… That the oldest poorhouse in Massachusetts is in Lincoln?
In its earliest days, Lincoln did not need a special building to house the poor. There were few paupers in the town, and they were supported at town expense either in their own homes or as lodgers with other families. All that changed with the economic disruptions of the Revolution. Throughout Massachusetts, towns found the need for special buildings—poorhouse, almshouse, workhouse—to shelter (and put to work) those who were destitute, disabled, mentally-ill, vagrant, or even guilty of petty crime.
In Lincoln, the May 1785 Town Meeting voted to build its own poorhouse on Old Lexington Road, on a site overlooking the Common and the burying ground. The two-story building was to be 25 by 30 feet in dimension with two finished rooms on the ground floor. Town archives show that skilled labor was employed to construct the building’s framing and chimney, but much of the construction was done by town residents. A form of community service was used to dig a well in 1787, requiring that “those persons be employed who complain of difficulty in paying taxes”—Lincoln’s first Tax Work-Off Program!
Up until 1808, people in need were intermittently housed in the building, but it also was put to other uses. With the schoolhouse in bad shape, middle school classes were held there by 1789, and the upstairs was improved in 1790 to host a singing school. In 1793, the west end of the house was appropriated for use by the school. In 1809, the town voted to sell the building to Newell Hunt, who used it as a tavern and store until 1820, when it was advertised for sale as “a good House, now occupied as a Store and Tavern, Barn and Shed, together with 3 ½ acres of the best land.” Another innkeeper, Henry Rice, acquired the property and enlarged the building between 1827 and 1830. As the largest available space in Lincoln, it hosted town gatherings, selectmen meetings, social functions, and dances in the second floor ballroom. The decorative wall murals by the prolific 19th century folk artist, Rufus Porter, are still preserved in the upstairs room.
The building has changed hands over the centuries. Henry Rice sold it to Edward Rice in 1858. It passed to Jonathan Sawin in 1863, then to Hannah Weston in 1874, and on to the Robert D. Donaldson family since 1905. Today, fewer than a hundred of these old almshouse buildings survive in Massachusetts—and Lincoln’s poorhouse is the oldest survivor among them.
(Sources: Heli Meltsner, The Poorhouses of Massachusetts (2012), and John C. MacLean, A Rich Harvest: The History, People, and Buildings of Lincoln, available from the Lincoln Historical Society Bookstore.)
Craig Donaldson
Lincoln Historical Society
January 2021