PORFA:
County Poor Farm

Across the Fence

By Arvord Abernethy

Long before our present welfare programs came into being, counties had their own programs for caring for the poor. Sometime before the turn of the century, Hamilton County purchased over 400 acres of land on the Blue Ridge road to be used as a poor farm. It lay south of where Clyde Raibourn now lives and included part of the Alsie Jones place. When the railroad was built from Gatesville to Hamilton , it split the farm and a little later the part south of the railroad was sold to Louis Manning and later he sold it to Alsie Jones.

Chuck Walton and Charles Railbourn gave me some of this information, and since they are both Baptist deacons, it should be accurate. The Walton farm was just east of the poor farm and Chuck remembers playing with the children there when he was a youngster.

Charnie knew the place well as his grandfather, C. L. McClintock, was the caretaker there for a number of years.

Among the buildings on the farm was the caretaker’s home, two houses for the people, a barn, and, of all things, a jail. The jail was used for people who would have to work out a fine and would be sent out there to work it out. It was necessary that they be locked up at night.

Charnie could tell you a lot about the place if you got him started. The McClintocks had several children and then they had several children themselves, so when it came time to celebrate Mr. and Mrs. McClintock’s birthdays, which happened to be the same day, you had quite a gathering. The jail made a perfect facility for the kids to play cops and robbers. Charnie remembers being locked up a few times himself. One of the dirtiest tricks that he remembers was one Sunday afternoon when one of his aunt’s boy friends came over for a date and the boys got him to go down to the jail where they tricked him and locked him up. That ruined that date.

The county had a cemetery there, but it is thought that the bodies were removed after the poor farm was sold.

The railroad built a small depot on the west side of the Blue Ridge road from the farm and called it Porfa, a contraction of poor farm. The residents of the farm and others could catch the train there and ride to town and back.

The poor farm there was sold in the 1930s and about 55 acres was purchased in the east part of Hamilton . It was in operation there until about 1963 when the Church of Christ bought it at public auction. The Church of Christ has sold part of it, so that is how the Riddles ended up on the poor farm.

Shared by Roy Ables

ACROSS THE FENCE