Saline County Poor Farm - Harrisburg, IL - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

County of house: Saline County
Location of house:
Architect:
Built: 1877
Architectural Style: Italianate

"The Saline County Poor Farm is located on the south end of Harrisburg, Illinois at 1600 Feazel Street. The site originally contained 175 acres, but was sold off until the present 3.46 acres is all that remains of the historic property. The acreage now contains the main brick poor farm house, a storage building and the poor farm cemetery. The Poor House is of a modified Italianate design and was constructed in 1877. The Poor House along with a Storage Building sit on 2.06 acres. The cemetery that is located diagonally across Feazel Street sits on roughly 1.40 acres. The cemetery has over time been called McCormick Cemetery, Pauper Cemetery and Dorrisville Cemetery. The Saline County Poor Farm is a discontiguous district because the cemetery is geographically separated from the poor farm buildings, but both contain their historic significance and integrity." ~ NRHP Nomination Form

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Marker Text:

THE POOR HOUSE This house, built in 1877 with an addition in 1904 was the effort of the culture of that era to take care of the poor. As early as 1819, the Illinois General Assembly enacted a Pauper Bill requiring county commissioners to appoint overseers of the poor for each township. Usually, a paupers family received aid for the care of those of the house who could not care for themselves. By 1839 the Almshouse method of public welfare was introduced in which a building would be built on county land and pauper labor would farm it. One person could then oversee the operation. This farm originally containing 175 acres under the Almshouse Law using log buildings for many years until the brick building was constructed. The idealistic notion, that people would gladly work for their subsistence, soon met reality. The poor farm became an orphanage, a jail, an insane asylum, and a place for refugees, i.e. a social dumping ground for the outcast and deplored. There have been at least two occasions in its history when the county considered demolition because of the poor condition of the building. The poor farm represents a method of dealing with social problems during a time when there was very little public investment in social welfare. What started as an effort to help the county poor became another good idea that didn't work. The farm ceased operation sometime after 1950.

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Plaque Text:

THE PAUPER HOUSE
this building was erected in 1877 for
the residency of the poor of
Saline County.

The building and its site is listed on
the National Registry of Historical Places.

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Number of Graves: 263 recorded
County of Cemetery: Saline County
Earliest Grave: 1849
Location of Cemetery: 1595 Feazel St., Harrisburg
Historical Marker Erected by: Saline County Historical Society and Saline County Tourism Board

Text of that Historical Marker:

THE PAUPER CEMETERY

This cemetery, called the pauper Cemetery has burials going as far back as 1849 contains stone markers with record of 263 burials at least 60 of which were children. These records indicate that not only people from the Poor Farm were buried here but it was the county burial site for unknown vagrants, murder victims, people killed in the nearby coal mine, abandoned and deceased children. "Colored" and Caucasian were buried side by side from the very beginning, death being the only criteria for a place. The custom of the time was for those not having a funeral to be buried the same day which brought about the following justifications in the burial notes: "Run over by a train at Wasson" "Gun shot wound" "Unknown baby girl found in sewer" "Gunshot wound administered by Chief of Police" "Shot by Charlie Birger at Ledford" "Daddy" "Lithuania-wife still in Europe" "Found dead in ditch" "Carnival worker" "Murdered" "Left leg of Charlie Yates-O'Gara #3 coal mine accident".

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