Population of Boston & other east-coast cities in 1717?

Question

Does anyone know where I could find out what the populations of the major east-coast cities (Boston, New York, Charleston, etc.) were in the year 1717? I've looked around on the 'net, but I can't find it. Perhaps someone has a book with this information?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The real problem you have is that there was no census until 1790, so those types of data simply weren't collected.

Your best bet might be to look at tax records for the period, which would indicate the number of homes in Boston. From that, one could do a rough calculation of Boston's population.

Boston was a well-established city by 1717, as it was founded in 1630. Harvard had been around for 80 years.