Thursday, March 7, 2013

Treasure Chest Thursday - 1875 Kansas State Census Record for D.J. Smith Family

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the 1875 Kansas State Census record for my Smith great-great-grandparents and their family in Lincoln township, Cloud County, Kansas:


The D.J. Smith family entry is (two snips):



The extracted information for the family, with a census date of 1 March 1975, is:

*  D.J. Smith - age 35, male, white, Livery and Sale Stable, $750 in real property, $1155 in personal property, born NY, moved from Mo
*  Abbie A. Smith - age 30, female, white, Milliner, $340 in personal property, born NY, moved from Mo
*  D A Smith - age 13, female, white, born Wis, moved from Mo
*  D.D. Smith - age 11, male, white, born Wis, moved from Mo
*  M A Smith - age 8, female, white, born Mo, moved from Mo
*  P. Sears - age 16, female, white, Teacher, born Mo, moved from Wis

The source citation for this record is:

"1875 Kansas State Census Census, Population Schedule," Lincoln township, Cloud County, Kansas, page 12, dwelling #107, family #107, D.J. Smith household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), citing original data at Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kans., on Kansas State Microfilm reel K-4.

The only significant error I see in the listing for the D.J. Smith family is:

*  M.A. Smith (Mary Ann) is listed as born in Missouri, but the family Bible, and other census records, list her as born in Wisconsin.  

I am intrigued that Abbie A. Smith, the wife and mother in this household, has her own "personal property" valued at $340.  Abbie's parents, Samuel and Mary Ann (Underhill) Vaux, were still living in 1875, yet Abbie has her own personal estate.  Perhaps it is from her millinery occupation - she may have a small business in her home that has some machinery and/or inventory.  

As of March 1875, Abbie is pregnant with her 5th child, to be born in June 1875.

There is also a "teacher" in this household, age 16.  She may be home schooling the three children while Abbie awaits delivery of her child.  I wonder what happened to her!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/03/treasure-chest-thursday-1875-kansas.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

2 comments:

Wonderland Girl said...

My grandfather was born in Jamestown, Cloud Co. Kansas in 1883. Perhaps our families knew each other.

Gerry Sell said...

I'll bet the teacher was hired by the township for its public school, and was boarding (at township expense) at the Smith home. By the time 1880 rolled around she was probably married, but perhaps not.