Crawford County, Pennsylvania
Courthouse
TAX DUPLICATES
(preliminary listings)
| Crawford County | 1800 | 1801 | 1802 | 1803 | 1804 | 1805 |
| Erie County | 1800 | 1801 | 1802 | |||
| Mercer County | 1800 | 1801 | 1802 | |||
| Venango County | 1800 | 1801 | 1802 | 1803 | 1804 | 1805 |
| Warren County | 1801 | 1802 | 1803 |
to take an account of all the names and surnames, in alphabetical order, or otherwise, as the [county] commissioners may direct, of all taxable inhabitants within their townships, wards or districts, and of the following articles, hereby made taxable, viz. all lands held by patent, warrant, location or improvement; houses and lots and ground and ground-rents, all grist-mills, saw-mills, sulling-mills, slitting-mills, rolling-mills, hemp-mills, oil-mills, snuff-mills, paper-mills and powder-mills; all furnaces, forges, bloomeries, distilleries, sugar-houses, malt-houses, breweries, tan-yards and ferries; all negro and mulatto slaves; all horses, mares, geldings and cattle, above the age of four years; and all offices and posts of profit, trades and occupations (ministers of the gospel, of every denomination, and school-masters, only excepted) and of all single freeman above the age of twenty-one years, who shall not follow any occupation or calling....Locally, the major categories of taxable “articles” were land and livestock, with a cow valued at $13, an ox worth two cows, and a horse equal to three cows. Assessment rates were to be set by the county commissioners, based upon projected expenditures, but limited to ten dollars on any taxable trade or occupation and to one cent per dollar of adjusted property valuation. The rate for Crawford County was fixed initially at 6 mills. Tax rates in adjacent counties varied from 2½ to 4 mills, but valuations were sometimes adjusted higher. The county commissioners were to have their clerks prepare transcripts of the assessments, or “duplicates,” for the collection of taxes by the assessor or tax collector. Duplicates dating from the county’s formation in 1800 are now in the possession of the Crawford County Historical Society, and have been filmed by the Pennsylvania State Archives. Those for the townships of Mead, “Conniautt,” and Oil Creek (covering the central, western, and eastern portions of Crawford County, respectively, as well as Warren and part of Erie counties) are transcribed here in their original order. The columns correspond to 1) page number; 2) name of taxpayer; 3) assessed occupations and property, and their values; and 4) total taxes, except for 5) the tax levied on single men [50¢] and occupations, if taxed separately. Names are spelled as written, but commas have been added for clarity. An asterisk (*) indicates that the tax imposed does not correspond to the assessed valuation—possibly a clerk’s transcription error. Crawford County in 1800 was the judicial center for all of northwestern Pennsylvania, and hence the tax rolls from adjacent counties are included with the county duplicates. There was apparently some uncertainty regarding the boundary lines of the newly formed counties: Some persons taxed in Allegheny Township, Venango County, for instance, are known from other sources to have been Crawford County residents in 1800.