Although definitions would evolve and modifications would be made from the institution of these systems during the mid-1600s onward, in general for the period relevant to this family history, the 17th and 18th centuries, Virginia obtained revenue from its residents by levying two systems. The first was from an annual capitation tax on "tithables" (defined below); the second, in place from 1782 forward, was from yearly payments of land and personal property taxes.
Tithables were those who paid (or for whom another person paid) an annual tax imposed on free, white, male adults aged sixteen years old or older; on African-American slaves; and on Native-American servants. Women who were heads of household were also taxed. Counties were divided into precincts or districts, for each of which one or more tax commissioners were responsible for collecting that year's levy and for delivering the total assessment to county officials at a stated time, usually about mid-way through the calendar year. Heads of household and masters were required to report the number and names of all tithables living with them; penalties were imposed for concealing tithables, and public notice of the county's entire tithables list encouraged compliance.
One important attribute of Virginia's tithable lists is that a young male would typically begin to listed, in someone else's household, after he had turned sixteen years of age; in addition, a free male who appeared on the tithable list under his own name probably had become twenty-one years old during the preceding tax year. This makes such lists helpful in determining a young tithable's year of birth, but the lists are not infallible: some males may not have been listed immediately after having reached these ages - or were never listed at all. Tithable lists exist for many but not all of Virginia's counties, but even where they do exist they are not always complete. Other colonies and/or states (especially Kentucky) employed tithable systems similar to Virginia's.
In 1782, after independence, Virginia created an entirely new system for financing its governmental operations. (The tithable system continued even after 1782 but eventually was abandoned.) The new system included taxes on both real (land) and personal property. Annual lists of both types of property were made, again at the county and district levels, and, as before, each county's tax commissioners were charged with collecting these new levies. Since a tax district is sometimes identified by the name of the designated collector, or by its geographic region within the county, or by the militia unit that was drawn from the same part of the county, the tax list can be a valuable clue as to where a particular family lived.
The Virginia land tax lists display the names of owners of acreage and town lots, the amount of land owned, the value(s) of the land or lot(s), the tax rate in effect that year, and the taxes due (sometimes stated in pounds, shillings, and pence but by 1810 only in dollars and cents); by 1814, descriptions of the physical location(s) of properties began to be recorded on them. The name of a deceased owner continued to be shown on the annual lists until the estate was settled. Surviving tax records for Virginia are available from 1782 onward.
The 1782 revision of Virginia's tax laws also required yearly enumerations of certain types of personal (sometimes called moveable) property, usually items of significant value or those regarded as luxuries. The collection system employed here was the same as that for the collection of land taxes also enacted in 1782.
The Virginia personal property lists include the name of the person responsible for the tax, the names of white, male tithables over the age of twenty-one years, the number of white, male tithables between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one years, the number of slaves both below and above the age of sixteen years, various categories of animals (usually horses and cattle, occasionally sheep and stud horses), and sometimes other items ranging from carriages to (mostly in later years) pianos and billiard tables. Many of these lists have survived and also are available for research. Once again, other states employed systems similar to the one Virginia adopted.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
–– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby ––
11/21/11
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