Berlin Township In 1863 Texas Township and Honesdale Borough purchased a farm in Berlin Township and opened an almshouse for the areas' indigent and homeless. This red brick house was constructed on the property in 1917 to replace an eighty-to one hundred-year-old frame house It accommodated as many as twenty-four residents Everyone worked who was physically capable. Men assisted the caretaker on the 193 acre farm, and women helped the matron with housekeeping duties. In 1945 the Wayne County Commissioners purchased the property, and it became the Wayne County Home, but was better known among local residents as The Poor Farm. During the Depression, Herman Botens (caretaker from 1922 until his death in 1952) brought vegetables and meats raised on the farm to Honesdale and distributed them to poor families. With implementation of new governmental policies, the time came when there was no longer a need for The Poor Farm; therefore, it closed in the late 1960s The county began leasing the house. Since 1992 it has been used by Lourdesmont, Sisters of the Good Shepherd, as a community rehabilitation residence for local teenagers. There is a county cemetery located near the house where the indigent without family were buried.

This page was one month of the calendar and was made possible through the Wayne County Commissioners and a Tourism Promotion Committee’s Tourism Grant.