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Provisions: Parishioners
in an1831 Fourth of July oration, S. C. Phillips told the good citizens of Salem,
Massachusetts, that America s early settlers   built no Alms-houses; (for they
tolerated no paupers).  1 This, of course, was nonsense, a gross misreading of
history in support of the prevailing political dogmas of individualism and self-
help. If Phillips had taken a moment to examine the laws and local records
of Britain s North American colonies, he would have found instant refuta-
tion. Care of the poor including the building of   Alms-houses  was everywhere
understood in the eighteenth century to be the responsibility and the burden
of the public. In Virginia both responsibility and burden rested with the parish
vestry. While it is true that the largest share of parish expenditures annually
supported public worship, poor relief regularly commanded a significant out-
lay. And if time and attention were the measures, the case could even be made
that the needs of the poor predominated.2
By definition, the   poor  included any and all unable to care for themselves,
momentarily or permanently. English law and custom deemed that the local
community was obligated to assist those too young or too old to provide for
themselves, the unemployed, those incapacitated by sickness, injury, or other
physical or mental handicap, and those who for whatever reasons were de-
prived of the normal family basis of support.3 Parishes thus managed elabo-
rate welfare systems.4 Vestries bore the legal responsibility, but the burden of
day-by-day supervision fell upon the churchwardens.
In the annual parish financial statements, the majority of line items year
after year pertained to the relief of the   poor.  This predominance would be
even more telling if churchwardens accounts had survived; during the course
of the eighteenth century many vestries adopted the practice of making an-
nual lump-sum reimbursements to their wardens rather than incorporate their
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