Galena Daily Gazette
3 August 1883

The County Poor Farm

A visit to the Jo Daviess county poor farm reveals the fact that that institution is one of the best of the kind kept in the state. Mr. Thos. Burns, the superintendent, takes great pride in seeing that everything is kept neat and orderly, and those who have been so unfortunate as to be in poverty in their old age, find in Mr. Burns a kind guardian. Gov. Butler, of Massachusetts, should come to Galena and see a model alms house with no Tewksbury horrors. Mr. Burns reports fifty-six persons under his charge-forty-nine in the poor house proper, and seven inmates of the insane asylum. Two deaths occurred in the institution during the month of July, viz: Matthias Thill, a native of France, aged 85 years. Mr. Thill claimed to have been a soldier when a boy, under the first Napolean. Also, Mrs. A. Richter, a native of Germany, aged 46 years. The general health of the inmates is reported as good.


Submitted by Tim Doser