In colonial New England, each town was responsible for the care of its own widows, orphans, elderly, disabled, hungry, and sick. Every town seemed to make some effort to see to it that no one starved or froze to death. Boston, for example, had a two-story brick almshouse for the poor, aged, and infirm, and a two-story brick workhouse for minor lawbreakers, "rogues," and "vagabonds." Other towns arranged to pay willing citizens to take in the destitute.
Being a Legal Inhabitant
Another way towns dealt with the poor was to warn them out. To be eligible for charity, a person had to be a legal "inhabitant" of a town. An inhabitant was anyone born in the town. One could also become an inhabitant by acquiring land in the town, by completing service as an apprentice to a master in the town, or by marrying an inhabitant.
Anyone not a legal inhabitant was not eligible for welfare and could be warned out. A constable or some other official would be dispatched to formally deliver the warning out. In this process, each member of the impoverished family down to the infant would be named and served. According to one source, an angry mother in Lexington, Massachusetts, after her family had been served such a warning, sarcastically reminded the constable that he failed to warn out the family cat.
Pregnant Women Especially Vulnerable
In some cases, to be warned out was to be escorted out of town then and there. Pregnant women with no evident means of support were especially likely to be forced to leave. Towns acted quickly to hustle such women out of town before the baby was born because, once the child came into the world, it was the responsibility of the town where it was born. No town wanted to be burdened for the care of both penniless mother and helpless child.
In some cases, a single pregnant woman arriving at a town to live with a relative would be turned away from the town, again so the town would not have responsibility for the child.
The constable escorting the unwanted individual away would deliver the person or family to officials in the next town, who would then relay the person to the town farther down the road. The person would be transferred again and again until he or she arrived at his or her native town, which would then have the responsibility for shelter and food.
Families Broken Up
Cases involving families could be especially wrenching because husband, wife, and children could each have been born in different towns, which meant the family would be scattered.
A person could be warned out without being forced to leave a town. Many towns had a policy that, if you had not been warned out in more than a year, you were officially an inhabitant and therefore eligible for welfare. So some towns would routinely warn out outsiders thought likely to fall into poverty and even those doing well. Those individuals could remain in the town even after being warned out year after year. Some even established businesses. It was thus possible for a person to pay taxes in a town for years to help others in need, but then after bad luck be ineligible for welfare in that same town.
Many Warnings Given
The number of people warned out must have run into the thousands. In 1755 alone, the town of Boston delivered 222 such warnings.
The practice was continued for years after the War of Independence and extended outside New England. Records show that a blind man warned out of Eastchester, New York, in the late eighteenth century was transferred 24 times over 21 days before finally ending up in Providence, Rhode Island.
Sources:
Drake, Samuel Adams. Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston. Boston, W.A. Butterfield, 1917.
Gross, Robert A. The Minutemen and their World. New York, Hill and Wang, 1976.
Gunderson, Joan R. To Be Useful to the World. New York, Twayne Publishers, 1996.
Herndon, Ruth Wallis. Unwelcome Americans: Living on the Margin in Early New England. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
Brian Deming - Brian Deming has a master’s degree in American history from Northwestern University. He has taught U.S. history and media history at ...
