Many New Hampshire towns were originally set up by emigres from Massachusetts. As such, the Massachusetts legislature wanted towns set up a certain way; they had to be roughly six miles square and broken up into about 63 lots, with one set aside to build a church on, one for the minister and one for the school to be erected on.

They had to settle one good family within three years. This was considered the optimal way to organize a township, and it came from old England. But what if your family wasn’t considered a “good” family? What if your background included petty larceny or fire-setting? Or your father liked the spirits too much? Where would you live?

History is written by the victors, and the Currier and Ives view of family life in Colonial America is, I’m sorry to say, a visage of life in the good homes, not the bad ones. What if you were missing an eye or a limb, not due to your bravery in one of the Indian wars, but rather, due to a misadventure involving grain alcohol and a farm implement? Or, what if you didn’t want to marry a member of the opposite sex?

The ruling class tolerated “eccentricities” among their own, but if you were poor, those very same eccentric traits could get you branded “crazy,” and crazy was definitely hazardous. What if you suffered mishap after mishap and had the affliction of not being from a “good family” as well, where would you live? Village society had an answer for that: “Not here.”

Warning out was the system in place in the 18th century to rid the town of undesirables. Basically, newcomers to a town would be issued a welcome by the constable “to depart out of the town, forthwith.”

Typically, the selectmen of a given town took a vote and ordered the constable to serve you a notice to leave. Some people moved on, and some did not. Some people were forcibly removed and relocated to the town in which the town fathers thought they came from.

An early case of warning out on record took place on June 6, 1654, in the village of Rehoboth, in Plymouth County, Mass. Robert Titus was called into town court and told to take his family out of Plymouth Colony for allowing “persons of evil fame” to live in his home. He was entertaining a religious orator of some renown, who grated the town fathers.

The practice of warning out replaced an earlier practice in which admission to a town as an inhabitant, or purchase of property within a town, required a vote of the present inhabitants. As townships grew, and it became difficult to enforce the requirement of approval prior to residency, municipalities began to make a distinction between residency and inhabitancy. Those residents who were not admitted to inhabitancy could be “warned out,” and thereby the town would be spared liability for the resident in case of poverty.

Sometimes, there was a time limit by which, if a resident had not been warned, they would become an inhabitant by default.

Turning to the archives, one Josiah Henry Benton in 1911 authored a seminal piece on this practice. According to Benton, Puritans brought with them the customs and laws of their forbears in England. They governed their towns on the principles of the municipal English common law. This right of exclusion from inhabitancy included orders providing that inhabitants should not sell or let their land or houses to strangers without the consent of the town.

And herein lies the catch; this right of inhabitancy included the right to be supported by the town, if the inhabitant became unable to support himself. In other words, a legal inhabitancy comprehended a legal settlement, which could be acquired by residence in a place for a required period, originally 40 days.

Early Colonial villages in New England used this law for the purpose of keeping out persons whose religious or political opinions were unsatisfactory to the towns, or any other reason. But the reason for the existence of this right was that inhabitancy, or the right to live in a place, always imposed upon the inhabitants of the place, responsibility for the good conduct and support of the other inhabitants.

Benton goes on to say the right to live in a town was then understood to imply a right to have land upon which to live, and therefore, when towns admitted persons to be inhabitants, it was implied that they would be allotted land, and to give them the right of commonage in the common lands of the town. This also carried with it the right of free fishing and fowling in the ponds and rivers and tidal waters within the limits of the town.

In some cases, however, this right of commonage was restricted by the town in case of newcomers. In Boston it was ordered on May 18, 1648, at a town meeting, that all inhabitants who had been admitted by the townsmen should have equal “Rights of Commonage in the towne,” but that no one who should thereafter come to be an inhabitant in the town should have “right of Commonage” unless he is an heir of a commoner. So we learn that a “commoner” is a person who has a right to use the common lands.

As the population grew, new laws were issued with regard to inhabitancy. In Dorchester on Jan. 18, 1635, it was ordered that “Two men shall not Common for one hoame lott.” Many towns got in the habit of warning out everybody who came to town; that way they had the paperwork in place if the person later needed support or resources from the town. In Boston, on Nov. 19, 1638, the selectmen’s records show that George Barrill, Cooper, “hath for him and his heirs and assigns for £28 bought of the said Thomas Painter, his dwelling-house, with the appurtenances, and ground Under it, in this towne, and whereto he had the Consent of the Townesmen, and soe is admitted a Townesman upon Condition of Inoffensive Carryage.”

Also in Boston, Dec. 29, 1657, Derman Mahoone was fined 20 shillings for “intertaining two Irish women contrary to an order of the towne, in that case provided and is to quitt his house of them forthwith att his perill.” These orders to not entertain strangers without notice to the selectmen were enforced by fines. Peaceable conversation and inoffensive carriage were of paramount importance.

