The 1830 U.S. Census continues. Today I went through three towns! It’s nice to not have all the school-related tasks hanging over me.

Stamford. 53 pages of census, only 62 non-white persons; a surprisingly large number of pages with no non-white people on them at all. Two additional enslaved persons, one male and one female, each between the ages of 10 and 23 (this is the effect of gradual emancipation: these two children or youths were scheduled to be free some time between age 18 and 25, depending on how the law had changed in 1830).

We have 33 households with non-white people in them, only 8 independent households. The heads of household all had surnames in this town. They were:

Henry    Bush    3
Hagar    Dykins    1
William    Smith    2
Charles    Knapp    5
Samuel    Bush    2
Henry    Ford    2
Jack    Hicks    5
Benjamin Hicks    5

Hagar Dykins was over age 55 and lived alone, which suggests that either she had children around who were supporting her, or that she was receiving a military widows’ pension.

Stratford. 28 pages of census, 77 non-white persons. 40 households with non-white people, 14 of them independent. The independent households were:

Samuel    Post    3
Jesse    Edwards    2
Jacob    Hurd    1
Hiby    Curtis    3
Silva    Amos    3
Sally    Lewis    3
Eliza    Beers    2
Ned    White    3
George    Green    3
Venus Robinson    2
Aaron Nicholas    4
George Richardson 3
Abel    White    2
Mark    Freeman    6

Again, all of them have surnames. Jacob Hurd was over 55 and living alone, and as usual that raises the question of how he was able to support himself. Perhaps he was another military veteran, perhaps relatives were supporting him, perhaps he’d managed to acquire property that he rented out, perhaps he was still able to work – it’s unlikely that we’ll ever know.

Trumbull. 20 pages of census. 26 individuals, 14 households with non-white members, 5 of them headed by non-whites. The non-white heads of household were:

Jack    Edwards    4
Peg    Hawley    1
James Treadwell    5
Charles    Glover    3
Mingo    Banks    2

Peg Hawley was another over-55 person living alone. It seems to be very rare for younger people to live alone.

The recapitulation at the end of this town tells us that Stratford, Huntington, and Trumbull were all done by the same census marshal – whose name was on the last page: Benjamin S. Smith.

Next after this is Weston, which has 42 census pages. A project for another day.