Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 038-2 - April 1984 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 8 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2014-02-19 05:42:20 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:05:57 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:05:57

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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i es eis os ane! ‘ 1%, : Xe ¥9 « ___! —f) ! : ZZ Nevada __ ! ! e e . FIGVIE I a Aa _____. NEVADA TOWNSHIP WITH VOTERS’ G RESIDENCES ¥ In the February Newsletter, Bruce Nevada Election District of the County of of registrants. Almost all of them lived in the Bolinger reported that the County Archive has obtained from the Bancroft Library a copy of the Nevada City Poll List for the November 3, 1868 presidential election. He was so kind as to present a copy of this copy to the Pacific Library. Looking at this Poll List, one has the impression that the list tells quite a lot about Nevada City in 1868 if one would only be willing to do some home work. This was done and here is the result. THE POLL LIST The list is reproduced from a printed original. It consists of a title page and 31 numbered pages. Of the latter, 8 are xeroxed and are quite legigible; the remaining 23 are white on black, reproduced from a positive film. The printing on the latter 23 pages is often blurred and difficult to read. Especially the difference between a “3” and an “8” ora “2” is sometimes hard to make out. Consequently, there may be small errors in the statistics presented below. THE AREA On the title page of the Poll List, the area which is covered ia stated to be Nevada City. However, on the first page, the area is defined as the “Nevada Precinct in the 10 Nevada.” Question: ‘What was the territory of this Nevada Precinct?” Even on modern maps, the old boundary line of Nevada City, a perfect square with sides, one mile long, can be discerned. However, this boundary line is more and more blurred as annexations take place. The original square boundary dates from about 1871; our Poll List is older. Before 1871, all land in Nevada County was legally public land and everyone occupying land technically a squatter. An act of Congress, dated March 2, 1867, made it possible to grant the land, occupied by a city or town, to the trustees of this political unit, giving the trustees the power to grant title where needed. The patent granting this to Grass Valley is dated December 4, 1871; the one for Nevada City was probably issued around the same time. For political reasons, the county was divided into townships, of which Nevada Township was one. As our sketchmap shows, Nevada Township covered a much larger area than the (future) one square mile of Nevada City; the township covered 72 square miles. Acomparison of part of the Poll List with the almost contemporary list in Bean’s Directory, of 1867, which covers Nevada Township, yielded the addresses of a number Nevada City nucleus, a small number however lived at places scattered through Nevada Township. Some of these places are marked on the sketch map. We conclude that the Nevada Precinct covered at least the Western half of Nevada Township. NUMBER OF REGISTRANTS The Poll List contains 1370 names. On account of the qualifications for the voting privilege, those are the names of male U.S. citizens, twenty-one years of age or older. It would be interesting to know how many of those qualified to vote actually did register. To determine this, a list of all male USS. citizens, twenty years of age or older, would be required. Such a list does not exist. We have however a list of persons, residing in Nevada Township in Bean’s Directory of 1867, which is about one year older than our Poll List. Bean lists the persons having an occupation and, in most cases, states this occupation and gives an indication of the address of the person mentioned. However, occupation and/or address are not always stated. Since few women had an occupation, only a few women are listed in Bean. And businesses are listed among the personal names. If we ignore the females and the businesses, Bean’s list has about the same rn number of entries as the Poll List has.