POOR FARM – Washington Co., Mo.
On the 30th of May, 1882, the county court purchased of L.B. Higginbotham and wife, for the sum of $4,000, a farm containing 320 acres lying about six miles northwest from Potosi, and received a deed for the property from the grantors on the same day. On the 18th of August, following, the court entered into a contract with Joseph Gutherie, for the erection of a suitable house on the farm for a home for the dependent poor or paupers of the county - the house to be a one-story frame building, sixty feet long, with a hall running lengthwise therein, with rooms on each side, and a large diningroom at one end, and the whole to be completed for the sum of $1,890, and to be ready for occupancy on or before October 28, of the same year. It was erected according to contract, and the court then entered into an agreement with the aforesaid L.B. Higginbotham, whereby he became superintendent of the poor farm, and agreed to provide food, clothing, beds, and everything necessary for the comfort and health of the paupers confined by the authority of the court in the poorhouse. In compensation therefor the court agreed to and did let to Mr. Hilgginbotham the said county poor farm, under certain restrictions; he to have the use of the same and all the proceeds therefrom, and in addition the court agreed to pay him the sum of $4.50 per month for each and every pauper entrusted to his care. This contract was to run from November 1, 1882, to March 1, 1884, at the end of which time it was renewed for one year, and then renewed for four years, so it will not expire until March 1, 1889.

In 1883 Mr. Higginbotham, by order of the court, erected an asylum (which is a small building about 24x28 feet) on the farm for the confinemant of the incurably insane paupers belonging to the county. There are, at this writing, twenty paupers in the poorhouse, and two in the asylum, and this is about the average number from year to year. The superintendent is allowed additional compensation for the care of insane paupers. The cost to the county for the support of her paupers for the year 1887 was $1,477. Prior to the purchase of this farm and the erection of the poorhouse thereon, Washington County supported her paupers by hiring one or more responsible persons to provide and care for them for a stipulated price.
Pg. 486, Goodspeed's History of Washington Co., Mo., 1888 Reprint

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