Analysis:1782 Washington County Tax List. Introduction

Southwest Virginia Project

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Introduction

Washington County, VA was formed from Fincastle county in 1777. It comprised the entire area that is now within the boundaries of the Southwest Virginia Project, excluding Kentucky to the west, and Montgomery to the northeast. Jeff Weaver's transcription of the 1782 personal property tax list for Washington County tax list available at New River Notes. At the time of the 1782 tax list the original boundaries of Washington County were still intact, and correspond with the boundaries of the Southwest Viriginia Project. ^[1]

The tax list provides considerable information about the community:

• Identity of Heads of Household (HOH)
• The Precinct within which they lived
• Number of Tithables in the household ^[2]
• Identities of some of the tithables in addition to the HOH
• Number of horses owned
• Number of cattle owned
• Number of slaves owned
• Names of the slaves
• Sex of HOH's and named tithables ^[3]

It is not uncommon for genealogists to cite data from these tax lists noting, for example, that "John Walker owned eight horses, and 9 cattle, and 0 slaves." By themselves those data are not all that informative, and tell us little about John's role in the community or his relative success in life. However, when we combine this with the information that the average HOH owned two horses and six cattle, and no slaves, we see that John is somewhat better off than most of his neighbors---though closer inspection shows that he's fairly typical. Perhaps we'd call him "middle class" today. On the otherhand, the fact that "James Thompson owned 35 horses, 90 cattle, and 16 slaves" suggests us that some of John's neighbors were decidedly better off than he. And others were decidedly worse off, as was William Lewis who owned exactly one horse.

By examining property ownership patterns in the community as a whole, we can gain some idea of how our ancestors fit into that community. This helps inform an d condition out understanding of their lives. The purpose of this article is to help provide that context. Currently, the focus of this suite of articles is on seeing what we can learn from these data alone, about the settlers. There is a substantial literature about settlers lives, and about the nature of and extent of slavery in the United States during this period. Eventually, the intent is to draw upon this literature so that the information developed here can be placed in the context of a larger picture.

Footnotes

1. ↑ The match is not exact with modern county boundaries. 1786 it will begin splintering into smaller subdivisions. During the course of this project, some modifications of the county boundaries occurred, so that there is no precise alignment between the original county boundary, and modern day boundaries. Portions of Old Washington County now lie within modern Wythe and Montgomery Counties. Modern Buchanan county lies within the original boundaries of Washington County, but the northeastern portion of Buchanan came from Old Tazewell County, not Washington. Nonethless, the 1782 tax list provides a good snapshot of the population within Southwest Virginia.
2. ↑ Males over the age of 16.
3. ↑ The sex of the HOH's is not explicitly identified. However, this can usually be inferred from their given names.