South Carolina. Commissioners of the Poor.

The Commissioners of the Poor were empowered to have the oversight, ordering, and relieving of the poor, and to demand and receive legacies, fines and forfeitures, and other monies for the poor. In case of anyone's refusal to pay over such funds, the commissioners could prosecute for recovery.

Provision for the poor entered the statue law of South Carolina early in the history of the province. No copy of the earliest statute, passed in 1694, is known to have survived. S.C. Statute 1696(2)78 authorized commissioners to receive gifts for the poor, and with the assistance of the church wardens, employ the poor in work and bind out poor children as apprentices, males up to 21 years of age and females up to 18 or until marriage. The commissioners were accountable to the General Assembly. S.C. Statute 1698(2)135 allowed the commissioners to levy a tax on the residents of Charleston for support of the poor if the gifts, fines and forfeitures assigned for poor relief were insufficient. Through S.C. Statute 1712(2)594, vestries of the parishes were authorized to nominate two or more persons as overseers of the poor to act with the church wardens.

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