Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States taken in the year 1790 - North CarolinaWashington . Government Printing Office 1908 . Department of Commerce and Labor . Bureau of the Census . S.N.D. North, Director
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Carteret County was part of New Bern District.
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Excerpts Transcribed from the Introduction
The First Census of the United States comprised an enumeration of the inhabitants of the present states of Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.
…the returns for the states of Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Tennessee and Virginia having been destroyed when the British burned the Capitol at Washington during the War of 1812.
…The schedules of 1790 form a unique inheritance for the Nation, since they represent for each of the states concerned a complete list of the heads of families in the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.
…The First Census act was passed at the second session of the First Congress, and was signed by President Washington on March 1, 1790. The task of making the first enumeration of inhabitants was placed upon the President. Under this law the marshals of the several judicial districts were required to ascertain the number of inhabitants within their respective districts, omitting Indians not taxed, and distinguished free persons (including those bound to service for a term of years) from all others; the sex and color of free persons; and the number of free males 16 years of age and over.
The object of the inquiry last mentioned was, undoubtedly, to obtain definite knowledge as to the military and industrial strength of the country. This fact possesses special interest, because the Constitution directs merely an enumeration of inhabitants. Thus the demand for increasingly extensive information, which has been so marked a characteristic of census legislation, began with the First Congress that dealt with the subject.
…By the terms of the First Census law nine months were allowed to complete the enumeration. The census taking was supervised by the marshals of the several judicial districts, who employed assistant marshals…the number employed in 1790 has been estimated at 650.
The schedules which these officials prepared consist of lists of names of heads of families; each name appears in a stub, or first column, which is followed by five columns, giving details of the family. These columns are headed as follows:
· Free white males of 16 years and upward, including heads of families.
· Free white males under 16 years.
· Free white females, including heads of families.
· All other free persons.
· Slaves.
The assistant marshals made two copies of the returns; in accordance with the law one copy was posted in the immediate neighborhood for the information of the public, and the other was transmitted to the marshal in charge, to be forwarded to the President.
…The total population as returned in 1790 was 3,929,214, and the cost of the census was $44,377.
…The original schedules of the First Census are now contained in 26 bound volumes, preserved in the Census Office. For the most part the headings of the schedules were written in by hand. Indeed, up to and including 1820, the assistant marshals generally used for the schedules such paper as they happened to have, ruling it, writing in the headings, and binding the sheets together themselves. In some cases merchants’ account paper was used, and now and then the schedules were bound in wall paper.
The United Stated in 1790
In March, 1790, the Union consisted of twelve states—Rhode Island, the last of the original thirteen to enter the Union, being admitted May 29 of the same year. Vermont, the first addition, was admitted in the following year, before the results of the First Census were announced. Maine was a part of Massachusetts, Kentucky was a part of Virginia, and the present states of Alabama and Mississippi were parts of Georgia. The present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, were part of Minnesota, were known as the Northwest Territory, and the present state of Tennessee, then part of North Carolina, was soon to be organized as the Southwest Territory.
The United States was bounded on the west by the Mississippi River, beyond which stretched that vast and unexplored wilderness belonging to the Spanish King, which was afterwards ceded to the United States by France as the Louisiana Purchase…
…On the south was another Spanish colony known as the Floridas. The greater part of Texas, then a part of the colony of Mexico, belonged to Spain; and California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and a portion of New Mexico, also property of Spain…were, for the most part, an undiscovered wilderness.
The gross area of the United States was 827,844 square miles, but the settled area was only 239,935 square miles, or about 29 percent of the total. Though the area covered by the enumeration in 1790 seems very small when compared with the present area of the United States, the difficulties which confronted the census taker were vastly greater than in 1900.
In many localities there were no roads, and where these did exist they were poor and frequently impassable; bridges were almost unknown. Transportation was entirely by horseback, stage, or private coach. A journey as long as that from New York to Washington was a serious undertaking, requiring eight days under the most favorable conditions. Western New York was a wilderness, Elmira and Binghamton being detached hamlets. The territory west of the Allegheny Mountains, with the exception of Kentucky, were unsettled and scarcely penetrated…
…Philadelphia was the capital of the United States. Washington was a mere Government project, not even named, but known as the Federal City. Indeed, by the spring of 1793, only one wall of the White House had been constructed, and the site for the Capitol had been merely surveyed. New York City in 1790 possessed a population of only 33, 131, although it was the largest city in the United States; Philadelphia was second, with 28,522; and Boston third, with 18320. Mails were transported in very irregular fashion, and correspondence was expensive and uncertain.
There were, moreover, other difficulties which were of serious moment in 1790, but which long ago ceased to be problems in census taking. The inhabitants, having no experience with census taking, imagined that some scheme for increasing taxation was involved, and were inclined to be cautious lest they should reveal too much of their own affairs. There was also opposition to enumeration on religious grounds, a count of inhabitants being regarded by many as a cause for divine displeasure. The boundaries of towns and other minor divisions, and even those of counties, were in many cases unknown or not defined at all. The hitherto semi-independent states had been under the control of the Federal Government for so short a time that the different sections had not yet been welded into a harmonious nationality in which the Federal authority should be unquestioned and instructions promptly and full obeyed.
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