The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-06-20
THE EARLY 1ENSUSDATA
or INTEREST. TO HISTORICAL AND
GENEALOGICAL STUDENTS.

On the shelves Of the Interior De
paltment, at Washington may be
found q mass of matter OF peculiar
interest TO the geuealeglst and the his I.
torical student. which has recently |
been brought to a wider public notice
through a friendly controversy be-
tween the two houses of Congress as
to It's disposal II 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 adj
ministratlon Of George Washington,
one can DO it here. Similar informa-
ticn by the tenyear periods down to
the present time may also be found,
but the older records are obviously
the most valuable The House Of Rep
reseatatlyes decided to destroy all this
old census matter and inserted q 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
mittec has adopted in its draft of the
same bill a very good compromise,
which it hopes the House win 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
erection, of all the rest.
The schedules oG the census of 1890
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 a 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 Massachusetts
! is contained between the covers OF one
volume of 716 pages, each about thirty
inches square, and fairly bristles with
names which have since become his
Uoric Concord, Tor example, starts
with George Allen, Job and Asa
Brooks, Humphrey Barrett Samuel
Buttrick and Timothy Hoar. The pop.
ulaton of Concord then consisted OF
415 males more than sixteen years OF
age, 314 under that age, 49, women ana
/ girls, and % "other persons" which is
commonly understood to have meant
apprentices. There were, or course, nc
slaves in Massachusetts. At the foo
of each Of these Concord columns
Aaron Brown, who took the census
wrote Carried W" and at the head O
the next column, Brought up"
Massachusetts,, by the way, seems t
have been the only State in the UnioI
in which the enumerators regularly
had printed blanks, and it is supposed
that these must have been furnished
by the Commonwealth. Practical!
everywhere else the enumerator wrot
his own explanation at the top of thu
column Of what it contained The wa.
these lists are bound shows the scare
ity OF paper of that day, and perhaps
desire to do something extra in til
way Of ornamentation. Pieces Of wall
paper often did service for covers. OIL
newspapers were also used; and tn
blanks for Edenton N. c., are encloseu
in q newspaper containing on the from
page an article by Dr.. Franklin o.
THE Art of Procuring Pleasan
Dreams" The figures concerning til
slaves in most Of the States are intei
esting. Fredericktown, in Clutches
County. New York, for example, the
contained "a men, 81 boys, % FIRE
whites of the opposite sex, one "othe
person." and II slaves.
No one will object to the proposal t
destroy the census blanks of the pres
ent and the preceding census, as mos
Of their material that is worth an!
thing has been taken out in the process
of electrical tabulation. and published
Moreover, this is an age of abundaI
records. But the very old censuse
supplying as they do information th1
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