The records of levies disclose the frequency with which assessments were made for the benefit of persons who, from their physical disabilities, were incapable of earning a self-support. The sums of tobacco thus obtained were paid either to the paupers themselves directly, or to some one who had agreed to furnish the person who was the object of charity with food and clothing.[1] In 1668, the Assembly provided for the establishment in each county of a workhouse;[2] this act must have been enforced, for in 1678 the justices of the peace for Lower Norfolk County were indicted by the Grand Jury for neglecting to observe it.[3] The erection of workhouses was specially recommended to Lord Culpeper in the instructions which he received its Governor in 1679.[4] The form of relief generally requested by those who had become impoverished was exemption from the payment of county levies; this privilege was granted if the person seeking it was advanced in age,[5] or so lame or so blind as to be incapable of work,[6] or was burdened with a large family of children.[7]
There were in the course of the seventeenth century many instances in which valuable bequests were made for the benefit of the poor. In 1683, Robert Griggs of Lancaster left twenty thousand pounds of tobacco to the destitute of Christ Church Parish in that county, those who had large families to maintain to be preferred;[8] George
- ↑ Records of Middlesex County, original vol. 1680-1694, Dec. 4, 1693, Jan. 4, 1685, Oct. 4, 1683.
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, p. 266. These workhouses were for children.
- ↑ Records of Lower Norfolk County, original vol. 1675-1680, f. p. 40.
- ↑ From this, it would appear that the workhouses which had been in existence had fallen into disuse,. It should, however, be remembered that the persons who drew up the Instructions to the Governors showed, in many cases, ignorance of the real condition of the Colony.
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1664-1672, p. 416, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Ibid., vol. 1687-1691, p. 50.
- ↑ Ibid., vol. 1657-1662, p. 391.
- ↑ Records of Lancaster County, original vol. 1674-1687, p. 91.
