The Board of Selectmen led a tour of the new almshouse and town farm

1. The Board of Selectmen, who organized this tour, were:

• William Berry;
• Thomas Blake;
• Ralph Foster; and
• G. W. Fowler.

2. The people invited to take this tour were:

• John B. Corning;
• David Crary;
• Harrison B. Freeman;
• Charles E. Gross;
• Abraham Hollander;
• James Hughes;
• Frederick P. Lepard;
• J. M. Ney;
• E. V. Preston;
• John G. Root;
• Nathaniel Shipman;
• Charles C. Strong;
• Graham Taylor;
• F. W. Tomkins;
• James A. Smith;
• T. E. Steele; and
• “some others.”

3. The tour lasted two hours.
4. There were between 155 and 165 people at the almshouse.  The quarantine facility was currently vacant.

With the new town farm up and running, sales of the remaining building lots on the old town farm property could proceed unimpeded.

1. The article states that the “five selectmen” were there, but then only names four of them.
2. Presumably, the guests on the tour met at a central location in order to catch “Smith’s four-horse 'bus,” but there’s no reference to this.
3. It is unclear if the tour did take in the chapel – likely it did, but it was not stated directly. Its location in the facility was also not given.

An adjourned town meeting that discussed the old town farm property was held on October 24, 1887.

1. During the tour, T. E. Steele raised the issue of an organ for the almshouse, explaining that:

• There are religious exercises every Sunday, alternating Catholic one week and Protestant the next.
• The parishioners of the Windsor Avenue Congregational Church volunteer as a choir every Sunday, but they were “troubled all the time by the want of an organ.”
• An organ could be purchased for $100, and the Board of Selectmen had been urged to buy it.
• The Board, however, had hesitated, owing to criticism over this use of funds.
• “There is an organ at the jail, why not at the almshouse?”
• Steele urged the “gentlemen present” to tell the Board that this was a worthy expenditure, “it would have great weight with them.”

2. Several individuals agreed to endorse such an action.
3. Charles E. Gross then suggested that the individuals on the tour could pay for the organ themselves, and he “laid down five dollars.”
4. F. W. Tomkins then pledged $10.
5. A few minutes later, over $60 had been raised.

On December 10, 1888, the Boards of Aldermen and Councilmen will meet and will take action on five items related to the old town farm property.

“The town house has now between 155 and 165 inmates, only one of who is a Yankee.  Sixty are women and seven are small children.  The rest are men, and many of them and of the women are very old.”

1. George Goyt was the superintendent of the town farm.
2. George Fowler was First Selectman.

Unattributed.  “The alms house,” Hartford Courant, July 26, 1888, page 2.

Unattributed.  “The almshouse organ,” Hartford Courant, July 26, 1888, page 8.