yesterday's tennessee

INFORMATION FROM THE AGRICULTURAL
SCHEDULE, UNITED STATES CENSUS, 1880
HENDERSON CO., TENNESSEE

Jonathan Kennon Thompson Smith

 

(Page 55)

There are no land tax records as such extant for Henderson County from 1865 until 1895,a span of thirty years. The agricultural schedule of the United States Census of 1880 has lengthy data regarding the acreage (owned, rented) and the value of each held by local individuals, statistical information regarding the labor, crops and livestock raised on farmlands. If a researcher is sincerely interested in the farm operations of ancestors/relatives of this period the agricultural schedule is a fitting source to use to gain such insights.(There were also agricultural schedules for 1850-1870. Those of 1890+ have been destroyed.)

The present writer has compiled the names from this particular schedule from the agricultural schedule for rural residents (the land value of town-village real property was not given in this census) .The "ag" schedule for Henderson County is extremely dim at places, grainy nearly throughout. A few of the census-takers were careful, neat enumerators while others were poorly organized and sloppy.

The information is for each civil district, the total acreages combined (from three given in the schedule, i.e. tillable or cultivated land and pastureland; forest and old fields and generally unimproved land), with the tillable acreage given immediately thereafter; followed by the total land value given. (This particular information was supposedly accurate as of June 1,1880.)

 

(Page 107)

Civil Districts of Henderson County

 

May drawn by James H. Hanna showing the civil districts taken to help form CHESTER COUNTY, TENNESSEE in 1879; people in these areas were included in the 1880 Henderson County census.

 

Other works by Jonathan K. T. Smith can be found at the Madison County Records Repository at TNGenWeb.