Jackson County Poll Tax Records for 1895

JCGL holds an original hand-written 1895 poll tax record (VF6121). The table below is a transcription of that record.

The Poll (head) Tax law in Jackson County served two purposes. The first was to establish the eligibility to cast a vote in Jackson County elections. The second was to generate the work force necessary to build and maintain County roads. The County Assessor established the value of each person’s holdings and used the value to compute the number of work days required to pay the tax in lieu of actual dollar payment. This 1895 list contains Jackson County resident’s names, amount assessed, poll, number of days to work, those days already worked, cash in lieu of, and delinquent days. N. A. Jacobs was Clerk of the County Court, E. Smith was Deputy Clerk, D. Chapman served as supervisor. An additional title listed on this document is: “Two Days labor for each Poll, and the Ratio of one day’s work for each $1000 assessed.” A researcher should always check the end of the county list where the clerk would often add the names of the late, delinquent, and insolvent. There is such a list of Delinquent Payments in this File. These names reflect those in the printed list, but the assessed values are often different. (There is no date accompanying these delinquent figures.) There are a few additional names not originally listed, with assessments of 1895 in this file. This list can help as a census substitute for this time period.