County of Monmouth issued the following announcement.
#ThrowbackThursday from the County Clerk’s #MonmouthCountyArchives Division:
Child Poverty and Neglect
In 18th century #MonmouthCounty, the problem of society’s poor was addressed by local governmental authorities, who worked to improve the welfare of society’s indigent. The responsibility fell to the Over- seers of the Poor who reviewed cases and administered relief at the local level. The Overseers often placed the children of poor families in apprenticeships to alleviate the burden on parents and to provide the children with a stable home environment and the learning of life and work skills. The 19th century brought the introduction of almshouses, which housed both children and adults, and fell out of favor by the turn of the century. In many cases, women and children, having no means to provide for themselves, and having been abandoned by husbands and fathers, were the recipients of aid. Lucy Cheesman of Upper Freehold, sought aid from the Overseer in 1792. Lucy was the mother of a two-year-old and three-year-old whose husband “hath treated her so ill.” She had kept the children without any aid from her husband for over a year. Lucy “prays relief from the Township for time past as well as time to come.” Peter P. Conover, of Raritan, was summoned to the Court in 1886 for neglecting his son. The sad 1911 case of the Giles children, whose widowed father Nelson V. Giles, was charged with neglecting to provide for his minor children, two of whom, “roamed the streets at night.” He was also accused of refusing to let his older son into his residence when the young man sought dry clothing after falling into a lake. The case was to be brought before the court to decide whether the children should be re- moved from their father’s custody and placed in the care of the extant New Jersey Children’s Home Society, an organization founded in 1894 that seeks out stable family homes for neglected and impoverished children.
Source: The Archives’ “Facing Adversity: Monmouth Responds in Times of Crisis” Catalog: https://www.monmouthcountyclerk.com/…/exhibit-catalogs…/
Original source can be found here.
