Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys

The Frontiersmen of New York
by Jeptha R. Simms
Albany, NY 1883

Volume I, Page 245

Tax Lists.-The close of the French war left the colony of New York deeply in debt, and resort was had to direct taxation to sustain the government. The assessment was levied "By virtue of three acts of General Assembly of the Colony of New York; the first for the payment of the second .£100,000 tax, the second for the payment of the .£60,000 tax, and the third for the raising and collecting the arrears of several acts therein mentioned." The commissioners of Albany county, who set their hands and seals to the warrant sent " Mr. John Fonda, Collector for Mohawks," were " Rens. Nicoll, Marte Hallenbeck, Abraham Douw, and Cornelis Van Schaack." The warrant was dated at Albany, July 17, 1764. The tax on the citizens of the Mohawk valley amounted to £242,17 6-$607.19-and was collected, except $2.81 bad debts, and receipted by John Stevenson for James Stevenson, in Albany, the 11th of October following. Were not part of this tax list gone, I would present it to the reader. The following are some of the largest sums taxed to individuals on the portions of the manuscript remaining, which still contains 90 names, with a quota from one pound upward :

The quota on the portion of this tax list remaining, foots up £671, and the taxes assessed on it are $83,17 6. As the whole assessment is set down as £1,943, and the tax levied at £24 2,17 6, it is quite evident that full two-thirds of the names are lacking, since no one else could have been seized with a sum at all approximating to that of Sir William Johnson. As the names remaining are mostly Low Dutch from Schenectada up the valley, leaving out the Visschers, Fondas, Veeders, Van Eppses, Quackenbushes and Wemples about Fonda, it is quite apparent that the portion gone traversed the German settlements above, embracing the Dockstaders, Freys, Ehles, Wagners, Foxes, Herkimers, Petries, Finks, Eisenlords, Moyers, Country mans, and scores of others liable to be taxed in the settlements west of Fonda. The collector's fees on this occasion were six pence per pound.

The following tax list will show the names of many of the citizens then living in the two eastern districts of Tryon county, and their comparative wealth at that period. The manuscript, which has been preserved among the papers of the late Maj. Fonda, is without date. It is written in a fair, legible hand, and must have been executed a few years prior to the Revolution.