Appalachian
     American
        Genealogy

During the Civil War, local county governments would allocate bread, salt and yarn to its indigent families. They would list the heads of households, the number of children and how much was given to each. Women were also noted as widows which may help in learning when their soldier husband's died. These lists compared with military records are a valuable resource.

County Court Records were also kept for those that were poor or indigent. Sometimes, they lived on Poor Farms operated by county subsidies.

Court Records also had lists of Poor School Funds. Beginning in 1822 the Georgia Legislature provided modest funding to pay the tuition of children whose parents could not afford tuition costs. The "poor school fund" entitled a child to no more than three years of basic reading, writing, and arithmetic at public expense.

Pauper Records

includes salt, bread, yarn, poor children or other indigent lists

See also Court Records for microfilmed
county records available for transcription that
contain Pauper lists.

Teachers of the Poor 1856

Literacy, Northwest North Carolina and Northeast Tennessee - 1850

On-line Records

Banks Co. Salt

Cass/Bartow Co. Pauper Farm Records 1867-1930

Cass/Bartow Co. Poor School Book

Jackson Co. Pauper Farm

Lumpkin 1854 Poor School
Lumpkin 1861 Poor School
Lumpkin 1866 Request for Names Needing State Assistance

Pickens Co. Salt Dec 1862
Pickens Co. Salt July 1863

Rabun Co. Poor Children 1857
Rabun Co. Poor Children 1858
Rabun Co. Salt Jan 1863
Rabun Co. Salt Aug 1863
Rabun Co. Salt Jan 1864
Rabun Co. Salt Feb 1864

Union Co. Bread 1866

List of Poor Houses by County

History of the Dorothea Dix Hospital

Inmate register, Rutherford County Home, 1914-1961

Wilkes Co., NC Indigent orphans accounts, 1913-1935

TN Poor Houses & Asylums

Eastern State Hospital in Knoxville & Cemetery

In 1889 the Blount Co. Court (now Blount County Commission) established a county ``poor house'' which was later known as the ``poor farm'' where it housed people who were county charges. Food raised on the farm was used to feed the residents as far as possible and the county funded the operation of the farm which was operated in the area until July 1995. Residents in 1850

Bradley Co. Poorhouse inhabitants, 1880-1884. Poor Commission [microfilm at FHC]

Jefferson Co. Salt List 1862

Jefferson Co. Poor Farm Info

Knox Co. - George Maloney Home did exist at the Maloneyville location from about 1939 until the closing of Hillcrest Nursing Institute in 1986. Few to no records remain.

Monroe Co. 1850 Residents
Monroe Co. 1880 Residents

Sevier Co. Poor Farm Article

Sevier Co. List of Poorhouse Residents from the 1870 Census

Sevier Co. List of Poorhouse Residents from the 1880 Census

Sevier Co. Poor Farm Commissioners Reports 1897-1903

Sevier Co. Poor Farm Records of 1912

Washington Co. Poor Farm & Cemetery

Generally in TN, the local County Court would supervise three com-missioners of the poor for a term of three years.

Rural Poor Relief in Colonial SC

Poor Returns by SC Counties 1901

The state has no board of public charities, and under the present constitution the county commissioners are overseers of the poor, except in Charleston and Columbia whose poor are provided for by the municipal authorities. The county com-missioners of each county have charge of the poor-house of the county, appoint its super-intendent, physician and other officials, and report annually to the judge of the Court of General Sessions, who submits this report to the grand jury. Each poor-house must have sufficient tillable land to give employment to all paupers who are able to work. There is an institution for the deaf, dumb and blind (1849, since 1857 a state institution) at Cedar Springs, and a state hospital for the insane, founded in 1821 at Columbia by Samuel Farrow (1760-1824) and opened in 1828. The state penitentiary is also at Columbia.

As. early as 1710 public school education was pro-vided for indigent children. The present free-school system was established in 1868.

Harris, Sherry. 1862 Georgia Salt Lists, Granada Hills, CA: Harris Press, c1993. 258 p. (LDS FHL 975.8 M29h)

The Georgia Commissary General's Record of Families Supplied with Salt 1862-1864 CD-ROM only. Contains 106,166 records- names of Georgia widows, mothers, and wives, and dependents given or sold salt supplies as a relief effort during the Civil War. Sold by GA Gen. Soc.

Hicks, Elizabeth Nitschke. Georgia Civil War Salt Rolls, 1862-1864 May 1997 See Description.

Index to Georgia Poor School and Academy Records 1826-1850 (State Records Series, No. 1) (Paperback) by R. J. Taylor Jr., Foundation [reprint 1980]

Miller, Alan N., East Tennessee's Forgotten Children - Apprentices from 1778 to 1911 [2000,reprinted 2007]

Goves, Benjamin P. A child welfare survey of Blount Co. TN. Maryville College (undergraduate) thesis, 1933. unp.

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