Rochester, MA in 1850

If you met an employed resident in 1850...
It would most likely be a sailor in his 20s who was born in Rochester and lived in a household of 5 people.

How People Earned a Living

Where People Came From

NOTE: Since Rochester, MA included Marion until 1852 and Mattapoisett until 1857 the 1850 U.S. Federal Census and 1849 Gazetteer of Massachusetts combine the information for the three towns.

MORE

Learn more about Mattapoisett in 1850 or go back further in time and learn about Rochester c. 1780.

SOURCES

Hayward, John, 1781-1869. "A Gazetteer of Massachusetts,: Containing Descriptions of All the Counties, Towns And Districts In the Commonwealth; Also, of Its Principal Mountains, Rivers, Capes, Bays, Harbors, Islands, And Fashionable Resorts. To Which Are Added, Statistical Accounts of Its Agriculture, Commerce And Manufactures; With a Great Variety of Other Useful Information.." Rev. ed. Boston,: J.P. Jewett & co., 1849. HathiTrust. Web. Accessed Feb. 9, 2014. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015078325076?urlappend=%3Bseq=13

Mattapoisett, MA and Mary Hall Leonard. Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts : being a history of these towns and also in part of Marion and a portion of Wareham. New York: The Grafton Press, c. 1907. Amazon Digital Services. Kindle edition, 2012. Also see HathiTrust. Web. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081829651;view=1up;seq=9

Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011. https://www.nhgis.org

United States. Census Office. Population Schedules of the 7th Census of the United States, 1850, Massachusetts. Reel 0333. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1964. https://archive.org/stream/populationschedu0333unix#page/n518/mode/1up
Notes: Town resident Theophilus King recorded the 1850 census for Rochester and instead of recording only the state or country of birth, he recorded the town of birth for most residents. It is unusual to have this level of detail.
This microfilm was provided by the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and sponsored by the Internet Archive.

United States. Census Office. Population schedules of the 10th Census of the United States, 1880, Massachusetts. Reel 550. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1960. https://archive.org/stream/10thcensus0550unit#page/n201/mode/1up
Note: This microfilm was provided by the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and sponsored by the Internet Archive.

Please note: United States census information may be accessed several ways.
Some websites are subscription based and/or require registration.
ancestry.com, archive.org, and familysearch.org, among others, host census data.
The Rochester Census Project has transcribed census data from 1790, 1800 and 1810.
The Open Library lists 3 editions of the 7th census.
IPUMS has harmonized census data.
American Ancestors, New England Historic Genealogical Society includes Massachusetts 1855 Census information.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan, has data sets for analysis.
Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011. https://www.nhgis.org has aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2012.

Vital Records
archive.org: Vital Records of Rochester, Massachusetts to the Year 1850, Volume 1--Births
archive.org: Vital Records of Rochester, Massachusetts to the Year 1850, Volume 2--Marriages and Deaths
Massachusetts Archives Division: Vital Records, https://www.sec.state.ma.us/vitalrecordssearch/VitalRecordsSearch.aspx

ICONS

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Published 2014 Mattapoisett Historical Society. Updated 2019.
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