Manuscript Group 1034, East Windsor Township, New Jersey Overseers of the Poor, Account book, 1803 – 1839

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Manuscript Group 1034, East Windsor Township, New Jersey Overseers of the Poor
Account book, 1803 – 1839, 1 volume
Processed as part of the “Farm to City” project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Call Number: MG 1034


Summary:

Accounts of individual overseers of the poor with East Windsor Township, Mercer County, New Jersey.

Gift of John E. Bridegum, 1976.

Scope and Content Note:

Daily account book of the Overseers of the Poor, East Windsor (Mercer County), records expenses paid and received relating to the maintenance of paupers. Documents town’s efforts to support and provide for the poor. Primarily, entries detail disbursements made to townspeople for boarding the poor: “bording a sick pauper four days” “bording David Apelgate five weeks one dollar per week” and “Enoch Prine for bording black child six weeks at five shillings per week.”

Includes payments to townspeople in exchange for shoes made and repaired and for materials needed for clothing sewn and mended (cotton, muslim, buttons, thread) for the paupers they house; entries of payments made for coffins and for digging graves. Often, payments are provided to those carrying out the business and tasks of the Overseers: “going to Cross Road on pauper business, ordered by Committee,” “going to Freehold to search the records to find the residence of Margaret & Mary Holman.”

The names of many townspeople, “vagrants,” and paupers are listed. Overseers of the Poor of East Windsor Township include Charles Butche, Samuel Ely, John Hammell, David Silver and Thomas Slack.

Related Collections:

For more records of New Jersey Overseers of the Poor see:

Manuscript Group 85, Chester Township, New Jersey Overseers of the Poor Records
Manuscript Group 159, Randolph Township, New Jersey Township Committee Minute Book

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