BRUNSWICK — Thomas C. Bennett, director of the Prince Memorial Library in Cumberland, will present “Give Us Your Poor and Indigent” at the next meeting of the Pejepscot Genealogy Society on Sunday, April 14, at 2 p.m. in the Morrell Meeting Room of Curtis Memorial Library.
A business meeting will follow the presentation.
Bennett’s talk will reveal the documents that show how the “overseers of the poor” in the town of Cumberland made such transactions. The Maine law of 1821 established: “An Act ascertaining what shall constitute the legal settlement, and providing the Relief and Support, Employment and Removal of the Poor.” The town of Cumberland holds 1,200 documents in its archive that reveal the family and individual stories of how Cumberland and other towns in Maine dealt with the poor in their communities.
In 2010 The Davis Family Foundation supported research and archive preservation of the Cumberland town records. A subsequent grant from the Maine Historical Records Board furthered that effort.
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