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| Workers starting the rebuilding of "The Home!. |
This week as usual has been cold for the most part. Winter does not read calendars...so its still winter. The snow is still on the ground...so I thought I would continue with the story of the old "Madison County Home.
The building of the news Almshouse almost coincided with the
new wave of welfare reform that swept New York State after the election of
Franklin D. Roosevelt as the new Governor.
Roosevelt, elected in 1928, set to work immediately modernizing the poor
laws and the rules governing public assistance in New York State.
The Superintendent of the Poor at this point in Madison
County (since January 1, 1927) was Freeman MacIntyre. The new governor signed the new Public Welfare
Act into place.
The new Welfare Act came into law in April of 1929,
modernizing the Madison County poor laws, which had been put into place in
1821. This “Act” placed all the monies
at the charge of the new Commissioner of Public Welfare. Freeman McIntyre’s title had changed.
This new Welfare Act removed the terms “pauper, alms house
and superintendent of the poor”. The
term Alms House that had been used for over one hundred years, was to
officially become County Home. (It is
interesting to note that in Madison County documents it continued to be off and
on referred to as the “Almshouse.”
Those interested in historic markers can go to the Town of
Eaton Office Building and see the beautiful plaque that was removed from the
Gerrit Smith Infirmary before it was sold; this bronze plaque clearly reads
“Almshouse.”
From a 1931 clipping we find that the County Home and
Freeman MacIntyre was placed in a number 1 classification for
administration. These times were the
times of great poverty and depression in the United States, and the County Home
contained over 95 occupants. The highest
number for the year was 112. From July
of the year before, there were 67 admissions and 61 discharges in addition to
many “transients” that received food and shelter.
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