Colchester town purchased a farm and it was used as a poor house for a long period of time. The road that the farm was on became known as Poor Farm Road. Just in the last 30 years, alot of the land on the road has been sold for new housing. Some of the new people living on the road tried to get the name changed (embarrassed to be living on Poor Farm Road, I guess). The town refused to change the name at the time, since it is a historically significant name. To my knowledge the Road is still Poor Farm Road. It is off Route 7 just North of "Sunny Hollow". It runs west of Route #7 on a SW curve down to Blakely Road. It is a short road, only a couple of miles long. The farmhouse is a lovely large white farmhouse and had (has?) a big beautiful barn across the road. The people in the poor house (ones that were capable of working) were required to help on the farm. They had farm animals and raised vegetables. It not only housed the poor of the town, but also mentally deficient people who were not able (or not wanted) to be cared for by their families. At one time I had heard that it was a bread and breakfast. I wonder if it still is. When I became a genealogist and searched records, I found occassional mentions of "Poor House" in the records. I always felt as if I was touching the past. Ruthie Smith Anderson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Poor House Lady" <phlady@jump.net> To: <VTCHITTE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 4:42 AM Subject: POORHOUSE Information > I would like to invite you to explore my new website The POORHOUSE STORY at > http://www.poorhousestory.com which is a clearinghouse for information about > 19th century American Poorhouses. > > We have just added a photograph (from a postcard) of the poorhouse at > Burlington VT. > > So far, we have not been able to find much information about poorhouses in > Vermont. We KNOW they were out there...because of the newspaper and magazine > articles to which we have referred on the site. If anyone can provide more > information, it would be greatly appreciated. > > Directions: from the homepage, click on POORHOUSES BY STATE, then click on > OTHER STATES, then click on VERMONT in the table of states. > > You may also enjoy the HISTORY PAGE, or the LETTER TO GENEALOGISTS ... > or...well, just browse to your heart's content! > > > Hope you enjoy the site. Feel free to post any information you may have > about that or any other poorhouse ... either on the MESSAGE BOARD or by > e-mailing me. The only way this site will grow to include more VERMONT info > is by kind folks tipping me off to it!!! <grin> > > Please don't respond to me on this list. (I would likely get dropped by my > ISP if I maintained subscriptions to all the e-mail lists on which I post > announcements!! <grin>) > > Thanks, > Linda Crannell > (aka=The Poorhouse Lady) >