[ back ]
Records tell stories of indentured children
(by Joan Demirjian - December 02, 2009)
Records tell stories of indentured children
By JOAN DEMIRJIAN
When Sharon Gingrich took office as Geauga County recorder, she began pouring through old records, she said. It was in the archives that she found a book from the 1800s.
In it are records of indentured servants in the county's townships. She began transcribing 23 of the records and found the accounts fascinating, she said.
Since her election in November 2008, Mrs. Gingrich has been visiting township trustees meetings to talk about her findings and some of the duties of their township predecessors. In addition to overseeing the roads and cemeteries, township trustees in the early days signed off on documents in which children from poor homes and orphans were signed over as servants.
She recently was in Bainbridge, where she told trustees, if they had been in office in the 1800s, they would have been authorized and required by statute, with assent of a justice of the peace, to bind out any orphan, destitute child or a child of any poor person as a servant or apprentice.
"In other words, you would have been responsible for the poor in your township, and you would have been the ones who had to sign contracts for any indentures or apprenticeships," Mrs. Gingrich said.
In most of the cases, indentures were made, because the children were orphaned or their families were poor and unable to care for them anymore, she said.
"Try to imagine yourself in the place of a parent who had to give away a child, anywhere from 3 to 16 years of age, because they just could not take care of him or her anymore, and they hoped the child would have a better opportunity elsewhere," Mrs. Gingrich said.
The first indenture was recorded in 1825 in Parkman. By 1929, a Bainbridge indenture was recorded. Bainbridge had elected or appointed overseers of the poor, so trustees did not sign the indenture, she said.
Jonas A. Childs and John Fowler were overseers in Bainbridge. Aaron Squire was the justice of the peace who presided over the indenture of James Aaron Taggart, a boy of 8. He was indentured to Pardon Wilber until his 21st birthday.
According to records, he was to faithfully serve his master in his business and behave himself towards his master. He did not have the normal restrictions of indentures, which forbade card playing, drinking, marrying, embezzling and telling the master's secrets, Mrs. Gingrich said. Conditions for James were just that he was to serve and behave, she said.
Pardon Wilber was to provide food, drink, apparel, washing, lodging, mending and all other things necessary, comfortable and convenient. He was to make sure the boy was taught to read, write and do arithmetic, and he was to provide for the boy in sickness and in health so that James would never be a charge to the township or its inhabitants.
When he reached 21, Pardon Wilber was to give James two good new suits of clothing, one suitable for public meetings, and to pay him $40.
In the case in Parkman Township, James Eldred, 13, was indentured to a farmer in Painesville, which was in Geauga County at that time.
At the end of his term, the apprentice was to receive a new Bible and the value of $100 in cattle. Sometimes, instead of an animal, they got a new set of tools for the trade they were indentured to, Mrs. Gingrich said.
Some of the children were indentured to tradespeople, and they learned trades that helped them as adults. Those trades included printing, tanning and currying.
In one of the contracts, the child was allowed to eat at the table with the family.
Mrs. Gingrich transcribed the indenture of a 7-year-old girl in 1852. The girl was bound out by the director of the Geauga County infirmary to county resident Myron Beard to be taught the art of good housekeeping.
In turn, he promised to give her three months schooling each year and to train her in good habits to provide for her in sickness and health.
She was indentured until the age of 18, when she received a new Bible, two new suits of clothing, one good feather bed and one good cow.
While the last document regarding indentured servants that she read was from the 1840s, Mrs. Gingrich said, she believes there are probably more such records in other books.
"It is such an interesting piece of history," she said. The indenture process always had a negative connotation, she said, but those taken in were taught a trade, and, in doing chores, they learned something. "It's an early welfare system," she said.
Very few people know about indentured servants in Geauga County, and Mrs. Gingrich said she has enjoyed presenting some little-known county history to residents.
"It's been neat to tell township trustees what they would be doing as trustees in the 1800s," she said.
[ back ]
