DRIVEN TO THE POORHOUSE: THE COUNTY HOME IN WHALLONSBURG

Fall 2024 Lyceum Series

Tuesday, October 22
7:00pm
$5 suggested donation

Essex County Home around 1920.

Tonight’s lecture examines how early settlers and governments in Essex County faced the issue of poverty and how communities and public programs evolved to care for the poor and elderly. At the heart of this story is the County Home, a complex on Route 22 in Whallonsburg built over several decades beginning in 1859, that once housed 140 people. A 48-acre farm provided work and sustenance for residents.

Historian Maggie Bartley will discuss the County Home, which closed in 1980, and changing attitudes towards the residents and services it provided.

 Maggie Bartley is a retired teacher, an historian, lecturer and tour guide, a trustee of the Essex County Historical Society, the former supervisor of Elizabethtown, and is involved in many community organizations and civic boards.