Editor’s Note: Much of the following are excerpts from the article, “Poverty and Our Response to it in Nineteenth Century McDonough County,” written by Kathy Nichols in the Winter 2014 issue of the “McDonough County Historical Society Newsletter.”
Biblically, alms refers to material gifts, money, food or other assistance given freely to the poor and needy as an act of mercy, compassion and love for one’s neighbor.
Long before McDonough County was founded in 1826, the State of Illinois recognized the need for almshouses. In 1819, the legislators of Illinois approved their first law focused on poverty, entitled “An Act for the Relief of the Poor.” It specified that the county commissioners in the then existing counties of the state appoint two persons to serve as overseers of the poor in their respective townships. This was only one year after Illinois had attained statehood, and seven years before McDonough County was founded.
An 1833 revision of the law required members of the family of poor persons to support them, if those family members were present. And it added, “When any such poor person shall not have any such relatives in any county in this state, or such relative shall not be of sufficient ability, or shall fail or refuse to maintain such pauper, then the said pauper shall receive such relief as his or her case may require, out of the county treasury; and the county commissioners may either make contracts for the necessary maintenance of the poor, or appoint such agents as they may deem necessary to oversee and provide for the same.”
A Feb. 21, 1839 revision of the 1833 law is the first to provide for the establishment of poor houses - or poor farms or county farms or almshouses, as they were referred to interchangeably.
