Introduction: This project includes individuals who may have been incorrectly identified as a gunsmith, so that the attributions can be scrutinized. The blacksmith Adam Black is listed as an early Somerset County, Pennsylvania gunsmith in a 1983 booklet, but is omitted from several other publications by the same authors. To me, this suggests the authors may have had second thoughts about Adam Black being a gunsmith.
1800: I did not find an Adam Black household in transcripts of the 1800 censuses of Somerset or Bedford County, Pennsylvania. I also did not find a listing for Adam Black in the Somerset town or Somerset Township portions of the 1800 manuscript census records of Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
1810: In the 1810 federal census of Somerset Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, the Adam Black household has one male and one female in the 27 to 45 age group and one female in the under ten age group. The following image is a composite; the table heading is from a different page of the Somerset County census.
1814: The 1983 booklet "Gunsmiths and Gunmakers of Bedford and Somerset Counties Pennsylvania 1770-1900" identifies Adam Black as a blacksmith and a gunsmith in the borough of Somerset, Pennsylvania in 1814. The authors of the 1983 booklet did not include Adam Black in their 1991 book "Gunsmiths of Bedford, Somerset, and Fulton Counties".
The 1884 book "History of Bedford, Somerset and Fulton Counties, Pennsylvania" indicates that Adam Black is included in the 1814 list of resident taxpayers of the town of Somerset as a blacksmith, as shown below:
1820: I did not find an Adam Black household in transcripts the 1820 census records of the Borough of Somerset, or Somerset Township. I have not yet taken the time to look through the 1820 manuscript census records of Somerset County.
1830: I did not find an Adam Black household in a transcript of the 1830 census of Somerset County. I have not yet taken the time to look through the 1830 manuscript census records of Somerset County.
