1840 CENSUS OF PENSIONERS

REVOLUTIONARY OR MILITARY SERVICES

WITH THE

NAMES, AGES, AND PLACES OF RESIDENCE

RETURNED BY THE MARSHALLS OF THE SEVERAL JUDICIAL
DISTRICTS UNDER THE ACT FOR TAKING THE SIXTH CENSUS

PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF AN ACT OF CONGRESS
UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE

     Washington:
     Printed by Blair and Rives
     1841

Retyped, Reformatted, and Reprinted by
Kathy Leigh, 2001

Searchable images of the original census are available online at: http://www.evendon.net/PGHLookups/Census1840M.htm

Introduction

The 1840 Census of Pensioners, Revolutionary and Military Services was originally compiled by the federal government from the 1840 U.S. Federal Census, which required enumerators (census takers) to list the names and ages of Revolutionary War and other federal military service pensioners in households.

The 1840 census did not include the ages of any household members other than military pensioners, and no names appear in it other than those of military pensioners and heads of household. All other household members were enumerated numerically using what are commonly referred to as "fence post tallies," meaning that each household member was categorized by race, sex and free/slave status, with the totals for each category entered by the census-taker in the appropriate column.

Although the majority of pensioners were heads of household, this was not always the case, and a determination as to the relationship between the pensioner and the head of household (if any) can often prove uniquely valuable. One example of this can be found in the 1840 entry for 86-year old pensioner James STEVENSON of Franklin Township, Henry County, Indiana, which shows that he resided in the household of one Robert BOYD.

According to the Revolutionary War pension application of James STEPHENSON [sic], he was born 10 Dec 1754 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, applied for his Revolutionary on 10 Sep 1832 in Fayette County, Indiana, stating that he had resided in Washington County, Tennessee (then North Carolina) at the time of his enlistment (NC line), had moved to Greene County, Tennessee after the Revolution, where he resided until 1810, when he moved to White County, Tennessee. He further declared that he moved to Franklin County, Indiana in 1815, in 1819 to Fayette County, Indiana, and in 1820 to Wayne County, Indiana until 1822 when his wife (not named) died, and since that time had resided with his children (not named) in the Indiana counties of Wayne, Henry and Fayette. The only child named was a son, Samuel STEPHENSON, who also resided in Fayette County, Indiana in 1832. (Tennesseans in the Revolutionary War, Surname S)

According to the actual 1840 census record (partial extraction):
1840 Henry County, Census,
Franklin Township
Page 88, line 22
Head of household: Robert Boyd
White males: 1 under 5, 1 10-15, 1 16-20, 1 40-50, 1 80-90
White females: 2 6-10 years, 1 16-20 years; 1 40-50
Revolutionary Pensioner: James Stevenson, age 86
(The USGenWeb Census Project)
Note James STEPHENSON'S 1832 declaration that he had resided with his children following his wife's death, and that Robert BOYD may well have been his son-in-law, and a marriage record extant in either Indiana or Tennessee (not researched).

Kathy Leigh
April 2001

1840 Pensioners - Alphabetical by State

Alabama	Arkansas	Connecticut
Delaware	Florida Terr.	Dist. of Columbia
Georgia	Illinois	Indiana
Iowa Terr.	Kentucky	Louisiana
Maine	Maryland	Massachusetts
Michigan	Mississippi	Missouri
New Hampshire	New Jersey	New York
North Carolina	Ohio	Pennsylvania
Rhode Island	South Carolina	Tennessee
Vermont	Virginia	Wisconsin Terr.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, a known patriot is not listed in the 1840 Census of Pensioners. If you have documentation of a patriot of the American Revolution (1775-1783), and he/she was still alive at the time of the 1840 census, please let me know. I will add them to a new page that I have created for this purpose. See Proven Patriots.