George Washington Papers

Memorandum, 1758–1759

Memorandum

[Mount Vernon, 1758–59]

A List of Lands given unto the Clerk of Fairfax County—in the year 1758 to be Taxed.

Acres
In Frederick County.1 viz.—one Tract of 760
one Ditto of 552
one Ditto of 550
one Ditto of 453
2315
In Fairfax County. viz.—Mount Vernon Tract 1900
bought of S. Darrell 500
2400
4715

N.B. I gave in the same List for the year 1759 & paid Taxes for both years to Colo. John West2 as will appear by his Receipt No. 1 Viz.

Taxes For the year 1758 on 4715 Acres @ 2s.3d. prCt3 comes to £10.6.1
1759 Ditto Ditto 10.6.1
Taxes for the year 1758 on 22 Tithables @ 4s.4 4.8. 
Taxes & Levys 1759 24 Ditto @ 9s.6d. 11.8. 
£26.8.2

LB, DLC:GW. GW entered in his letter book memoranda, dated between 1755 and 1773, noting his payment of taxes and quitrents, often with the names of the tithables and a list of his landholdings. He noted having paid Lord Fairfax’s agent George William Fairfax £38.18.9 on 23 May 1760 as quitrents on 6,431 acres for the preceding five years. He also kept a record of taxes paid in General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends .

1The acts of assembly levying taxes provided that the proprietor of land within the Fairfax grant could pay his taxes to the sheriff either in the county where his “lands lie” or in the county where “he or she shall reside” (6 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 521–30).

2Col. John West was sheriff of Fairfax County from 1757 to 1759.

3To help finance the war, the Virginia assembly in 1755 imposed a tax of 1s. 3d. on every 100 acres of land and 1s. on every tithable to be collected in 1757, 1758, 1759, and 1760 (ibid.). Then, in 1756, it imposed an additional tax of 1s. or ten pounds of tobacco on every tithable and the same on every 100 acres of land, to be collected in 1758, 1759, and 1760 (7 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 9–20).

4Two shillings of this was tax for defense (see note 3), and two shillings were the annual levy (in tobacco) “for the defraying and payment of the public charge of the country” (7 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 290). See also ibid., 139–40. GW also paid the regular levy of £5.5 to the sheriff of Frederick County on 17 May 1758 for “fourteen Poll Taxes, Parish and County Levies due for the year 1758” (receipt owned [1983] by Jerry Granat Manuscripts, Hewlett, N.Y.).

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