24 April 2013

Whiting Census of 1800

I pieced together the few pages of the U.S. Census of 1800 that were related to Whiting. They are shown below.

The U.S. Census of 1790 showed about 247 residents in the Town of Whiting (I believe the official count was 249, but I could not find the other two people in the document). Over the following ten years, the population grew considerably. The 1800 Census shows a total of 404 residents in the town (roughly what the population is now). For comparison, in 1800 the neighboring Town of Leicester had a population of 522 (less than current population), while Cornwall had 1,163 (close to current) and Shoreham had 1,447 (more than current).

There were many youngsters in Whiting in 1800 - 77 boys under age ten (19% of the population), 58 girls under age ten (14.3%), 36 girls between ten and sixteen (8.9%) and 28 boys between ten and sixteen (6.9%). The total number of minors was 199, accounting for just under half of the total number of residents. There were relatively few older adults - just 22 men and 23 women aged forty-five and over. These comprised about 11% of the total population. Just one resident of the town was designated as not "white."

FYI - Whiting's age-group statistics looked very different for the 2000 U.S. Census (the most recent for which already-crunched numbers are available). At that time, children under 16 accounted for just 17.4% of the town population (somewhat lower than the state and national percentage), and adults 45 and older accounted for about 37% (about the same as the state figure but higher than the national figure). The largest age block was adults 25-44, with 31.6% of the population falling into that category (a bit higher than state and national figures).

The final column in the 1800 census contains no information for Whiting or for any other town in the State of Vermont. That column was used to track the number of slaves in each household. Slavery was always prohibited in Vermont.


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