Washington County, Virginia 1770 Taxlist

The following list of Titheables was taken from Robert Douthat Stoner, A Seed-Bed of the Republic: A Study of the Pioneers in the Upper (Southern) Valley of Virginia (Roanoke, Va., 1962),  The Roanoke Historical Society. The list is described as that taken by Robert Douk [sic: Doak], and submitted to the court dated 16 June 1770. At the time the county involved would be Botetourt. The list is further described as being taken for the area from the "head of Reedy Creek to Stalnakers". "Stalnakers" refers to Samuel Stalnakers home in what is now Chilhowie, Smyth County, VA. (Stalnaker was a very early settler in this area, having established himself at Chilhowie by 1748; Dr. Thomas Walker's Journal makes specific mention of stopping at Stalnakers home on his way to the Cumberland Gap.  The tithable area apparently began at the headwaters of Reedy Creek, a tributary that enters the Holston at Kingsport, TN.  It is not clear if any of the titheables were living in the Reedy Creek;  excluding the Reedy Creek area the area includes that portion of modern Washington County, south of Clinch Mountain, and extending as far as Chilhowie in Smyth County.  It apparently also includes the area immediately around the modern community of Saltville, in Smyth Co.  The original source for this list is not indicated in Stoner, 1962.  Note:  The order of presentaiton follows the two column display given in Stoner.  The last 18 entries may reflect a third column that was tacked onto the end possibly due to space limitations. If this is the case then perhaps the list geographically ordered, and should be read left to right, rather than top to bottom. In this interpretation there are hints that persons known to have been living near each other, are in adjacent columns.