MARION COUNTY, TN 1860 FEDERAL CENSUS TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: Prepared by Donald Robbins Transcription aid by Betty Hawley Checked by D. K. Robbins June 25, 2011 Census Sheet's Format ------------------------------- Census Sheet Header Information ------------------------------- Each Census Sheet consists of 40 lines. The Header information contains a place for the Date of entry, Post Office, The County Name (Marion) and the name of the recorder of the information. ------------------------------- Census Sheet Detail information ------------------------------- Column 1 - Dwelling - houses numbered in the order of visitation Column 2 - Families, numbered in the order of visitation Column 3 - The name of every person whose usual place of abode on the first day of June, 1860 was in this family Column 4 - Age Column 5 - Sex Column 6 - Color, White, Black or Mulatto or Indian Column 7 - Profession, Occupation or Trade of each person, male and female, over 15 years of age Column 8 - Value of Real Estate Column 9 - Value of Personal Estate Column 10 - Place of Birth, Naming the State, Territory, or Country Column 11 - Married within the year Column 12 - Attended School within the year Column 13 - Person over 20 who could not read or write Column 14 - Whether deaf & dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict In the interest of getting the information transcribed to an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet, some adjustments were made in the format of the transcription. A new line was created, which contains the Page Number and Line Number that the information was transcribed from. The Surname is in Caps, along with the date of the census page, the census district, the Post Office, and the information from Column 1 and Column 2. The information from Columns 11, 12, 13 was encoded following the Column 10 information, Place of Birth. The encoding is: M, for married within the year, S, for attending school within the year, and I, for illiterate for a check in Column 13 for persons over 20 who could not read or write. The information from Column 14 is added, as is, to the person's line. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The information for the 1860 Census for Marion County consists of 143pages. The information for Marion is on Microfilm Reel M653-1263 The Enumerator was J. Maxwell, at P075-13 There were 1063 Houses and 982 Families in Marion County COUNTS Number of White Males 3022 Number of White Females 2747 Number of Black Males 11 Number of Black Females 8 Number of Mulatto Males 1 Number of Students 1063 Number of Illiterates 1031 Number of Married 70 in the last year Number of twins 14 PLACES OF BIRTH Tennessee 4086 Georgia 352 Alabama 272 North Carolina 233 South Carolina 151 Ireland 99 Virginia 99 Kentucky 54 Engl 46 Pennsylvania 24 NY 17 Unk 12 Miss 10 Scot 9 Arkansas 8 Maryland 8 Indiana 8 Mass 6 Ohio 5 Germany 5 Conneticut 2 Green Land 2 West Indies 2 Illinois 2 Texas 1 France 1 OCCUPATIONS by name Artist 1 Bapt Min 3 Black Smith 29 Book Keeper 1 Book Store 1 Brakeman 2 Brick Mason 1 Butcher 3 clerk 7 Cabinent Maker 1 Carpenter 22 Carriage Man 1 Carriage Repair 2 Chair Maker 2 Civil Engineer 1 Clergyman 1 Cnty Ct Clerk 1 Coal Miner 2 Constable 3 Cooper 4 Day Laborer 63 Domestic 7 Engineer 5 Farm Hand 1 Farm Laborer 129 Farmer 587 Ferryman 1 Fisherman 4 Grocer 4 Hatter 2 Head Miner 1 Laborer 18 Lawyer 5 Mail Carrier 1 MD 14 Mechanic 1 Merchant 10 Meth Min 4 Mill Wright 5 Miller 7 Miner boss 1 Miner 69 overseer 2 retired clerk 1 retired Farmer 2 retired Merchant 1 Register 1 RR boss 3 RR Bridge Watch 1 RR clerk 1 RR Conductor 1 RR Contractor 3 RR Foreman 1 RR Laborer 40 servant 17 sewing 1 Saddler 3 Sawyer 2 Seamstress 3 Sheriff 1 Shoe Maker 5 Stock Keeper 2 Stock Raiser 1 Stock Trader 2 Stone Cutter 11 Stone Mason 10 Surveyer 1 Tailor 2 Tanner 1 Tavern Keeper 3 Tax Man 1 Teacher 7 Wagon Wright 1 Washer Woman 2 Weaver 4 Wheel Wright 3 INFIRMITIES & OTHERS blind 7 deaf & dumb 1 dumb 1 idiotic 4 insane 8 jail 4 pauper 1 OCCUPATIONS by frequencies Farmer 587 Farm Laborer 129 Miner 69 Day Laborer 63 RR Laborer 40 Black Smith 29 Carpenter 22 Laborer 18 servant 17 MD 14 Stone Cutter 11 Merchant 10 Stone Mason 10 clerk 7 Domestic 7 Miller 7 Teacher 7 Lawyer 5 Engineer 5 Mill Wright 5 Shoe Maker 5 Cooper 4 Grocer 4 Fisherman 4 Meth Min 4 Weaver 4 Bapt Min 3 Butcher 3 Constable 3 RR boss 3 RR Contractor 3 Saddler 3 Seamstress 3 Tavern Keeper 3 Wheel Wright 3 Brakeman 2 Carriage Repair 2 Chair