Jackson Poor Farm

In the nineteenth century, Michigan’s counties began to establish “poor farms” to care for indigent people. Jackson County leaders appointed a Board of Superintendents of the Poor on January 10, 1839, less than two years after Michigan gained statehood. The following May, the board was authorized to purchase a “tract of land… and to erect one or more suitable buildings for the reception and accommodation of the county’s poor.” While the exact date of construction for the first poor house is unknown, the structure was insured by the Jackson Mutual Fire Insurance Company for $300 on January 4, 1841. It is likely that the structure was near completion or completed before this date. The number of residents at the Jackson Poor Farm, also known as the County House, varied over the following decades, ranging between 24 and 90 lodgers.

[Back]: A May 4, 1880, article of the Jackson Citizen detailed the facilities of the “poor farm.” They included 160 acres of farmland, a main brick building, which housed women, a wooden addition for those with mental illness, and a stone building for men. Women cooked, cleaned the house, and washed clothes and utensils. Men tended to the crops, cared for the barn animals, and performed manual labor. A fire broke out on January 24, 1886, destroying the main structure and claiming the lives of five residents. A new “handsome” and “expensive” building was constructed here the following year. The site continued to serve the county until the completion of the Jackson County Medical Care Facility in 1963. The abandoned site was leveled by a fire in 1967, leaving only this cemetery and its unmarked graves dating back to the farm’s beginning in the 1840s.