By Devonna Edwards, Columnist
A Poor House is described as a government-run establishment to support and provide housing for the dependent or needy, in early years these people were known as Paupers. Other names for Poor House were Workhouse, Bridewell, Almshouse or Asylum. These houses were inhabited by people of all ages and descriptions. They existed in a time before Social Welfare existed and poor people had nowhere else to turn in time of need.
The Halifax Poor House
In 1754, the sick and the poor were cared for in a temporary workhouse purchased by the government, on the north side of Spring Garden Road property known later as Grafton Park. The workhouse was described as a log structure, situated 13 X 10 metres upon an acre of ground surrounded by a high picket fence. In the foundation of the workhouse a ‘black hole’ was constructed as a cell for ‘solitary confinement’. There was also a building for the Keeper, as well as a kitchen and a brew house. In 1758, a bill was passed to establish a new asylum for the poor and a stone house was erected shortly after, described as being 20 X 7 metres and 7 metres high. By 1763, an additional act was passed that required three rooms in the workhouse to be set aside for a Poor House, to be supervised by the Overseers of the Poor and supported by the Halifax Poor Taxes.
The sick or weak would be taken care of by the Keeper of the House. In 1766, a tax was levied on spirituous liquors and on other imported goods to help with the expense and a couple of years later a surgeon was appointed to look after the sick, the orphans and poor children. The Bridewell soon had more paupers than prisoners, so by the early 1800s the building was referred to as a Poor House. Some attempts were made to separate the criminals from paupers, but because of overcrowded conditions this did not happen for a long period of time. On the Poor House grounds a whipping post and stocks were erected for these pitiful souls and were put to use frequently. When John Howe a printer-editor visited this dreadful place, he saw many atrocities and punishment being bestowed upon residents of this untenable place. In 1805 plans for a Poor House Hospital were drawn up to build a building one story high, measuring 50 X 16 metres.
By 1812, the Poor House building was found to be much too small, and a new wing was added for the care of lunatic persons from the entire province. It was made of stone, white-washed on the outside, but without a cellar until 1830.
In 1815, a separate building on the Poor House grounds was renovated as a Bridewell and prisoners were sent there. A surgeon provided medical assistance, but prisoners who were ill and required hospital care were taken to the Poor House Hospital.
The Poor House Burying Grounds was located adjacent to the Poor House on Spring Garden Road, and it has been said to contain the remains of eight hundred people. Later the cemetery became Grafton Street Park and in 1949 the Halifax Memorial Library was built over the site of the pauper’s graves.
The New Poor House
It was built on the corner of South and Robie Streets by Henry Peters in 1867. This structure was made of brick and stone, 50 metres X 16 metres and was the tallest building in Halifax at that time. The architect was David Sterling, and the structure resembled a castle consisting of a central building with south and west wings and the capacity to house six hundred people. It was completed on December 1, 1869, and the poor were moved from the old Bridewell into their new home. At midnight on November 7, 1882, a fire broke out in the kitchen and when the firemen arrived it was burning with great speed, so they directed ten streams of water on the flames. There were three hundred and forty-three inmates living there at the time. Old women and children stood at the windows screaming to be let out and when they saw the firemen they began to break the glass and prepared to jump. One member of the Union Protection Company used his axe to break down the door, the stairways were crowded. Out rushed fifty to sixty children, scores of men, and women of all ages, some carrying babies in their arms, all desperate to escape the burning infernal. But help came too late for the forty to fifty people on the upper wards of the wing; the helpless, the blind, lame, and inmates too ill to move themselves. Police, firemen, clergymen, reporters, and spectators rushed into the building to help, but by this time the flames had spread to the elevator shaft and in a few minutes the fire was burning out of control. Thirty-one inmates died in the fire. The paupers that escaped were made comfortable on straw in the stable and were fed with tea and bread. One of the workshops was fitted with beds for the old women, the children and the ill.
The Board of Charities obtained permission from the Dominion Government to use the recently abandoned old Penitentiary on the North West Arm for temporary lodging. The inmates remained at the old Penitentiary until the Asylum was rebuilt in October, 1886. This new building was called the City Home. The City Home was later called the Halifax Mental Hospital and was demolished in 1972, to make way for the new Children’s Hospital.
