Excerpt from Pennsylvania Archives, 1897, Vol. 22

The present volume concludes the reprint of Provincial As sessments and of taxables during the Revolutionary period. The most valuable portion of these papers consists of the census of the inhabitants of certain counties taken during the year 1783 or 1784. The question may be asked, of what use are such papers, and the answer may be in somewhat the same tone, of what use are any papers? Since the commence ment of their publication, the Editor has received a large num ber of letters from prominent persons throughout the State, ex pressing their satisfaction at the publication of these assess ment lists. They show in numerous instances the dates when the early settlers came into their respective neighborhoods, and when these persons passed from off the stage of action, or removed into other localities. In all cases, it confirms the settlement of the early inhabitants and it is somewhat unfor tunate that all of the original assessment lists are not in the possession of the State. Fire and flood, with other causes, have lost to us many of these valuable papers. In the publica tion of these the Editor has confined himself strictly to the spelling of surnames as in the original papers, and a word of explanation is necessary lest those in search of information impute the many gross errors to the carelessness of the printer or the copyist. As will be seen members of the same family on the same assessment list may have their names spelled differently, and in no two years of scarcely any assessment list is there a uniformity. It was not the province of the Editor to make any corrections for it is a lamentable fact that even to-day, there are many individuals who do not know how to write their own names accurately.

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