Removal

Because each place supported only its own poor, officials returned people who needed relief to their legal settlement. A New York law of 1721 ordered vagrants returned to their lawful settlements, and Vermont towns sent warned-out families back to their previous town of residence.

Where a pauper stayed put, the town of settlement could be billed instead; Cumberland, Maine, was repaid by other towns and the state for some of the people it helped in the 1930s. Removal orders and these accounts show where a person was considered to belong.