1

Ethnic and Economic Diversity in York

County at the Conclusion of the

Revolutionary War

by

David A. Latzko

Business and Economics Division

Pennsylvania State University, York Campus

1031 Edgecomb Avenue

York, PA 17403

phone: 717-771-4115

fax: 717-771-4062

e-mail: dlatzko@psu.edu

2

Ethnic and Economic Diversity in York County at the

Conclusion of the Revolutionary War

Abstract

The 1783 manuscript tax lists provide a means to examine the diversity of ethnic and economic

characteristics of the people of York County following the Revolutionary War. Based on

presumed national origin, about 54 percent of free white inhabitants were German, with 32

percent Scotch-Irish and 14 percent English/Quaker. Germans largely lived in the center of the

county while the Scotch-Irish predominated in the southeastern and western townships. Only

Newberry Township was mostly English/Quaker. Townships in northwestern York County were

the most ethnically diverse. Although unequally distributed across households, shares of

assessed wealth by nationality were about the same as the shares of households by nationality.

The majority of those with a trade were engaged making clothing and footwear. The Scotch-

Irish were the principal slave owners in York County, but slaves were owned by households of

every national background. Livestock ownership rates were highest in the western half of the

county.

3

Ethnic and Economic Diversity in York County at the Conclusion of the

Revolutionary War

The Revolutionary War formally ended in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on

September 3rd. Earlier that year the Pennsylvania legislature passed “An Act for Providing the

Quota of Federal Supplies for the Year 1783, and for the Relief of the Citizens of This State who

Have Become Creditors of the United States of America by Loans of Money and Other Modes

of Furnishing Public Supplies”, which levied taxes on persons and real and personal property to

support the war effort.1 The act made taxable

“the time of servitude of all bound servants above the age of

fourteen years; all negro and mulatto slaves above the age of

twelve years; all horses, mares and horned cattle above three years

old; sheep, plate, coaches, berlins, landaus, chariots, calashes,

chaises, caravans, riding chairs and other carriages kept by any

person for his or her own use, and for the purposes of traveling or

pleasure; all lands held by deed, warrant, location or improvement;

houses and lots of ground and ground-rents; all grist-mills, saw-

mills, fulling-mills, slitting and rolling-mills, hemp-mills, oil-mills,

snuff-mills and paper-mills; all forges, furnaces, bloomeries,

distilleries, sugar-houses, malt-houses, breweries, tan-yards and

ferries, wares and merchandise; and all offices and posts of profit,

and all professions, trades and occupations.”2

And, unlike in prior years when only taxable individuals were enumerated, assessors were

directed to “make a true and full return of … the number of … inhabitants, distinguishing white

from black.”3 The 1783 manuscript tax lists, preserved on microfilm at the York County

Archives provide an opportunity to examine the ethnic and economic diversity of the people of

York County at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.4

4

Figure 1. York County Townships in 1783.

York County in 1783 included townships that were later separated to form Adams

County (Figure 1), and I include these townships in this analysis.5 The tax returns provide the

name of the head of household and the number of inhabitants for each taxable household in the

township, along with other information about the household.6 The lists contain the names of a

number of non-residents, individuals who owned land in the township but lived elsewhere in

York County. For example, Patrick McSherry, the fourth wealthiest person in the county in

1783, owned land in Germany, Heidelberg, Mount Joy, and Mount Pleasant Townships. Multi-

listing also occurred because farms sometimes extended across township lines and land was

taxed by township. To correct for multiple listings of the same household, I attempted to identify

the township in which the primary dwelling was located and to eliminate the secondary listings.

This was done by assigning a household to the township in which it was credited with a non-zero

5

Table 1

Household Counts by Presumed National Origin

The table reports the number of households in York County in 1783 by nationality for each

township.

