Census: Kutztown, 1876 Census: Berks County:  A note of explanation

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Brendan Strasser.
   bdsckt@enter.net

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        Borough of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, June 1876

             1876 Census:  A note of explanation


 This census of the Borough of Kutztown, a small farming community
located midway between Reading and Allentown in Berks County, was
purchased in 1995 at the estate auction of Clarence Buck, a long-time
Kutztown resident and book collector.  According to a handwritten note
inside the front cover, it was "Taken in June A. D. 1876."  The entire
census is handwritten in a 6 1/2 x 8" ledger book that was purchased,
according to an interior sticker, in "Isaac F. Christ's Cheap Book &
Variety Store" in Kutztown.  The census features separate columns for
"Name," "Age," "Where Born," and "Occupation"; occasionally,
additional notes are scribbled in the margin.

No explanation for the census is provided, and it seems unrelated to
any kind of national effort, unless the country's centennial is
somehow related to the project. Insofar as Kutztown was incorporated
in 1815, the town was celebrating its 61st anniversary, not its 50th
or 75th, which is more likely to have been commemorated by some sort
of official effort such as this.  Given that the names appear in no
obvious order, it seems that the census taker went door to door
gathering his information; undoubtedly some research of Kutztown
deeds would confirm this suspicion.

While the census itself is anonymous, a signed letter written in the
same ledger in the same hand virtually guarantees that it was
recorded by James F. Wagenhorst, who is the 211th person listed in
the census, after Isaac and Roslinda Wagenhorst, aged 59 and 39
respectively, presumedly his parents.  Also included in the rear of
the ledger is a series of apparently original love poems
characteristic of the sentimental verse that so typified the
Victorian era. The poems in the ledger itself, titled Love Mottoes,
appear to have been written in Wagenhorst's hand on large "Stirling"
stationery.  Folded in among them, however, and written in a slightly
more delicate hand, are several pages that seem likely to have been
written by the lady who was evidently the object of his affections; I
have taken the liberty of titling these The Lady Replies.

As for the census itself, Wagenhorst tallied up the names into a
"Summary" appended to its last page that reads as follows:

     A 	 30		
     B	172	
     C	111		
     D   29		
     E	 23		
     F 	 44		
     G	111		
     H	125		
 I & J	 15		
     K	111			
     L	 46		
     M	 74		
     N    4 
     O 	 16
     P    9
     R   48
     S	202
     T    2
     U    3
     W	 94
     Y	 11
     Z   15

 Total 1194

Males  	583
Females	611

Total  1194

The total of "1194" corresponds exactly to the number of census
entries, indicating that he was an accurate record keeper.

On several sheets of stationery featuring the letterhead of the
Kutztown Savings Bank, organized in 1869 with Daniel Dietrich as
President and William C. Dietrich as Cashier, Wagenhorst compiled a
few other totals, toward an unknown end, given below:

Marriageable Ladies 73
      "      Men    56
Bachelors      20
Old Maids      23
Widowers       23
Widows         56
Grass Widows    8
Grass Widower   1

I have compiled all of the census records into a database and done my
best with the occasionally unclear or smudged handwriting.  My
foremost objective was fidelity to the original, so I have
essentially copied the information exactly as it appears in the
ledger.  Where I am uncertain of the writing, I have made my best
educated guess and inserted a question mark in brackets; where I can
correct an obvious mistake or note marginal comments, I have done so,
also in brackets.

All told, I am confident of the census's authenticity and reasonably
certain of its accuracy.  Certainly the names, ages, and birthplaces
of my own ancestors recorded here accord with those found in Morton
L. Montgomery's Historical and Biographical Annals of Berks County,
Pennsylvania (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1909).  I hope that it
provides a useful addition to the extant records and will allow a few
genealogical loose ends to be pulled together.  Good luck!

Dr. Brendan D. Strasser
Allentown, Pennsylvania
27 February 1997