At Portsmouth, on Oct. 11, 1680, they adopted a new law that if any child or person comes into town to be schooled, nursed or to see a surgeon or a physician, and such a person be in need of relief while they were in town, the town from whence they came had to pick up the charge. And in case they are sent from a town out of the province, the “taker,” be it a physician or a nurse or whomever, had to secure surety to cover the costs, or else they would themselves be charged to support this person.

Similarly, no master of any vessel was to bring people into town who were not approved by the town selectmen, and no one was to be entertained for more than a week without giving notice. They noted that this order was not to hinder a man from taking an apprentice or servant, but if the servant shall fall sick or lame he needed to be maintained by his master.

There were other regulations for ships as well – to secure the removal of lame persons from town, in case any were deposited off in Portsmouth. In 1766, an act was passed regarding the admission of town inhabitants, imposing a penalty for entertaining strangers and providing that the expense of warning out such persons who were not inhabitants should be defrayed by the persons who entertained them.

Throughout the 17th century up to the time of the American Revolution, Great Britain emptied their prisons and banished their convicts to the colonies, although mainly to Maryland and Virginia. (In fact, once coming to the colonies became a huge draw in the mid-18th century, people were known to commit crimes sufficient to get them a free passage to America.) While socially therapeutic for Britain, the transportation of felons and desperate villains became objectionable to the colonists, and they complained.

Of course, after the revolution, England had to look elsewhere to place their convicts, and hence, Australia. It seems likely that a huge population of knaves and deplorables coming into and moving about New England contributed to the warning-out system, but this bears more research.

In Peterborough, warning out was practiced against all newcomers. The town record shows that on Dec. 23, 1763, a warning was issued and served by Constable James Templeton, in his Majesty’s name, to remove one Jean Culberson from the town. Culberson moved along without any issue.

Antrim, Alstead, Walpole, Henniker and Jaffrey also warned out everybody as a general practice.

New Hampshire came into the Union as the ninth state in 1788. In February 1791, “An Act for the punishment of idle and disorderly persons, for the support and maintenance of the poor, and for designating the duties and defining the powers of overseers of the poor” went on the books. And on Dec. 20, 1797, an act was passed with regard to the removal of persons of vicious character having no visible means of support and no settlement. Such an individual had 14 days to remove himself, or he could expect to be involuntarily carried to his last known settlement.

Often, the receiving town did not appreciate the person returning, and put the constable returning him in jail. Or, as happened to Rindge, they paid the bearers more money to take him back. Rindge, in about 1773, concluded that their population was one more than thought necessary for their prosperity, and paid Israel Divoll five pounds to return to his former town of Leominster. When he arrived there, Leominster fathers paid Divoll six pounds to bring him back. Fifty-nine people were removed from Rindge in all that year.

Around the time of the revolution, it became standard in a lot of towns to do all of the warning-out once a year and serve everybody at once. Many times people who became substantial and honorable citizens were warned out as children, or before they could get established, such as Henry Adams Bellows.

Bellows, whose family relocated from Walpole to Rockingham, Vt, and was promptly warned out, became an eminent lawyer, and was for many years the chief justice of the State of New Hampshire.

In Dublin, Nathan Bixby, who came to town from Framingham in 1778, was warned out, but later became the largest taxpayer in town for some time.

At some point, the selectmen of Dublin vended out the town’s infirm to the lowest bidder. From 1795 to 1822, the treasurer’s account included liquor furnished at the time the poor were put out. The liquor, it was thought, stimulated men to do things they would not do if in full possession of their senses.

This practice served “to make the most prompt bidders of a class of men the least fitted to have charge of the bartered victims.” Thus, in 1811, Molly Griffin of Dublin went to David Peirce for 65 cents per week, and Sally Greenwood’s child went to Ester Twitchell at 43 cents a week. In 1811, Dublin spent $242.32 in all on maintenance of the poor placed in people’s homes.

In Jaffrey, in 1778 the constable warned out Lucy Geary, who later came back with a child, John Geary. She evaded removal and soon married Hugh Gragg, a Bunker Hill war hero. A few years later, she did in fact become a town charge and remained so until her death in 1828.

Hannah Davis, of hatbox fame, was warned out of Fitchburg as a child and returned to Jaffrey with her family. When John Fitch, founder of Fitchburg came to town as an old man to live with his son, he was promptly warned out in 1781, and left.

Our own Amos Fortune, who came to town with his wife Violate, was also warned out as well in 1781. In 1784 a “European coming from Peterborough” was warned out.

By 1816, warning-out laws were largely dropped off the books in New England. The opening up and settlement of the Ohio Valley suggests that the issue may have been more about getting people to stay in towns as opposed to forcing them out.