Manuscript Group 1024, Livingston, New Jersey Overseers of the Poor Records, 1829 – 1851
Archives Documents, Manuscripts, Maps, & Photographs
Manuscript Group 1024, Livingston, New Jersey Overseers of the Poor
Records, 1829 – 1851, 14 items
Processed as part of the “Farm to City” project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Call Number: MG 1024
Includes applications and depositions of prospective recipients of public assistance; “articles under which the Poor of the Township of Livingston are to be Farmed out the ensuing year,” April 20, 1844.
Records, 1829-1851, document individual actions filed by the Overseers of the Poor or settled by the Justices of the Peace, Livingston (Essex County). Papers include: applications and depositions for recipients of public assistance, bonds and indentures for those giving lodging and work assistance, “warrants of removal” for paupers seeking aid from Newark or another county, application for a widow’s pension, and “Articles under which the Poor of the Township of Livingston are to be Farmed out the ensuing year” (1844).
The “Articles” (1844) clarify that farmers must “furnish all necessary medical attendance, nursing and funeral charges at his own proper costs and expenses” and provide schooling for each child over five. Overseers can remove the paupers if an inspection shows “abuse, ill treatment or inhuman usage.”
Decisions made by the Justices and Overseers include an “order of relief” for “Simeon Squier a poor person” (1829); “an order for support” for “Ann Jackson & her infant child” (1830); a “warrant of removal” for Julia Ann Burrill who was “farmed out to Jeremiah Walker at age 7 years” and left at age 18 for Newark (1833); and an indenture for Marcus N. Tomkins, a boy of 14 ½ years, as “an apprentice to Timothy Tomkins, shoemaker, to learn the said art trade…& three quarters of day school” (1847).
An Overseer of the Poor was Caleb Tichenor. Justices of the Peace (sometimes “Justice of the Poor”) of Essex County were D.I.(?) Crane, Anthony A. Jacobus, Park Leed, Abraham Reynolds and Ira Squier.
Additional papers of Livingston (NJ) Overseers of the Poor are located at Special Collections and University Archives at Rutgers University (AC#1840).
For more records of New Jersey Overseers of the Poor see:
Manuscript Group 85, Chester Township, New Jersey Overseers of the Poor
Manuscript Group 159, Randolph Township, New Jersey Township Committee Minute Book