Township

Total

Dutch

English/

Quaker

French

German

Scotch-

Irish

Other/

Unassigned

Berwick 253 1 23 5 127 97 -

Chanceford 232 - 10 2 40 179 1

Codorus 179 - 2 3 167 7 -

Cumberland 305 - 15 4 36 250 -

Dover 233 - 12 5 194 20 2

Fawn 169 - 22 - 7 140 -

Germany 156 - 1 3 123 29 -

Hamiltonban 227 - 14 2 27 184 -

Heidelberg 223 - 10 1 188 24 -

Hellam 127 - 7 - 105 15 -

Hopewell 184 - 10 1 55 117 1

Huntington 238 - 57 1 94 84 2

Manchester 271 - 24 4 225 18 -

Manheim 254 - 6 2 227 17 2

Menallen 175 - 56 1 43 75 -

Monaghan 179 - 39 1 57 82 -

Mt. Joy 101 - 5 2 20 74 -

Mt. Pleasant 136 2 15 3 62 53 1

Newberry 356 - 254 2 79 21 -

Paradise 177 - 6 3 161 7 -

Reading 169 - 16 2 84 67 -

Shrewsbury 200 - 14 - 154 32 -

Straban 145 7 12 12 24 90 -

Tyrone 66 - 8 - 12 46 -

Warrington 225 - 114 - 67 44 -

Windsor 204 - 13 1 169 21 -

York 202 - 8 1 170 22 1

Yorktown 339 - 56 7 236 40 -

York County 5,725 10 829 68 2,953 1,855 10

6

Figure 2. Population Density (free white inhabitants per square mile).

number of inhabitants. About 3.5 percent of landholders were removed in this way from the list

of households. I identify a total of 5,725 distinct households in York County, including 449

taxables residing outside of the county. Table 1 provides the number of households in each

township.7

The tax returns also list the single freemen residing in each township, with a total of 457

for the county. The statutes defined a single freemen as being twenty-one years of age or older

and out of his apprenticeship at least six months.8 Single freemen were usually but not always

listed separately from the landholders in the tax lists. Single freemen in York County were most

often either the unmarried sons of landholders or skilled or unskilled wage laborers. I include

single freemen in the population aggregates below but not in any of the household counts.

The population of York County in 1783 included 29,357 free whites. Figure 2 maps the

population density across townships, ranging from a high of 332 persons per square mile in

Yorktown to a low of 12 persons per square mile in Menallen Township. The figure indicates

7

Table 2

Population Counts by Presumed National Origin

The table reports the number of free white inhabitants in York County in 1783 by nationality.

that the population of York County was concentrated across the center of the county, which

included the relatively urban areas of Yorktown, Bottstown, Dover, Hanover, Abbotstown, New

Oxford, and Littlestown. Population was least dense in the southeastern and western portions of

the county.

I assign households to national groups using compilations of church registries and

immigration lists, numerous family histories shelved at the York County History Center, and

surname analysis.9 The methodology is admittedly imprecise and I have no way of estimating

the degree of uncertainty.10 The major groups are the Germans and German-speaking Swiss, the

Scotch-Irish with whom I include any Irish or Scots, the English/Quakers which includes a11

non-English Quakers and emigrants from Wales, the Dutch, the French, and Other/Unassigned.

This last category includes one Swedish household. Table 1 reports the number of households in

each category for each township and the county as a whole. The two most numerous groups

were the Germans and the Scotch-Irish, 52 percent and 32 percent of all households in York

County in 1783. Table 2 breaks down the county’s free white population by presumed national

origin. About 54 percent of inhabitants were of German origin, with 32 percent Scotch-Irish and

14 percent English/Quaker.

County

Total

Dutch

English/

Quaker

French

German

Scotch-

Irish

Other/

Unassigned

29,357 65 3,991 415 15,718 9,318 30

8

Figure 3. Population Distribution by Presumed National Origin (townships with a population

share of two-thirds or more from one ethnic group).

Figure 3 highlights those townships in which one ethnic group made up at least two-

thirds of the white inhabitants. The map shows that the Germans largely lived in the center of

the county while the Scotch-Irish predominated in the southeastern and western townships. Only

Newberry Township was mostly English/Quaker. Townships in the northwestern portion of

York County were more ethnically diverse. I calculated an index of ethnic fractionalization for

each township by computing the share of township population for each national group, squaring

that share, adding them up, and subtracting the total from one. The index would have a value of

zero if all of the population came from the same national group. So, the higher the value, the

more ethnically diverse the township. Huntington and Menallen Townships, where Germans

made up 43 percent and 26 percent of the population and the Scotch-Irish accounted for 36

percent and 46 percent, were the most ethnically diverse areas of York County in 1783. The

9

Figure 4. Average Size of Land Holdings (in acres).

largely German townships were the least diverse. Over 90 percent of the inhabitants of Codorus

and Manheim Townships were of German descent.

