North Carolina Tips

1790-1800 Super Dictricts

1790 and 1800 super districts written on census forms and in indexes have confused some researchers. Researchers have mistakenly interpreted them as sub-districts of counties. For an illustration of districts and the counties within them, see this local page (PDF) and the below links.

The 1907 U.S. Government publication "Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790" seen in these links clarify the relation of superdistricts to counties

HTML Index

North Carolina Title Page and Map (pdf)

North Carolina Introduction, including population by DISTRICT (p. 9)(pdf)

Volume containg Hillsboro District, including Orange County (pdf)

Local copy of North Carolina 1790 districts (pdf, 2 pages).

Orange County Districts Created 1774

Sixteen equal districts? were created within Orange County, NC in 1774, three years after Chatham county was separated from it. The districts left in Orange County were observed during the 1790 U.S. census. Key supplied by Louise T. Overton. 1.St. Asaph 2. Chatham 3. St. David's 4. St. Martin's 5. Richmond 6. Glouster 7. Orange 8. Tryon 9. St. Thomas 10. Hillsborough 11. St. Luke's 12. St. Laurence 13. Dunsmore 14. St. James 15. St. Mary's 16. St. Mark's Base map courtesy of Adrian B. Ettlinger's AniMap software. Abbreviations mean Caswell, Person, Alamace, Orange, and Chatham.

The record at the N.C. Archives was viewed by Ms. Louise T. Overton and posted at? files.usgwarchives.net/nc/orange/census/1774dist.txt She notes: On 9 May 1777, Districts 3-4-5-6-11-12-13-14, the top eight, became Caswell County... After 1792 Districts 11-12-13-14 were in Person County. From Ms. Overton's interpretation, the present writer T.L.Hardin has placed the distrits as they appear to have been assigned when the whole area was Orange County. State Archives of North Carolina, https://mars.archives.ncdcr.gov/BasicSearch.aspx Title of collection "Miscellaneous records 1768-1942", MarsID: 273.103.7; Call no. CR.073.928.10 thru .14. See in box 13, "Plan for Orange County to be divided into sixteen districts, 1774."