52 Ancestors Week 46: Poor Man

Question

Time for the next 52 Ancestors challenge!

Please share with us a profile of an ancestor or relative who matches this week's theme:

Poor Man

From Amy Johnson Crow:

The theme for Week 46 is "Poor Man." Like last week, I encourage you to be creative with this theme. How could a person be poor -- financially, "pitiable," poor judgement? Or perhaps you have an ancestor who helped the poor.

Share below!

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Comments

Edited heading to say week 46 (not 45)

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My maternal grandfather, Harry Lee Eastman (Eastman-1742) was considered poor, but not by me. He left school early to support his mother and nine siblings. He was supported by his father-in-law in setting up a small grocery store which went bankrupt because of his tendency to give credit.  He followed his wife's family to California where his wife had to work as boarding house cook while he finally got a job as a janitor. He moved from janitor to janitor roles until his forced retirement when he lived with his eldest daughter.  I fondly remember playing double solitaire with him as a young girl.

Answer 1

My fourth great-grand uncle was Brigadier-General Rufus Putnam. While he achieved a lot during his lifetime and has been recognized as "The Father of Ohio," Rufus had been poorly educated as a child. His stepfather, Captain John Sadler, who he lived with from the age of 9, refused to allow him to attend school on a regular basis.

When Rufus was almost 16, he was apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Daniel Mathews Jr., who is my fourth great-grandfather. Though it is not mentioned on Rufus's profile, Daniel also refused to allow Rufus to attend school. He would only allow Rufus to study by candlelight at night.

Though he excelled in surveying and was appointed the first Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory, he felt hampered by his poor education. His memoirs give testimony to how deeply he felt his lack of education.

Answer 2

The poorhouses came to mind when I saw this prompt.  Census and other records periodically turn up someone in my family who ended up in places like this especially in the 19th and early 20th century.  The options for someone with no family to stay with and without means of support were bleak.

Two popular poems of the time came to mind, Will Carleton's "Over the hill to the poorhouse" (he was a Michigan native) and Robert Frost's "Death of the Hired Man", both of which focus on what can happen to the unfortunate individuals who face these circumstances.

I don't have a lot of detailed information about William Perry (1863-1929), but I suspect he never had much wealth.  He doesn't appear to have ever married.  In 1900, the census lists him as a farmer and living with his younger brother Henry and his family, by 1910 he is a farm laborer living with Henry. Henry's wife died in 1912 and while I located Henry, I've not been able to find William on the 1920 Census nor have I been able to see the image of his 1929 death record.  I also haven't found him with any other family members in 1920 so his whereabouts are a mystery during this time period.

Answer 3

Last week I managed to find someone named Rich in my watchlist but this week I am not so lucky because when I searched my poor selection of surnames I could not find anyone named Poor or anything suitable.

I have no shortage of poor people in my ancestry. Almost everyone was either a poor agricultural or industrial labourer and those who were not labourers were tradesmen such as shoemakers and tallow chandlers but there is no sign they were able to acquire any wealth.

This week I have chosen John Pointer, a poor agricultural labourer, whose descendants were involved in brick making in the Hoo Peninsular in Kent. Like a few of my ancestors John Pointer spent his final days as a pauper in the Workhouse.

If you want to find out more about Poor Laws, Workhouses and related subjects I recommend the Web site http://www.workhouses.org.uk/ created by Peter Higginbotham.

Answer 4

My 3x great grandmother Jane Simmons Shaylor was born in Indiana in 1807.  Her parents were Quakers who left New Garden, North Carolina to settle Jay County, Indiana. Life on what was then the American frontier was difficult and I doubt that they had much more than the bare necessities to survive. I can't imagine how hard her life was. 

Answer 5

I can name many a man who arrived in the New World as an assisted immigrant or without any money to live on, but am amazed at the large number who then went on to make good lives for themselves. The ones who could not get into a better place include the sick, those who then lost what little they had, and those who lacked something essential. Jacob Kuhn was an unfortunate one. Early in 1750, he left Rikon, Switzerland with his wife and family, and went to Rotterdam, then aboard the Ann to Halifax, Nova Scotia as indentured passengers. An infectious fever took the lives of several of the family en route, but Jacob and his wife made it to Halifax arriving in September with 3 children. The indentured settlers were required to build barracks for the soldiers there before they could provide for themselves. His wife died there. In 1751 the survivors were settled in Lunenburg. Jacob was buried at Lunenburg on 30 December 1751.

Comments

Perhaps your ancestors knew my husbands' Tanner ancestors who also emigrated from Switzerland to Lunenberg around the same time.

Answer 6

For this week I will add in Charlotte Morrison Poor who married Martin Priest Dodge, my 8th cousin, once removed.

This was a good topic as it "forced" me to add to WikiTree, this couple who have been "waiting in line" for their turn.  Soon I will add the rest of the family.

Answer 7

Why did so many Italians like my great-grandfather, Giuseppe Carrabs leave Italy? Let's find out: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2019/11/52-ancestors-week-46-poor-man.html

Answer 8

John or William or George Manning (abt. 1805 - aft. 1870) is a difficult fellow to track down.  It seems he keeps moving and changing his name.  I have been able to track him because of the odd names he has given his children but based on the fact that he seems to have moved - and over state lines - and his kids seem to be indentured out, makes me think that he had credit problems.  

A man in debt is a poor man.