Figure 4 maps the average size of landholdings by township and Table 4 reports the

average by nationality. Scotch-Irish farms tended to be about 25 acres larger than those of

English/Quaker and German farmers. In spite of having larger farms, the Scotch-Irish owned

less taxable wealth than their English/Quaker and German neighbors. The taxable items listed

above were valued by the assessors at what they were worth or would sell for. So, land, for

example, was valued based on both the amount and the quality of the land. Trades, included in

the assessed wealth, were valued at the discretion of assessors, “having due regard to the profits

arising from them.”11 The Reverend Jacob Pellence of the Conewago Chapel in Heidelberg

Township was credited with the highest assessed wealth, 3,511 Pennsylvania pounds. Elizabeth

10

Table 3

Ethnic Diversity

The table reports the index of ethnic fractionalization for each township. The index is equal to 1

minus the sum of the share of each national group in the township squared; the higher the value,

the more ethnically diverse the township.

Township Index

Huntington 0.65

Menallen 0.65

Monaghan 0.64

Mt. Pleasant 0.62

Warrington 0.62

Reading 0.60

Straban 0.60

Berwick 0.59

Tyrone 0.53

Hopewell 0.51

Yorktown 0.49

Mt. Joy 0.47

Newberry 0.46

Chanceford 0.36

Shrewsbury 0.36

Germany 0.35

Cumberland 0.33

Hamiltonban 0.30

Manchester 0.29

Fawn 0.28

Windsor 0.27

Heidelberg 0.26

Dover 0.25

Hellam 0.25

York 0.24

Paradise 0.20

Manheim 0.16

Codorus 0.13

11

Table 4

Land Holdings, Assessed Wealth, Household Size, and Female Headed Households by

Presumed National Origin

The table reports average size of land holdings (in acres), assessed wealth per household (in

Pennsylvania pounds), the average size of households (number of white free inhabitants), and the

percentage of female headed households in York County in 1783 by nationality.

Acres Held Assessed Wealth Household Size Female Headed

Dutch 182.5 250.7 5.9 10.0%

English/Quaker 137.3 179.0 5.4 4.6%

French 147.8 250.1 6.2 2.9%

German 136.4 176.8 5.5 2.5%

Scotch-Irish 162.3 166.1 5.3 3.2%

Chesney of Newberry Township (English and Quaker households were most likely to be female

headed) and Frederick Eichelberger of Manchester both had real and personal wealth valued at

over £2,500.

Table 5 provides some summary information on the distribution of wealth across

households. The top 20 percent of households possessed nearly 60 percent of the taxable wealth

in York County. The top 1 percent, some 57 households, owned 8 percent of the wealth and the

richest six households, the top 0.1 percent, had 1.5 percent of all the assessed wealth in the

county. Figure 5 is a graph of the distribution of wealth across York County households. On the

horizontal axis, every household is lined up from poorest to richest, while the vertical axis shows

the level of each household’s assessed wealth relative to the average wealth per household of

£174. 6 percent of households had no assessed wealth at all and 10 percent had less than £10.

To put that in perspective, in April 1783 the wholesale price of common flour in Philadelphia

12

Table 5

Distribution of Wealth Across Households

The table reports the share of total assessed wealth in York County in 1783 by quintile.

Wealth Quintile Share of Total Wealth (percent)

Bottom 20% 1.1

Second 20% 5.4

Third 20% 12.4

Fourth 20% 23.0

Top 20% 58.1

was £2 per hundredweight and wheat sold for around 5 shillings a bushel.12 The average level of

wealth per household was reached by the 66th percentile, meaning that almost two-thirds of

households had assessed wealth below the county average. The wealthiest York County resident

in 1783 possessed assessed wealth 20 times greater than the average household.

Figure 6 maps the assessed wealth per household by township. Assessed wealth per

household in Heidelberg Township, £353, was nearly twice the average for York County. The

least wealthy township was Fawn, with assessed wealth per household of £82. Wealth tended to

be highest in the southwest and northeast sections of York County and lowest in the southeast.

Figure 7 plots the distribution of wealth by nationality. Shares of wealth by nationality were

about the same as the shares of households by nationality. German households made up 52

percent of all households and held 52 percent of total wealth.

13

Figure 5. Quantile Function for Wealth per Household

Figure 6. Assessed Wealth per Household (in Pennsylvania pounds).

14

Figure 7. Distribution of Assessed Wealth by Nationality.

