POLK COUNTY, TN 1860 FEDERAL CENSUS http://ftp.us-census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/xtn/polk/1860/ ------------------------------- TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: ------------------------------- Prepared by Donald Robbins Transcription aid by Betty Hawley Checked by D. K. Robbins May 20, 2005 (revised November 18,2005) 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 (Polk) 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 of the Microfilm reel (reel Series M653, Roll # 1268) 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 from the microfilm for the 1860 Census for Polk County consists of 214 pages. COUNTS There were 1446 family units in Polk county. There were 1446 Housing Units in Polk County. There were 8884 free individuals in Polk County. Number of White Males 4591 Number of White Females 4208 Number of Black Males 10 Number of Black Females 6 Number of Mulatto Males 6 Number of Mulatto Females 6 Number of Indian Males 19 Number of Indian Females 18 Number of Students 1806 Number of Illiterates 322 Number of Married 40 PLACES OF BIRTH Tennessee 4734 North Carolina 263 South Carolina 126 Kentucky 101 Virginia 78 Georgia 39 Germany 39 England 21 France 19 Alabama 15 Ohio 11 Dutch 7 Ireland 6 Pennsylvania 4 Mississippi 4 Maryland 1 New York 1 Missouri 1 Unknown 4 ------------------------------- OCCUPATIONS ------------------------------- Alphabetically Agent in Mine 2 Agent 3 Assayer 1 blind from 12 yrs old 1 blind 4 Baliff 1 Bapt Min 2 Black Smith 17 clerk 7 Cabinent Maker 3 Capt of Eureka Mine 1 Capt of Eureka 1 Capt of Mine 1 Carpenter 11 Chair Maker 1 Civil Engineer 2 Cnty Clrk 1 Constable 4 died of tyfoid (sic) fever 2 Dr. 1 Farmer 426 Fisher 1 Grocer 3 Gun Smith 2 Hatter 1 Hauler 1 Hotel Kpr 1 House Girl 2 idiot 2 idiotic 1 insane 1 Inn Keeper 1 Jeweler 1 Laborer 9 Lawyer 2 Livery Keeper 1 Lutherin Min 1 Magistrate 1 Mechanic 1 Meth Min 13 Miller 7 Min C. P. 1 Mine Labor Mngr 1 Mine Laborer 90 Miner 162 Mining Labor Mgr 1 pauper 3 Pastor C. P. 1 Physician 6 Pres Pastor 1 RR Hand 1 Sawyer 2 Sheriff 1 Shoe Maker 4 Student 2 Superintent 1 Supt at Mine 1 Supt Farm 1 Supt of Euraka Copper Mine 1 Supt 1 Tailor 1 Tanner 2 Taylor 1 Teacher 4 Teamster 5 Trader 2 Wagon Maker 2 Washerwoman 1 Watch Maker 1 ------------------------------- VOCATIONS ------------------------------- by frequency Farmer 426 Miner 162 Mine Laborer 90 Black Smith 17 Meth Min 13 Carpenter 11 Laborer 9 clerk 7 Miller 7 Physician 6 Teamster 5 Constable 4 Shoe Maker 4 Teacher 4 Agent 3 Cabinent Maker 3 Grocer 3 Agent in Mine 2 Bapt Min 2 Civil Engineer 2 Gun Smith 2 House Girl 2 Lawyer 2 Sawyer 2 Student 2 Tanner 2 Trader 2 Wagon Maker 2 Assayer 1 Baliff 1 Capt of Eureka Mine 1 Capt of Eureka 1 Capt of Mine 1 Chair Maker 1 Cnty Clrk 1 Dr. 1 Fisher 1 Hatter 1 Hauler 1 Hotel Kpr 1 Inn Keeper 1 Jeweler 1 Livery Keeper 1 Lutherin Min 1 Magistrate 1 Mechanic 1 Min C. P. 1 Mine Labor Mngr 1 Mining Labor Mgr 1 Pastor C. P. 1 Pres Pastor 1 RR Hand 1 Sheriff 1 Superintent 1 Supt at Mine 1 Supt Farm 1 Supt of Euraka Copper Mine 1 Supt 1 Tailor 1 Taylor 1 Washerwoman 1 Watch Maker 1 ------------------------------- Infirmities ------------------------------- blind from 12 yrs old 1 blind 4 died of tyfoid (sic) fever 2 idiot 2 idiotic 1 insane 1 pauper 3 ------------------------------- Transcribers notes: ------------------------------- E. H. DUNN at P001-01 was the enumerator for Polk County. We guess, if you are the enumerator, you can start the enumeration at your residence. The enumerators did not list any vacant residences in Polk County There was quite a foreign group, Germans, English, many of them miners. Also there were a number of Indians, presumably Cheeroke. There was a surprising, to us, lack of money in the different households. The miners may have been "indentured" to the Mining Companies. A dollar is worth twenty at today's rate of exchange. COOPER Copper was discovered there in 1843. This discovery would impact the lives of Copper Basin residents for generations. Population growth, land speculation, numerous mine openings and other related activities led to the boom of the area by the early 1850's. However, no one knew that the state-of-the-art technology being used at that time to process copper would have devastating effects on the environment. In fact, the devastation was so great the Copper Basin was once considered the largest man-made biological desert in the nation. Over 50 square miles (32,000 acres) was stripped of vegetation resulting in mounds of soil being washed away with each rainfall. Sulfuric acid fumes filled the bowl-like topography and led to the nation's first look at the long-term effects of acid rain. The Ducktown Basin, or Copper Basin, is located in the extreme southeast corner of Polk County, Tennessee. Three veins of copper run through the basin and each attracted several mining companies ready to exploit the resource. The early inhabitants of the Basin were Cherokee Indian farmers who were hunters and produced some copper. By the Treaty of New Echota in 1836 they gave up many of their lands, including