Stunning Sheep Data from the 1771 Census

As dedicated readers know, I've been working to develop a list of Revolutionary War veterans. As part of this, I digitized the 1771 property census of Easton (double checking is underway). This remarkable document would be the starting point for an environmental history of the town because before this evidence is generic rather than specific. With the 1771 data, you can know many things. The first thing you learn is that people cheated on this evaluation. The Leonard family, for example, owned at least some iron making facilities in 1771 yet none is mentioned in the document. However, while the specifics aren't mentioned, the assessment does put the three Leonards among the richest men in town. So let's take a look at this remarkable document. In 1771 there were 248 property owners enumerated. This included a few out-of-towners who owned land here and several widows who headed up their family's holdings. Censuses in 1765 and 1776 show that Easton grew from 837 people to 1,172 so the number of families was probably close to the number counted in 1771.

The most interesting thing about the census is it enumeration of land use. Almost 2800 acres were devoted to pasture, hay, grains, and vegetables. In the first 80 years of settlement a little less than 15% had been developed for agriculture. Even after taking out 4,000 acres for the Hockomock Swamp, this means that only about 20% of the land had been developed. There is another evaluation census from 1798 that is not readily available and federal agricultural censuses begin in the mid-19th century so the next check on land development is an 1830 map that seems to show much more land in agriculture. By 1830 the population had more than doubled from its 1765 numbers, but the map shows much more than 40% of the land without forest. What this probably means is that there was a revolution in agriculture working side by side with the Industrial Revolution. As more and more people trapped themselves in the "dark, satanic mills," agriculture in Easton morphed from a primarily subsistence system to a market driven system.

This change was already underway for some farmers in 1771. The average number of sheep per owner was 4, but the richest men in town had seven times that number. A truer picture of the concentration of sheep among the wealthy is that the median of this data is zero-half the people in town had no sheep at all. Sheep production soared by a third in the next decade as more people caught on to the cash value of wool. Based on 1777 prices lamb or mutton sold for three and a half pennies per pound with beef at three pennies and pork at four and a half. Cow hide fetched three pennies a pound with calf skin six pennies a pound. Wool fetched 24 pennies a pound. Now the sheep in the 18th century were scrawny by today's standards-probably more like the mini-sheep from Sheep Pasture's last crop of lambs, but if the sheep had a fleece that weighed only three pounds that would give you 72 English pennies. A quarter of the people enumerated in 1771 had annual real property values less than the value of one sheep fleece!