Table 6 tabulates the number of processing mills and other manufacturing establishments

by township. The most numerous were distilleries, 220 across the county, and saw mills.13 Mills

processing the agricultural output of York County were scattered all over the county but

Manchester Township had the largest concentration. There were signs of a budding

manufacturing economy in the county with the Mary Ann Furnace in Manheim Township,

valued at £1,905, and Spring Forge, assessed for £1,800, in Paradise Township. Also, there were

eight ferries assessed in the 1783 tax returns: four in Chanceford Township (owned by George

Burkholder, William Carry, Daniel Newman, and William Owens) and four in Newberry

Township (owned by Elizabeth Chesney, Henry Geiger, Jacob Kepler, and John Webb).

15

Table 6

Processing Mills by Township

The table tabulates the number of processing establishments enumerated in the 1783 manuscript

township tax lists.

Township

mills

unspecified

saw

mills

grist

mills

oil

mills

hemp

mills

fulling

mills

stills

tanyards

forges/

furnaces

Berwick - 2 3 1 - 1 13 1 -

Chanceford 3 - 1 1 - - 8 - -

Codorus - 3 2 - 1 - 11 - -

Cumberland 2 8 4 - 1 1 9 5 -

Dover - 3 1 1 - 15 - -

Fawn - 3 3 - - 1 2 - -

Germany - 2 2 3 1 - 6 4 -

Hamiltonban 1 - - - - - 4 - -

Heidelberg 1 1 2 1 - - 6 2 -

Hellam - 4 1 - - - 19 1 -

Hopewell 3 - - - - - - - -

Huntington 4 - - - - 1 - 3 -

Manchester 10 4 4 - - - 39 1 -

Manheim 1 4 4 1 2 - 5 - 1

Menallen 2 6 3 1 1 - 9 2 -

Monaghan - 3 3 1 - - 7 5 -

Mt. Joy - - 2 1 - - 5 - -

Mt. Pleasant - 2 1 - - - 4 1 -

Newberry 12 8 6 - - 1 - 2 -

Paradise - 2 2 1 - - 9 2 1

Reading - 2 1 - 1 - 7 1 -

Shrewsbury - 4 4 2 - - 1 - -

Straban - 1 1 - - - 1 1 -

Tyrone 8 - - - - - 1 - -

Warrington - 5 5 - - - 6 - -

Windsor 5 3 3 1 1 1 9 1 -

York 3 2 1 1 - 1 18 - -

Yorktown - - - - - - 6 7 -

York County 55 72 59 16 8 7 220 39 2

16

Table 7

Occupations Listed for York County Taxpayers in 1783

The table tabulates the number workers in various occupations recorded in the 1783 tax returns.

Number of

Workers

Number of

Workers

Cloth/Apparel Leather Crafts

Weaver 134 Cordwainer 68

Tailor 53 Tanner 42

Hatter 13 Saddler 24

Breechesmaker 4 Skin-dresser 3

Hosier 4

Bluedier 3 Metal Crafts

Fuller 3 Blacksmith 80

Heelmaker 3 Gunsmith 10

Cardmaker 2 Smith 6

Linter 1 Locksmith 5

Silversmith 5

Retail Cutler 4

Innkeeper 59 Nailer 4

Storekeeper 26 Brazier 3

Tobaccionist 8 Tinman 3

Barber 4

Brewhouse 2 Construction

Carpenter 22

Woodworking Mason 19

Joiner 37 Glazier 1

Cooper 30 Stone Cutter 1

Turner 4

Chairmaker 1 Transportation

Wagonmaker 22

Professional Wheelwright 8

Schoolmaster 9 Waggoner 5

Doctor 6 Ropemaker 1

Clerk 5 Singletree Maker 1

Lawyer 4 Stage Coach 1

Cryer 2

Apothecary 1 Food

Gaolkeeper 1 Butcher 9

Sheriff 1 Baker 3

Surveyor 1 Distiller 3

Brewer 2

17

Crafts Millwright 2

Potter 11 Sugarbaker 1

Clockmaker 5

Glassoven 2 Other

Pumpmaker 1 Trade (unspecified) 134

Tallow Chandler 1 Laborer 46

Jobber 5

Carter 1

The manuscript tax schedules report the occupations from which taxpayers, including

some single freemen, derived an income. Table 7 tabulates the number of workers in various

occupations listed in the 1783 tax returns.14 The vast majority of workers (keeping in mind that

most York County heads of households were farmers) were employed making clothing and

footwear. The most common occupation was weaver, and there were also a large number of

cordwainers (shoemakers) and tailors working in York County. There were also many

blacksmiths to make tools for the farmers.

