POPULATION OF CITIES AND TOWNS, ARRANGED BY PROFESSOR TUCKER. The proportion between the rural and town population of a country, is an important The following table shows the population of the towns in the United States, of 10,000 :- + The decline of population here indicated, was the effect of very destructive years. It appears, from the preceding table, that the population in all the towns of the United (1) of the whole number; that ten of the states, whose united population exceeds 4,000,000, have, as yet, no town of that rank; and that, in the other sixteen states, the ratio of their town population to their whole population, varies from something less than one-third, to less than a sixteenth part. It further appears, that the increase of those towns has been nearly the same, from 1830 to 1840, as from 1820 to 1830; and that, in both decennial periods, it exceeds that of the whole population, nearly as 50 to 32. By extending our estimate of this description of the population to towns of a lower rank, we may not only better compare the different states in this particular, but, perhaps, also better draw the line between the town and country population. Congregations of a much smaller number than 10,000, whether their dwelling-place be called a city, town, or village, have the chief characteristics which distinguish the main part of the inhabitants of cities, as to their habits, manners, and character. Though these characteristics are but partially found in towns and villages of not more that 2000 inhabitants, yet, as the census has, in many of the states, numbered these among the "principal towns,' we will extend our estimate to them, and endeavour to supply its omissions, in other states, by a reference to the best geographical authorities : : TABLE of all the Towns in the United States containing between 10,000 and 2000 Inhabitants, according to the Census of 1840. Belfast 4,186 Westbrook 4,116 Frankfort.. 31,010 Provincetown 2,122 Hudson... 5,672 Easton 3,550 Lynn 3,492 Roxbury 3,360 Nantucket 3,111 Cambridge 3,015 Taunton............. 2,971 Fall River.... 2,952 Gloucester 2,768 Middleborough 2,662 Dorchester... 2,263 Barnstable Dartmouth ..... .... 107,937 Fairhaven...... Scituate Rochester.... 7,887 Northampton 6,458 Weymouth......... ........... 2,431 Abingdon 55,459 Woburn.. Salisbury 4,271 Yarmouth.. 3,725 Amherst * The number assigned to this" village" is taken from an enumeration about the time of the census. 9,367 Total........ 225,553 Ithaca 5,000 9,089 Lock port 5,000 Newburgh. 5,000 9,534 Oswego 5,000 8,333 Watertown 3,500 6,726 West Troy... 3,000 4,207 Geneva... 3,000 4,090 Lansingburgh. 3,000 3,490 Seneca Falls 3000 *This town, the seat of government in Alabama, had a population of but 1949 when the census was taken. + The population of this town is not given in the census. This town, the seat of government in Kentucky, had a population of but 1917 when the census was taken. TABLE of the aggregate Town Population in each State, and of its ratio to the whole STATES, &c. Population of the State. By thus extending our estimate to all the "principal towns" mentioned in the census, we find that the number is increased from 31 towns to 250, and that the proportion of town population is augmented from about a thirteenth to near a seventh, with a yet greater disparity among the states than was shown as to the towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants. But this state of facts is, in part, fallacious. It involves an important error, resulting from the application of the term "towns," in New England, to those subdivisions of a country, which are generally called "townships" or "parishes;" and whose whole population in New England, though the greater part is essentially rural, has, by reason of this inconvenient provincialism, been returned by the census as town population. For the want of adequate means of separating the inhabitants of the town or village, from those of the township, (which moreover would, from the irregular dispersion of the buildings, be not always easy to those on the spot,) the census has been implicitly followed as to these "principal towns" in New England; though, from the proportion of their inhabitants who are agricultural, it seems probable that more than half their population should be deducted from the town population here estimated. In New York, where the same provincialism extensively prevails, the census has erred in an opposite way, by noticing in the northern part of the state none but incorporated cities; and thus busy and compactly built towns, here called "villages," of 5000 inhabitants and upwards, have been omitted in one-half the state, while, in the other, much smaller towns, and even townships, have been occasionally noticed; though in neither district has it descended to towns of but 2000 inhabitants. To supply these omissions, the estimate made of the town population of New York, in "William's Register," for 1837, has been adopted. At the time of taking the last census, they probably contained, on an average, from 10 to 15 per cent more inhabitants than are here assigned to them; and some ten or twelve other towns or villages, which had not then reached 2000 inhabitants, such as Batavia, Brockport, Little Falls, and a few others, are likely now to exceed that number. The town population, therefore, of New York may be from 25,000 to 30,000 more than it is here estimated. Similar omissions of small towns may have also occurred in other states, which we have not the same means of correcting. They, altogether, cannot equal the omissions in New York. If these errors were corrected, the three more southern New England states would still have the largest proportion of town population of any of the states. The circumstances which determine this proportion in a state, are the density of its population, the extent of its commerce, and that of its manufactures. It is mainly owing to the first cause that all the New England and the middle states have a greater town population than the other divisions. It is from their extensive commerce that Maryland and Louisiana exceed the neighbouring states in the same way, and that Massachusetts exceeds the rest of New England. It is to the want both of commerce and manufactures that Indiana, Tennessee, and North Carolina, have so few and such small towns. It is, indeed, from their exclusive pursuit of agriculture, in the slaveholding states, as well as their difference in density, that the number of their town inhabitants, with the exception of Delaware, Maryland, and Louisiana, rarely exceeds a twentieth, and will not average more than a thirtieth of their whole population. If the proportion in the whole United States could be correctly ascertained, by the correction of the errors adverted to, it would probably be found that those who live in towns and villages containing at least 2000 inhabitants, are not much more nor much less than one-eighth of the entire number. The effect of railroads, and of transportation by steam generally, is to stimulate the growth of towns, and especially of large towns. It is, therefore, likely that our principal cities will, at the next census, show as large a proportional increase as they have experienced in the last decennial period." THE Population of each State and Territory, as exhibited by Six Enumerations in Fifty Years, with its Decennial Rate of Increase during the same period. 1,337,456 1,820,984 2,491,938 3,212,983 4,151,286 5,118,076 36.2 36.8 28.9 29.2 23.3 340,120 586,756 959,049 1,372,812 1,918,608 2,428,921| 72.3 63.6 43.1 39.7 22.8 373,306 1,724,033 14.6 16.3 13.- 15.5 16.4 38.6 34 4 29.5 28.5 27 9 407,350 76,748 447,040 33,039 39,834 78,085 470,019 43,712 8.7 13. 0.1 5.5 1.7 73,077 271,195 699,580 1,423,622 2,298,390 4,131,370 271.1 158 104.4 61.5 79.7 3,929,827 5,305,925 7,239,814 9,638,131 12,866,020 17,069,453 35.02 36.45 33 35 33 26 33.67 The states and territories naturally arrange themselves into five divisions, which are separated not only by their geographical position, but also, with few exceptions, in their modes of industry and commercial intercourse. By the change of the day of taking the census from the 1st of August to the 1st of June, the periods referred to in the two last columus want two months of the terms mentioned. The great disparity exhibited in the preceding table between the ratio of increase in the three first divisions, which comprise the thirteen original states, and that of the two western divisions, is chiefly to be attributed to migration, the Atlantic states losing more than they gain by emigrants, and the western states acquiring largely both from foreign and domestic emigration. |