Many people believe public welfare is a relatively new phenomenon, but poor relief actually dates to the early years of North Carolina’s statehood. Wardens of the poor, who could make cash payments to indigents, and “poorhouses” were authorized in the late eighteenth century, but many poorhouses built then or later were inadequate. In the 1920s, a number of counties built more commodious, humane facilities known as county homes. Support for the poor and infirm in Franklin County paralleled that of other counties, and a new brick facility constructed in 1926 made residents of the county home more comfortable than ever before.

The North Carolina General Assembly in 1785 authorized seven counties, including Halifax and Nash, to build poorhouses. In 1793 the legislature made it possible for all counties to build such facilities, but many of them waited many years before doing so. A law passed in 1831 authorized county courts of pleas and quarter sessions to construct poorhouses. Many of these facilities consisted of two-room cottages with a central chimney and fireplaces in each room. When Dorothea Dix, an advocate for improved care for the mentally ill, came to North Carolina in the 1840s to survey conditions in the state’s jails and poorhouses, she discovered widely divergent conditions. Her report, published in 1848, described a mentally ill inmate of the poorhouse in Granville County who had been chained to the floor for years, resulting in the deformity of his body.

Franklin County appointed wardens of the poor as early as 1790 and by 1833 had built a poorhouse, which was managed by a superintendent. The poorhouse was funded by small poll and a real estate taxes. In 1869, William N. Fuller recorded the location of the poorhouse on a map he drew of the county. The property was located near the stage road to Warrenton, just east of what is now Trinity United Methodist Church. By 1926, when a plat of the land associated with what was now known as the county home was drawn by R. M. Pickard, it consisted of nearly 400 acres on both sides of the road leading to Moulton. A collection of sixteen buildings of various sizes are shown on the plat. Some of them likely were barns or other structures associated with the farm, which produced food for the residents of the home as well as surplus produce that was sold to offset the cost of running the facility. For example, in 1921, this extra produce was sold for $1,390.69, which reduced the county’s outlay for the home from $6,244.34 to $4,853.65.

A number of changes in the management of North Carolina’s county homes occurred in the 1920s. In 1922, the acreage of the state’s county homes amounted to approximately 16,000 acres, with a fourth of it in cultivation. The managers, usually a husband and wife, focused on cash crops rather than healthful vegetables, milk, and eggs. Because these farming operations were seldom profitable, counties began to reduce the size of the farms. Also, between 1919 and 1928, at least twenty-five counties, including Halifax in 1923, built spacious new county home facilities, all but three of which were constructed of brick. They featured electric lights, steam heat, and hot and cold running water. Some included fireplaces, because older “inmates” considered the new accommodations unnatural and wanted to poke their fires and spit in the fireplaces.

Franklin’s county home underwent significant changes during this period. The residents, usually a total of around twenty to twenty-two persons of both races, seemed to be happy, and they especially enjoyed the outdoor barbecue dinners prepared by Mr. and Mrs. John Hedgepeth, the facility’s managers, for the annual inspection made by the County Commissioners. Nevertheless, the county realized that the facility needed to be updated. In August 1925, the commissioners instructed superintendent Hedgepeth to purchase wire with which to make an enclosure for the “proper keeping of insane persons”—a reflection of the make-do nature of the enterprise.

It was around this time that the commissioners decided to move the facility. In November 1925 they authorized the sale of the timber on the farm, and Q. S. Leonard purchased it for $6,551. Early in 1926, the commissioners authorized Louisburg architect Marion Stuart Davis to develop plans for the new brick facility, and they purchased from Richard C. and Emma Perry twenty-five acres located approximately 2.5 miles west of Louisburg, on the road to Franklinton, on which to build it. After bids for its construction were rejected twice, the commissioners gave the contract to the W. H. Allen Company of Louisburg. The old site was divided into ten lots in November 26, so they could be sold by the Durham Auction Company.

The new building, which was constructed for $34,249 plus the cost of plumbing and heating, was completed in December 1926, and Superintendent Hedgepeth moved the residents there the Saturday before Christmas. With electric lights, steam heat, and hot and cold running water, the commodious brick structure, similar in design to Vance County’s facility, was a significant improvement over the old county home. As the editor of The Franklin Times crowed, “Franklin County now stands in the first line in the proper care of its old and feeble charges with accommodations equal to any, and it is pleasing to note it is entirely a Franklin County product, being devised and built by home people.”

Published in The Franklin Times on June 5, 2019.

Maury York is director of the Tar River Center for History and Culture at Louisburg College. Sources for this article include William S. Powell, ed., The Encyclopedia of North Carolina (UNC Press, 2006); Paul Woodford Wager, County Government and Administration in North Carolina (UNC Press, 1928); The Franklin Times; minutes of the Franklin County Board of Commissioners; Map Book 1, office of the Franklin County Register of Deeds; and records of the Wardens of the Poor, 1790-1886, Franklin County Miscellaneous Records, State Archives of North Carolina.