Help add to this list of Poorhouses and Workhouses by city or town! We have started by adding documents from poorhouses from towns in Essex County and Middlesex County. If you know of any in Massachusetts (including Maine, as Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1820), please let us know. Feel free to use the list of questions to the right as a guide.
Andover
Beverly
Lawrence
Middleton
What about the one in Easthampton MA located at 75 Oliver St was originally a poor house/farm in late 19th century is now run as a rooming house for the poor
Thanks for your response! Whatever Happened To is a crowd sourcing project If possible would you be able to add a picture of the poorhouse in Easthampton to our collection of poorhouse pictures ?
wikipedia.org. The Town Farm, now the Easthampton (MA) Lodging House, 75 Oliver Street, Easthampton, MA 01027
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
wikipedia.org. The Town Farm, now the Easthampton (MA) Lodging House, 75 Oliver Street, Easthampton, MA 01027
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Worcester, Massachusetts. On or near Beverly Road, remembering from the 1940s.
Poorhouse in Worcester, Massachusetts
https://www.telegram.com/story/news/local/east-valley/2014/10/20/660-666-lincoln-st-worcester/36081829007/
Poorhouses Were Designed to Punish People for Their Poverty
In a time before social services, society’s most vulnerable people were hidden away in brutal institutions.
https://www.history.com/news/in-the-19th-century-the-last-place-you-wanted-to-go-was-the-poorhouse
Aloha, I only know about poor farms because my grandmother lived in one in New Bedford, Mass. The story goes that my maternal grandparents got a divorce and grandfather did not support the family. My grandmother went to live at the poor farm in the south end of New Bedford on Rodney French Blvd not far from Hazelwood Park. My mother drove me by there as a child in the 60’s and you could see the foundations of the bldgs. My mother and her sister went to live at St Mary’s Orphanage during those years. It was 3-5 years I think in the 1930’s.
A while back I did some research and read that every county in the country was responsible for having one. As I see all the homeless encampments I think it would be more humane if we went back to that system. Ocassionally I talk about this with friends but I have never talked to anyone who was aware of them. It is like there are a part of the forgotten past. If it wasn’t for my mother telling me that story I wouldn’t know about them either.