George Washington Papers

[undated diary entry]

Publick Levy 1767  8 lbs. Tob[acco] pr. Poll—No.

No. of Tythables in 1762 – 121022
1764 – 128000
1766 – 131799

Depositum—in 1767

Brunswick 11983
Charles City 15184
Dinwiddie 896
Gloucester 17514
Henrico 5757
James City 5299
Isle of Wight 8522
Louisa 10182
Middlesex 5163
New Kent 7569
Southampton 13882
Surry 6663
Sussex 6250
114864 total

Sold & applied to the fund for giving a Bounty on Hemp

publick levy: These notes appear on one of the last blank pages of the 1767 almanac. Except for GW’s notation of the number of tithables for 1762, 1764, and 1766, the rest of this entry is an abstract of an act of the assembly passed in April 1767 entitled: “An act for raising a public levy” (hening description begins William Waller Hening, ed. The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619. 13 vols. 1819–23. Reprint. Charlottesville, Va., 1969. description ends , 8:273–75; the 34 acts in this series are incorrectly dated by hening description begins William Waller Hening, ed. The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619. 13 vols. 1819–23. Reprint. Charlottesville, Va., 1969. description ends as Nov. 1766). In the act, which set the new levy at 8 pounds of tobacco per tithable (or poll), the above-named counties are listed as being in arrears for the 1764–66 levy period, and the respective number given for each county is the amount of arrearage in pounds of tobacco. The act provided that the income from this arrearage tobacco would be set aside as a “depositum” to support the colony’s bounty for growing hemp. From time to time the assembly would lay a “general” or “public” levy colonywide on a per capita basis, which in the eighteenth century ranged between 4½ and 12½ pounds of tobacco per tithable. In 1767 a tithable was any white male aged 16 or over and every black and mulatto aged 16 and over, which in essence defined tithables as all adult workers. Although there was a technical difference between the terms poll and tithable, the two were commonly used interchangeably. Of the three years for which GW here notes tithable totals, the figure for 1762 is exactly the same as that reported by Governor Fauquier (greene [2] description begins Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, eds. American Population before the Federal Census of 1790. New York, 1932. description ends , 141).

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