This is an index to the official
tax rolls of the village of Cazenovia, NY, incorporated in 1810.
These lists are found in the first volume of the minutes of the Village
Trustees kept beginning in 1810. There was no tax raised during the
first year of the Village and thus there is no list for 1810, and because
the Village did not always need revenue (only $15.00 was needed in 1824!)
there were several years in this set without lists, these being 1819-20,
1826-7, and 1831-32. I have not transcribed the lists after 1833.
How these lists were compiled
is not known. There is no apparent order to the names - there are
not groups from various sections of the village or by street such as can
be seen in census records. It is clear that lists were copied from
the previous years list, or from a notebook, as a general repeated order
is seen from list to list and many spelling errors are carried over.
Absent property owners are probably not represented unless they owned a
considerable property, and in later years several entries of individuals
paying the taxes for others are noted. It may be that they were seeing
to the absentee's affairs, an indication of relationship, or perhaps because
the person paying is an occupant of the other's property.
It is sure that this collection
cannot be counted on to be a complete list of all those that were in possession
of property within the Village limits. Many known property owners
do not appear on the lists, and in many instances individuals disappear
for a year or two. Only ten people of the six hundred or so names
were on each list (the old die-hard Cazenovians such as Samuel Thomas,
Selah Munson, David B. Johnson, and Oran E. Baker to name some of them).
Dozens more were surely in Cazenovia for the full period covered by this
collection.
These lists can be used
for more than genealogical research. The value as a guide to show
if someone was in Cazenovia is apparent, but this collection can also be
used as a research tool for other interests. Real estate or property
study, histories of mills, tavern, and stores, and even the dating of houses
can be helped with this data. I doubt that there is any information
that is unique to this collection, but it is an excellent supplement to
other available data. As an example, it can be surmised that Noah
H. Coleman was the partner in the firm of Coleman & Stebbins, that
John Rowling and Edward Talbot were of Rowling & Talbot, that Brevoort
& Allis were succeeded by Allis & Nickerson, that Mary was the
widow of William Whipple, or that Justin Dwinnel purchased a new property
or built a house between 1813 and 1814. These were things that were
already known from other sources, but it is hoped that this collection
can be used to discover some of the unknown.
The original lists were
not changed in any way other than to alphabetize them for easier use.
Names and misspellings, as well as additional notes with the names were
retained as written. There was no order to the lists except that
of 1833 which had the names grouped by first letter of the last name.
All alphabetical arrangement and cross-indexing was done by myself "manually"
in WordPerfect (word processing). Although the original lists are
"as is" in the index many names have been corrected and names were standardized
(I know from other data that it is Mathew Chandler, Tertullus Crosby, and
John Rowling). I tried not to infer beyond what was positive from
what was given (Wm. = William) but Abm. did not necessarily become Abraham
(may be Abram). Indexing and cross-indexing was done in the most
seemingly logical manner but may not be perfect because of several difficulties.
"Munson, Burnell & Crosby" will be found under "Burnell & Crosby,
Munson." as well as "Crosby, Munson, Burnell &"
Tax lists are available
for many years after 1833, but it seemed most important to focus on getting
these first few years out (later lists are somewhat alphabetized for easy
search). This data matches well with what I have gleaned from newspapers,
deeds, and many miscellaneous records at Lorenzo from the same time period
(1800-1830). There is much material for this period available, but
the time involved in using it to the fullest potential is prohibitive without
compilations such as this.