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From:
Subject: Re: [LDR] Hog Quarter David Bowen 1783 Worcester Co.
Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:11:08 -0400
References: <2d98c.dd663cc.39661a5f@aol.com><AANLkTikPUY2F57mRWDAaZcBducKkW_30PvcY_VdgwCwW@mail.gmail.com><8CCECC9EE5F1171-1470-D41A@webmail-d072.sysops.aol.com><D4B7A9B266B9473C8BBDB6FD878409D0@KearneyHome2008>
In-Reply-To: <D4B7A9B266B9473C8BBDB6FD878409D0@KearneyHome2008>


Exactly. The assessments reflected the special interests du jour, with
as much or as little sense as tax laws today.

Just for reference, the 1783 Somerset-collected categories were those
following. Comparing to those I showed the other day for Worcester,
we see that the So assessors were locally instructed to be more
thorough on nature and quality of the land, but that the other basic
statistical tallies came down the same from above:

Another important point overlooked by almost everybody is the utility
of these lists as a census, certainly better (with all the other
detail), than, say, the early Federal censuses (especially the missing
one in Somerset).

John

Somerset-tabulated categories
(* = not in Worcester tabulations)

Taxpayer
Names of Lands
Acres
Original Grant *
Acres *
If Resurvey *
If Escheat *
Surplus *
Deficiency *
Improvements *
Situation *
General Quality of the Soil *
Quantity of Arable Land *
Quantity of Wood Land *
Quantity of Meadow *
Value of Land
Slaves
Males, Females under 8 / Value
Males, Females 8 -14 / Value
Males 14-45 /Value
Females 14-36 /Value
Males 45+, Females 36+ / Value
Plate Ounces / Value
Horses
Black Cattle
Value
Value of other Property
Total Amount
Assessment thereon
White
Inhabitants
Male
Female

___________________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave & Jane Kearney <>

It would be interesting to know how static the "tax list" of taxable
items
was ... for instance, was the item, "black cattle," on the list for 100
years, or did the list change significantly over time? (Don't laugh or
chortle, but when I first read the list as posted here on the list, I
thought that perhaps "black cattle" was a garbled line accidentally put
together from two lines, one referring to bovine cattle, and another
one for
those of our ancestors who were treated as human cattle of the day.)

One can imagine that the specific items to be tax tablulated at any
given
point in time might have been influenced by many of the same sorts of
sometimes seemingly mysterious forces that shape modern tax policy. Why
are
some things taxed and others not? Whose ox (or black cow) was being
gored in
the days of yore presumably was the result of the political process,
with
outcomes that probably usually made good sense to the government, if
not all
the time to the taxees.

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