What do we know about paupers in 1880 as enumerated by the federal census?

Question

Purely by accident I discovered one of my ancestors (Charity Towns) living in another household in the same county (Yalobusha MS)as enumerated in the 1880 census.

I am not quite understanding why she would not be living with her children

and grandchildren. Especially since the household seems not to have had a

male head.

I believe the key to my question would be what was determined to be "pauper" in 1880 for census purposes.

Her son, Washington, was living on homestead property (land patent from his "father") nearby with a second wife and children quite prosperously.

She was a former slave that was brought to Mississippi by Washington's

father during the 1830s after a tobacco crop failure in Virginia.

Armistead Terrell Townes died in 1855 and is buried in a rather remote

cemetery in Yalousha County. To our knowledge, Washington (born in

1820) had no siblings.

What do we know about paupers in 1880?

Can anyone provide a clue?

Answer 1

My guess is that a 'pauper' would be an indigent.  Someone who had no income.  I found a relative from eastern Europe on a list w/ the designation of a pauper.

At this point in her life Charity Towns was 90 years old, so, wouldn't be working.  Also, it looks like she might have been living with relatives.  I noticed a Neill Towns listed at that address.  Maybe it is just a large extended family and a better situation for her? Perhaps her relationship w/ her son or her new daughter-in-law wasn't the best? They seem to have had quite a few people on their homestead and although one man is 80 most of them were younger.

So, who knows, it could be as simple as the household that Charity was living with was more serene?

The Black Codes in Mississippi circa 1865 include this "...and in case freedman, free ***** or mulatto cannot hire out, he or she may be dealt with as a pauper."

http://afroamhistory.about.com/library/b... (Scroll down to Section 5 and 6 toward the bottom of the page) I think that after the Civil War the Freedman's Bureau was somehow involved at times.

Here is an interesting site that talks about Miss. State Poor Laws  -1904 (maybe some of this would be information that would be similar to the 1880s? (see below)

http://www.poorhousestory.com/MISS_Legal...

http://www.poorhousestory.com/poorhouses...

Answer 2

Im wanting to search cemetary & church records of the area that you named .