This Day in Henrico History: Sept. 21 – A Henrico census record captures plantation life in 1850

On Sept. 21, 1850, federal census takers recorded the household and enslaved population associated with Henrico County landowner Robert B. Lyne.

The surviving census records provide a stark snapshot of antebellum Henrico. Lyne's entry in the population census was accompanied by a separate slave schedule that recorded enslaved people by age and sex rather than by name, reflecting the federal government's dehumanizing recordkeeping system of the era.

Researchers have used the Sept. 21 records, together with property and insurance documents, to reconstruct the history of Lyne's household, landholdings and the people he enslaved in Henrico.

The records are one example of how census documents can help historians recover details of Henrico's social history while also demonstrating the limits of records that frequently omitted the names and individual identities of enslaved residents.

Sources: 1850 U.S. Census and Slave Schedule, Henrico County; Richmond Narratives historical research drawing on the Sept. 21, 1850 records.