What tools did they use?
< click through the pie chart to see.
NOTE:
*The town of Rochester, MA included Marion until 1852 and included Mattapoisett until 1857. As a result the 1850 census combines the information for the three towns. To identify residents of what is currently Mattapoisett, the households listed on the census were compared with the three maps by H. Walling listed below. Please note that some people would have moved, married or died between 1850 and when the maps were created. In addition many households share the same family name. In cases of uncertainty, neighboring dwellings on the census informed the identifications. The population of 1,520 and the occupation and real estate charts for what is now Mattapoisett are therefore approximate.
**The 1850 and 1880 census used different guidelines for the occupation field. The 1850 Rochester census data includes occupations such as "teacher" but not "keeping house," whereas both are found in the 1880 census data. In several instances when women were engaged in employment it was recorded as an activity rather than as a title: "tends farm" rather than "farmer." For the purpose of camparison the data for 1880 charts was adjusted to correspond with the 1850 data. Roles such as keeping house, boarder, and pauper are not included in this chart. One question is whether the increase in the number of domestics and servants reflects a genuine increase or differences in recording.
See where people lived in 1856.
Learn more about Rochester, MA in 1850 or go back in time and learn about Rochester c. 1780
Hayward, John, 1781-1869. "A Gazetteer of Massachusetts,: Containing Descriptions of All the Counties, Towns And Districts In the Commonwealth; Also, of Its Principal Mountains, Rivers, Capes, Bays, Harbors, Islands, And Fashionable Resorts. To Which Are Added, Statistical Accounts of Its Agriculture, Commerce And Manufactures; With a Great Variety of Other Useful Information.." Rev. ed. Boston,: J.P. Jewett & co., 1849. HathiTrust. Web. Accessed Feb. 9, 2014. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015078325076?urlappend=%3Bseq=13
Mattapoisett, MA and Mary Hall Leonard. Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts : being a history of these towns and also in part of Marion and a portion of Wareham. New York: The Grafton Press, c. 1907. Amazon Digital Services. Kindle edition, 2012. Also see HathiTrust. Web. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081829651;view=1up;seq=9
United States. Census Office. Population Schedules of the 7th Census of the United States, 1850, Massachusetts. Reel 0333. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1964. https://archive.org/stream/populationschedu0333unix#page/n518/mode/1up
Notes: Town resident Theophilus King recorded the 1850 census for Rochester and instead of recording only the state or country of birth, he recorded the town of birth for most residents. It is unusual to have this level of detail.
This microfilm was provided by the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and sponsored by the Internet Archive.
United States. Census Office. Population schedules of the 10th Census of the United States, 1880, Massachusetts. Reel 550. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1960. https://archive.org/stream/10thcensus0550unit#page/n201/mode/1up
Note: This microfilm was provided by the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and sponsored by the Internet Archive.
Please note: United States census information may be accessed several ways.
Some websites are subscription based and/or require registration.
ancestry.com, archive.org, and familysearch.org, among others, host census data.
The Rochester Census Project has transcribed census data from 1790, 1800 and 1810.
The Open Library lists 3 editions of the 7th census.
IPUMS has harmonized census data.
American Ancestors, New England Historic Genealogical Society includes Massachusetts 1855 Census information.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan, has data sets for analysis.
Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011. https://www.nhgis.org has aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2012.
Vital Records
archive.org: Vital Records of Rochester, Massachusetts to the Year 1850, Volume 1--Births
archive.org: Vital Records of Rochester, Massachusetts to the Year 1850, Volume 2--Marriages and Deaths
Massachusetts Archives Division: Vital Records, https://www.sec.state.ma.us/vitalrecordssearch/VitalRecordsSearch.aspx
ICONS
Please see about, data sets & credits page for icon information.
Published 2014 Mattapoisett Historical Society. Updated 2019.
©2014-2019 Mattapoisett Museum. All rights reserved.