Did Connecticut warn out?

If you’ve studied colonial New England genealogy, you’ve probably heard about the practice of “warning out”. “Warning out” was a practice in which the town’s selectmen would tell unwanted inhabitants they had to leave the community, usually to avoid paying for care of an individual not raised in or with deep ties to a community.

Connecticut did formally allow for warning out. “An Act for the Admission of Inhabitants in Towns, and for preventing Charge on Account of such as are not admitted therein” reads:

And if any such Stranger, or transient Personal shall, contrary to the intent of this Act, make his or her Abode within any Town in this State, every such Person shall forfeit and pay to such Treasurer Ten Shillings per Week, for every Week that he or she shall continue in such Town, after Warning given to him or her, by order of the Select-men of said Town; or upon their Request, by Warrant from Authority to depart such Town, (which Warning the Select-men are impowered to order, or give): And the said Authority, on Request as aforesaid, is impowered to issue a Warrant to the Constable, to warn such Persons to depart, as aforesaid.

Acts and laws of the state of Connecticut in America (New london: Timothy Green, 1784),102-103.

While it was permitted, warning out seems to have rarely – if ever – occurred. Far more commonly, towns would bill each other for care of their inhabitants. If a resident of one town ended up ill in another, the selectmen of the second town would pay for their care and then expect the first town to repay them. These detailed records, often recorded as bills to the town, can generally be found in town clerk’s offices and/or the state archives.