Any idea how many people died in your town in the last week? Or last year? Or how many people were baptized into a church?
Nowadays, I’m not sure where to find that information, though I’m sure it’s somewhere. In the 1770’s, however, you might be able to find it simply by opening your newspaper. The Boston Gazette on January 4, 1773, included information like this:
Burials in the Town of BOSTON, since our last [that is, since the last edition of the newspaper],
Eight Whites. One Black
Baptiz’d in the several Churches, Ten.
It went on to list burials and baptisms for each month in 1772, the totals for 1771, and then the “Bills of Mortality” — that is, how many people died — for the years 1701-1772. Smallpox and measles were listed next to some of the years; I assume this means that there were epidemics of those diseases in those years.
It’s worth noting that the numbers of deaths were listed separately for blacks and whites. Most black people in America at that time were slaves, and most white people looked down on them. But I’m not sure why there weren’t separate numbers for baptisms. Did the churches not allow blacks to be baptized? I don’t think so, because I know that there were black church members in at least some places in New England at that time. Maybe they weren’t listed separately on the baptismal records, because the government didn’t use those records. I’m not sure, but it’s a reminder of the racial distinctions that existed at that time.
Source
The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal, 4 January 1773, page 3.