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LEICESTER, Mass. — While Leicester has faced many issues and crises throughout history, in 1876, one of the most frustrating questions in town was what to do about "the small army" of travelling homeless that had been roaming into Leicester and sticking around long enough to become a troublesome leech on the community.
"The great tramp nuisance still remains unabated..." wrote Leicester's Overseers of the Poor in the 1876 Annual Town Report, addressing with some restraint their continued annoyance with the thousands of vagabonds that had begun to overrun Rochdale and Cherry Valley in past years.
"A solution of the vexed question of 'what are we going to do about it, we most earnestly hope will soon be made, and some method to utilize this vast waste of energy and time devised," the report continued.
Throughout the town's history, Leicester has compiled an Annual Town Report to keep a record of financial information, inventories and statistics over the years. From these reports, records show that the number of tramps in Leicester had been steadily increasing, so that by 1876, a total of 1,815 tramps had been provided for at the two station houses in Cherry Valley and Rochdale.
The report continues: "while many of them are honest men, yet it is probable, in the light of the information received from the State Detective's Department, and from our own experience, that the main body of them are "regulars" and we may well be thankful that we can trace no greater loss to the community from this dangerous class of vagabonds than the feeding of them on the "regulation" diet of crackers and water."
Yet the overseers don't seem completely convinced that the myriad of tramps had been sticking to any type of strict moral code. While the record is thin, it appears the hobos themselves may have been suspiciously not, and had other means of supplementing their diet.
"We apprehend, however, that the main portion of their living is derived from the proceeds of the petty thieving and the well-meant, and yet unwise hospitality which a kind hearted people are loath to give up, feeding the men as they beg from door to door."
As in many towns, Leicester had an Almshouse to support, lodge and feed the town's poor. Afforded charity, but not privacy, at the end of the year these persons were openly named in the town report as a matter of public record.
However, the influx of vagrants meant that the almshouse was spending more money than usual to support persons that were not from town.
In 1873, just as the United States was entering an economic depression, "transient paupers" supported in Leicester amounted only to about 203, yet this number soon began to climb rapidly.
It doubled only a year later, when 432 of the "travelling poor" had to be housed in locations all over town, with the overseers purchasing beds and hiring a room in Rochdale "to reduce the expense of keeping this class in that part of the Town."
In 1875, 887 tramps were fed and lodged at the station house at an expense of $88.25, served at a fraction less than 10 cents for supper, breakfast and lodging.
"Cheap living," the overseers admit in that year's report, before bitterly adding ,"but better than the most of them deserve."
The climax of what was now being referred to as "the great tramp nuisance" was in 1876, which saw 1,277 of the travellers supported in the Cherry Valley Station House, and an additional 538 receiving shelter in Rochdale. The total expense of the problem came to $255.98.
Vexed by the sudden onslaught of bums, the report indicates that the overseers of the poor began looking for an answer to the problem.
While the number dipped slightly in 1878, the overseers were irritated enough that they led that year's report with "the tramps are still a nuisance." The subsequent sigh was left out of the record.
"What is to be done with them is hard to tell," they continue, adding "it is hoped that some law may be made to reach the lawless, and rid the town of such a nuisance."
A year later, their hopes appear to have been answered, and the tramp troubles were reduced to only 318 fed and lodged from Feb. 1, 1880 to July 1, 1880, and only 8 tramps for the rest of the year afterward.
"It will be seen by the above figures that the tramp law had its desired effect," wrote the overseers at the end of 1880. "We have no tramp house at the present time."
While the town record is not specific about the law, Leicester wasn't the only town in Massachusetts or the country to be affected by the sudden flow of tramps, and around 1880 states were enacting ordinances to combat the scourge known as the "tramp evil."
In fact, Massachusetts General Law still defines a "tramp" in Chapter 272, Sec. 63 as "whoever, not being under seventeen, or a person asking charity within his own town, roves about from place to place begging, or living without labor or visible means of support, shall be deemed as a tramp. An act of begging or soliciting in the town within which the act is committed, or the riding upon a freight train of a railroad, whether within or without any car or part thereof, without a permit from the proper officers or employees of such railroad or train, shall be prima facie evidence that such person is a tramp."
The information compiled in this brief look into Leicester history was compiled from Annual Town Reports, and is the first in a series of articles planned. The article would not have been possible without great help from the staff at the Leicester Public Library.
Residents interested in learning more about their town's history themselves can visit the Library and ask the staff for assistance in exploring the vast collection of vital town documents and newspapers that preserve Leicester's rich and fascinating past.
Do you have more context you'd like to share on the "Great Tramp Nuisance"? Lend your voice to the discussion in the comment section, or email dcastro@mainstreetconnect.us with suggestions for future stories.
