They traveled by foot, boat and horseback through 18 states, districts, and territories that stretched from Maine to Georgia, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. Armed with their own quill pens, the 650 census takers of 1790 spent 18 months counting the American people. The total: 3,929,214. President George Washington, however suspected an undercount. In a letter to Gouverneur Morris, then U.S. Commissioner to Great Britain, Washington worried about the "indolence of the mass, and want of activity" by many census takers. Proof of this thesis: Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who was in charge of the tally,...
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