Early Census Is Found in a New Jersey University’s Files

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Curators at Kean University in New Jersey recently found a population count of the United States from an "actual enumeration" conducted at least four years before the country’s first official census in 1790.

Archivists discovered a population count among the papers of John Kean, a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

The handwritten tally was found among the papers of John Kean, a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, which met in Philadelphia and gave birth to the Constitution. A central issue delegates tackled was how to configure a new Congress that would more fairly represent the disparate populations of the 13 states. Kean was later appointed by President George Washington as the first cashier, in essence president, of the Bank of the United States.

Bill Schroh, director of museum operations at Kean’s Liberty Hall Museum, was perusing a ledger a few weeks ago when he came across the census results.

The ledger was among a trove of documents donated by the Livingston and Kean families, who have been prominent in New Jersey politics since William Livingston, who built Liberty Hall and was a member of the Continental Congress, became the state’s first elected governor in 1776. Livingston was also a signer of the Constitution.

“The Kean family gave us the daunting task of going through 200 years of American history,” said Mr. Schroh, who joined the museum staff a decade ago and has been cataloging the archive ever since. “You never know what you’re going to find squeezed through the pages.”

Kean (pronounced cane), a merchant, originally used the ledger, made in England in the early 18th century, to keep track of his accounts and later was chosen by Washington to audit the Revolutionary Army. When he was elected a member of the Continental Congress from South Carolina in 1785, he flipped the ledger over and from the other end used it to record government documents.

“An early case of recycling,” Mr. Schroh said.

John Kean died in 1795 at age 39 of a lingering respiratory disease he contracted while imprisoned aboard a British ship during the Revolutionary War. In 1811, his son, Peter Kean, bought Liberty Hall for his mother, a niece of William Livingston.

The university was founded in Newark in 1855 and moved in 1958 to Union, site of the Kean family’s ancestral home. It was named for the Kean family and for Robert Winthrop Kean, who represented New Jersey in the House for two decades in the mid-20th century and owned the property the university now occupies.

A heading on Kean’s enumeration says it was presented to the Constitutional Convention. The count appears to have been conducted by the states separately between 1781 and 1786, apparently in person, though it hardly compares to the level of mobilization mounted for the census this year.

According to the count, 2.2 million whites and Indians — they were not broken into separate categories — and 567,000 blacks were living in the 13 states. According to Kean’s ledger, most of the state censuses were limited to questions about gender, age and race — a format repeated in the 1790 census, but which later evolved to include questions on other topics, including income.

Virginia was the most populous state, with 530,000 residents — more than half of them black — followed by Pennsylvania with 360,000, Massachusetts with 356,000, North Carolina with 264,000, New York with nearly 240,000 and Connecticut with almost 210,000.

In New York, about 55,000 people were younger than 16; only 4,700 were older than 60. New York listed nearly 19,000 blacks, more than any other northern state.

New Jersey had nearly 150,000 residents. Several states provided just a total tally.

"States south of New York did not break down their numbers,” said Terry Golway, who oversees public programming at Kean. “I have no idea why."

While the federal census did not begin until 1790, individual states had conducted their own, some as early as the mid-17th century.

An earlier enumeration also found in Kean’s papers at Liberty Hall Museum counts black slaves for apportionment purposes as the equivalent of three-fifths of a person, presaging the compromise adopted by the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

That earlier count might have been written in connection with proposed changes to the Articles of Confederation, which gave each state one vote in the Congress.

In 1783, a proposed amendment to the Articles of Confederation said the colonies should pay taxes to the national government in proportion to all their inhabitants “except Indians not paying taxes.” The amendment was opposed by the Southern States because of their large slave populations. Compromises, including the three-fifths count, were proposed but failed.

Liberty Hall Museum hopes to place the ledger and other Kean documents on display in the fall.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/nyregion/19kean.html

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Wow, there were a lot of blacks back then in proportion to the rest of the population.

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Wow, there were a lot of blacks back then in proportion to the rest of the population.

Slavery wasn't very efficient.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Slavery wasn't very efficient.

But it sure was trendy.

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But it sure was trendy.

Black people were the iPads of the 18th century.

[IndigoSkies 168]

iPads aren't trendy. They make you look like a douche especially if you wanna look like a douchebag with iPad.

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iPads aren't trendy. They make you look like a douche ...

That's precisely what all the loser white people without slaves said about the awesome super cool white people who had slaves...

[mawilson 2,133]

That's precisely what all the loser white people without slaves said about the awesome super cool white people who had slaves...

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

iPads aren't trendy. They make you look like a douche especially if you wanna look like a douchebag with iPad.

Amen

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Yup.. jealousy