I've just bought in auction a document which is a direction for tax assessment in 1833.
It is headed :" [missing letters, word ending 'RNE'] COUNTY, SS"
and is directed "to Philip Meixel, Assessor of the township of Nescopeck" directing him pursuant to "an Act to raise and collect County Rates and Levies " passed 11th April 1799. He is "required to take account of all Freemen and Personal Property made taxable by the Act aforesaid, that is to say ,- all Negro and Mulatto Slaves, all Horses, Mares, Geldings and Cattle above the age of four years..." It goes on to list others that he must record, such as "all offices of profit" and " all single Freemen above the age of twenty one years, who shall not follow any occupation and calling..." and "all Inn Keepers and Tavern Keepers".
This was issued under seal of office at "Wilkesbarre", which must surely be Wilkes Barre in North East Pennsylvania, on March 30th 1833. Questions : 1) What would the County be that ends R(?)NE ? 2) What does SS after the County name mean ? 3) Just how much slavery would there have been in this area then, in 1833, and when the Act was passed in 1799 ? 4) What would the slaves have been employed to do in Pennsylvania ?
Mr Meixel was quite quick in execution of his duty. He subscribes " In pursuant of warrant I have made the following assessment, April 30, 1833 " , so it was done in a month .
I can give you a small bit of information about what sort of work would have been done. I saw a program on the HIstory Channel the other day that detailed that slaves in the East were more likely to be part of small family farms, mining, and other industry. There weren't plantation sorts of vast slave holdings, but slaves were more used as support persons and labor along side of families and free men.
Originally posted by FredPuli: 2) What does SS after the County name mean ?
scilicet
It has nothing in particular to do with Luzerne County, but is just a way of pointing out the particular location (do a search on "county ss" and you'll see it appears on all sorts of legal documents for locations across the country at least).
Scilicet huh? How disappointing, considering what SS can stand for : Sea Scouts, State Senate, Secret Squirrel, Schutzstaffel, 'the SS' a unit functioning inter alia to round up enemies of the Party...
So it's boring old Latin. Good classical Latin too; back in classical times, in this context it meant ' officially so known ' from 'scire licet' 'it is lawful/ permitted to know'. It's lest there is some other place or body that is known informally or popularly by a like title. (Damn lawyers; they spend their whole time, and the clients' money, inventing unlikely or impossible problems and then addressing them , acting ultra safely or ex abundante cautela as they put it )
Hmm, Scotty. Yes, the document does bear a seal, in the form of an embossed 'wafer', but this seems to be what is referred to in the text as 'Witness our Seal of Office at Wilkesbarre....[signed] J Rambach, L. Furry, J. Tuttle Commissioners'
Of interest for this thread, the slave population for Luzern County was zero in 1830! The census being taken decennially, this is as close as one might get to an accurate count for 1833.
Race Relations In Pennsylvania might provide some interesting backdrop and notes that the census count for slaves is disputed as being either 403 or 386.
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Thanks again. Now the only mystery is how this document from Wilkes Barre came to be at an auction house in the small village of Wall- under -Heywood, Church Stretton in Shropshire,some 170 years later.
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