Appendix: Richmond households in 1784 and 1810

Summary

The records available for household reconstruction in early Richmond, while rich in some regards, are far from perfect. The two most complete censuses were carried out by the city in 1782 and 1784. Each includes a listing of each free person, occupation, age, and the location of the household in which each lived. The censuses also include the names and ages of enslaved residents and the households in which each lived. These censuses were taken on the orders of the Richmond city government – the Common Hall Council – and were recorded in the Common Hall's Minute Book. Although the council continued to order that censuses be taken, for some reason the results were no longer recorded in the Minute Books, and I have not located later lists. While a comparison of the two lists reveals some interesting things about early Richmond – especially the transience of those who lived there – the structure of households remained quite similar in the two censuses, so I have summarized some of the most important data from 1784 in Tables 1 to 3. Tables 1, 2, and 3 are compiled from a census taken in 1784 under the order of the Richmond City Common Hall and recorded in the Richmond City Common Hall Minute Book (microfilm, VSL). Michael Lee Nicholls kindly furnished me with a computer printout that he compiled from the 1784 census. The film of the census is sometimes barely legible, and I have substituted my reading of the film for that of Nicholls in a couple of instances.