COUNTY POOR HOUSE RESIDENTS FOR 1870

NY State Census Bureau

Town of Pamelia, Jefferson Co., NY

Index

1850, 1855, 1860, 1865, 1870, 1875, 1880

The Poor House at Pamelia, Jefferson Co., in 1875 was set up to be a producing agricultural farm. H. C. Strong, age 72, born Oneida Co., was the head of the farming operation, with his wife, Sarah A, age 60. Daughters Mary E. Strong, age 30 and Josephine, age 14, an adopted daughter, were also living on the farm. Sarah was born in Rensselaer County and the girls were born in Jefferson. The Pamelia location was not far from Watertown, New York, perhaps farther out into the county than it would be now based on the growth of Watertown. Anyone who has access to the State Library in Albany, NY, may look at the certificates of admission to the facility on microfilm at the library, which does not loan the material to outside institutions. It is not known where patients were buried who died at the Poor House, so these census records may be the only key to where some ancestors were living in their later years.

When reproducing this special census we have omitted the medical notations that were used at the time to describe some of the patients and their conditions. Not all of the residents were paupers or homeless; many of the aged residents had no families to turn to in their elder years and needed a place to live. There were a number of residents who suffered from a wide variety of medical conditions but because the diagnosis process in 1875 was sorely lacking in accuracy, those notations have been omitted in the census reproduced for the Jefferson County site.

A note about this list: the handwriting was very poor. Every attempt was made to determine the correct spelling of surnames, by comparison of census records in the area to the persons on the list as well as comparisons of surnames to previous Poorhouse records. This list of surnames appears to be spelled phonetically.

1870 Federal Census of Poorhouse Residents at Pamelia, Jefferson Co., NY:

Information abstracted and contributed by volunteer M. Sapienza. © 2016. Marilyn also wrote the introduction.

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