those in the Copper Basin. Many of the Indians who remained in the Basin after the treaty were removed by the U.S. Army in 1838 during the Trail of Tears. Because there were no roads into the Basin, settlement was slow to occur. The first white settlers came to the area to farm, but until 1839 there was little white settlement. That year, prices were lowered from the starting price of $7.50 an acre, which had been established when the land was surveyed after the Indian Removal, to only $l an acre. The farming community of Pleasant Hill was founded around 1840 east of present-day Copperhill, the first organized settlement in the Basin. The lack of roads into the Basin increased its isolation and prevented economical shipment of goods outside the Basin and helped retain an agricultural lifestyle. The earliest recorded shipment of copper out of the Basin occurred in 1847 when shipped, by mule, 90 casks of copper to Dalton, Georgia, the nearest railroad. It was shipped north of the Revere Smelting Works near Boston. In 1851, the Copper Road between Hiwassee and Cleveland began to be constructed in Bradley County and was completed in 1853. Now copper could be taken economically by copper haulers to Cleveland for shipment, and other goods could be brought back into the Basin. Copper haulers would make this journey in two days, spending the night at a halfway house. On the return trip from Cleveland the wagons were usually loaded with merchandise for the stores, and with mining supplies. The original road was used throughout the 1800s as the only way to ship copper out of the Basin. (The road route was later used for part of U.S. Hwy. 64.) In 1857 only five mines were operating regularly -- the Tennessee, Mary's, Isabella, Eureka, and Hiwassee. In 1858 the mines in the Basin began to consolidate into three large companies -- the Union Consolidated Mining Company, the Burra Burra Copper Company, and the Ducktown Copper Company. The Civil War disrupted work at the mines, as the miners left to fight in the war and the mines closed down. Many mine interests and smelting plants were owned by northern industrialists who closed the mines in late 1861. The confederacy gained control of the Basin in 1863 and sold the mines to southern capitalists to provide the south with needed copper. The mines were operated at a reduced capacity through the end of 1863 when Federal troops again gained control of the area. After the Civil War the miners and their families returned, the damage to the mines was repaired, and mines reopened. The Burra Burra and Union Mines were reopened in 1866, the first to do so. The Copper Basin's ore is three deep seams and could only be extracted by deep shaft mining, a dangerous activity. Dynamite charges used to loosen ore could cause cave-ins and many miners lost their lives in the mines. In the late 1870s most of the mining companies in the Basin began to fail because of a lack of adequate transportation and decreasing quality of ore. The cost of transporting the ore would have been greatly reduced by rail. Without rail transportation it became uneconomical to ship copper. The copper mines in the Basin were idle for more than ten years until the Marietta and North Georgia Railroad built a spur line north to the area. The arrival of the railroad ended the isolation of the Basin and made transportation of people and products easier. The Georgia spur was met soon by the spur from upper Tennessee. The major obstacle in the Tennessee line was the Hiwassee River gorge, with a 426-foot difference in the height between the north and south shores of the river. George Eager of the Knoxville Southern Railroad designed a switchback to eliminate the obstacle. The switchback was located near Farner, Polk County, Tennessee. The completed rail resembled a "W" built up the river gorge. These two lines consolidated in 1890 as the Marietta & North Georgia Railroad. It passed into receivership in 1891 and was reorganized in 1895 as the Atlantic, Knoxville, and Northern Railroad Construction Company (AK&N). In 1896 it was finally incorporated and began to run the rail line. In 1890 the Ducktown Sulphur, Copper and Iron Company (DSC&I) of London, England, re-opened the Mary mine and built a furnace with a l00-ton-a-day smelting capacity. In 189l the open roast heap smelting process of copper was begun. This process, and the high sulfur content in Polk County copper, created sulfuric acid fumes which, combined with the timber cut as fuel, destroyed vegetation in the Basin. They replaced the cumbersome switchback at the Hiwassee Gorge with a loop around Bald Mountain in the gorge. The loop was necessary because a train could pull only three or four cars up the switchback, and a pusher train was needed to help get the trains up. This was very time consuming at a time when the line was getting more traffic. T.A. Aber, a civil engineer with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, designed a loop around Bald Mountain, in the middle of the Hiwassee River, to eliminate the switchback. The loop, over 8,000 feet long, would circle the mountain one and a half times up a passable