Henry County Infirmary
(Poor House)
photo courtesy of "The
Poorhouse Story" a great website documenting histories of Poor Farms
The Henry County Infirmary has been known by a number of names including the Poor House, Poor Farm and Almshouse. The "Atlas of Henry Co. and the State of Illinois," by Warner & Beers Publishers of Chicago in 1875, on pages 4-5" included this brief description of the facility.
POOR HOUSE – The present
poor-house is located on the northwest quarter of section twenty-one, in
the Town of Munson. It was built in the years 1871-2, at a total cost,
including furniture and heating apparatus, of about $55,000. The design
of the building was after a plan by O. E. Page, Esq., one of the building
committee. The former poor-house was a frame building now standing just
north of the present one.
The Illinois Regional
Archives Depository (IRAD) at Western Illinois University holds microfilmed
records of the Almshouse records from 1889-1902 (Assension #2/0084/06).
Please see the Archives
page of this website for information on IRAD. They also hold records
for applications for Relief for the Blind dating from
1903 - 1930, some of
whom may or may not have ended up at the Infirmary.
There were also CHILDREN
in the infirmary, so if you have not been able to locate a child in an
orphans facility, you may also wish to look at the Infirmary records.
Census records are available onsite for the Henry County Infirmary for the following Federal Census periods:
1880
Census listing for Henry County Infirmary
1900
Census listing for Henry County Infirmary