UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 21, Page 3
February 27, 1992
Paper chase; Direct tax records help recreate Colonial landscape

     Recreating the early American landscape of 200 years ago from
1795 until 1801 is a paper chase, involving records from a federal
property tax, known as the Federal Direct Tax Census of 1798.
     No one knows better than Bernie Herman, associate director of
the Center for Historic Architecture and Engineering, and chief
investigator of a project, funded by a grant of $52,000 for two
years from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
     According to Herman, the Direct Tax was extremely unpopular,
even leading to taxpayer rebellion and riots. Although it was a
federal tax designed to fund any future wars with Great Britain, it
was up to localities to keep records and levy the taxes, and many
of the documents have been lost.
     Pennsylvania's Direct Tax records are in the National Archives
today. Other Direct Tax records are in private or state historical
collections, or, as is the case of the southeastern states, have
disappeared.
     For the Direct Tax, a property owner was required to list name
and occupation and describe his or her principal dwelling in terms
of construction materials, square footage, the number of stories,
Herman said. Windows also were recorded so that the tax was
informally known as the "window tax." The tax also documented some
tenant-occupied properties. Schedule A applied to houses worth more
than $100; schedule B to those less than $100.
     Another part of the tax focused on land holdings and other
structures on a property. In the case of farms, this included barns
and other agricultural buildings. The third part of the tax listed
the number of slaves.
     The tax not only applied to homes and farms, but to mills,
shops, warehouses and other commercial sites.
     Early-American urban landscapes have disappeared because of
development and landscape change over the past 200 years, but they
can be recreated through Direct Tax records where available, Herman
said.
     Urban industrialization can be reexamined, focusing on such
buildings as tanneries, mills, slaughterhouses and sugar houses and
where they were located within cities.
     The project will study domestic urban architecture as well, in
seaport cities, such as Philadelphia, Boston, Providence and
Baltimore. The research will examine not only the buildings
themselves, but how people used them and lived in them.
     One important find was made by Michael Steinitz of the
Massachusetts Historical Society, who is working on the project. He
discovered an atlas for Boston, drawn up by Sammuel Clough based on
direct tax information.
     Nancy Van Dolsen, a graduate student at the center, also is
uncovering forgotten records of the tax in such places as
Portsmouth, New Hampshire and the Hudson Valley in New York.
     Overall, preliminary research has shown that the concept of
late 18th century America as a rural land with prosperous farmers
inhabiting well-built houses is a misconception, according to
Herman. There were extremes of wealth and poverty. Average homes
were smaller and less substantial than earlier studies have
indicated, and many were without windows, Herman said.
     "Few lower-level houses have survived, but we can recreate
them from the descriptions from the tax records. On the other end
of the scale, we have descriptions of mansions that no longer
exist, such as the Derby mansion in Salem, Mass., and the Bingham
mansion in Philadelphia," Herman said.
     The study will focus on New England, the Mid-Atlantic states
and the Chesapeake area. The Direct Tax records will be studied in
conjunction with records of local revenue collectors and the 1800
census. These will give information on households, tenants and
livestock, filling in gaps of information from the Direct Tax
records.
     Another area being explored is the cultural and ethnic
communities in the eastern Pennsylvania area, with emphasis on
German, British Quaker and Anglo-American communities.
     The project will compare housing standards between different
parts of post-Colonial America and between urban and rural areas.
An important component of the program is developing a finder's
guide to the Direct Tax records. These records are scattered
broadly, and by canvassing historical societies, libraries and
archives, a directory of where tax records are held will be
compiled. This will enable scholars to locate more easily data that
is pertinent to their research.
     Others from the University of Delaware involved in the project
include David Ames, professor; Rebecca Siders, research associate
I, both from the College of Urban Affairs and Public Policy; and
Ritchie Garrison, associate professor, Museum Studies Program. In
addition, Steinitz, Richard Candee of Boston University and Orlando
Ridout V of Maryland Historic Trust also are members of the project
team.
                                        - Sue Swyers Moncure