44 Years in Darkness by Sylvia Shults

Author:Sylvia Shults [Shults, Sylvia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical nonfiction, paranormal
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2016-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The Adams County Almshouse

Illinois became a state in 1818. Public care of the poor began the very next year.

At first, the destitute of the state were cared for by private citizens appointed by public officials. This “farm out” system meant that the poor, who were being given assistance by other settlers, became objects of charity. Even though they were physically able to work, there were no jobs available for them, and they were not financially stable enough to buy their own land to farm.

Within twenty years, this farm out system was replaced by the county poor house. By 1839, counties were authorized to establish poorhouses, to hire keepers to oversee these homes, and to levy a property tax for poorhouse support. These institutions took in not only the destitute, but also those suffering from “bodily infirmity (or) idiocy”. (By 1919, attitudes towards the poor had changed. Being poor was no longer seen as a sin or moral failing. Contemptuous terms like poorhouse, almshouse, and poor farm were replaced with the more neutral “county home”.)

In 1847, the same year that the Illinois Hospital for the Insane was founded in Jacksonville, Adams County purchased the eighty-acre farm of H. T. Ellis in Honey Creek Township for use as a poor farm. The county spent $700 on March 16, 1847, to purchase the land, along with the two story frame house, the barn, the blacksmith shop, and other outbuildings that stood on the property. The poor of the county began to trickle in. Anyone who arrived, male or female, was issued some light work. This poorhouse was in service until May, 1855.

For the first three years, the paupers were under the charge of one man, who received a weekly stipend for their care. Later, the county Board of Supervisors decided to manage the almshouse themselves. They appointed a superintendent for the day-to-day running of the institution.

The Board of Supervisors for the Adams County almshouse met in January 1856, and appointed a committee to find a larger farm and arrange for more buildings for the care of the county’s charges. By June of that year, the committee purchased a much larger piece of property from John F. Battell, a 160-acre farm in the northeast quarter of Gilmer Township. The committee spent $5,000 on the new property, and bought fifty thousand bricks with which to start building the new poorhouse.

The building was ready by the next year, and in 1857, the Adams County almshouse opened its doors to the destitute. Fifteen people moved from the old farm to the new property. By 1860, the population had increased to twenty-five – including Rhoda Derry. In 1863, the county built an addition to the first building. Like the original, the new home was two stories high, with a basement.

In 1862, when Rhoda had been at the almshouse for two years, the county built a home specifically for the insane, at a cost of $1,000. One of the superintendents, David L. Hair, wrote that the building was later taken down, “since it did not give satisfaction as a place to confine the insane”.

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