John Beard, sheriff of Rowan County, petitions the General Assembly for more than $370 to repay two out-of-state slaveholders who successfully argued in the Superior Court of Rowan County that Beard improperly collected taxes on their slaves as they passed through the county. Beard reports that, on 22 January 1819, he collected a tax of $190 from William H. Hanford on nineteen slaves that Hanford was transporting to Tennessee; on 19 January 1819 he taxed John Morton $180 on eighteen slaves that Morton was carrying to Georgia. He further recounts that he then forwarded the money collected to the state treasurer. Citing that Hanford and Morton sued him for unfair taxation, the petitioner states that the Rowan County Superior Court found in favor of the complainants, "the Court being of opinion that Negro slaves purchased in this State & taken to another state for Sale were not liable to the Tax imposed by the Laws of 1817 and 1818"; Hanford and Morton ordered Beard to repay them the collected tax plus interest. He therefore prays the General Assembly to "pass a law directing the Treasurer to pay to him the amount of the said Judgements rendered against him in Rowan Superior Court in favor of said William H. Hanford and John Morton for money collected from them as a Tax on Negro Slaves passing through this state."
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
