The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
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Census reveals job market in 1880
PUBLISHED: January 17, 2008
The 1880 census was taken in York Township by Almeron Hathaway, a farmer who grew up on the western edge of the township.
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Few photos were taken at the time, and most of them did not survive. Some were passed down the generations, but with no names.
Amazingly, there is a photo today showing two people from the York Township 1880 census. Othniel Gooding was 43 when he answered the census questions for Hathaway. Gooding was born in New York, and worked as a farmer. His wife, Lucy, was 36 and born in Michigan.
None of the Gooding children are shown in the photo, but in 1880, they were as follows: Charles, 14; William, 12; Frank, 6; Rex, 3; and a baby with no name, 11 months. You can understand that the family was gun shy about naming their baby. A son named Elnathan had already passed away in 1872.
The census shows that Othniel's father, Elnathan, 73, was living in the home. A young lady named Mary Harris, 27, lived in the Gooding home, working as a dressmaker. She may have been a relative. Lucy was the daughter of William and Annis Dexter, one of several branches of the Dexter family in York Township.
As he strolled through the village of Milan, Hathaway found a wide variety of occupations. Phil Butler and James Corney were both railroad employees living with the Simon and Susan Gay family. William Dunning, another resident at the Gay household, was a shoemaker.
John Bray, 27, worked as a blacksmith to support his wife, Ellen, 27, and their son, Frankie, 7.
William Woolcott, 18, worked as a harness maker while living with his mother in Milan. Henry Tewksbury, 50, worked as a dentist. He and his wife, Laura, were both from "back East." She worked as a dressmaker.
Milan Village had at least one jeweler, according to the census. Adison Gordnor, 36, stated that as his occupation. His wife, Laura, 30, worked as a dressmaker. The home included two young children and one sister-in-law, another dressmaker.
Working his way into the village of Mooreville, Hathaway quickly found J. Henry Ford. Ford's occupation was general merchandise. He was 35, and his wife, Addie, was 24. They had no children living in their home, but they did have a store clerk, William Orr, 30, sharing the Ford home.
Not long after this census was taken, Ford probably built the red brick store located on the north side of East Main at Ferman Street. Known at the time as the "Ford Block" in Milan, it later became Bassitt's Department Store, and today is home to an orthodontist. The Mooreville Henry Ford is no relation to the Dearborn Henry Ford.
Touring through Mooreville for the census, Hathaway came across the famous cheese maker, Andrew McDaniel, who was 28 that year. He was born in New York, and so was his wife, Maggie, 23. No children lived in the McDaniel home to snack on that cheese.
Living just outside Mooreville, Amos McIntyre announced he had a job manufacturing lamps. He must have been referring to oil lamps because Thomas Edison was just working on electric light bulbs in 1879. I am not sure what lamps McIntyre was making, but he had a hired hand to help with the farming, just as a backup.
One of the York Township residents apparently operated a retail store in Saline. William Davenport, 52, said he was born in New York, and his occupation was "general merchandise." His wife, Zilpha, was the same age. I recognize his name as part of Saline's history.
Davenport had a daughter, 18, and a nephew named George Brown, 15. The nephew must have occupied the hired-hand role because he was described on the census as "chore boy."
Every now and then, Hathaway made notations about individuals who were sick or disabled. There were several pages with the notation "measles" next to the names of some children. Since he went from one house to the other taking the census, homes within a page or two of each other would be neighbors. Apparently, there was plenty of measles to go around in the summer of 1880.
Now and then, Hathaway noted that someone was ill with typhoid fever, heart disease or consumption. Usually, the word "consumption" meant the person's body was wasting away due to tuberculosis of the lungs. With no antibiotics available, family members had to stand by and hope for the best.
One of Mooreville's most well-known citizens, James Gauntlett, 43, was mentioned in the 1880 York Township census, along with his wife, Charlotte, and their four children. Hathaway made a tiny note on the page indicating the man was fighting typhoid fever. His story has a happy ending as he recovered from the illness.
Almost everyone in York Township was white in 1880, but not all. Hathaway recorded one African American family, James Jackson, 38, a laborer. He was born in Pennsylvania, and so was his wife, Ruth, 40. They had six children, Ruth, 17; Jacob, 14; Emeline, 8; twins John and James, 4; and Allice, 1. The oldest two children were born in Canada and the younger ones were born in Michigan.
The only other African Americans I could find in York Township that year were about four or five hired hands living with farm families.
The vast majority of York Township residents were born in New York, England or Germany. A few were born in Ireland or Scotland. Some were born in Michigan, but most of them had parents born in England, New York or Germany.
York Township originally took its name from the great numbers of people who came to live there from New York.
On June 28, 1880, Hathaway finished off his book by writing down the details of his neighbors on the Mooreville side, then sitting down in his home and writing about his own farm family.
Hathaway wrote that he was 39, born in Michigan, and worked as a farmer. His wife, Lucy, was 32, and born in New York. Their two boys were Derbritt, 6, and Lavern, 3. A hired hand also lived with the Hathaway family, Frank Holcomb, 20.
The census book contained 1,717 names. There were 471 households in the township. Writing all the information was not bad work for one month, with just a quill pen and a bottle of ink.
Martha Churchill is a member of the Milan Area Historical Society. She can be reached at 649-6342 or MilanHistory@yahoo.com.
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