John Logan’s 1836 Tax Receipt from Sheriff William Wilkins

Rec’d of John Logan Esq twenty two dollars and two cent his tax in full for the year 1836

Wm Wilkins Sheriff

William Wilkins was a first year sheriff when this receipt was written. He was the Sheriff of Rutherford County from 1836 to 1838 and again from 1842 to 1846. Wilkins also served as a representative to the North Carolina General Assembly. He was also clerk of the county court of pleas and quarter sessions.

There is some interesting history in regards to the Sheriffs of Rutherford County that I found in a 18 Dec 1930 Forest City Courier article. I’ve updated some of the facts from the article.

William Carson and J. Ed McFarland are the only other Sheriffs beside William Wilkins of Rutherford County to serve for a period and then at another date. Carson was the first man to be elected by popular vote of the people. The justices appointed the sheriffs for a period of one year until 1830, when the popular vote system was inaugurated.

Five “sets” of fathers and sons served in this office. They are Andrew Hampton and his son Jonathan Hampton; Garland Dickerson and his son, M. O. Dickerson; A.B. Long and his son, G. W. Long; Martin Walker and his son, Noah Walker; John E. McFarland and his son, J. V. McFarland, and the grandson of John McFarland son of J.V. McFarland held the office. Robert Irvine and Abram Irvine were brothers, also John H. Alley and Frederick F. Alley.

Six of the Sheriffs before 1930 were war veterans. Richard Singleton, Andrew Hampton, John Lewis and James Winthrow all served in the Revolutionary War. Abram Irvine was a colonel in the War of 1812. M. O. Dickerson was a captain in the Indian Removal of 1838 as well as in the Civil War. It’s crazy to imagine that when this tax receipt was written, the Trail of Tears was two years away from happening.

The article also mentions a very interesting tidbit:

The county has been unusually fortunate in securing as officials men of integrity, ability, and above all , honesty. During the entire period of the county’s history there has been only one defaulter in this office. This defaulter became involved in unsuccessful speculation ventures, lost his property and carried six other prominent Rutherford county men to ruin. His six bondsmen finally reimbursed the county for the defaulter’s shortage, but it broke them up.

I wonder who that could have been? Sounds like another good research project!

Until 1810 there was no standard currency in the country which made the task of collecting taxes very difficult for sheriff’s at the time. One of the sheriff’s deputies in 1795 reported that he had collected “above 500 bushels of Indian corn”, a quantity of pelts, and three gallons of West India rum. The sheriffs themselves were also paid in produce collected and not with hard money.

Much like William Wilkins, several of these sheriffs served in other political offices. James Winthrow, Richard Singleton and John J. Alley also served as representatives in the General Assembly. Richard Singleton, Martin Walker, and Jonathan Hampton served as members of the state senate. Garland Dickerson was coroner of the county for a number of years. M.O. Dickerson was clerk of the Superior Court.

If you have any ideas about improving this rough transcription, please share in the comments below. 

About the Logan Project: I possess a box of 170 documents passed down 6 generations in the Logan family that originate from John Logan (1775-1841) of Rutherford County, NC. These documents are mainly receipts that show the various business and legal dealings of many different families from Rutherford County, NC. I will be posting these documents on this blog in chronological order. The scanned images of these documents are the copyright of Jonathan Medford. You are welcome to download them for personal use. Do not redistribute these documents for the purpose of commercial gain without his expressed written permission. If you would like to start reading them from the first document, you can start here.