Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-08-08
THE EARLY CENSUS DATA
OF INTEREST TO HISTORICAL AND
GENEALOGICAL STUDENTS.

interest to the genealogist and the his
torical student, which has recently
been brought to wider public notice
through a friendly controversy be-
tween the two houses of Congress as
to its disposal. 1t is the enumeration
blanks of all the past censuses Of the
United States. If one desires to read
the names Of every householder in any
town in this country during the ad-
ministration of George Washington,
one can do It here. Similar informa
tion by the ten-year periods down to
the present time may also be found.
but the older records are obviously
the most valuable. The House of Rep
resentatives decided to destroy all this
old census matter and inserted para
graph in the Sundry Civil Bill for that
purpose. Director Merriam and other
census managers had recommended it,
on the theory that the Census Office
had sucked all the juice out of the
enumeration schedules, and therefore
that no purpose was served in lumber
ing up the archives with the original
data themselves. But the Senate Com
mittee has adopted in its draft of the
same bill very good compromise,
which 1t hopes the House will accept.
1t provides for the assembling and re-
tention of the first, second, third and
eighth censuses, and the destruction,
at the Secretary of the Interiors dis
cretion, of all the rest.
The schedules Of the census of 1870
are naturally the most interesting.
They take the space Of only twenty
six volumes, neatly written out and
well bound. In those days enumerators
asked only few questions; they took
the name Of each householder, and in
the first column wrote the number of
free white males in the family of six
teen years of age and upward, includ-
ing the head of the family. In the sec
ond column they entered the number
Of free white males under sixteen
years of age. In the third column
they entered al free white females,
including heads of families" the OBJ
ject Of the division at the age of six
teen among the males evidently being
for military purposes. In the fourth
column they entered the number of
"all other persons" and in the fifth, the
number of slaves.
The entire census of Massa chusetts
Is contained between the covers of one
volume of TIC pages, each about thirty
inches square, and fairly bristles with
names which have since become his
toric. Concord, Tor example, starts
with George Allen, Job and Asa
Brooks, Humphrey Barrett, Samuel
Buttrick and Timothy Hoar. The pop
ulation of Concord then consisted of
415 males more than sixteen years of
age, 314 under that age, S32 women and
girls, and 20 "other persons" which is
commonly understood to have meant
apprentices. There We're, of course, no
slaves in Massachusetts. At the foot
Of each of these Concord columns,
Aaron Brown, who took the census,
wrote Carried up" and at the head Of
the next column, Brought up"
Massachusetts. by the way, seems to
have been the only State in the Union
in which the enumerators regularly
had printed blanks, and it is supposed
that these must have been furnished
by the Commonwealth. Practically
everywhere else the enumerator wrote
his own explanation at the top of the
column Of what 1t contained. The way
these lists are bound shows the scare
ity of paper of that day, and perhaps
desire to do something extra" in the
way of ornamentation. Pieces of wall
paper often did service for covers. Old
newspapers We're also used; and the
blanks for Edenton, n. c., are enclosed
in newspaper containing ON the front
page an article by DR.. Franklin ON
1.-The Art of Procuring Pleasant
Dreams" The figures concerning the
slaves in most of the States are inter-
esting. Frcdericktown, in Dutchess
County, New York, for example, then
contained "a men, 81 boys, 90 free
whites Of the opposite sex, one 'other
person." and II slaves.
No one will object to the proposal to
destroy the census blanks Of the pres
ent and the preceding census, as most
of their material that is worth any
thing has been taken out In the process
of electrical tabulation, and published.
Moreover, this is an age of abundant
records. But the very old censuses,
supplying as they do information that
can be obtained nowhere else 1t would
clearly be a great mistake to destroy.
Up to and including the count of 1910,
census work was very simple. The
data gathered were the same as in 1890.
Since that was the first National CEN
sus ever taken In the world, and
formed an essential basis OF our polit-
ical system, 1t would be a sad piece
of vandalism to destroy Its original ma
terial.
The Government does a brisk ousi-
ness In answering questions for peo-
pie from the census records. Three
clerks are steadily employed IN this
VIZ In %