The Conestoga Area Historical Society

In Pennsylvania a borough is a small mucipality with its own government. In 1823 the village of Washington, part of Manor Township became Washington Borough. In 1972 Washington Borough ceased to exist, it gave up its borough charter and reverted again to the village of Washington in Manor Township.

I've included the information on African Americans from the 1850 census because I thought it important we have information about them on our pages and I was afraid the 1850 census was the only reliable source we had. I've since learned that there are a few other sources that will be included on the web page in the future.

I'm not planning a complete listing of everyone in the 1850 census, that would be far too time consuming a process. I may try to look at the number of students who attended school in 1850s, both black and white.

About these Pages: Most of the information presented here is pretty straight forward, the one exception is what I have labled Misc., this replaces three columns in the original census that asked "over 20 and can't read or write", "married in the last year"and attended school. I consolidated these three columns into one and also included the name of the head of household when an African American was living with a white family. When a White was living with an African American family he was just listed as part of the family. I've included the house and family numbers since family are sometimes split up because by break in pages, you can use the house and family number to determine if they are part of the same familly. It also gives you a sense of who was living nearby.

One shouldn't place too much stock in what is reported here, for example, the census takers instructions was to report all people over 20 who couldn't read or write but he often included children who couldn't read and write. This source isn't perfect but its the best we have in trying to get some understanding of African Americans from our area in this time period.

African Americans in Washington Borough

House#/Family #	Name	Age	Gender	Race	Occupation	Property	Place/Birth	Misc.

Page 194a
House 4 Family 4	Samuel Bom	80	Male	Black		40	Pa.	Can't Read
	Isabella Bom	70	Fem.	Black			Pa.	Can't Read
	Samuel Bom	14	Male	Black			Pa.	Attended School
	Clara Bom	40	Fem.	Black			Pa.
.
Page 194b
House 16 Family 16	Edward Stevenson	No Age	Male	Black	Laborer	300	Pa.
	Maria Stevenson	No Age	Fem.	Black			Pa.	Can't Read

House 17 Family 17	Christian Hardeman	32	Male	Mul.	Laborer	350	Pa.
	Ann Hardeman	24	Fem.	Mul.			Pa.
	Henry Hardeman	1/12	Male	Mul.			Pa.
	Catharine Morris	8	Fem.	Mul.			Pa.
	Henry Williams	46	Male	Mul.			Pa.	Blind

Dwelling 17 Family 18	Jane Hardeman	5	Fem.	Mul.			Pa.	Can't Read

Page 195a
House 17 Family 18	Ephraim Hardeman	20	Male	Mul.			Pa.	Can't Read

Page 196a
Dwelling 35 Family 41	Sulphey Ann Stevenson	54	Fem.	Black			Maryland	Can't Read

Totals	14

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