Maker 2 Coal Miner 2 Hatter 2 overseer 2 retired Farmer 2 Sawyer 2 Stock Keeper 2 Stock Trader 2 Tailor 2 Washer Woman 2 Artist 1 Book Keeper 1 Book Store 1 Brick Mason 1 Cabinent Maker 1 Carriage Man 1 Civil Engineer 1 Clergyman 1 Cnty Ct Clerk 1 Farm Hand 1 Ferryman 1 Head Miner 1 Mail Carrier 1 Mechanic 1 Miner boss 1 retired clerk 1 retired Merchant 1 Register 1 RR Bridge Watch 1 RR clerk 1 RR Conductor 1 RR Foreman 1 sewing 1 Sheriff 1 Stock Raiser 1 Surveyer 1 Tanner 1 Tax Man 1 Wagon Wright 1 MARION COUNTY Marion County History By Patsy B. Beene,South Pittsburg Marion County, located in the southern part of the Cumberland Plateau and the Sequatchie Valley, encompasses five hundred square miles. Established in 1817 out of Cherokee lands, the county was named for General Francis Marion, a Revolutionary War leader in South Carolina. When Tennessee became a state, the Sequatchie Valley was a part of Roane County. The upper end of the valley was established as Bledsoe County in 1807. This county included all of the valley, but treaties with the Cherokees kept white settlers out of the lower end. The first white settlers are thought to have been Amos Griffith and William and James Standifer in 1805, while the area was still part of Roane County. Native Americans have played an important part in the history of present-day Marion County. They built their towns on the rivers and were living here when the white men came. These newcomers kept the Indian names Tennessee and Sequatchie for this area. Recent research indicates that in 1560 Spanish soldiers from Tristan de Luna's expedition entered the Tennessee River valley in the vicinity of Marion County, visiting the main town of the chiefdom of Napochies. More than a century later, the next Europeans to make contact with the Native Americans found a number of tribes in what later became Tennessee. The Cherokee dominated this area later in the 1700s and early 1800s. In 1789 Chiefs Catetoy and Vann, accompanied by forty warriors in canoes, intercepted the boat of Colonel James Brown, who was en route with his family and party to Middle Tennessee to take up land awarded him for Revolutionary War services. The Indians killed the men and captured the women and children, including Joseph Brown, a youth who later escaped and guided the Cumberland settlers' expedition to Nickajack in 1794 to destroy the native towns of Nickajack, Running Water, and Long Island. After the Cumberland expedition, the Indians made a treaty allowing whites in the lower part of the valley. The first court in 1817 was held in the house of John Shropshire in what is now Whitwell. Then court was held for one year in the old Cheek house, a two-story double log house located south of Whitwell in a place called Cheekville, later named Liberty, where court had been held while this county was still in North Carolina. In 1819 the county seat was moved to Jasper, named in honor of Sergeant Jasper of Revolutionary War fame. The commissioners to select and establish the county seat were William Stone, David Oats, Burgess Matthews, Alexander Kelly, William King, William Stevens, and Davis Miller. Betsy Pack, a Cherokee Indian woman, sold these commissioners forty acres, and the courthouse built in 1820 was near the center of the tract where the present one now stands. John Kelly was the first clerk of the court and Alan Griffith the first registrar. During the Civil War sentiment in the county was so divided that frequently members of the same family could be found in both the Confederate and Federal armies. The presence of the railroad and major turnpikes meant that troops from both sides often passed through the county. Industry and mining marked the county's postwar history. In 1877 James Bowron and associates from England brought sufficient capital into the valley to develop the iron and coal industries. Coal mines opened in Whitwell; coke ovens operated in Victoria; iron ore came from Inman; and smelters dominated South Pittsburg. In the early 1890s J. C. Beene installed a small steam plant at South Pittsburg to serve the city. It became an industrial town for several important iron-making firms and manufacturing companies. The still-operating Lodge Cast Iron is one of the state's oldest manufacturing firms. Industrialist Richard Hardy established Richard City as a company town for the Dixie Portland Cement Company in the early 1900s. Today the county is famous for its manufacture of fireworks. The development of hydroelectric power came with the completion