52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 34: Non-population: Ag Schedules for N.H.O. Polly

I am working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

I’ve written about Nathan H.O. Polly, my four times great-grandfather, who was a circuit riding minister in Texas here and here.

He also owned land and farmed. He was enumerated in two agricultural censuses: 1870 in Kaufman County[1] and 1880 in Rockwall County.[2] Now Rockwall County was formed from Kaufman County, so he probably did not move, just the county name changed. I need to verify that!

1870 Agricultural Schedule
1870 Ag Sched - Kaufman Co, Texas for NHO Polly (see line 11)

I will discuss each of the columns here. I used a blank census sheet for the headings[3]:
He had 25 improved acres and an additional 260 that were not.
The cash value of land was $1300.
The cash value of the farm implements was $15.
The total value of wages paid during the year including value of board was $90.
The next columns are about livestock numbers as of June 1:
  • 22 horses
  • 0 asses and mules
  • 8 milk cows
  • 4 working oxen
  • 25 other cattle
  • 16 sheep
  • 100 swine
  • value of all livestock was $1700.

The next columns listed the product produced during the year:
  • 10 bushels of spring wheat
  • 0 winter wheat
  • 0 rye
  • 300 bushels of Indian corn
  • 100 bushels of oats
  • 0 barley
  • 8 bushels of buckwheat
  • 0 rice
  • 0 tobacco

There are supposed to be two pages, but the second page did not get filmed or Ancestry did not digitize them for this county. Additional columns included more products such as wool, cotton, peas and beans, potatoes, orchard products, dairy products, seeds, sugar, and bees, and then a grand total of the value of production.

Not only should one look at the value for person to get an idea of what type of farming he did, the other people on the page should be looked at and compared against your ancestor. On Polly’s page, only two other farms had paid laborers. The value of the land was comparable to those with the same acreage, but the value of his livestock was on the upper end. He had a lot of horses sheep, and swine, but not a lot of cattle. He was the only who grew spring wheat. Actually corn was the biggest crop in the area.

1880 Agricultural Schedule
1880 Ag Schedule, Rockwall Co Texas for Nathan Polly, see line no. 9
This schedule has all of the columns on the same page, in different sections. Nathan Polly is line 9 on all of the sections.  The columns listed below that had values:
  • Nathan was the owner of the property
  • 80 acres were improved
  • 40 acres were meadows or pastures
  • Value of farm land, fences and buildings was $1600
  • Value of farm machinery and implements was $100
  • Value of livestock was $400
  • Value of all farm production was $500
  • He had 7 horses, 5 milk cows, 4 other, 7 swine, 5 barnyard poultry,
  • Butter production during 1879 was 150 pounds
  • Egg production was 100 dozen.
  • He had 5 acres in peaches, with 200 trees (hard to read-very dark), and a 3 digit number for the amount of bushels (also very dark), with the total value of production as another 3 digit number that is hard to read. When I lightened up that section, it looks like 5 acres, 200 trees, 300 bushels and $200 production. 

cropped area at bottom of 1880 Ag Schedule
In comparing to others on the page, only one other person had an orchard crop. His farm production was on the lower end, which can be explained that his acreage was also on the low end. This land might actually be different land than he had ten years previously. I need to look at land records for both Kaufman and Rockwall counties. But that will have to wait until I can head to a Family History Center, as the images are locked.


[1] 1870 U.S. census, Kaufman, Texas, non-population schedule, p. 7, dwelling line 11, N.H.O. Polly, digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 Aug 2018), citing NARA M593, roll 10.
[2] 1880 U.S. census, Rockwall, Texas, non-population schedule, p. 17, line 9, Nathan Polly, digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 Aug 2018), citing NARA T1134, roll 38.
[3] http://www.coronagensoc.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/1850-1880agricultureschedules_headings27jan2011.pdf

Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family

Comments

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