Norfolk Alms House and Work House

“Norfolk & Portsmouth, Virginia, 1873” (detail)

This detail from “Norfolk & Portsmouth, Virginia 1873” shows the Norfolk Alms House in the upper right hand corner not far from the Cedar Grove Cemetery. You’ll find it among other public buildings listed at the bottom; this facility is #5 and is labelled “Poorhouse.” Several sizes of the digitized map are available at the Library of Congress website. My personal favorite is the TIFF file (219.7 MB).

The City of Norfolk Alms House and the Norfolk County Almshouse served neighboring localities. The latter will be published on July 6, 2020.

“[T]he physician to the Alms House should also act as Health Officer under the directions of the Board of Health … It shall be the duty of the physician to visit the Alms House daily and at such other times when necessary, and there perform the duties of physician, surgeon, and man-midwife, and to furnish all medicines and other things necessary for the relief of the sick. He shall attend to all infectious or contagious diseases at the Alms House and Pest House, and also administer to such other of the sick poor in the city as he may be required to do, by the Overseers of the poor, and for his services he shall be allowed the salary of six hundred dollars per annum payable quarter-yearly.
“An Ordinance Concerning the Alms House,” The Revised Ordinances of the City of Norfolk: To which are Prefixed the Original Charter of the Borough, and the Amended Charter of 1845 Creating the Borough Into a City, and a Collection of Acts and Parts of Acts the General Assembly, Relating to the City (1866), page 69.

 

Many thanks to Troy Valos, Special Collections Librarian, Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library, who brought this image to my attention.