Orphans of Clark County: Remembering and Rediscovering a County's Lost Children

7 Locations | Curated by Jeffersonville Township Public Library

This tour seeks to restore the histories of Clark County orphans, despite the loss of county orphanage records and damage to juvenile court records. Orphanages loom large in popular culture as homes to plucky, but desperately mistreated, children who find happy endings. Most orphanages did not match that stereotype. Orphan homes became common during the 19th century. Area newspapers sometimes requested readers to provide homes for children who had been abandoned by their parents, who did not have access to basic life necessities like food or housing, or those whose parents had died. This personal appeal for help often failed, and in response, communities like Jeffersonville built group homes to house children in need.

Founded in 1876, Jeffersonville's public orphanage offered shelter to children, many of whom had been sent to the orphanage by the legal system after their parents abused or neglected them. Other children passed through while their families struggled financially. Some children were reclaimed by their parents once their problems were resolved. Others were successfully adopted out to families and would become valued members of society: a successful writer, a beautiful bride, loving grandparents.

To understand orphanages and the experiences of the children who lived there, we stitch together records from the orphanage, local newspapers, diaries and personal records, family stories, and published histories. Often, these records can provide no more than glimpses of moments in a child’s life rather than the complete story. These glimpses show that some children experienced abuse or had to resort to sex work to survive.

The original Jeffersonville Orphan’s Home stood near the Ohio River. An apartment building now stands on the area once occupied by the home. Lewis C. Baird's History of Clark County records that the Jeffersonville Orphan Home was founded in 1876, when several area socialites felt moved to provide…
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Belle Moore is an example of the incomplete, often contradictory evidence available about orphan’s lives. Born in 1867, Belle may have been surrendered sometime around 1875 by her biological mother, Sallie Crum Moore, a Jeffersonville native, due to the death of her father, William Moore. Her…
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In May of 1927, at the height of the Prohibition Era, twenty-six year-old Mary Catherine Kamer wed thirty-eight year-old Joseph O’Neill in Jeffersonville. O’Neill had immigrated to Jeffersonville from Ireland where he became the business partner of August Kamer, Mary’s father. Less than a year…
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The lives of local orphans were never all tragic. Happy memories and great achievements marked some of their lives, often because of the intervention of their extended families or the kindness of people in the community. From the beginnings of the orphanage, the generosity of Clark County’s…
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