The 1940 Federal Census for Pacolet
The 1940 Federal Census has just
been released. The census records are available from a
Federal website. However, it is difficult to find
records on the site and to see them once you find them.
The census records for the Pacolet area have been copied
and put in a much more "user friendly" form on this
Pacolet Memories website. The census for Pacolet was
taken in April, 1940. It seems that the people that took
the census were very thorough in what they did.
Unfortunately, there is no index by name for the
records. The records for within the Pacolet Mill Village
are given by street names. This is how they are listed
for searching on this website. This makes it easy to
find a family if you know what street they lived on in
1940.
A few comments about what you will find on the records.
The records list the age, sex and race of each member of
a household. It states how much rent the household is
paying or the value of their house if they own it. It
also lists the place of birth for each person. It
frequently lists the occupation of some individuals and
how much money they earned the previous year.
For ease of searching and clarity, the Pacolet results
are broken down into three groups. Group 1 covers the
mill village on the north side of the river or the side
where the Montgomery Memorial Methodist Church is
located. Group 2 covers the rest of the mill village on
the other side of the river. This is on the side where
the mill, the Flat and the Hall were located. Group 2
also includes Mayesville. Group 3 includes the area
around Pacolet outside of the mill village and
Mayesville.
It is fairly easy to navigate and search Groups 1 and 2.
Here, the census lists names by street name and the
census taker seemed to generally go from house to house
in sequence on the street. However, Group 3 is much
harder to search. For the most part, there are no street
or road names for the people listed. For this group, you
will have to go page by page to find the folks you are
looking for.
On the Pacolet Memories site, the record pages are given
in the "pdf" format. This will allow you to zoom in and
magnify the information. This makes it much easier to
use than the way they are given on the Federal website.
Warning - some of these
files are very large and may take a few minutes to
load on your computer.
It has been found that recent changes to the
Windows Internet Browser often make it impossible
to load larger PDF files. If you encounter this,
you might want to download and use the Google
Chrome Browser. This will allow you to read the
PDF files. This can be downloaded for free and you
can have both browsers on your computer at the
same time. You can easily switch from one to the
other.
Group 1 - North Side of River
Group 2 - South
Side of River
Click on the street name to see the records for that
location.
Cameron
Street
Goodlet
Street
Milliken
Street
Stone
Street
Brewster
Street
Fleming
Street
Montgomery Avenue
Walker
Street
Quarry
Street
River
Drive
Pine
Street
Victor
Park
Glass
Road
Mayesville and Vicinity
Group 3
Group 3 is not usually listed by street name. The
records have been broken up into the following subgroups
for ease of searching. This was done by finding certain
individuals and knowing where they lived. There was lots
of guess work in doing this and some of the records may
be in the wrong group.
Kegtown,
Burgess Town and Vicinity
Can
Hollow and General Vicinity
The following subgroups are for Central Pacolet and some
of Pacolet Station.
3A
3B
3C
3D
Pacolet
Station
- Rest of Pacolet Station
Whitestone
and Vicinity
This web site has
been started as a public service to share the story of
Pacolet.
