The tombstone of Rebekah McClang, a nineteenth century woman who died on May 3rd, 1862 at  the age of thirty, is a New Paltz community object with a story to tell. Little information has been found on Rebekah’s life, including why she died so young. There is but one detail that enlightens us: she was insane.

Rebekah’s tombstone lies in New Paltz, at the current Ulster County fairgrounds, where the former Ulster County Poorhouse was located. Upon entering the grounds, at the entrance with the red barns, one takes notice of a commemorative sculpture entitled “Rebekah,” by local artist Judy Sigunick. The sculpture is broken at the neck and chin area.

As one makes their way towards the back of the fairgrounds, Rebekah’s tombstone will come into view, surrounded by a white fence. It is large and made of heavy material. It is about 3 inches thick, and five feet tall. The surface is rough, cold, and one can feel the grooves of the earthy stone. The inscriptions upon the tombstone are very faint, one can decipher what is said, although it is really hard to do so. The usual date of birth and death is inscribed, as well as Rebekah’s mother’s and father’s names. There is also a poem on the tombstone entitled “Who’ll Weep for Me?” that addresses the age-old question of who will remember a person after they’ve passed. Who wrote the poem, or who decided it was properly suited for the tombstone, is unknown. Inside the white-fenced area, along with the tombstone, is a plaque with the transcribed poem, as follows:

Who’ll weep for me?

Wher’ neath the cold damp earth I lay,

And sleep in quiet day by day,

And have no more on earth to say.

Who’ll weep for me?

When I am sleeping in the tomb,

And o’er my head fair flowers bloom,

Or midnight’s showers in her gloom.

Who’ll weep for me?

Yes others too will weep for me,

As here I sleep beneath this tree,

That waves its branches over me.

They too will weep for me

My mother dear – I know she’ll weep,

And father too while here I sleep,

My brothers and my sisters dear,

Will weep for me while I lay here.

The tombstone belongs to Rebekah, however there is no way of knowing precisely who set up the tombstone in terms of design and content. The person who did do this cared enough to place a poem upon it — most likely Rebekah’s parents. According to the 1849 Admissions Book for the Ulster County Poorhouse, Rebekah was admitted for one, singular cause: “insanity” (Stessin-Cohn 1).

So, what is the dreaded poor house? It is precisely how societies in the past have dealt with the underprivileged. The underprivileged, in nineteenth century Ulster county society, were the poor and the insane. It is a pre-millennial government program (like welfare, food stamps, and the like) that attempted to place the underprivileged into society in ways that would benefit them. However, the Poorhouse has been remembered differently. “Conditions in these institutions were often deliberately harsh, so only the truly desperate would apply,” states Carlton Martz in the 1998 issue of the Bill of Rights in Action (Wasserman 1).

By June 1828, a poorhouse was established in New Paltz, in the same area where the Ulster County Fairgrounds now reside. An 1824 law, stating that a county poor house will be constructed, goes into detail about what sort of individuals were expected in the county poorhouse, listing paupers, begging children, disorderly persons, and other “such persons in such indigent circumstances as to require relief,” as expected residents (“Law Establishing County Poorhouses in New York”). According to an 1852 Ulster County Poorhouse admissions record, individuals were admitted based upon their “dependence.” Reasons for dependency were as diverse as the case of an Irish girl named Mary Holland, aged twenty six, entered on the grounds of “prostitution,” to little Patrick, Mary, and William Molone, ages five, two, and under one, respectively, who are listed as entering the poorhouse because of  “debauched parents” (“Admissions – 1852”).

The County Board of Supervisors and the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas assembled to assign the position of Superintendent of the Poor in 1828. Twenty years later, this position became an elected one. A man in a county was able to hold the position for three years. The election must have been centered around some sort of ethical measuring of each prospective Superintendent. In other words, people in New Paltz had to have looked at this man and wondered: what will he do for the poor? Is he a good man?

In order to address such questions, inspections of the poor house were issued and published in the New Paltz Times throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was a sort of way to address the issue and perhaps calm the spirits of those genuinely concerned about the well-being of those in the poorhouse. A report dating back to December 16th, 1869 analyzes the care of Superintendent Andrew Ketcham, stating,

“The main building was visited first, where everything was in complete order, bed linen clean, and each bedstead furnished with a good straw bed, and comfortable covering … At the colored house, everything was ‘all right,’ according to the language of the inmates. At the insane building, a pitiful site is presented; to look upon the poor maniacs, talking of everything, and yet of nothing, is a sad sight … But one of the attendants says ‘everything is done for their comfort, that can be.’ We would suggest as a comfortable improvement for this building, that it be heated by furnaces.”

Upon reading this review, citizens were expected to arrive at the conclusion that everything was fine and that the unfortunate were being properly taken care of. The very end of the review states,

“After inspecting the premises, the party returned to the residence of the Superintendent, where a sumptuous banquet was prepared, to which they did ample justice, after which cigars and refreshments were partaken of, and the gathering soon dispersed; the Supervisors starting for Kingston and the guests to their respective homes.”

The Ulster County Poorhouse is also, however, known to have been a very pitiful sight, evidenced in the writings of a journalist at the New Paltz Times that states that the poor house is:

“A DISGRACE – We do not believe there is a single county in this state, wherein the insane poor are as miserably cared for as in Ulster. The building in which these unfortunates are confined, is nothing more or less, than a “shanty” half-a-story high … Only a few months ago, a stranger having the small-pox, was taken to a “shanty” in the woods – there being no other place – and left to die.”

Rebekah’s tombstone, within its white fence at the Ulster County Fairgrounds, where the Poorhouse used to stand, is just one tombstone remaining at a burial ground believed to have contained 2,500 bodies of the unfortunate. Hers is the only tombstone left, among thousands lost. When Susan Stessin-Cohn, Director of Education at Historic Huguenot Street and Poorhouse Historian, discovered the tombstone, it was nearly falling through the dirt and would have otherwise disappeared had she not made sure a cement foundation was put into the ground. Exactly why Rebekah’s is the only tombstone still in existence at the site is unknown, yet this stunning artifact of the poor house epitomizes the extreme negligence Ulster County has given to the underprivileged in the past.

 

WORKS CITED

“1824 Law Establishing County Poorhouses in New York.” Passed 27 November 1824. Print.

“A Disgrace.” Snippet, New Paltz Times 6 December 1862. Print.

“Visit to the County Poorhouse.” New Paltz Times 16 December 1869. Print.

Stessin-Cohn, Susan. “Finding Rebekah.” Ulster County Poorhouse Project. Ulster County Information Services. 2004. Website. 15 March 2013.

—. “Admissions – 1852.” Ulster County Poorhouse Project. Ulster County Information Services, 1852/2004. Web. 17 April 2013.

Wasserman, Gabriel J. “Ulster poorhouse was grim refuge.” The Poughkeepsie Journal 16 November 2004. Print.