‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli, Dawn Sterner and Pam Stutz.
The idea of a poor house preceded the establishment of the town of New Canaan in 1801. A Colonial Connecticut law mandated that “For the poor, it is ordered that they be relieved by the town where they live, every town providing for its own poor and so for important persons.” So when New Canaan was incorporated, it had to enter into agreements with Stamford and Norwalk to assume responsibility for two paupers from each who now lived within the newly-constituted town lines. In 1805, it built a house for Molly Hayes, a childless spinster, on what is now the corner of Locust and Summer Street. Her home had burned to the ground and she had no funds to replace it. Other poor were given “doles” from the Town funds.
In 1813, the Connecticut legislature mandated that each town maintain and operate a poor house. The Selectmen were charged with the decision to either support paupers with direct subsidies or to move them to the poor house. (Some towns also contracted out the boarding of their paupers but it does not appear that New Canaan did that.)
In 1852, the Town purchased the farm of Matthew Kellogg on Laurel Road for $3000 and converted the 82 acres into a “Town farm.” An overseer was appointed to maintain the farm and take charge of its residents, which included the poor and the mentally ill, referred to as “eccentrics” who could not take care of themselves. There were six overseers in the 70-year existence of the Town Farm. The last was Edwin Bouton, whose daughter Isabel describes, “The poor farm was a haven for the lonely, and elderly poor of New Canaan with no other means of support …Many men that were sent there were drunks from the street, and usually only stayed for short periods.”
The 21-room house on the Kellogg property was divided into two sides with the overseer and his family on one and the residents on the other. On the residents’ side, two of the rooms had barred windows, 3-inch-thick doors, and rings fastened to the floor to house those who had to be confined. Sam Dwyer, who was forced onto the farm in 1883 over his objection, was chained to the floor of his room and slept on straw because he repeatedly destroyed his bedding. He died on the farm in 1888.
What is interesting is that the responsibility for the care of the poor rested squarely with the Selectmen. They could be personally fined ($7) for a dereliction of this duty. The 1897 New Canaan annual report includes a statement from the selectmen at the time: “The care of the paupers is an important part of the duties of Selectmen, and we believe that while we carefully investigated all cases that have come under our notice, if we erred at all, it has been on the side of mercy.”