1910 Census
Leavenworth, Indiana

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Leavenworth, named for the proprietors S. M. and Z. Leavenworth, contained in 1849 twenty-five brick and seventy-five frame dwelling houses and about 600 inhabitants and was a favorable location for business, having a good landing for boats and commanding a trade of an extensive and productive territory in the interior. It was generally considered that a better shipyard could not be found in Indiana, however, due to continuous flooding of the Ohio River, was eventually moved "up the hill" and the original site is now referred to as Old Leavenworth.

Many things can be learned while looking at the census records for Leavenworth Town in 1910. There is no mention of how large the area was that contained these 155 pieces of property and 166 families.

Daniel McCullum was the enumerator for the 1910 census. It is likely that it was his family, # 10, who shows D. E. McCullum, age 57, a house painter who was born in Indiana. He had to be known by all of the people on the census because he had visited each family in order to collect the information used on the census. It shows his wife to be Alice, they had been married for 34 years and had 3 children. Their son William was 27 years old and living at home with them. He was working as a mate on a river boat.

Family # 7 lists Perry Paxton, age 54, and wife Victoria, the first marriage for both of them. They had been married 19 years and had 4 children who were all still living. Perry was born in Indiana and his parents were born in Virginia. His wife and her parents were all born in Indiana. Perry was a ship carpenter and worked on boats.

Family # 8 is E. G. McCullum, age 26, wife Lilly, age 21, married 4 years and had 1 child. E. G. McCullum was a school teacher in the public school. This is likely the son of Daniel McCullum who had taken the census.

Family # 11 is Uriah Green, age 51, with his second wife Fanny, age 36 and it was her first marriage and they had been married 15 years. His son Jesse, age 21, was born in Missouri which shows that Uriah had returned to Indiana where he was born. Uriah and Jesse were both laborers working on the river.

Family # 12 appears to be S. Leavenworth, age 64, born in Indiana and his father was born in Massachusetts and his mother in Delaware. His wife Mary was 55 years old and it was the second marriage for both of them. They had been married 15 years and had no children together. He was the Post Master at the post office and his wife Mary was a clerk at the post office.

Family # 13 lists a skiff builder at the skiff shop, there are 6 other skiff builders listed so these families would have all known each other.

There are about 24 families listed as button cutters at the button factory so this group of people would all have something in common with each other, there were women who worked at home for the button factory sewing the buttons on to cards in sets of different sizes and numbers so they could be distributed to the stores. The discarded mussel shells that had the button blanks removed could then be burnt in the lime kilns to produce lime.

Some of the other occupations listed on the census are 4 public school teachers, fisherman, clerks, teamsters, seamstress, dress makers, cabinet makers, rural mail carrier, several merchants, dentist, butcher, barber, blacksmith, washing & ironing, atty. At law, druggist, town marshal, broker office, milliner shop, book keeper, bank clerk, minister M.E. church, tinner shop, drug merchant, Hawn Hotel Prop., hotel manager, hotel cook, telephone operator, river boatman, miller-custom manufactory, mill engineer, restaurant clerk, truck garden, freight agent, teamster-milling company, distiller-fruit, and music teacher.

This shows what a thriving community had developed in a very small area on the bank of the Ohio River and how these people had bonded together to make it grow. 96 years after this census was taken you will still find descendants of many of the families still living in and very near Old Leavenworth, Jennings Township, Crawford County, Indiana.

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