deed of sale.

Interesting old deed of sale. offers?

 

No idea, probably.

 

Interesting that their slaves feature so prominently in the assessments. That's probably a selling point.

I did find online reference to a later Captain George Wallis of South Carolina. Maybe a descendant? But then the name isn't particularly uncommon.

 

Definitely a receipt for payment of 1815 taxes on various personal property, most likely somewhere in the southern US and in an agricultural area - thus the listing of various animals and, as noted, slaves. In this case "Capt(ain)" George Wallis is paying taxes on his own property and on that of the "estate" of John Wallis (who quite likely was his then-deceased father.)

Note the inclusion of "tithes" (often meaning the number of males in the household over the age of 16.)

The Wm. (William) Ashby who signed for the payment was the collector of taxes for the jurisdiction. Too bad there's no mention of where this property was.

 

Bear in mind that the document isn't talking about the value of the items, but rather the tax assessment on them.

I was unaware of that definition of tithe. I usually associate it with a percentage of income - as in tithing to a church.

 

Yes, moreother, that's the more modern usage. The archaic usage in early US property tax assessments was a "southern thing" and probably stemmed from even earlier association with taxes collected for the support of a local church in rural areas.

Just to see if I could find anything at all, I did a search for George Wallis in the 1820 Census records of southern US states. Lo and behold, there was a man by that name as head of household in Richmond, Georgia, who owned 6 slaves. Coincidence? Quite possibly so. But it's a thought.

Otto - where did you acquire this?

 

Yard sale

 

But where? Which state?

 

Virginia

 

Well, I tried searching again, focused on Virginia and included trying to find the William Ashby (tax collector) who signed the receipt. Nothing definitive, so I think I've gone as far with this as I could.

It was important enough for someone to hang on to, but without a connection - to either a specific place or to the people whose names appear on it - I don't know how much value it might have.

Good luck, Otto.

 

There are a lot of people with the name Ashby in my part of Virginia, Fauquier County.

 

I noticed that, SIS. But I couldn't find the George and John Wallis to go with. Of course spelling was not always consistent back then, plus handwriting can mislead the indexers.