1810 U.S. Federal Census
The third census, taken by the terms of an act of March 26, 1810, stipulated that the census was to be “an actual inquiry at every dwelling house, or of the head of every family within each district, and not otherwise” and commenced on the first Monday of August. No additional details concerning the population were collected by the census; however, an act of May 1, 1810, required marshals, secretaries, and assistants to take (under the Secretary of the Treasury), “an account of the several manufacturing establishments and manufactures within their several districts, territories, and divisions.” The marshals collected and transmitted these data to the Secretary of the Treasury at the same time as the results of the population enumeration were transmitted to the Secretary of State. No schedule was prescribed for the collection of industrial data and the nature of the inquiries were at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury.2
There was a district wide loss for District of Columbia, Georgia, Indiana Territory, Mississippi Territory, Louisiana Territory (MO), New Jersey and Tennessee. Partial losses included Illinois Territory, which had only two counties (Randolph is extant, St. Clair is lost.), and OH, all lost except Washington County.3
Population Census Items
Name of family head; if white, age and sex; race; slaves.1
** Click here for a FREE 1810 Census form from Ancestry.com (Adobe Acrobat required)
<< United States Federal Census
1 Availability of Census Records About Individuals, U.S. Census Bureau Web Site, www.census.gov
2 Census of Population and Housing, U.S. Census Bureau Web Site, www.census.gov
3 The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy by Loretto Dennis Szucs; edited by Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking (Salt Lake City, UT: Ancestry Incorporated, 1997).
