“The oldest resident of the Orleans county poor house is eighty years old, and was admitted to the poor house in 1841. The whole population is sixty-five, fourteen of which are lunatics; eight are males, six are females; eleven are native and three of foreign birth. Eight are mild cases, three violent; seven filthy; eight have been treated in an asylum. Three are capable of labor; the others have no employment; all are at times destructive to their clothing; one requires restraint by handcuffs. The building has water, but no bath tub. The building is of wood; the sleeping rooms, or cells, 6 x 9 feet, open out of a hall 9 x 36. No arrangement for ventilation. There is a coal stove for heating the hall, but no attention is paid to uniformity of heat or change of air. There are no accommodations for the various grades of insane; the males are in one ward, and the females in another. The attendants are from the sane paupers. In this county recent cases are sent to the asylum at Utica. All have changes of under garments, and all were provided with shoes and stockings during the winter. The house is designed to accommodate seventeen, but, for the last few years, there have been but fourteen, at any one time, in it. The medical treatment differs nothing from that which sane paupers receive, and the moral management is nothing.”

SOURCE: Documents of the Assembly Of The State Of New York, Eighty-Eighth Session, 1865, Volume 6, Nos. 199 to 112 Inclusive, Albany: C. Wendell, Legislative Printer, 1865, Page 207.

New York State County Poor Houses.