On 7/5/2012 11:52 AM, Charlie&Sue Wilson wrote:
> Isn't this the tax year that has been summarized and published in a
> series of books?
> As I recall, the some of the information included in the record are the
> distance and direction from the courthouse where the person lives.
> If so, do you have the series title and author/editor and other
> publication information?
>
> Sue
>
> On Thu, 5 Jul 2012 13:43:58 +0000 "Tarter, Brent (LVA)"
> <[log in to unmask]>  writes:
>> The Personal Property Tax returns for nearly all of Virginia's cities
>> and counties for 1815 are in the Library of Virginia in Richmond,
>> and they have all been microfilmed and can be borrowed on
>> Interlibrary Loan.
>>
>> The state government put thousands of militiamen into the field
>> during the War of 1812 to supplement the small U.S. Army, and the
>> state had to supply them, pay for arms, ammunition, horses, wagons,
>> and everything else and then hope for reimbursement from the Feds
>> later. That's why the one great need for lots of revenue.
>>
>> To pay the expenses of the war, the state imposed a very long list
>> of taxes on items of personal property that one year, alone. It is
>> by far the best way to get a sense of how many families had items of
>> personal property subject to the tax. Many of the items taxed were
>> probably beyond the ability of poor people to acquire.
>>
>> Brent Tarter
>> The Library of Virginia
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at
>> http:/www.lva.virginia.gov
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What makes 1815 special is that the General Assembly chose to tax more 
things that year and you can get an interesting perspective of your 
ancestor-  For example did they own any manufactured furniture,  gold or 
silver watch or even I believe pool tables?  Like all of the other 
personal property tax records they are in roughly alphabetical order by 
district.   The land tax is the record that will give you distance to 
the court house.  The two sets of records are separate from the county 
records -there was a recent entry on finding them-  They are arranged by 
county with each roll having a year range.  So you would order by type 
of tax, county and year.

Marilyn Jackson

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