The frame's long run: Clay and Harris townships, 1850–2020

1850–2020 · the decennial volumes, read first-hand

Underneath the CDP's thirty counted years lies a hundred and seventy years of township counts, and this article owns them — the settlement story they frame is Before the City's, and is not re-told here. The Seventh Census of 1850 is the first to print the two townships by name (Table II, population by subdivisions of counties): Clay Township held 659 people (368 males, 291 females) and Harris Township 437 (216 males, 221 females — a female majority on a frontier township's page). The 1850 table's own categories add one more fact at full strength: St. Joseph County's whole free colored population that year was 29 people, and neither Clay nor Harris returned any — the townships' printed composition was entirely white, in a county whose colored residents the table seats in Centre, Penn, Portage, and Union townships and in South Bend.

The table as the volumes print it

• 1850 — Clay 659 · Harris 437 (Seventh Census, Table II)
• 1860 — Clay — · Harris — (named gap POP-2)
• 1870 — Clay 1,442 · Harris 408 (Tenth Census, Vol. I, Table III)
• 1880 — Clay 1,460 · Harris 450 (Tenth Census, Vol. I, Table III)
• 1890 — Clay 1,133 · Harris 486 (Twelfth Census, Vol. I, Table 5)
• 1900 — Clay 1,150 · Harris 481 (Twelfth Census, Vol. I, Table 5)
• 1910 — Clay 1,876 · Harris 501 (Thirteenth Census, Vol. II, Table 1)
• 1920 — Clay 1,165 · Harris 467 (Fifteenth Census, Vol. I, Table 4; Sixteenth Census, Vol. I, Table 4)
• 1930 — Clay 4,337 · Harris 695 (Fifteenth Census, Vol. I, Table 4)
• 1940 — Clay 5,679 · Harris 862 (Sixteenth Census, Vol. I, Table 4)
• 1950 — Clay 10,011 · Harris 1,313 (Seventeenth Census, Vol. I, Indiana chapter table)
• 1960 — Clay — · Harris — (named gap POP-3)
• 1970 — Clay 20,821 · Harris 2,860 (CPH-2-16, Table 8)
• 1980 — Clay 28,147 · Harris 5,265 (CPH-2-16, Table 8)
• 1990 — Clay 31,033 · Harris 11,543 (CPH-2-16, Table 8)
• 2000 — Clay 39,145 · Harris 19,873 (PHC-1-16, Table 1)
• 2010 — Clay 32,550 · Harris 23,454 (PL 94-171 / Summary File 1, cross-verified)
• 2020 — Clay 34,235 · Harris 24,397 (PL 94-171 file)

The farming century is a flat line with a pulse at its west end: Harris Township counted 437 people in 1850 and 467 in 1920 — seventy years inside a band seventy people wide (408 to 501), a township of farms that neither grew nor emptied while the county around it quadrupled. Howard's 1907 county history prints Harris's 1900 population as 481, and the Twelfth Census volume itself, read first-hand for this section, prints the same 481 — the local history and the federal count agree to the person. Clay's line is the same flatness with an institutional swell: 659 in 1850, 1,442 in 1870, 1,460 in 1880 — and then two printed falls that this section reports without explaining, because the volumes that print them do not explain them either: Clay drops to 1,133 in 1890 (−22 percent), recovers to 1,876 by 1910, and falls again to 1,165 in 1920 (−38 percent), a fall the Fifteenth Census volume confirms in its own 1910 column (1,876) even as its footnotes for this county record annexations only out of German, Portage, and Penn townships, and the correction of a 25-person error between Portage and Center township. The causes stand as an open item with named settlers in this section's gaps; the counts themselves are doubly witnessed and print as fact.

The takeoff, measured decade by decade: Clay's 1920s are the first break — 1,165 to 4,337 in 1930, the decade of the Holy Cross institutions' growth on the township's west and of Roseland's platting (the 1930 volume returns Roseland town, inside Clay, at 777; it had not been returned separately in 1920). The postwar decades then run without pause: Clay 5,679 (1940) → 10,011 (1950) → 20,821 (1970) → 28,147 (1980) → 31,033 (1990) → a peak of 39,145 in 2000 — a township whose median age that year was 30.0 years, dragged young by the student population of the colleges at its western edge (its 18-to-20 band alone held 6,615 people, and 21-to-24 another 4,223; those institutions' own history is South Bend's build, at boundary strength here). Harris's takeoff comes a generation later and runs longer: 862 (1940) → 1,313 (1950) → 2,860 (1970) → 5,265 (1980) → 11,543 (1990) → 19,873 (2000) → 23,454 (2010) → 24,397 (2020) — eightfold in the fifty years after 1970, the subdivision township overtaking in growth rate the township that started first, while never catching its total.

And the frame's own surprise, printed whole: Clay Township's count falls across the CDP's plateau decade too — 39,145 in 2000 down to 32,550 in 2010, before recovering to 34,235 in 2020 — while Harris rises through both decades. No volume reached states a cause for Clay's 2000s fall either; the counts print as the Bureau's two files print them (the 2010 figure was cross-verified cell-for-cell between the redistricting file and the Demographic Profile file for this section). The township that contains a great university's dormitories is a township whose count can move with enrollment and delineation decisions taken elsewhere; the record as published does not say that is what happened, and this section does not say it for the record.

Sources:

1. Seventh Census (1850), Table II — Population by Subdivisions of Counties, §67, Saint Joseph County (aggregate column: Clay 659, Harris 437; the county aggregate 10,954; free colored county total 29), read from the page image.
2. Tenth Census (1880), Vol. I, Table III — Population of Civil Divisions Less Than Counties, Indiana, p. 154 (1880 and 1870 columns: Clay 1,460/1,442, Harris 450/408), read from the page image.
3. Twelfth Census (1900), Vol. I, Table 5 — Population of States and Territories by Minor Civil Divisions: 1890 and 1900, Indiana, p. 142 (Clay 1,150/1,133, Harris 481/486), read from the page image.
4. Thirteenth Census (1910), Vol. II, Table 1 — Population of Minor Civil Divisions: 1910, 1900, and 1890, Indiana, p. 535 (Clay 1,876/1,150/1,133, Harris 501/481/486), read from the page image.
5. Fifteenth Census (1930), Vol. I, Table 4 — Population of Counties by Minor Civil Divisions: 1930, 1920, and 1910, Indiana, p. 346 and its footnote 30 (Clay 4,337/1,165/1,876, Harris 695/467/501; Roseland town 777 in 1930, not separately returned in 1920), read from the page image.
6. Sixteenth Census (1940), Vol. I, Table 4 — Population of Counties by Minor Civil Divisions: 1920 to 1940, Indiana, p. 345 (Clay 5,679/4,337/1,165, Harris 862/695/467), read from the page image.
7. Seventeenth Census (1950), Vol. I, Indiana chapter, minor-civil-division table (Clay 10,011/5,679/4,337, Harris 1,313/862/695 — the 1940 and 1930 columns agreeing with the earlier volumes).
8. 1990 Census CPH-2-16, Table 8 (Clay and Harris, 1970–1990, with housing units and land area); 2000 Census PHC-1-16, Table 1 (Clay 39,145, median age 30.0, its 18–20 and 21–24 bands; Harris 19,873); 2010 Census PL 94-171 file and Demographic Profile file (Clay 32,550; Harris 23,454, the two files agreeing cell-for-cell); 2020 Census PL 94-171 file (Clay 34,235; Harris 24,397, with 9,346 Harris housing units as the Story of Granger section also carries).
9. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (Lewis Publishing, 1907), vol.