(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION) Manuscript tax book for Truro Parish

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(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Manuscript tax book for Truro Parish, Virginia, noting Washington, Lee, and Mason family slaves. [12], 175, [15] manuscript leaves. 4to, contemporary calf, boards detached; several leaves torn out (presumably blanks) before and after the numbered section, minor dampstaining. Truro, VA, 1818

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Virginia's Truro Parish was an ecclesiastical division which came to cover the southern portion of Fairfax County, southwest of the District of Columbia. This tax collector's ledger kept by a deputy sheriff lists hundreds of property owners, more or less alphabetically. The debit side of each left-facing page lists property and taxes due, often specifying the number of slaves, horses, and acreage owned. On the opposite page, payments are recorded. The families of several important founding fathers are recorded. Bushrod Washington. Jr. (1785-1831) (grand-nephew President George Washington) is taxed on page 151 for "9 levys, 11 slaves & 4 horses . . . 1 gig . . . 90 acres land." William, George and John Mason (apparently the children or grandchildren of the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights) are listed on pages 98-101. George and William were each taxed for 16 slaves and William Mason paid his tax bill in part through "sale of Negro Bill" for $675. Francis Lightfoot Lee II (son of Declaration signer Richard Henry Lee) appears on page 91. Provenance: through descendants and relatives of the deputy sheriff George Millan until given to Melvin Lee Steadman of Fairfax, VA in 1951.