John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes
Note 155
The last note quoted the Petition of the German Congregation from the book
by W.P. Huddle, "
History of the Hebron Lutheran Church
". It was almost a
hundred years ago that Rev. Huddle wrote the first edition which has been
updated with an Epilogue much more recently by Margaret Davis. Rev. Huddle
made a sincere attempt to be honest in his writing but in some instances he
simply did not have the information that we have today.
Taxes to the church have been discussed recently. These were based on the
polls or tithables of all males 16 and over and of all female servants 16
and over whether white or black. The head of the household was responsible
for paying the tax. In many cases a young adult male would be living with
another family besides his natural family though technically he was not a
servant. He would usually be enumerated separately and be charged to the
head of household.
The tithe list, the same one in fact, would be used to collect two taxes.
One was for the costs of the county government. The other tax was payable to
the church. The sheriff or his deputies collected these taxes. In the case
of the church tax, the church paid a percentage to the sheriff for the
collection. The collector's comments, when available, are interesting for
they explain why the collector could not get the money. They include "left
the county", "imbecile", "committed suicide", "ran away", or "died".
One also had to pay something to the Colony of Virginia. Called the "public
levy", this tax was assessed for the benefit of the general government. This
annual tax could be supplemented by a special tax, perhaps for raising an
army in a time of need. If you owned land purchased from the Crown, quit
rents at two shillings per 100 acres were due. This corresponds to our
property tax.
Tithe lists permit population estimates to be made. For example, the
Spotsylvania 1723 tithables numbered 630 which would be about 150 households
based on four tithes per household. The head of the family, two sons and one
slave might constitute this. Then count a wife, two daughters, and a young
servant and the population, white and black, is about 1,250 persons in the
county. This was in the original county consisting of today's Spotsylvania,
Orange, Greene, Culpeper, Madison, and Rappahannock Counties. So the
population was very sparse, especially to the west of Germanna where it was
essentially non-existent. By 1726, the population was probably around 1,750,
a growth of 500 people or 40 percent in three years.
Spotswood always described the First and Second Germanna Colonies as
"freemen", not as servants. This may have been an attempt to avoid
responsibility for the payment of the taxes for servants. At other times, he
described them, at least by implication, as servants. For example, he said
they were tenants but that he didn't charge them any rent. And, he used the
names of 48 of the Second Colony members toward the cost of the land for
which he had to pay. Normally these headrights are associated with servants.
And he admitted paying their transportation costs.