Answer 9

I actually have an ancestor Daniel Poor, who by all accounts was not poor. He managed to accumulate a fair amount of land in Andover and North Andover, Massachusetts, back in the 1600s

Comments

Back up the genealogy bus! Andover and North Andover? Huh. I wonder if some of that land became Merrimack College. Wouldn't surprise me. =D

Answer 10

When I think of poverty in my family, I think of my great grandfather Alvin Porter Long. His father was murdered two days before his 12th birthday, and Alvin took off on his own as a teenager. In 1893 he made the land run for the Cherokee Strip, later Oklahoma, using his only possession, a horse. He was able to stake out land to live on, but he knew nothing about farming, and he became ill. A neighboring lady, my great grandmother, nursed him back to health. They were very poor, and they and their children often lived on flour and water gravy. Alvin was known to have men and horses in his barn at night, and these men were thought to have been hiding from the law, so Alvin was managing to get by any way he could. John Steinbeck wrote a novel The Grapes of Wrath about the poverty in Oklahoma and the Okies moving to California. Alvin Porter, at that time, was too poor to move, as he did not have an automobile and would have had to go with a horse and wagon. I am glad I have this photo taken about this same time of him looking content with his dog.

Answer 11

My gr.grandfather William Henry Mayoh was never a rich man. He grew up in New South Wales, the third son and seventh of fourteen children. William worked on the construction of the Kalgoorlie Water Pipeline in Western Australia and then moved to Ravenswood in Queensland in 1903, where he settled down and raised a family of three sons and four daughters.

Answer 12

I don't think there was a song "If I were a Poor Man", so let's see how I'll do this one...

I'm going to go with my grandfather.  He was a carpenter, worked hard, and made a good living.  Raising a family, he was never rich, but not poor either.  My grandparents had 5 children to raise.  In the end, however, after my grandmother died of Alzheimer's, he succumbed to his vices, and despite having two fully paid-off homes in prime real estate areas, he died a poor man.  Somehow, he managed to sell his properties and dump all his money into his vice. "Poor judgement" would be an understatement.  He died poor, both financially and spiritually, leaving nothing to his children but a sense of neglect and desolation.  There is no happy ending to this story.

Answer 13

This week, I have selected my 4th GGF, Pvt. Josiah Baldwin. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Baldwin-10529

Josiah was born in 1843 in Sudbury, MA and died in 1837 in Rutland, VT. He had 2 daughters with his first wife and 2 daughters and 3 sons with his second wife. When I was working on his military history during the Revolutionary War, I accessed his pension records. Because his military information had been lost, he and several friends and family had to attest to his participation in the war. He was finally awarded a pension in 1829 when he was 83 years old. In his own testimony, Josiah wrote of his poverty. He had mentioned that several of his children had moved east with their own children and did not have money. He wrote that he was living with his granddaughter and her husband and their 5 children. He wrote that he 'made brooms' from twigs for income and the need for a pension to help with family food expenses.

It was heartbreaking to think that this old man, who served honorably during the war was doing his best making brooms to help support the family. While he became rich in descendants, he lived out his final days in penury.

Answer 14

Catharine Poorman was my 4^th great grandmother.  She’s one of my brick walls that I need to work on. She appears to have lived her whole life in Pennsylvania starting in 1785.  She had four children by her first husband and none known by her second.

Answer 15

Apparently in 1933 my uncle Malcolm Driver was poor, hungry and not too smart at the time, because he and two friends not only shot a man's milk cow and took the hind quarters but left tire tracks for the police to follow! 

Answer 16

Mine is John Fine. His profile is https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Fine-602
 

The Fines of Rhea County today are descended from John's Fine son Elijah, of Washington County, In 1854 Elijah and Barbara (Andes) Fine's three sons - Vinet, John, and Isaac - moved to Rhea County, settling in District 2. In the 1850 Census of Washington County, John listed his occupation as a farmer. By the late 1850's, the Fine family had settled in the Sulphur Springs community of Rhea County. The year that John died (1860) was determined from Rhea County Will Book Number One (page 164) that was dated May of 1860. The following entry also was written: Stephen Breeding, Administrator of John FIne, deceased, reported that "the estate was not sufficient to provide the years support of the family and exempting the land from execution. The estate was deficient by $200.00. Amount owed by the estate is $300.00; nothing to administer."

Answer 17

Frank Welton's life took shape bit by bit, as various records came to light -- a precious 1892 census, a marriage record showing parents' names -- and so on. With each addition to the list of sources it seemed to me his portrait was one of a man who had often been on the losing end. 

Frank was widowed early, and seems to have lost a child as well. His second wife, Kate, had two children from a previous marriage, one of whom died young. Then Kate left him a widow, after 25 years of marriage and no children of their own.

Frank drifted all this time from job to job, still a farm laborer at age 67. In old age no children or relatives were there to care for him. His last address was at the county home.

He was probably poor when it came to worldly goods, and also poor on account of loneliness.

Answer 18

My Great-Great Grandfather, Simon Rammel, was evidently a Poor Man.

In my search for truth, I discovered a "Certificate and Record of Death" for Simon.  It was issued by Indiana State Board of Health.  It provides his place of residence as "County Poor Farm".

Answer 19

Probably one of the sad stories I read about was what happened to the family of Edmund Mitchell (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Mitchel-414) after he and his wife passed away.  After Phebe died the probate records show couple of his young children had frequent sicknesses, which could not be cured.  Eventually the farm had to be sold to cover the doctor bills and other expenses.

Answer 20

My 6x great grandfather is identified as "day laborer" in the marriage certificate of his daughter.