Two 1747 Brookland, Kings County, New York Tax Warrant, Together with a 1789–90 Kings County Sheriff’s Account for Summoning Grand Juries.
Kings County, Province of New York [Brooklyn]: 1747; and Kings County, New York, 1789–90. Three manuscript documents on two pages, measuring approximately 8 ¼ x 13 inches; relating to county taxation and court administration in Kings County, including two early colonial warrants directed to the assessors and collector of “Brookland”; i.e., Brooklyn. Extensively repaired with archival tape with damage especially to right margin and at folds, intersecting with text. Fair. Item #List3854 Two colonial-era Kings County tax warrants, issued in the twenty-first year of the reign of George II, commanding the assessors and collector of Brookland to raise the town’s share of the county rate. Addressed “To the assessors & Collector of Brookland,” the documents open in formal warrant language: “Kings County. To the assessors & Collector of Brookland These One warrant directs the local officers “to assess, collect and gather of and from every shop, scholar, inhabitants & resident neighbors within your town, and precincts thereof, their equal part, share, & proportion” of the town’s tax burden, specified as “the full and just sum of twenty six pounds & four pence Current Money of New York.” The money was to be paid to “Mr. Peter Lefferts, Treasurer for the County aforesaid,” by the appointed February deadline. The second 1747 document directs the local officers to collect “Tax on Estates, real and Personal[?], for the More Effectuall fortifying [of] this Colony &c.,” to the tune of thirteen thousand pounds. The language is especially useful for showing the practical mechanics of colonial local government: the county supervisors apportioning the tax, the town assessors and collector gathering it from inhabitants, and the county treasurer receiving it. It further gives the collector authority in the event of nonpayment: “if any person or persons shall long refuse or neglect to pay their parts, shares or proportions of the said sum of twenty six pounds and four pence being assessed as abovesaid, it shall and may be lawful to and for you to levy [illegible due to fold split and crease], on the goods & chattels of the defaulters, having regard to the laws of this Colony […]” The document closes in the usual form, “hereof you are not to fail,” adding that the warrant is given “under our hands & seals this Sixth day of [paper loss] in the twenty first year of his Majesty’s Reign, Anno Dom’i 1747.” Both are signed by Kings County supervisors S. Gerritsen, Isaac Sebring, John Verkerk, Marten Schenck, and Leffert Lefferts, with one signature illegible. Lefferts, of the prominent Lefferts family, co-founded and served as the first president of the Long Island Bank, Brooklyn’s first bank, and was the first judge of Kings County. On the verso of the first colonial-era warrant is a later Kings County account, 1789–90, submitted to Sheriff Charles Turnbull, a Revolutionary War veteran who took office as Brooklyn’s High Sheriff in 1789. The account records ordinary county legal expenses, including: “April 20 / To Summoning Grand Jury - £1-4 - Taken together, the two documents offer an appealing Kings County grouping: two colonial Brookland tax warrants and an early Federal sheriff’s account. The 1747 warrants are the stronger piece, particularly for the direct address to the town’s assessors and collector, county tax language, and reference to Peter Lefferts as county treasurer. The later sheriff’s account is less dramatic, but it pairs naturally as another Kings County administrative document, this time showing court-related duties such as summoning grand juries and preparing a list of freeholders.
We hereunder written, being Supervisors for the Respective towns of the County abovesaid, in the Province of New York; To the Assessors and Collector of Brookland, Greeting, in his Majesty’s name you and each of you, are hereby [..?..] strictly required and commanded […]”
To Making a List of Freeholders 1-10 -
Sept. 4 To Summoning Grand Jury of Supreme Court 1-4 -
[..?..] Term To Cash paid for Candles &c. 0-5 -
1790 To Summoning Grand Jury 1-4 -
fall term / To Summoning Grand Jury 1-4 -
£6-11”
Price: $950.00