J. B. Northen, Census Taker

One of the most valuable sources of information for anyone doing family history are the annual federal censuses.  They began back in 1790 and have continued to today, evolving through time to become more sophisticated and also to reflect the values of the times, although at the present time only those up until 1940 are available to the public.  While the censuses are a valuable source of information, they can also be a source of confusion.  Some of it may be misinformation that is given to them from the person being asked the questions, but there are also mistakes such as the misspelling of names that may well be due to the census takers themselves. 

I was mildly surprised, then, when recently in researching family members who lived in Richmond County Virginia during the latter half of the 1800’s, I noticed for the first time that at the top of the form for enumerator (i.e. census taker) was listed the named, J. B. Northen, assistant marshal.)  I discovered that J. B. Northen was James Braiton Northen, who is not a direct ancestor but whose family, like ours, traces its history back in Richmond County to William Northen, the notorious 18^th century planter and rum maker  to whom the majority of the  Northens and Northern who originated in Virginia trace their ancestry. 

Looking at the census forms that J. B. Northen completed is interesting in several ways, particularly when looking at the form in which is own family is enumerated.  The first is that in the 1880 census, the name on the form is still spelled Northen (not Northern) and clearly, the census taker knew how to spell his own name.  Thus, when my second great grandfather is listed as William F. L. Northen by J. B. Northen in the same census, it is not a mistake.

I was also excited to see that the certification for the accuracy of the census was asserted to in J. B. Northen own handwriting, listed just below the enumeration of his own family.

This is probably as close to any material possession of the Northen family in the 1800’s that I had.

The second way the census is interesting is that listed as living with James B. Northen’s family in the 1870 census is Jerry Veney, who is black.  The Veney family was one of the free black families that lived in Richmond County. They show up in all of the censuses as free, not slaves, despite the fact that Richmond County planters held slaves into the mid-1800’s.  I was able to trace the Veney family back in Richmond Co. to Joseph Veney, Sr. and his family in the 1810 census and at that point they were free and not slaves.  Joseph Veney would have been born in 1781 and there is no indication that he was ever a slave.

This complicates the perception that all black people in Richmond County prior to the Civil War were in slavery.  In fact, a “List of Free Negroes and Mulatoes in the County of Richmond over twelve years of age” in 1856 lists approximately 140 individuals.  Under the column for “location” some are listed as having their own land, while others are listed as on the land of someone else. In some cases it appears to be a family member, but in others it may have been a rental or share cropper situation.  While many black people in Richmond County certainly were slaves, there were also others who lived and farmed among the white farmers as free.

Two Elveras

My mother always hated her first name – Elvera.  She said that she wished she could have been called by her middle name, Catherine.  Actually, there was another Elvera in the family, a great-Aunt named Elvera Zell.  It is doubtful that Mom actually knew about her, or she definitely would have mentioned it, but looking at the reasons she may not have met her provides an interesting illustration of the fact that not all of the American pioneers who decided to go west remained there.

As mentioned in a previous post about the Zell family ( https://northenhistory.wordpress.com/2014/07/), the first member of the Zell family to come to the United States was Johann Friedrich Erdmann Zell who arrived in the United States from Prussia in 1868 and settled in Wisconsin.  J. F. E. Zell had nine children that we know of, two of whom were Anna and Ernst.

                                J. F. E. Zell

                                ↙       ↘

                Anna                     Ernst

                 ↓                          ↓ 

                Laverna                  Elvera

                 ↓ 

                Elvera

Anna married William Ryman and was the mother of Laverna Wilkins, my grandmother.  Ernst Zell was the father of Elvera Zell. 

Brothers  Otto and Henry to take advantage of land grants to move to South Dakota in 1882.  Ernst Zell came out to South Dakota in 1886; apparently Anna and her father came at the same time.  Anna married William Ryman in 1890 and remained South Dakota where my grandmother and mother Elvera were born.  Ernst took another path.  It is unclear what misfortunes Ernst (who Americanized his name to Ernest) and his family.  We know that times were difficult with the famous Schoolhouse Blizzard of 1888 and the diphtheria epidemic.  However, Ernest and his wife Kate had three daughters in South Dakota, Henrietta, Esther and Myrtle.  The birthdates for both Henrietta and Esther is 1886, so likely they were twins. Both died young, Henrietta in 1891 and Esther in 1889.  Sometime during the late 1890’s Ernest and his family moved back to Wisconsin, where Ernest bought some land in Waupaca.  That is where his daughter Elvera was born in 1905. It is quite likely that my mother Elvera (born in 1921) never met or even heard of her great aunt.  It is an interesting illustration of the differing fates of two immigrants.