Early American Connecticut Document Sending Tax Collector To Prison For Not Paying Taxes: “Collector Of The State Taxes For Said Town…Has Neglected To Make Payment Of The Three Penny Tax”

JEDIDIAH HUNTINGTON (1743-1818). Huntington was an American general during the Revolution before serving as Treasurer for the State of Connecticut and a customs house collector for Rhode Island and Connecticut from 1789 until his death. DS. 2 pg. 7” x 12”. February 16, 1789. Connecticut. A partly-printed document signed “Jed Huntington Treasurer” and directed “To the Sheriff of Litchfield”. This official state document, partially handwritten and partially printed, asserts that “Mr. Elijah Woodward who was Constable of the town of Watertown in the County of Litchfield and Collector of the State Taxes for said Town…has neglected to make payment of the Three penny Tax…amounting to the Sum of Two hundred twenty two pounds fourteen shilling & six pence”. As a result, that amount, plus a one shilling and six pence penalty, will be taken from Woodward’s possessions or he must be imprisoned within the next sixty days. On the back of the document, in the hand of the Sheriff referenced above, is his response: “Then by virtue of the Execution and for want of Estate I Levied the same on the Body of the within named Elijah Woodward – and said the same in his hearing; and before I had opportunity to convey hm to Goal; I recd a Discharge from under the hands of the Selectmen of the Town of Watertown”. This response confirms that Woodward was not imprisoned or fined, at least initially. Little record remains of Woodward; in his obituary from 1840, it only notes that his age, 92, fit within a pattern of longevity for his immediate family. Regardless, debtors’ prison was a common way to deal with debt and financial mismanagement, deliberately or otherwise, in the early United States and Western Europe. The United States ostensibly eliminated the imprisonment of debtors under federal law in 1833, but individual states maintained the practice for decades longer. Therefore, this document is a fascinating reminder of a common early American legal practice. It is in fine condition, though the paper is thin.