Notes on the 1880 Census

The divisions that we currently use to think about Blackberry Creek had not quite come into being by 1880. For example, the area of Pond Creek falls under the heading of Lower Elkhorn Creek in the 1880 census. It also seems, from the family names, that the Blackberry section of the census crosses over Hardy Mountain and includes a good portion of Hardy, including the area where the McCoy's lived. It is also difficult to determine where you are at any given time, since it depends on how the census taker travelled.

In this census, for example, the Blackberry section begins on the bottom of the last page of the Lower Elkhorn Creek section, and, since the first Blackberry household is that of Ulysses Hatfield, it seems clear that the census taker came across Ball Fork and started there. At the foot of Ball Fork, he turned right and came up the creek, all the way to the last house in the head of the hollow - that of Ferrell Marion. After that, it's hard to tell whether he crossed the hill into Left Fork or came down and started just below Ball Fork. At any rate, he came down the creek, and it's easier to tell that when he was at Bluespring, the foot of Hardy Mountain, etc. I think he went all the way down to the river, then came back up the creek and crossed Hardy Mountain, listing the Farley's, then Scott's, then McCoys as he went through Hardy toward Williamson.

Part of the pleasure, though, is trying to figure out where the various homeplaces were.