y
the freeholders of the county. In office, his task became one of
laying off the county into districts, assessing property, and
notifying the owner of the tax due.

The commissioners of the tax were created in 1777, and lasted until
1782 when a new official, the commissioner of the revenue was
established.[62] The new commissioner took responsibility for making
assessments of taxable property under a simplified procedure, and the
office has remained as a unique feature of Virginia's local government
to the present time.

_Court Days_

As the institution of the county court grew during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries and became the hub of county government, the
monthly sessions of the court furnished an opportunity for general
gatherings of the county's residents and visitors to transact both
public and personal business. A scene that must have been typical of
almost any Virginia county in the early nineteenth century has been
described by historian John Wayland as follows:

Court day once a month was looked upon as a great event; everyone
that could leave home was at hand. It was a day of great interest;
farmers coming in with their produce, such as butter and eggs, and
other articles which they exchanged for groceries and dry goods.
The streets around the courthouse were thronged with all sorts of
men; others, on horseback, riding up and down trying to sell their
horses. Men in home made clothes, old rusty hats that had seen
several generations, coarse shoes and no stockings, some without
coat or vest, with only shirt and pants....

This was a day to settle old grudges. When a man got too much
whiskey he was very quarrelsome and wanted to fight.... It was,
also, a great day for the gingerbread and molasses beer. The cake
sellers had [tables] in front of the courthouse, spread with white
cloths, with cakes piled high upon them and with kegs of beer
nearby. I have seen the jurymen let down hats from the windows
above, get them filled with gingerbread and a jug of beer sent up
by rope. About four or five o'clock the crowd began to start for
home.[63]

For anyone who had business with the court, whether he or she came as
a petitioner or a penitent, the justices, clerk, sheriff, and other
officials represented the presence of power and authority as colonial
Virginia knew it. But it was a presence in which men stood on little
ceremon