The year 1810 found the village of Henderson with a
much smaller population than it was reported to have had in 1800. The
census return for 1800 gave Henderson a population numbering two hundred
and five souls; the census return for 1810 gave a population of one
hundred and fifty-nine souls. There was evidently a mistake in the first
enumeration, and.this is to be accounted for on the the ground of
ignorance on the part of those employed to take the list. It is highly
probably, and no doubt the fact, that the population of a greater part, if
not the entire surrounding country, was accredited to the town in the
census if 1800; certainly there was no falling off in the population from
1800 to 1810. The census return for 1800 gave Henderson County a
population of one thousand four hundred and sizty-eight souls, and
Henderson County at that time embraced all of the territory now embraced
in the four Counties of Henderson, Hopkins, Union and Webster. The return
for 1810 places the population at four thousand seven hundred and three
souls, an increase of three thousand two hundred and thirty-five, and yet
Hopkins County embracing a territory forty miles in length and twenty six
in breadth had been taken from Henderson. It may be taken as a settled
fact, therefore, that there is an important inaccuracy somewhere, and most
positively certain that the village of Henderson did not contain a
population of two hundred and five souls actual residents during the year
1800.
It is very much to be doubted if the village of
Henderson contained a legitimate population of one hundred and fifty-nine
souls in 1810, for, by reference to the poll books of an election held on
the first day of May, 1819, for the purpose of choosing five trustees of
the village, only twenty-one votes were recorded. Estimating the
population at seven to the voter, and assuming that the vote owing to its
importance was pretty near a full one, the population of the place at that
time would have been only one hundred and forty-seven.
History of Henderson County, Kentucky
by Edmund L. Starling
pps. 179 - 180
published in 1887
public domain material
