Anadarko daily democrat. [volume] (Anadarko, Oklahoma) 1901-190?, 1902-06-06

World's First National Census
On the shelves of the Interior De
| partmcnt, at Washington may be
found mass OF matter of peculiar
interest to the gcnealogist and the his
/ torical student, which has recently
| been brought to wider public notice
| through friendly controversy hc-
| tween the two houses OF Congress rs
| to its disposal 1t is the enumeration
! blanks of all the past ccnsuscs of the
! United States. II one desires to read
| tdc names Of every householder in any
| town in this country during the ad-
ministration Of George Washington,
one can do it here. Similar informu-
! ton by the tcu-yclr periods down TO
| the present time may also bc found,
| but the older records are obY ously
he most valuable. The House OF Rep.
.es2ntatiycs decided to destroy all this
! DID census matter and inserted "A 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
| lata themselves. But the Senate Com
mitiee has adopted iu It's draft Of the
same bill Il very good compromise.
| which it hopes the House viii accept.
| It provides for the assembling ana re-
Z 4ngtffnn % 4
eighth censuscs. ana the destruction.
at the Secretary Of The Interiors dis
| rretion, OF all the rest.
The schedules Of the census Of 1890
ire naturally the most interesting.
| Thcy 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
Tree 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
zee; of the division at the age of six
teen among the males evidently being
Tor military purposes. In the fourth
column they entered the number of
all other persons" and ia the fifth. the
number of slaves.
The entire census of Massachusetts
Is contained between the covers of one
volume of ZIG pages. each about thirty
inches square, and fairly bristles with
names which have since become his
toric. Concord, IoT example, starts
with George Allen Job ana Asa
Brooks, Humphrey Barrett, Samuel
Buttrick and Timothy Hoar The pop
ulation of Concord then consisted of
dl5 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 were, 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 it contained. The way
these lists are bound shows the scare |
ity of paper of that day, and perhaps a
desire to do something extra" in the |
way OF ornamentatlon. Pieces of wall |
paper often did service for covers. Old |
newspapers were also used; and the |
blanks for Edenton, n. c., are enclosed
in newspaper containing on the front
page an article by DR.. Franklin on
THE Art of Procuring Pleasant
Dreams" The figures concerning the |
slaves in most of the States are inter
esting. Frederlcktown, in Duchess |
County. New York, for example. then |
contained "a men, 81 boys, 92 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, it would
clearly be IA 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 1870.
Since that was the first National cen
sus ever taken in the world. and
formed an essential basis of our polit-