BOOK REVIEWS
Illinois Census Returns, 180-1818. Edited by Margaret Cross
Norton. Illinois State Historical
Library Collections, XXIV:
Statistical Series, II (Springfield, Illinois, Illinois State
Historical Library, 1935. 329p.); Illinois Census Returns,
1820. Edited by Margaret Cross Norton. Illinois State His-
torical Library Collections, XXVI:
Statistical Series, III
(Springfield, Illinois, Illinois State
Historical Library, I934.
466p.).
The first volume of the Statistical
Series, Illinois Election
Returns, 1818-1848, edited by Professor Theodore Calvin Pease,
was published as volume XVIII of the Collections,
in I923. The
publication of these two volumes affords
additional statistical data
for the student of history. The editor
writes:
Although disappointing in that
biographical and genealogical data
concerning the early settlers are not
given in these census records, they
are valuable not only for the
sentimental reason that they preserve the
names of hundreds of pioneers otherwise
forgotten, but also as providing
the basis for studies in population
movement in the United States.
Miss Norton reprints, in the
introduction to volume II of
this series, the censuses for 1732 and
1752, which were made
under the French regime. Under the
British regime an enumera-
tion was made, in 1767, apparently for
military purposes, but the
first census listing names of the heads
of families was prepared
about 1787 for use in a petition to
Congress for lands. These
censuses were published in volumes II
and V of the Illinois His-
torical Collections. The earliest American censuses were those
taken by the Federal Government in 1800,
while Illinois was still1
a part of Indiana Territory, and in
1810, one year after Illinois
became a separate territory. In addition
to these two enumera-
tions, of which only summaries were
published, the Territorial
Legislature of Indiana provided for two
enumerations. One in
1805 ordered the sheriffs to
take a count of all free male inhabit-
ants at the same time that they took the
list of taxable property,
but they failed in many instances. At
the session in 1806 the
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