Kalamazoo Census Facts

Several months ago I was introduced to the Historical Census Browser while reading the May/June issue of Family Tree Magazine. Provided by the University of Virginia, this is a source of all sorts of information gleaned from census records from 1790 through 1960. What you find runs the gamut from total population to ethnicity, agriculture, literacy and manufacturing. Results can be narrowed down to the state and the county level.

To give you an idea of what you can learn at this site I played around with it to obtain some statistics for Kalamazoo county.

Year    Total # of Farms      Cash Value of Farm      Improved Farm Land (acres)      Value Farm Machin.

1850        1,098                        $2,056,860                        73,200                                  $141,614

1860        2,159                        $8,137,368                      153,923                                  $265,160

1870        2,938                      $17,255,839                      204,689                                  $665,800

1880        3,226                       not included                       263,249                                  $612,640

I thought it was interesting to see the number of farms in the county double from 1850 to 1860. This makes sense as the total population in the county also nearly doubled during this time (see below). Actually, the number of farms increased at about the same rate as the population from 1850 through 1880 with an average of 1 farm per eleven persons during the entire period. In 1880 the average size of a farm in Kalamazoo county was 106 acres. The estimated value of all farm products produced in the county in 1879 was a staggering $3,392,037.

I also looked at the ethnic composition of Kalamazoo county.

Year      Tot. Pop.      Foreign born      Born Ireland      Born Germany       Born Netherlands

1850      13,179             1,025                N/A                      N/A                        N/A

1860      24,626             3,374                N/A                      N/A                        N/A

1870      32,054             4,648                927                       663                         993

1880      34,342             4,910                812                       817                      1,301

1890      39,273             6,629                723                    1,059                      2,742

1900      44,310             6,536                553                       962                      3,123

To round out the major places of foreign birth in 1870 here are the numbers: British America, 859; England & Wales, 893; Scotland, 168; Sweden & Norway, 9; Switzerland, 34. There were no people included who listed their place of birth as Africa, Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Russia or Spain. I'm not sure of the birthplace of the remaining 102 foreign-born people. “Colored” persons made up only a tiny fraction of the population in 1870, numbering only 525 (1.6%).

Literacy was quite high among those in Kalamazoo county in 1870. Among whites over age 21, only 313 could not read (0.1% of the white population) and among colored persons over age 21, only 33 could not read (6% of the colored population).

These statistics just scratch the surface of what you can discover at this very informative site. To see what more you can find go to their website.