second rate

The Clark County Court House was one of my favorite places to visit. It housed my families' records dating back to 1795 when Timothy Ewen (we pronounced it U-IN) was being taxed on 50 acres of land located on of all places, 4 mile creek! One thing I learned very quickly was that the words and spellings could vary remarkably even within the same record. In this "Land Book Second", he is listed as Timothy Euwin under the column "Owners Names". The next column was titled "County where lying" given as "Clarke". The next column was "water course" given as "4 mile". "Quantity of acres" followed showing "50". Then what followed were narrow columns for "first rate", "second rate", and "third rate" which I assumed referred to the quality of the land being taxed. The 50 acres of land that Timothy was being taxed was "second rate"! I laughed, we were considered second rate folks way back then. The last page of this record summarized the tax situation for Clark County in 1795. The summary stated:

Tax on 1249 Slaves

" 4958 Horses

" 16441 Cattle

" 31 Stud Horses

" 7 Oliances [assumed to be ordinary]

" 5 retail Stores

" 55,866 acres of 1st rate land

" --,-576 acres of 2nd [part damaged]

" 292,998 - Do- 3rd rate [Do used to mean ditto]

[an ordinary was a tavern or eating house serving regular meals]

So there you have it. The Clark County tax list of 1795! What were those two main events? Birth....Death. Well here is what happened between. Taxes.