16 October 1876 • Hartford, Conn. (MS, in pencil: CtHMTH, UCCL 01376)
(SUPERSEDED)
Dr Sir: Will you let your clerk take the marked items from the old list? I’ve lost my copy of last year’s. ? 1explanatory note
Have I got to go down & put in the list & swear to it?
Do you observe the clause beginning “By the law of 1872? (on tother side.)” I’d hate to have to leave the State, but I would much rather do it than be robbed under cover of the law.2explanatory note
Clemens was preparing a list of his property for the Hartford tax assessors (see 5 Oct 76 to Perkinsclick to open link, n. 2). Residents’ lists, itemizing holdings of real estate, insurance stock, bank stock, money loaned at interest, and merchandise, were due by 1 November, with a ten percent penalty for late filers. Assessed values were made public in the March following the fall filing, and taxes on them were payable by 15 July. Clemens’s two previous valuations, published on 30 March 1875 and 22 March 1876, were $84,450 and $63,360, respectively (for his most recent tax payment, see 29? June 76 to the First National Bank of Hartford or George P. Bissell and Co.click to open link). On 12 March 1877, on the basis of the list he now submitted, his published valuation was $66,650 (Hartford Courant: “Calls on Tax-Payers,” 31 Oct 74, 2; “Hartford’s Heavy Tax-Payers,” 30 Mar 75, 1; “The Tax Lists,” 30 Oct 75, 1; “The Large Tax-Payers of Hartford,” 22 Mar 76, 2, clipping in Scrapbook 8:27, CU-MARK; “Brief Mention,” 1 Nov 76, 2; “Hartford’s Heavy Tax-Payers,” 12 Mar 77, 2).
The document enclosed for Perkins, evidently the tax assessors’ request for Clemens’s property list, has not been recovered.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
See Perkins Collection in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.