Wells County Poor Asylum Report, 1881
Submitted by Charlotte Sellers, IG Editor
This census of the Wells
County Poor Asylum appeared in a Bluffton, Indiana, newspaper. Some
parts of the report, in which the writer expressed his opinions about
some of the residents, have been paraphrased and names included in
those parts have been moved to the census at the beginning of the
report.
The last Legislature
having passed an act making it the duty of the Grand Jury to visit the
Poor Asylum once every six months and report on its condition to the
Circuit Court. In company with said jury I visited the asylum to-day,
and thinking many of you would like to know who is there I take leave
and below you will find the name, nativity, age and how long they have
been in the asylum.
Bluffton Banner. 1 Dec
1881 (Page 3 Column 5)
COUNTY ASYLUM
By Our special Reporter
November 25, 1881
The last Legislature
having passed an act making it the duty the Grand Jury to visit the
Poor Asylum once every six months and report on its condition to the
Circuit Court. In company with said jury I visited the asylum today,
and thinking many of you would like to know who is there I take leave
and below you will find the name, nativity, age and how long they have
been in the asylum.
Name
|
Nativity
|
Age
|
How Long in the Asylum
|
| Men |
| W. METTS |
Va. |
79 |
11 |
| T. FISHER |
Va. |
79 |
5 |
| J. BENDER |
Penn. |
71 |
3 |
| W.FOSTOR |
Ger. |
70 |
3 |
| J. WEBSTER |
Penn. |
76 |
3 |
| J. HAAS |
Ger. |
70 |
1 |
| E. FRAN CHILD |
N.Y. |
83 |
1 |
| B. JONES |
Md, |
79 |
3 mo |
| John BARNES |
|
24 |
|
| Grant HELWIG |
|
16 |
|
| John CRUM |
|
65 |
|
| John BATSON |
|
29 |
|
| Women |
| L. VANCAMP |
Ohio |
50 |
13 |
| M. BASEY |
N.C. |
66 |
3 |
| J. BUNTZ |
Ohio |
29 |
3 |
| M. GARRETT |
Ohio |
41 |
5 |
| E. McFADDEN |
Ind. |
65 |
6 |
| E. MALCIENT |
Ind. |
29 |
12 |
| C. SCOTT |
Penn. |
80 |
3 |
| A. STEVICK |
Penn. |
60 |
2 |
| C. BARNES |
Ind. |
22 |
6 mo. |
| Mary GRIM |
|
20 |
|
| Elizabeth MARKER |
|
65 |
|
| Prudy GUSTIN |
|
30 |
|
| Prudy RICE |
|
60 |
|
| Children |
| Catharine MARKS |
|
5 |
|
| Charles SCOTT |
|
6 |
|
| Arlando SHIIMGLEDECKER, |
|
6 |
|
| Fred FAMMEL [Gammel?], |
|
5 |
|
| M. BRITTENHAM |
|
3 |
|
| Godfrey LUPSICKER |
|
7 |
|
| Catharine SCOTT |
|
5 |
|
| Amanda SCOTT |
|
3 |
|
| Lizzie GAMMEL |
|
3 |
|
| Catharine McBRIDE |
|
1 |
|
The above are bright
children and would be a good chance for someone to adopt or furnish a
home for them. Three of them have neither father nor mother living,
three have father and mother living, two have a father and two have a
mother living, only two are illegitimate.
There are two idiots that
require constant care....
There are weak-minded and
subject to fits of different forms....
There is who were
placed at the asylum by their guardians and their board is paid for.
The guardians could not find any persons who would take care of them.
In looking over the
inmates and seeing in all this number but one who could make her own
living, and she would not be there but she was left with three small
children and to be near them she works and does the cooking, I do not
think any of the other inmates are anything but an object of charity.
[One] seems to enjoy
himself and spends his business hours in gathering hickory nuts and
fishing, he seems to think he has a fine house to live in. The old
people look on it as their home and seem to be satisfied and most of
them are men who have worked hard in their young days and when old age
came on found them destitute and no place but the poor asylum to go.
One poor old man,
Benjamin JONES, with one foot in the grave and the other one very near
there, who has been a resident of Wells county for nearly 30 years,
and, it is said, cleared more land than any man in Jackson or Chester
township, has to make this his home, and he says some of his friends
are carrying nearly $50,000 insurance on htm. I cannot hardly think
this Is true but I have reliable information that there is a large
amount of assurance and all taken in the past year. I have often heard
of graveyard insurance and if this is not one I would like to know
where you would find it. I would only think it fair and honorable if
the parties carrying the insurance would care a little for the old man
In his last hours and not send him to the poor house to end his days,
and they reap the benefit.
Source: Originally published in the Indiana Genealogist, transcribed
and contributed by Barb Z.
