The Census of 1790 reported, as will be seen, the names of heads of families only. A copy of the Census for each county was filed at the court house therein, but owing to the destruction of so many court houses by fire and the want of care as to old papers in others, very few could be found. The only resource was to get copies from the originals filed at Washington. To get these the passage of a special act of Congress was necessary. This act, drawn by the writer, was introduced in the Senate by Hon. F. M. Simmons, who secured its passage. In the House of Representatives its passage was secured by the earnest efforts of Hons. T. F. Kluttz and Claude Kitchin.

The foregoing is an officially certified copy of the Census of all except three counties—Caswell, Granville and Orange—whose rolls at Washington had been lost either in the fires of 1800 or 1814 or in some of the many transfers of the Federal archives to new buildings. As a substitute a roll of the Taxpayers, listed in Granville in 1788 and in Caswell and Orange in 1790, has been taken from the tax lists therein and appears on the following pages:—Editor.