Dorchester Illustration 2528 Dorchester Alms House
The Dorchester Alms House was located on the north side of Hancock Street opposite Kane Square, where there is a city yard today.
In the year before the annexation of Dorchester to Boston, the report for 1868-1869 of the Dorchester Alms House stated twenty persons had been admitted during the year. Ten were discharged, and six had died. There were seventeen at the end of the year who were being provided relief. The town also spent $3,150.64 for those who were not living in the Alms House. The town also supported seven people who were at insane hospitals across the state: four at Taunton, two at Worcester and 1 at Northampton. There was a state alms house at Bridgewater, but in the report for 1865-1866, the committee for the alms house in Dorchester visited the Bridgewater facility in response to the unwillingness of the poor of foreign birth to be sent there. After their visit, the Committee stated, “We are free to confess we are less inclined to send paupers there than before our visit.” The superintendent of the Dorchester alms house was Capt. Charles Spears along with his wife. Capt. Spear had experience as superintendent of women on the highways. This last statement needs further research. Were the poor forced to labor on road work in exchange for their place at the alms house?
An article that appeared in The Dorchester Beacon newspaper in 1939 stated that the first instance of supporting the poor was in 1659, when the selectmen ordered that the Constables should give out of the Town Rate unto Benjamin Tuchel five pounds for his present necessity for clothing himself and his children.