Among the various reasons for admission to the poorhouse is a sundry list including feeble minded, insane, convulsions, blind, inbred, old and demented. Throughout the duration of the year, 83 other souls would call the Greene County Poorhouse “home”. The records indicate that he had never held a job or an occupation of any sort, and his reason for admission was noted as “crippled”. Pipes was 40 years old, and formerly resided in Franklin Township. Issac Pipes was the first inmate to live in the facility, having been admitted on the 2nd of June 1862. It didn’t take long for the residents to arrive. This roadway became PA Route 21, later known as Old 21, and is now Rolling Meadows Road. Early in 1862, the county approved measures to install a new public roadway that would run in front of the facility. The original house was to be used as a residence for the steward of the poorhouse, and the new two story wing, expanding straight out of the rear elevation of the house contained a long hallway with ten rooms running along the hall on the first floor, and an identical configuration of the second. This home and farm was to be the site of the Greene County Poorhouse. The structure was a large Georgian Revival with a center hall and finely decorated rooms, an extravagant home for the time. In 1861, the County of Greene acquired a large farm in western Franklin Township upon which stood a twelve room farmhouse built in 1857 by the Rinehart family. These houses often started out as converted family homes, usually beginning small in scale and expanding greatly over time. Just before the start of the Civil War legislation was passed in Pennsylvania, and many other states throughout the country, for each county to establish houses to care and support the poor.
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