This tax receipt for Edward Barbour Edwards, my 4th great-grandfather, was saved by my great-grandmother, Frances Barbour Linton, and several others in the family, for 200 years!  Grandmother Linton finished her life during the depression, a time in our country’s history when everything was saved to be used at some point.  She was also a genealogist, who used scraps of farm notebook paper on which to write her genealogy charts and family information.  I am so very thrilled that she, and those who came before her, saved these special pieces of information that are so vitally important to me – and other Edwards/Linton descendants!

How I would love to have met this woman!  She was so strong, so kind and passionate, and loving to all who knew her.  I have my mother’s stories that I go back and read over and over – although it is hardly necessary since they are written on my heart!

As you can see, this tax receipt is from Loudoun County, Virginia.  In the next few years Edward Edwards and his family will pull up stakes and move to Washington County, Kentucky, with his father-in-law, Captain John Hancock Linton, and the other children of the captain.  What a trip that must have been!  The wagons, the horses, the adults and children!  Edward’s wife, Nancy, was riding a horse during their trek across the Cumberland Gap – side-saddle, I am sure, as any lady at that time period would!  The horse was spooked by a wildcat and Nancy was thrown, breaking her leg.  A litter was made for her, and she made her way into Kentucky in this way – never walking again.  They reached Washington County in early November, 1818.

Edward and Nancy Edwards had eight children; the eldest child, Susan Clark Edwards, was my 3rd great-grandmother.  Two sons, John L. and Jonathan Joseph married, as well as another daughter, Martha, and all had families.  Mary Jane married, but did not have children, and the last three remained single – Catherine, Ben and Sarah.  But the aunts and uncles with no children loved their nieces and nephews and helped raise them!

Back to the tax receipt.  It reads, “Received this 23 day of March, 1816, from Edward B. Edwards, the sum of three dollars and eight cents for the District Tax of 1815 upon the property of said Edwards in the county of Loudoun in the Twenty-second Collection District in the state of Virginia.  Signed, John Littlejohn, Collector for the 22nd Collection District, in the state of Virginia.”

Being a tax collector for a school district for twenty-five years (part of my job as Finance Officer), I wonder percentage that would be?  Of course, land was not the price it is today, but we would all love a property tax of $3.08!