https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/records/pdf/Jury%20Census_REC0055_finding%20aid_MASTER.pdf
- The 1816 census does not list 6 Pearl Street in Ward 1.
- The 1819 census lists "Allen Mevill" at that address in Ward 1 (see image above).
- The 1821 census for the 3rd Ward is missing.
- The 1819 entry reads as follows:
Number of House / Name of Street 6 Pearl St
Name Allen Melvill
Occupation Mercht
Age 36
Personal estates of $150 1
Total Number of [eligible] Jurors 1
White Inhabitants, male 3
White Inhabitants, female 3
Coloured Inhabitants, not Slaves, male 1
Coloured Inhabitants, not Slaves, female 1
Tenants Earning $5 per annum 1
Total number of Inhabitants 9
Comments by John Bryant, as forwarded by Warren F. Broderick:
"I find one mention of 'servants' (no number or race) in the Log, and no mention of a lodger. I can account for the 3 white males: They would be, presumably, Allan, Gansevoort, and Herman (assuming the Jury census was conducted in fall 1819 or early 1820). The three females are a puzzle; they would include Maria and Helen, but who is the third? Maria wrote much later that Caroline Taylor Yates was visiting at the time in the "winter" (maybe 1819-1820), and Maria's mother Catherine Gansevoort was also visiting around the time of HM's birth."In Herman Melville: A Biography Volume 1, 1819-1851 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), Hershel Parker highlights the importance of Caroline Yates and her visit during that "first winter of Herman's life":
Miss Yates (later Mrs. Taylor) read aloud a Dumas novel in French and translated it for Maria sentence by sentence. Herman became "very fond" of his mother's friend, his first recorded preference. (pages 24-25)
