out of the American wilderness was not a job for the faint of heart. Or the weak.
Even back in the 18th century, the social safety net was being stretched to its limits. Mental illness, disease, crippling injury, weak old age—these frailties have always traveled with human beings, wherever they have gone. But our new country was also facing new challenges.
For instance, the practice of indentured servitude, which was commonplace, was creating a legion of runaway servants. These runaways, fleeing from the punitive labor contracts they’d been forced to sign, were popping up all over, sapping the resources of townships and municipalities.
Then there was England’s unsavory habit of shipping convicts and other undesirables to the Colonies, which added mightily to the ranks of the unemployed—and unemployable.
Ordinary citizens were being taxed at higher and higher rates to pay for the care and feeding of these “undesirables.” The solution? The creation of a county-wide “home” to help get a handle on the administration and expense of caring for wards of the state.
The practice of putting people in prison for owing money was finally phased out in 1842, thank goodness. But paupers could still be remanded to a county home, under terms that practically made them inmates for life.
That’s something to think about in this season, with two difficult years of recession behind us. Millions of Americans have lost jobs and homes. We’ve all been touched by the recent economic calamities. But imagine if, in addition to losing most of one’s worldly possessions, filing Chapter Thirteen meant taking a humiliating public oath of poverty, followed by time behind bars?
We’ve now made our way to the middle of the 19th century. That’s good progress, but I’ll save the Civil War and the Great Depression for the next column. After all, it’s Christmas Eve. Time to lighten up!
In light of the holidays, I wanted to take a moment to thank the readers of the Perry County Times for letting me introduce myself, my family, and our life on St. Peters Church Road to you this year.
Thinking about Perry County, researching its past and present, and working up these weekly columns has become an important part of my writing life. I appreciate all of your emails and letters, and look forward to even more of them in the weeks and months to come.
The opportunity to learn more about this county has been a great gift.
And for that, in this time of giving and receiving, I thank you.
This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 24 December 2009
For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com
