HATFIELD — The Hatfield Historical Society’s featured exhibit this year will focus on 10 children in need who became indentured servants with Hatfield families during the 18th century, as part of what was known as the Overseers of the Poor program.

On Thursday at 6 p.m. at 41 Main St., researcher Susan Maciorowski will provide a closer look at these indentured servant youth, followed by tours of the exhibit.

Using records in Hatfeld and the state’s digital archives, Maciorowski and Hatfield Historical Museum Curator Meguey Baker have identified the children who worked as indentured servants with Hatfield families. In return, the children got room and board and some education, with girls prepared to run a household and boys an opportunity to learn a trade.

The lives of these young people in need in early history of the town has captivated the Hatfield Historical Society, Baker said in a statement.

“I want to know what happened to these children for them to wind up in this position, as servants in other families’ homes, and what happened to them,” Baker said. “We know their names, but are only beginning to hear their stories.”

In 2021, Maciorowski transcribed the original documents naming these children, while for the past three years Baker has been looking through the museum collections for items connected to any of the children.

Indentured servitude for the children involved a contract between the Overseers of the Poor and a master and his heirs. Children as young as 2 could be in the program, which would end at age 18 for girls and age 21 for boys. When they were released from the contract, the indentured servant children would receive two complete sets of clothing and, for boys, a sum of money, perhaps $100.

Officials who handled the Overseers of the Poor in the region had various means of supporting people. In addition to the indentured servitude, those options included almshouses, offering basic support to widows and their children, such as housing, food and other materials, and workhouses, where residents had to work for room and board, occasionally on what was called a poor farm.

For children, if there was no adult relative to claim and care for them, becoming an indentured servant for several years was possible.

For more information, email hatfieldhistoricalsociety@gmail.com.

— SCOTT MERZBACH