“Over the Hill to the Poor House” was a popular tune a century ago about an old man who foolishly deeded his farm to his ungrateful children and was promptly evicted. While this particular set of circumstances may not have been widespread, the thought of ending up “on the town” haunted many a frugal Yankee at a time when society was not known for its benevolence and extreme poverty was viewed by many as a moral or genetic failing.

The centerpiece for Bangor’s primitive social welfare system for many years was the poor farm located in an imposing 3.5-story brick building on lower Main Street where Beal College held classes later on and Manna Inc. offers programs today. Bangoreans always tried to put the best face on this gothic, yet indispensable, institution.

“BANGOR POOR FARM NOT AN UNATTRACTIVE HOME,” announced a confusing headline in the Bangor Daily News on Nov. 17, 1906. Entangled in a double negative, the reader was left dangling. The headline writer, however, had made it abundantly clear he was not looking forward to moving into the town farm or the almshouse, as it was also called, any time soon.

Poor farms throughout America were at the heart of efforts to help the poor. “Imagine having the Bangor Area Shelter, Bangor Mental Health Institute, Hope House, the Good Samaritan Home for Unwed Mothers, Stillwater Health Care, Shaw House, a communal Farm and a sheltered workshop all under one roof,” wrote Beal College librarian Ann W. Rea in an unpublished paper on the farm’s history. The farm had too many jobs to do any of them well. Imagine the cries and moans in the night from the sick, the physically disabled, the insane, the feebleminded, the alcoholic and the merely terrified and terminally bereaved. They were all there, men and women, boys and girls, some locked up in medieval-looking cells that can still be seen today in the attic and the basement.

Who were these paupers? Between February 1906 and 1907, there were a total of 163 people who lived there for part or all of the year, according to the Report of the Overseers of the Poor. They included sisters Lottie and Gertrude Haney, ages 7 and 4, and their mother, Helen, all of whom lived there for 47 days. There was Maude Gay of Machias, who lived there for two weeks before delivering a baby boy. Both were discharged the next day. Lucy E. Babcock lived there for 42 days with her 2-month-old twins, Harris and Hazel.

Fewer than half the inmates were declared to be in good health, but one of those healthy specimens was 96-year-old Sarah J. Kirswell, which can only raise questions about the health of the other healthy ones. Those who were not classified as healthy were labeled insane, lame, blind, feeble or in poor health.

Eleven inmates were children or infants, while 42 were over the age of 65. Daniel Crowley of Ireland, Selin Barrack of Syria, and Gustaf Emel Wirtanen of Finland were among the foreign contingent. Only 102 inmates were American citizens. Twenty-four were from Ireland and 21 from Canada. Russians, Swedes, Frenchmen, Syrians, Finns and a single Englishman were also represented. These numbers must have reinforced the suspicion current that native-born citizens were superior, morally and physically, to foreigners.

Much was made of the fact that the farm, which sat on 100 acres, raised enough garden produce to feed the inmates and to sell in Pickering Square, the city’s chief outdoor marketplace. Among the products, hay and oats were raised and sold or used to feed the farm lifestock, which included 52 hens. The existence of the hens probably explained why the inmates ate chicken instead of turkey on Thanksgiving, 1906. “At the poor farm good, tender chicken will be substituted for turkey – with no complaint from anyone,” reported the Bangor Daily News.

For Christmas, however, the inmates were served turkey, which was considered above the means of many poor people. “Down at the poor farm the 60 inmates were delighted by a Christmas tree Monday afternoon given and arranged by the Dorcas circle of King’s Daughters [local home for young women]. Each inmate received gifts of candy, fruit and other good things and Dr. Alfred Walton furnished a phonograph entertainment. On Tuesday noon Supt. and Mrs. Hathorn will provide a genuine Christmas dinner of turkey and all the good things that go with it.”

The odds are good, given the state of public beneficence back then, that Dr. Walton brought in his own phonograph for the entertainment, and that the superintendent and his wife paid for the turkeys out of their own pockets. Imagine having turkey “on the town”!

By 1906, efforts were underway to decentralize this Victorian nightmare. Over the years several institutions such as the Eastern Maine Insane Hospital had been created. More money was spent by the city and by charitable organizations on “the outside poor” – those who managed to hang on in their own homes – to keep them out of the poorhouse by providing them with fuel, clothes and medical care. It was cheaper that way.

Gradually, new social programs such as the Mother’s Aid Act of 1917 and Social Security turned poorhouses into publicly supported nursing homes. In 1948, the Bangor farm became the Bangor Chronic Disease Hospital and then the Bangor City Nursing Facility. It moved out in 1969, and Beal College bought the building in 1970. Time and renovations, however, have not erased some of the most gruesome signs of what it was like to go “over the hill to the poorhouse.”

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net. Thanks to Ann Rea for providing her essay on the history of the Bangor City Farm and Bill Rae of Manna Inc. for a tour of the building as it is today.