Jefferson County Poorhouse

The first asylum for the indigent poor in Jefferson County was established in 1825, on the Dudley farm the County purchased in the Town of LeRay. This location is believed to have been on Eastern Blvd., across from the old Renaissance Restaurant. Orville Hungerford was appointed its first Superintendent in 1826. In 1833, the site was outgrown, and the County bought land of Jabez Foster on outer Main Street for the construction of a purpose-built asylum. The Jefferson County Farm, as it became called, was expanded over the following decades to include an orphans asylum and an asylum for "idiots." The orphans were removed from the building in 1859 when the county established the Orphans Asylum on Franklin St. The County Farm was closed down in the 1960s, and burned.