Like the other states of the newly formed union, New York was creating its own constitution to establish governance of those matters falling within its jurisdiction. The New York State Constitution, ratified in 1821, reflected the same principles and duties of government and its people that the federal Constitution embodied, including a law to conduct a decennial state census beginning in 1825. The New York State Census had an uneven record of success: a state census was taken every decade from 1825, until 1885, when no census was taken. The state census was conducted in 1892, but not in 1895; resumed in 1905, and thereafter in 1915 and 1925, but finally abolished in 1931. In addition, a massive fire at the New York State Library in 1911 destroyed a good many of the census records stored there up to that time. In many parts of the state, however, local clerks’ offices often kept copies of the enumerations, and so quite a bit of the data can be retrieved at the municipal levels.
Map of the Counties of Dutchess and Putnam by David H. Burr, 1829. Image provided by Putnam County Historian's Office, Brewster, NY on New York Heritage.
The Empire Forester, 1928. Image Courtesy of: SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Empire Forester Yearbooks Collection on New York Heritage Digital Collections.