Lawrence County, Tennessee

The County Poor Farm

    Before the county purchased property and established the first Poor Farm in Lawrence County in 1820, the court appointed individuals (usually the lowest bidder) to take care of the indigent who did not have money or a place to live. These individuals were paid a certain amount of money each quarter to cover the expenses for the paupers. In some instances, the paupers were given the money to cover their own expenses. Orphaned children, whose parents did not leave sufficient money for their care under a guardian or have a relative to take them in, were "bound out" or indentured to people who provided them with food, clothing and a minimum education in exchange for the orphan doing manual labor for their new family.

    Even after the county farm began, there were some cases where another individual was paid to take care of the poor. This happened if a pauper was deemed to be better living with another family. There have been many poor farms over the years in different areas of Lawrence County with most sites long forgotten. It seems that the majority of the poor farms in the earlier years were only kept by the county for a few years. Then, for some reason, they sold the farm and purchased another one, only to do the same thing all over again in a few years. There are only four whose locations I have determined for sure. At times, there were years between the ending of one county farm and the beginning of a new one, so the needy were still under the care of other people in the county. 

    There was usually an overseer or superintendent of the poor farm. "Farm" was the appropriate word, since just about everything the superintendent, his family and the inmates ate was raised on the farm: vegetables, fruits, cows, pigs, chickens, etc. Even if a county farm stayed on the same property for many years, over a period of time there could be several different superintendents.

    In the past, whenever I found something on the county farm while I was searching in newspapers, county court minutes, deeds, and census, etc., I have placed the material in a folder called county farm. This is not a complete list, and may never be, since I would have to read every word in every minute book to compile such a list. Either the poor commissioners or the supervisor of the farm had to make a quarterly report to the county court, which also ran in the newspaper in the later years. Some of the entries in the county court minutes give interesting facts such as using the words to describe a person in front of a person's name, giving a death date by stating or that the person died between a certain time period, or an entry telling how much was paid for the coffin, etc.

    The first reference to the organization of a system to take care of the needy, that I have found, is in the minute book for the County Court on October 2, 1820, when "Robert Chaffin, Richard Hill and George Lucas were appointed Commissioners to inquire into the conditions of Paupers and Poor persons who may make application for support from this county and that they report all such to this court." Then, at the January 4, 1821, term, the court ordered these same men "be appointed Commissioners to let to the lowest bidder, Mary Jones, thus keeping her for one year as a pauper at the house of Jacob Adair and that they advertise the same 15 days beforehand."

    I have not included the lengthy reports on money matters, petitions, condition of the farms when inspected, commissioners appointed, etc. for this internet version, but for the articles that ran for years in the Lawrence County Genealogical Society's journal I did include a lot of this information. I will include through the early 1900s as time allows. Original spelling, capitalization and punctuation have been retained as much as possible. From the wording in some instances, it was impossible to tell if the person named was the pauper or the person in care of the pauper and receiving the money (one example is Jordan Durbin). When a first or last name appears in parenthesis, the info was inserted by me (except for col. or colored). If you wish to have copies of any of the actual minutes or newspaper articles, and other omitted information, you may contact the archives by email, by phone at 931-852-4092, or at 2588 Hwy. 43 S., Leoma, TN 38468.

Sources:

Lawrence County Court Minute Book May 1818-April 1822

Lawrence County Court Minute Book October 1828-October 1834

Lawrence County Court Minute Book January 1835-Dec. 1846

Lawrence County Court Minute Book January 1847-April 1851

Lawrence County Court Minute Book April 1851-September 1858

Lawrence County Survey Book B 1821-1846

Lawrence County Deed Books 1820-1860

Goodspeed's History of Lawrence County by Goodspeed; c1886