of Hales Bar Dam in 1912. In 1933 Congress created the Tennessee Valley Authority for the purpose of flood control, navigation, and the sale of cheap hydroelectric power in the Tennessee Valley. The lake created by its Nickajack Dam covered the earlier Hales Bar Dam. The dams that the TVA built on the Tennessee River and its tributaries changed the look of the area without damaging its beauty; while covering sites used by first settlers, they improved navigation on the river. In this lovely Sequatchie Valley county today lie the graves of countless military heroes and politicians: Brigadier General William Stone, War of 1812; General Adrian Northcut, Mexican War; U.S. Senator Hopkins Turney; Governor and U.S. Senator James B. Frazier; U.S. Senators Foster V. Brown, James Whiteside, and Tom Stewart; Congressmen Joe Brown, Sam D. McReynolds; and Judges Leslie R. Darr, Alan Kelly, Sam Polk Raulston, and John T. Raulston. The county's population was 27,776 in 2000. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - THE STORY TELLERS We are the chosen. My feelings are, in each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know, and approve. To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors you have a wonderful family you would be proud of us? How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I do the things I do? It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers. That, is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones. Author unknown The 1860 Census or Lots of Questions Answered The 1860 Census lists a dwelling number and family number and each sheet lists the county as well as town and post office name. Questions answered on the 1860 census include, name, age and sex of each individual; color, occupation, value of real and personal property; birthplace, whether married within the year (m.y.), whether attended school, can read or write and the date of the enumeration. Also included are boxes to indicate if an individual was a pauper or convict. Here is an article published in 1859 about the upcoming 1860 census: Friday September 23, 1859 Weekly Star THE NEXT CENSUS The year 1860 is the time appointed for taking the eighth census of the United States. From having been originally a simple enumeration's of persons, this Federal census has grown to be a decennial register of the number of inhabitants and their occupation, religious denominations & c, and also a statement of the commerce, manufacturers, arts and industry, and the wealth of the nation. The collection of these statistics has hitherto been attended with immense labor and difficulty. The inquiries of the census takers have not only been baffled by the stupidity and perverseness and ignorance of many to whom they were addressed; but it has been impossible to obtain accurate information upon important subjects because the parties; who alone are presumed capable of imparting it, have never taken the trouble to inform themselves. It often occurs that, in the absence of the head of a family no other member of it is able to give the information required; for instance as to the ages of the different members or it, or the amount of land in cultivation, the number of negroes and their ages, the quantity and value of horses, mules and oxen, etc., or of farming implements or farm products. In town and country similar difficulties are continually met with by the marshals appointed to collect these statistics, and the census is consequently returned incomplete. It is probably that while care will be observed to prevent any frauds or excess in the publication of the next census, it will be ordered by Congress to be taken so as to include all the most important items of information in regard to the progress of our population and our country. In view of this contingency the Nashville News very sensibly suggest that each farmer, this fall , as he gathers his crops, shall keep something like an accurate account of the quality and value of the same; and if he will take the trouble to make out a statement of the names and ages of his family; the number and ages of his servants, the number and value of his horses and mules; the number of bales of cotton, barrels of corn, bushels of wheat, oats, rye, barley, potatoes, etc., and leave it in some place where any member of the family, who may be at home when the deputy marshal shall call, can readily get hold of it, it will save time to all concerned, and very greatly assist to make the census return perfect, complete and satisfactory.