Marshall- Not long ago I called to the attention of researchers on this BB what I posted a few years ago to the Poorhouse Story board for Warren County.* You may have read it then, in which case, I'm being redundant. It's all I know about it. One time in the past 10 years, Jane Ott kindly let me into the historical Society one afternoon and showed me the dusty drawers where the records were kept in no particular order. These are not easy to use and I would dissuade anyone from using them who expects to be helped beyond that. (The reason I'm answering you directly --- I don't want Jane to be beseiged by people expecting her to do their work for them. I know you're self-sufficient and live close enough that it may be a research day trip for you.) The post I made just previously to the Warren-L list, has a citation referring to Mansfield as early as 1816-1818. Whether Mansfield the township had a real almshouse that early, I don't know. I'll check Snell's - those county histories frequently have a section on the almshouse. But by 1850, the census counted people there. And the records I looked at, as I said on the Poorhouse site, covered 1875-1878. I'd imagine that by using the census for Oxford or Mansfield, you could get residents during other enumerations. The years I looked at gave very little information, and I was led to that period in the first place because I had a death record from Trenton that gave the Mansfield Poorhouse as location of death and provided the date. When I began searching the records in the historical society, I already had the date and the only additional information I got was when the person entered the poorhouse and where they came from. Interestingly, my youngest sister worked at Warren Haven in the early 60s. Then it was a working farm and most of the residents were retired farmers. One of the long-time residents, though, was a cousin to my grandfather - Lizzie Souders - who'd garnered the reputation in our family of being lazy. The youngest in a big family, she apparently stayed home with her mother as long as she was alive and then, after her mother's death, made long visits to all her relatives, during which she ate lustily but never helped out. Part of my young conditioning was to be cautioned not to become a Lizzie Souders! Marilyn * "On the subject of poorhouses in Warren County, it should be noted that the records for the Mansfield Poor House are kept at the Warren County Historical Society, in file drawers in an attic area. They're not in any particular order, so a researcher should have a date range in mind before searching them and might also want to make an appointment beforehand as searching may take longer than the scheduled two hours when the library is open to the public. I searched records covering 1875-1878 but don't know the full extent of the records they have. I don't know if Warren County had more than this one poorhouse during those years. Later, I believe, Warren Haven in Oxford was where indigents were supported...someone can confirm this, I'm sure. I was led to the poorhouse records originally by requesting a death certificate from Trenton. They sent me a photocopy of a whole page of deaths recorded at the poor house. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marshall Lake" <mlake@mlake.net> To: <njwarren@rootsweb.com> Cc: <lmuessig@peoplepc.com> Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 8:21 AM Subject: Re: [NJWARREN] Almshouse Records > >> The Almshouse Records are at the Warren County Historical Society in >> Belvidere. > > Do you happen to know the years of coverage? > > -- > Marshall Lake -- mlake@mlake.net -- http://mlake.net > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > NJWARREN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >