Tax the Rich, Pay for the War

Washington was no Senator's Son, but he did climb up the wealth mountain.

And yet his ledgers and letters constantly show attention to one detail, that all gained can be easily lost.

These ledgers and letters look as if GW knew he wasn't safe. As if at no time could he keep his eye off the ball.

Let us repeat that:

These ledgers and letters look as if GW knew he wasn't safe. As if at no time could he keep his eye off the ball.

There was always debt owed to him. He was always looking at debt he owed. And If the debt was owed to him - it might never be paid. If it ever was paid, it was paid much later than the Federal Govt paying contractors for their services 90 days later.

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And so we pay Creedence to a song on being no Senator's Son, not unfortunate, but certainly one who was neither guaranteed nor assured like all of us.

Taxes to pay for the war.

Taxes to pay for the County Sheriff.

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Founders Online Footnotes for the above:

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.

Foot note 1.

The 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 521–30).

Footnote 2.

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

Footnote 3.

To 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 9–20).

Footnote 4.

Two 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 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.).