Source:
Sumner County Archives, Loose Records: Misc: Poorhouse Occupants 1840 - 1849, #184.
Annual Report of Joseph Smith, Agent for Sumner County Poor House
To the Worshipfull County Court of Sumner with the amount of expenses that have accrued from
the 1st of Jany 1842 to the first of Jany 1843. Also the standings & conditions of said Institution.
Amt of expenses for the year $577.73
The average No. of Paupers this Year 1842 is 12 1/2 and
The average price per head is $30.23
The No. of Inmates on hand the first day of January 1843 only Thirteen Tho there has been as
many as 23 during the year. Those on hand 5 males and 8 Females.
John Patton - about sixty eight years old
Levi Davis - 59 years old. afflicted.
Chas Bratton 54 years old - badly afflicted
Richd Rose 51 years old - hearty & lazy.
Elizabeth Law (or Lane ?) - 66 years old - Cant walk
Dorcas Carman 27 years old - Deformed
Rhoda Arnold - 85 years old healthy
Nancy Black - 43 years old - badly afflicted
with the Rheumatism Cant walk.
Maria Black 20 years old - healthy on the
county a nurse for her mother.
Lucinda Bates 39 years old - a little afflicted
yet cant work - and her Daughter a
little Girl about 2 years old.
Abner L.? Will about 5 years old
A Negro woman Thamar about 63 years old
hearty yet entirely blind.
Some 3 or 4 of the inmates able to work, tho
they are too lazy to do anything.
On hand at said Poor House on the 1st day of Jany 1843 one good farm Horse, 8 head of Cattle
33 head of hogs, 8 feather beds & furniture. Raised on the farm the year 1842 about 60 Barrels
Corn & 1200 lbs Pork with other crops sufficient to support the place
P. S. only one death }
during the year 1842. }
Jos. Smith
For Sumner Poor House
We the Commissioners do Certify that the within report which has been exhibited to us by Jos.
Smith, agt, in April for Sumner Poor House has been duly examined by us & we find it to be a
true statement of conditions at said Institution. Given from under our hands this the 1st of Jany
1843.
Jas. Douglass
Isaac Baker
James Wallace
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