The decennial census has always required a large workforce to visit and collect data from households. Between 1790 to 1870, the duty of collecting census data fell upon the U.S. Marshals. A March 3, 1879 act replaced the U.S. Marshals with specially hired and trained census-takers to conduct the 1880 and subsequent censuses.
During the early censuses, U.S. Marshalls received little training or instruction on how to collect census data. In fact, it was not until 1830 that marshals even received printed shedules on which to record households' responses. The marshals often received limited instruction from the census acts passed prior to each census.
Beginning with the 1880 census, specially hired and trained census-takers replaced the U.S. marshals. Door-to-door census by temporary census-takers was the primary method of conducting the census until the U.S. Census Bureau began mailing questionnaires to households in 1960.
As more and more households received and returned their questionnaires by mail, the role of census-taker changed. Today, the majority of households are counted by mailed questionnaires. Census-takers visit places frequented by transient households (shelters and soup kitchens, campsites, etc.) and households that do not return their mailed questionnaires (during the "Nonresponse Follow-Up" phase of the census). As a result, the "Instructions to Enumerators" provided here include the congressional acts U.S. marshalls reviewed during the early census, specially-published instructions for door-to-door census, and lastly, guides used for the limited number of personal interviews conducted during nonresponse follow-up operations.
The city of Fort Wayne is situated near the center of Allen county, Indiana, in the northeastern part of the state, 102 miles from Indianapolis, the capital, and 147 miles from Chicago, the supreme metropolis of the west. Its population today is estimated as closely approximating 60,000.
Census Tick Marks and Codes
— Revisited Yet Again! discusses those curious markings all over census entries by Elizabeth Shown Mills, Ancestry Daily News,
04 January 2005; archived at Ancestry.com, Learning
Center on historicpathways.com.
The #CenterOfPopulation is calculated every 10 years and helps quantify how fast and in what direction America’s population is moving.
Because of rapidly growing cities in the western United States, the #1950Census Center of Population was precisely at 38.83917 North latitude and 88.15917 West longitude, a point in Richland County, #Illinois.
Center of U. S. Population marker, Columbus Township, Bartholomew County, Indiana
The stone marker reads: "Center of Population / U. S. A. / June 1, 1900. The exact point, Latitude 39° 9" 36"North: / Longitude: 85° 48" 54" West. is from this spot N.19° 4.E.. 3606 feet. designated by a stone marked '1900'. near the barn of Henry Marr. The Indianapolis News erected this stone."
The 1900 census revealed that the US center of population was in Henry Marr's barn lot southeast of Columbus, so the Indianapolis News had this monument placed at the nearest intersection (1/4 mile from the actual site). The mean center of population of the United States (determined by the United States Census Bureau) moved west through southern Indiana between 1890 and 1940. In 1900 it was located six miles southeast of Columbus in section 2 of Columbus Township, Bartholomew County. The farm was owned by James Marr and occupied by his son Henry Marr. Eventually Henry's son Clyde and grandson Henry also lived on the farm.
