Randolph Township, 1880
In last month’s newsletter we questioned certain media’s alertness for not reporting the census results of 2020. How many people live here?
Flashback 140 years: a news clipping gave a concise, albeit abstract, rundown of the head count in Randolph Township. The township is just south of Bloomington, and contains the communities of Heyworth, Randolph and Lytleville.
| Total residents | 1957 |
| Total families | 387 |
| Total dwellings | 397 |
| Total farms | 231 |
| Marriages during census year | 7 |
| Deaths during census year | 11 |
| Crazy persons | 1 |
| Deaf and Dumb persons | 1 |
The report also noted that Walter Claflin, at age 90, was the oldest resident of the township, and that the township had registered a net loss of one resident since the census of 1870. Heyworth was reported to have 560 residents. Lytleville, never incorporated, was not assigned a figure; nor was Randolph, the grain elevator site.
Captain J. B. Dille supervised the Randolph Township census. This report, using terminology of the time, appeared July 9, 1880. It’s highly possible that Pantagraph readers of 1880 received this information before the Washington bureaucrats did.
But this is not to advocate that local media should try to ferret out census figures and “scoop” the Census Bureau before its report comes out. We’d just be happy to see the official numbers reported in a timely manner once they become available.