Waterbury City Census 1876

      The following Census of the City and Town of Waterbury was made by Sturges M. Judd, whose name is found on page 1 of Ward III. (family No. 1.) Although not a native of Waterbury, he is a descendant of one of the early settlers of the town, and at the time this Census was taken had resided in this place twenty-five years. As he is a valued citizen, and an important contributor to the history of the town and to the genealogical tables of the future, it is proper that these pages should contain some account of his life and his lineage.

      Sturges Morehouse Judd is one of the numerous descendants (of the seventh generation) of Thomas Judd (1) known as "Deacon Thomas Judd of Farmington". This ancestor of most of the Judds in America came from England in 1633 or 1634, lived for a while at Cambridge, Mass., then at Hartford, and moved to Farmington probably in 1644, where most of his subsequent life was spent. He had five sons and three daughters. When Waterbury (then Mattatuck) began to be settled, two of his children - Thomas, his second son, and Philip, his fifth - became proprietors in the new plantation. Philip (2) took up his abode in Waterbury a few years before his death, which occurred in 1689, when he was forty years of age. It is from this Philip Judd that Sturges Judd is descended. The children of Philip - four or five in number - removed from Waterbury to Danbury, previous to 1720, and settled in that part of the town which is now Bethel. Philip (3), his eldest son, had three sons, the third of whom was Samuel. Whether he was born in Waterbury, before his father's removal, or in Danbury, is not known; but he lived in the Bethel Society, and was connected with the church there in 1760. Samuel had six children, the youngest of whom was Elijah (5), born in June 1759, died in December 1819. In August 1780, he married Sarah Morehouse, of Reading, by whom he had one son and three daughters. The son, Samuel (6), was born September 21, 1783. On the 28th of May, 1805, he married Betty Crofutt, of Newtown, by whom he had three sons and one daughter.

      Sturges Morehouse (7), the second son of Samuel Judd, was born February 6th, 1809, in that part of Danbury which has since become the town of Bethel. His early life was spent in his native place. On the 9th of February, 1830, he married Applia Sturdevant, of Brookfield, by whom he has had three daughters, two of whom are married. In 1832, he became a member of the Congregational Church in Bethel. After a short residence in Norwalk, he removed to Waterbury, April 5th, 1851, with his wife and children, - returning to the home from which his ancestors had gone forth a hundred and thirty years before. In this city he has led a busy life, and become known to everybody as an estimable and useful citizen. He has been a faithful member of the Second Congregational Church, and also of the Masonic fraternity. He entered that order in 1853, and has passed the several degrees, to that of Knight Templar.

      For several years in succession, previous to 1876, Mr. Judd had been employed by the Waterbury authorities to enumerate the school children of the town, and also to make the annual enrollment, for military purposes, of men between eighteen and forty-five years of age. In 1870, as Assistant United States Marshall (with the aid of the late Deacon Jonathan R. Crampton) he took the census of the "Fifty-first District", embracing Waterbury and Wolcott. In this way, he had become familiar with the business of collecting statistics, and better known to the people at large than any other man in the community. He had also won the confidence of all classes. By much experience, therefore, as well as by a decided taste for such work, he was prepared for the successful accomplishment of this "centennial" census. He undertook the task under the influence of the Centennial spirit which was so universally prevalent throughout the country in 1876. He desired that the condition of the city and town, in the centennial year of our national life, should be accurately ascertained and fully recorded, not only for the satisfaction of his contemporaries, but for the instruction and benefit of coming generations. In a note to the writer of this, he says: "I thought that 1876 would be a fitting time to do the work, as we were then as a nation one hundred years old, and in the two hundredth year of our history as a town. Accordingly I took it upon myself, at my own expense to take the census of Waterbury, that there might be a reliable starting-point for the historian of the Waterbury of to-day". It has been to him a labor of love, and the result is that Waterbury has in its possession, what probably no other town in the Union has secured - a centennial census, as full and accurate that which the government attempts once in ten years.

      Mr. Judd began this enumeration in January, and worked at it constantly (with the exception of one or two stormy days) through the three following months, completing the task sometime in May. It was of course impossible to secure the precision which some of the governments of Europe demand, where the census of a nation is taken within the space of twenty-four hours; but unquestionably the results here recorded are as complete and accurate as our own government has ever secured in the town of Waterbury. And the results are precisely the same as those called for in a government census. These blanks are a reprint of "Schedule No. 1", prepared for the census of 187? except that the two columns relating to real and personal estate are omitted. The volume furnishes there-fore such facts as the following: The number of dwelling houses in the town; the number of families; a list of all the families, with the full names of the individuals comprising them; His age, sex and color of each person, with a classification according to ages; the occupation of each; the country or state in which he was born; his parentage, whether native or foreigh; his educational status, etc., etc. The facts pertaining to this city are given by wards; those relating to the outlying portions of the town, byschool district. The names and figures are preserved in these four hundred pages in precisely the form in which they were collected, this being the original manuscript which was carried from house to house; - in view of which fact the legibility of the record and its freedom from blots and stains are worthy of special remark. After the completion of the work, Mr. Judd prepared a careful copy of the whole, for preservation in the fire-proof vault in the City Hall. Both the original manuscript and the copy were purchased for the Bronson Library by its "Board of Agents" in 1877.

      The work of Mr. Judd was noticed in the editorial columns of the "Waterbury American" on the 30th of May, 1876. On the 24th of June of the same year, a more elaborate notice appeared in the same journal, in a communications from the writer of this introductory note. In that communication this following tribute was given: "Mr. Judd's census is an appropriate and valuable memorial of the nation's centennial year, which is also very nearly the bi-centennial of the town of Waterbury. The Waterbury of to-day should prize these pages because of the record embodied in them; and as regards the Waterbury of the future, I am sure it will treasure the book as one of its most precious historical monuments. As society America advances, as real estate increases in value, and questions of descent and family relationship attract more attention, the vocation of the genealogist will increase in importance; and we can easily see that in future years many a patient explorer of musty records will resort gladly to this volume, to ascertain the name, the parentage and the nationality of those who to-day are of little account, or are yet in the period of childhood.

      These opinions of the value of this work are confirmed by a fresh examination of its pages, preliminary to the penning of this introductory note. The writer can only add that it affords him much pleasure to put on record these statements concerning Mr. Judd and the census he has compiled, and to associate his name with that of the compiler, in committing this full and faithful record of the Waterbury of to-day to the Waterbury of the future.


      Waterbury, Conn., March 27 th, 1879             /s/ Joseph Anderson                                                             Pastor of the First Church.