Chatham, New Brunswick (1881 census)

Chatham was a census subdivision in New Brunswick, recorded in the 1881 Census of Canada with a population of 5,762. The community is grounded to Wikidata Q3365797. The administrative centroid was at approximately 47.021°N, 65.445°W.

Population

In 1881, Chatham had a population of 5,762: 2,943 male and 2,819 female residents.

Population trajectory across census years

Cross-year identity established by spatial polygon overlap (SAME_AS chains across the Canadian Census Subdivision boundary files).

Neighbouring Census Subdivisions in 1881

In the 1881 census, Chatham shared boundaries with:

• Glenelg
• Nelson

Full census record, 1881

The 1881 census recorded 46 measurements for this Census Subdivision across 5 categories.

Population & families (1881). This community's record includes 5,762 total population, 2,943 males, 2,819 females, 1,724 married persons, 1,057 families, 865 married females, 859 married males, 270 widowed persons, 192 widowed females, 78 widowed males. (Source: 1881 Census of Canada, V1T1.)

Age structure (1881). This community's record includes 3,768 single persons under 18, 2,006 single males under 18, 1,762 single females under 18. (Source: 1881 Census of Canada, V1T1.)

Buildings & housing (1881). This community's record includes 953 occupied houses, 947 inhabited houses, 38 uninhabited houses, 12 houses under construction, 6 dwellings that are temporary shanties. (Source: 1881 Census of Canada, V1T1.)

Agriculture (1881). This community's record includes 49,810 bushels of potatoes, 23,957 bushels of oats, 5,473 bushels of turnips, 2,822 tons of hay, 2,527 acres of hay crops, 1,948 bushels of spring wheat, 1,846 bushels of other root crops, 964 bushels of buckwheat, 685 acres of wheat, 402 acres of potatoes, 296 bushels of peas and beans, 82 bushels of barley, 31 bushels of corn, 25 bushels of rye. (Source: 1881 Census of Canada, V3T24.)

Fisheries (1881). This community's record includes 8,685 fathoms of fishing nets, 2,575 barrels of other fish, 145 barrels of gaspareaux, 137 barrels of salmon, 117 quintals of cod, 84 barrels of herring or alewives, 56 men on fishing boats, 41 fishing boats, 30 barrels of mackerel, 5 barrels of eels, 2 barrels of trout. (Source: 1881 Census of Canada, V3T27.) The 1881 enumerator also recorded 1 barrels of shad, 146,000 pounds of lobster canned, 1,318 barrels of oysters — single-county tallies of limited cross-year comparability.

People with Dictionary of Canadian Biography entries

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography includes biographies of 2 people connected to this place who were alive in 1881, listed below by birth year. Each name links to that person's DCB entry.

Residents in 1881

The 1881 census residents page for this Census Subdivision lists 5,762 individuals enumerated here, with name, age, sex, religion, ethnic origin, birthplace, and occupation. Source: TCP/Dillon 1881 Canadian Census deposit at Borealis.

Identifiers

• TCP UID: NB035010 — year-scoped identifier from the Canadian Census Subdivision boundary file
• Persistent place ID: PLACE_NB019004 — computed from spatial-overlap chains across census years
• Wikidata: Q3365797
• Wikipedia (EN): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_Parish,_New_Brunswick
• Wikipédia (FR): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paroisse_de_Chatham

Sources

Census tabulations from the 1881 Census of Canada, transcribed and georeferenced by the Canadian Peoples / TCP project, hosted at the HGIS Lab, University of Saskatchewan. Persistent place identity computed from spatial-overlap chains across all available census years (1851–1921). Identity grounding to Wikidata performed via the HGIS Canada Knowledge Graph project's MCP-assisted disambiguation pipeline. See the About / Methodology page for the full data pipeline.

Cite this page

Clifford, J. (2026). "Chatham, New Brunswick (1881 census)" in HGIS Canada Knowledge Graph. Retrieved from https://jimclifford.ca/hgiscanada/places/nb/chatham-nb035010-1881/.