A Poor House with a Rich History

Any resident or frequent visitor to Falmouth has passed by the building at one time or another; , and it's easily one of the most well-known buildings in town. What isn't widely known is that the structure has had a much longer history prior to its current appearance.

 The first incarnation of the building at 137 Gifford Street was a tavern, first built in approximately 1769 at the intersection of Sandwich Road and the Carriage Shop Road, north of where the East End Meeting House would eventually come to stand.

The tavern, owned by one Peter Yost, was constructed of pegged mortise and tenon, and measures 48 by 35 feet. The plaster that covered the walls was formed from ground seashells and lime, kept together by horse hair, and insulated with eelgrass—a plant fond only on the south shore of the Cape. Two chimneys topped the building, in front of which those journeying from North to West Falmouth or to Sandwich or Barnstable would warm themselves.

Things changed for the tavern during the War of 1812, which caused an economic depression across Cape Cod. The owner of the tavern pulled up roots and made his way to Cincinnati with his family, and the tavern was relocated four and a half miles south to a spot of land adjacent to the Methodist Cemetery. This is when its second incarnation took place, that of the Falmouth Poor House.

Even though the impetus for the structure came around 1812, the reasons for it began much earlier. Sometime in the early 1800's, a Town Meeting was held in Falmouth amongst 5 people to determine a course of action that could be undertaken for the town's poor. The recommendation of the committee, which did not find favor with the selectmen currently in office at the time, was to find a house that could be remodeled to give shelter to the needy. Luckily, the tavern came up for sale, and in 1814, it was born again as the Poor House.

The sale of the tavern from Yost was $380, which a further repair brought to $342, and then the land was fenced-off. In 1823, Falmouth's government took another look at the structure, and began to discuss the possiblity of building a newer and large Poor House.

In the end, however, it was considered more suitable to refurbish than to begin anew, but a barn was built in 1824, and two years after that, the Poor House was reclassified as a “Work House,” which held rather harsh standards. Article 7 of the charter for the Work House, for example, stated that anyone declining to work would be confined or farmed out for other work for a arbitrarily decided length of time. In 1878, the place became a farm, which made a small profit by selling foodstuffs and various necessaries.

Eventually, it was the rise of welfare and the Social Security Administration that was the final nail in the coffin for the Poor House. It was closed in 1960, and the last seven people still inhabiting the structure took welfare, went into hospitals, or found some other way to keep themselves going.