grade until it reached the plateau height near Farner north of Ducktown. Trains began running over the loop in 1898 and continue to do so today. ---------------------------------- POLK COUNTY, TENNESSEE - HISTORY ---------------------------------- Polk County, Tennessee's 72nd county, so named to honor newly-elected Governor James K. Polk, is located in the extreme southeastern corner of the state, bounded by both North Carolina and Georgia. Its 436 square miles contains some of the most scenic beauty in the country, with beautiful Parksville Lake, the Ocoee, Conasauga, and Hiwassee Rivers and 50,865 acres of Cherokee National Forest along the lower Unaka Mountain range. Polk County's known Indian heritage goes back at least 2,000 years to the early woodland Indians. DeSoto, in 1540, camped near Columbus, a thriving trading post on the banks of the Hiwassee River. The treaty of 1819 opened the territory north of the Hiwassee to white settlement and the 1835 Treaty of Removal forced the Cherokees to give up their final portion of land in Tennessee. By the petition of some 100 citizens, Polk County was created by an act of the legislature on November 28, 1839, from parts of Bradley and McMinn. David Ragen, as Sheriff pro-tem was authorized to hold the first electction, while commissioners James McKamy, William Shields, Samuel Parks, Abraham Lillard and Jacob Moore were to lay off the county into seven civil districts. The county seat was to be named Benton in hononor of Thomas Hart Benton, Senator from Missouri. In the February 4, 1840, election, McKamy's stock stand, located on the Old Federal Road, was the site chosen for the permanent county seat. The new town was surveyed and laid by James McKamy and John F. Hannah into 223 lots, which were sold in 1840 for a total of $11,386 -- much of which was never collected. New officers were duly elected and included John Shamblin, Sheriff; Abraham Lillard, trustee; James Parks, county clerk; W.M. Biggs, circuit court clerk; Sam Kennedy, registrar; with the following Justices of Peace: R.H. McConnell, Sylvester Blackwell, Zachariah Rose, (first chairman), John Williams, Stephen Blankenship, Riley Horn, Andrew Stephenson, W.H. Henry, William Wiggins, Abe McKissac, Alfred Taylor, Ben Ellis, J.W. Witt, James Ainsworth, and L.L. Trewitt. During the War Between the States, Polk County provided five companies for the Confederacy and two for the Union Army, as well as 90% of the copper for the Southern cause. There were no battles fought within the county; however, the November 29, 1864, raid by notorious bushwhacker and guerilla John P. Gatewood, resulted in at least sixteen murders. Polk County's remote Sylco Mountains was the site of an unique experiment in social living by Rosine Parmentier and some of the New York friends in the1840's. Purchasing around 50,000 acres of land, they encouraged the colonizing of the area by a mixture of French, German, Italian, Austrian and others. Their grandiose idea of profitable winemaking apparently found no market, and most of the colonist left. Those who remained were the Becklers, Miolin, Nocarina, Genollic, Sholtz, Pace and Chable families, who soon were integrated into the local community. Polk County, with a 1990 census population of 13,643, presently has four elementary and two high schools within its boundaries: Polk County High School, Benton and South Polk Elementary schools in West Polk; Copper Basin, Ducktown and Turtletown in East Polk. There are approximately 50 churches in the county, all Protestant: mainly Baptist; the remainder Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of God, and Episcopal. The oldest church in the county is Friendship Baptist Church, organized around 1826 in the Linsdale area north of the Hiwassee, which was opened to white settlers by a 1819 Treaty. The Tennessee Valley Authority operates three hydroelectric plants on the Ocoee (one on the Hiwassee) and owns more than 3,000 acres of land. The U.S. Forest Service owns in excess of 150,000 acres and operates several recreational sites which provide picnicking, camping and swimming facilities for local citizens and thousands of visitors each year. The Ocoee River was the site of the 1996 Centennial Olympic canoe/kayak slalom competition, bringing thousands of visitors to our door. Besides the specially constructed race course and its 300 ft. scale model in new Sugarloaf Mountain State Park, a new Ocoee Whitewater Center administration building remains as visible and economic reminders of our part in this historic event. Agriculture continues to be a major factor in the economy of Polk County, with leading products including poultry, dairy products, cattle, hogs, soybeans, forestry products and corn. A half-dozen small industries employing around 400 people produce clothing, furniture, lumber and car mats. Special thanks to Marian Presswood, President and editor of the Polk County Historical and Genealogical Society, for the Polk County history and other information presented here. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 thefamily, 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.