History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests / compiled from the official records of the county, the newspapers and data of personal interviews, under the editorial supervision of Thaddeus D. Seeley.

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

211

$1,59I.31. On May 2, 1835, the committee advertised the building as
ready for occupancy.
In 1839 the county commissioners abolished the distinction of county
and township poor, assuming them all as a county charge. Theretofore,
only those persons who had acquired no legal residence in the county
had been helped directly by the supervisors as a county body corporate,
the townships providing for actual residents. At the first meeting of
the commissioners in January, I839, they also elected the first county
superintendents of the poor, viz.: William Price, Harvey Seeley and
Friend Belding, whose terms of office were fixed at three years. The
expense of the poorfarm system the first year was $2,083.68. This
farm bought in 1835 was occupied by the county until I857, when it
was turned in for a payment on a new farm purchased of one Mead,
in Waterford, of three hundred and seventeen acres, the old farm being
taken at $40 per acre, and the balance of the purchase-money on the
new purchase, $9,466.40, secured by mortgage. The land was situated
in Waterford, and was known as the northeast quarter and west half,
southeast quarter and southwest quarter, section 27, except ten acres
reserved therefrom. There were good buildings on the farm. In
January, I858, the board resolved to dispose of the Mead farm and buy
another containing about one hundred acres, and a committee reported
in favor of disposing of a portion of the Mead farm and erecting buildings on the balance. Mead offered to take back the land on the north
side of the road at $35 per acre, which proposition was not accepted by
the board of supervisors, but about the year I86o the farm reverted to
the original owner, Mead, by default in the payments on the mortgage,
and the first farm and the expense involved in remodeling the buildings
on the second farm was lost by the county. William W. Martin, of
Bloomfield, was then engaged by contract to support and care for the
county poor for some years, and received nine shillings per head weekly
for the same. At the October meeting, I863, the committee on the
poorhouse, F. W. Fifield, E. B. Comstock and Noah Tyler, reported as
follows: "In regard to the system now practiced of farming out the
paupers, it is extremely objectionable, repugnant to humanity, and in
opposition to the true interests of the county. The paupers under this
system are not cared for, or as comfortably situated as the dictates of
humanity or the requirements of justice demand, notwithstanding the
keeper is doing the best he can for them. The buildings in which they
are kept are inadequate to the wants and absolute necessities of the
inmates, and are uncouth, unshapely, and, worse, uncomfortable and
unwholesome, and the committee recommends the purchase of eighty
acres of land and the erection of suitable buildings at once."
In I864, in accordance with the recommendation, the board authorized the county superintendents to purchase a farm, and they accordingly bought, April I, I864, one hundred and twenty acres, being the
one-half of the northwest quarter, section 35, and the southeast quarter
of southwest quarter, section 26, township 3 north, range 9 east, of
Joel Benedict, for $4,833. This farm was subsequently sold to T. F.
Harrington, and on June 23, I866, one hundred acres purchased of
Mortimer F. Osman, being the east part of the northeast quarter, secVol. I-14