Bullitt County Census Data 1850-1860

The purpose of this page is to provide summary statistics from the censuses of 1850-1860 for Bullitt County. This information was obtained from the University of Virginia Library Historical Census Browser.

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1850

The 1850 census was the first to identify all members of a household by name. The information given here is a summary of this entire census for Bullitt County. Below is a chart summarizing the county's population by age, gender, and race, with the free colored and slaves shown separately.

Ages	White		Free Colored		Slave
	M	F	M	F	M	F
under 1	92	74	0	2	23	27
1-4	371	329	3	1	104	97
5-9	415	370	3	1	92	114
10-14	403	312	0	0	90	85
15-19	300	295	1	2	82	96
20-29	495	490	1	3	134	119
30-39	332	270	1	0	79	57
40-49	213	179	0	2	40	45
50-59	126	105	4	1	20	22
60-69	69	70	1	0	16	6
70-79	28	33	0	0	2	1
80-89	12	8	0	1	1	2
90-99	1	0	0	0	0	0
100+	0	0	0	0	1	0
Totals	2857	2535	14	13	684	671
	5392		27		1355
	6774

Other information provided by this census includes the following.

Education and Literacy

248 white adult males and 332 white adult females were identified as being unable to read and write. 507 persons were listed as attending school of some kind, 290 males and 217 females. There were 2 academies or other schools in the county with a total of 5 teachers and 150 pupils.

Agriculture

There were 562 farms in Bullitt County in 1850 which contained 50,144 acres of improved land and 111,734 acres of unimproved land. The cash value of all of these farms was $1,049,359. The value of farming implements and machinery totaled $47,210. The value of livestock was $192,630 and of slaughtered animals, $54,849. Apparently orchards were not abundant as the total value was only $94.

Manufacturing

The capital invested in manufacturing in the county was $101,800. There were 125 people employed in this kind of work, and they produced product valued at $162,950 annually. The value of homemade manufacturies totaled $7,120.

Religion

There was one Catholic church built to accommodate 150 persons with a total church property value of $700. There were four Methodist churches that accommodated a total of 400 parishioners. The Methodist church property was valued at $1,000. There were also five Baptist churches that accommodated a total of 550 members. Baptist property was valued at $1,700.

Marriages

There were 48 white persons married during the year ending 1 Jun 1850. We assume that is 24 couples.

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1860

The 1860 census provided similar population information to that presented above for the previous census.

Ages	White		Free Colored		Slave
	M	F	M	F	M	F
under 1	92	110	0	1	21	25
1-4	356	365	0	0	102	110
5-9	415	414	0	0	116	117
10-14	400	361	1	1	103	113
15-19	382	322	0	1	99	95
20-29	541	472	0	1	99	109
30-39	387	307	0	2	66	85
40-49	264	233	0	0	60	48
50-59	144	123	2	2	17	25
60-69	82	65	2	2	16	17
70-79	35	32	0	0	6	3
80-89	6	5	0	1	2	2
90-99	0	3	0	0	1	0
100+	0	0	0	0	0	1
Totals	3012	2803	6	10	708	750
	5815		16		1458
	7289

Other information provided by this census includes the following.

Agriculture

In 1860 in Bullitt County there were 595 farms including 5 farms of 500 or more acres, another 199 farms of between 100 and 500 acres, 181 of 50-99 acres, 167 of 20-49 acres, 33 of 10-19 acres, and 10 of 3-9 acres.

These farms included 54,065 acres of improved land, and 74,378 acres of unimproved land. The cash value of all these farms was $1,773,744.

The value of farming implements and machinery totaled $59,843, while the value of livestock was $347,055. Other values include that of animals slaughtered ($82,375), home-made manufactures ($8,717), orchard products ($2,403), and market garden products ($30).

Property Values

The census reports two values for each person (who had either or both). The first was the true value of personal property. The second was the true value of real estate in dollars. In Bullitt County as a whole, there was reported personal property with a value of $1,882,565, and a real estate value totaling $2,091,956.

Manufacturing

There were 18 manufacturing establishments in Bullitt County in 1860 which employed a total of 149 men. The annual value of manufacturing products was $179,562 with an annual cost in labor of $26,796. There was $215,050 invested in capital for manufacturing, and an annual cost of $120,680 for raw materials.

Religion

In 1860 there were 14 churches in Bullitt County.

#	kind	accommoda- tions of	value of church property
1	Catholic	200	$800
1	Presbyterian	500	$1,500
6	Methodist	2,550	$6,700
4	Baptist	1,650	$4,800
1	Christian	300	$1,000
1	Episcopal	150	$1,000

Native and Foreign Born

This census found 179 white males and 80 white females in Bullitt County who were born outside the United States.

Slaveholders

The 1860 census summary includes a counting of the number of slaveholders who possessed varying numbers of slaves. The chart below identifies the number of slaveholders who possessed each count of slaves.

Number of Slaves	# of Slaveholders Having This Many Slaves
1	54
2	43
3	37
4	32
5	15
6	26
7	9
8	16
9	5
10-14	24
15-19	9
20-29	6
30-39	1

While there were a small number of slaveholders who possessed large numbers of slaves, most slaveholders possessed only a limited number of slaves. Sad to say, this suggests that slave possession was often as much a status symbol as an economic need.

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