President Washington signed the First Census Act on March 1st, 1790, when it was passed at the second session of the First Congress. This law prompted marshals of various judicial districts to report the number of residents in their respective districts. The First Census of the United States, taken in 1790, provides a compilation of residents from the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. This volume focuses specifically on Rhode Island and its former heads of households organized by county. A full-name index is given at the close of this work.
No other official record or group of records is as historically significant as the 1790 census of the United States. The taking of this census marked the inauguration of a process that continues right up to our own day - the enumeration at ten-year intervals of the entire American population. In its very continuity the census is a mirror image of the evolution of the American republic, and the census of 1790, the first official enumeration of all heads of household residing in the infant republic, is the true starting point of this process, the place where we can point a finger and say with confidence, This_ is where it started! From here on we deal with facts! The equivalent of England's Domesday Book, the 1790 census is an authentic chronicle of the American people during the period immediately following the Revolution and at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.