520 slaves were held in York County in 1783 by 256 different households.15 Robert

McPherson of Cumberland Township and William Cochran of Hamiltonban Township each

owned 11 slaves. Figure 8 plots the distribution of slaves across townships and, when compared

with Figure 3, lends support to the perception that the Scotch-Irish were the principal slave

owners in York County. And, the Scotch-Irish did hold a disproportionate number of slaves, 59

percent of the slaves in the county despite making up 32 percent of households. But, as Table 8

demonstrates, slaves were owned by households of every national background. Indentured white

labor was little used in York County in 1783 but the Scotch-Irish also employed a

disproportionate number of the 68 bound servants in the county.16

18

Table 8

Slaves Held and Servants Employed by Nationality

The table records the number of slaves held and servants employed by the household’s presumed

national origin.

Number of Slaves Number of Servants

Dutch 8 -

English/Quaker 75 5

French 13 -

German 116 33

Scotch-Irish 307 30

Other/Unassigned 1 -

Figure 8. Slaveholding by Township (number of slaves).

19

Figure 9. Number of Horses per Taxpayer (with 1 or more horses or at least 25 acres).

Figure 10. Number of Horned Cattle per Taxpayer (with 1 or more cows or at least 25 acres).

20

Table 9

Sheepkeeping by Nationality

The table records the number of sheepkeepers and the number of sheep held by the household’s

presumed national origin.

Number of Sheepkeepers Number of Sheep Held

Dutch 9 98

English/Quaker 405 2,343

French 41 276

German 1,458 7,617

Scotch-Irish 1,076 6,759

Other/Unassigned 3 23

Almost all farmers raised livestock. Horses were important for plowing fields and for

hauling wagons. There were 2.01 horses per taxpayer for the whole of York County. Ownership

rates were highest in the western half of the county (Figure 9).17 More households owned cattle

than owned other animals. Even the residents of towns kept a cow for milking; 60 percent of

households in Yorktown possessed a cow. Again, families in western York County tended to

own more cows than the countywide average of 2.41 per taxpayer (Figure 10). Fewer

households owned sheep than owned horses and cows. More of the Scotch-Irish farmers in

western York County kept sheep than did farmers from other national groups (Figures 11 and

12). Their sheep ownership rate was 10 percentage points higher and they averaged one more

sheep held than the Germans (Table 9).

21

Figure 11. Sheepkeepers as a Percentage of Taxable Households.

Figure 12. Number of Sheep per Sheepkeeper

22

Considered as a whole, York County was fairly ethnically and economically diverse at

the end of the American Revolution, although there were no free black households recorded by

the tax assessors. Those of German ancestry made up about one-half of the county population

while the Scotch-Irish were about one-third and the English/Quakers one-seventh. Within York

County, though, national groups tended to cluster. 48 percent of German households resided in

townships in which at least 85 percent of their neighbors were also German; just 4 percent of

German households lived in a township in which more than two-thirds of the inhabitants were

Scotch-Irish. 58 percent of Scotch-Irish households resided in a township in which a majority of

the population was Scotch-Irish, and 44 percent of English/Quaker families lived in just two

townships, Newberry and Warrington. This segregated settlement pattern resulted in the

geographic diversity of farm size, wealth, slaveholding, and livestock keeping across the county

documented in this paper.

23

Notes

1. The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801 (Harrisburg: Harrisburg Publishing

Company, 1906), Volume 11, Chapter 1021, 81-91.

2. The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801 (Harrisburg: Wm. Stanley Ray,

1904), Volume 10, Chapter 961, 389.

3. The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, Volume 11, Chapter 1021, 91.

4. York County, PA Board of County Commissioners. Tax Records 1783. Microfilm Reel

#5740, York County Archives. I would like to thank the staff of the York County Archives for

their assistance. Portions of the 1783 tax lists have been published as part of the township

histories in John Gibson, History of York County Pennsylvania, From the Earliest Period to the

Present Time. Divided into General, Special, Township and Borough Histories, With a

Biographical Department Appended (Chicago: F. A. Battey, 1886) and by William Henry Egle,

Pennsylvania Archives, Third Series, Volume 21 (Harrisburg: Wm. Stanley Ray, 1898), 659-820.

Lucy Simler and Paul G. E. Clemens, “The ‘Best Poor Man’s Country’ in 1783: The Population

Structure of Rural Society in Late-Eighteenth-Century Southeastern Pennsylvania,” Proceedings

of the American Philosophical Society 133, no. 2 (1989): 234-261 emphasize the importance of

the 1783 census for historians.

5. Adams County was created in 1800. The map in Figure 1 is based on the township

genealogies in Robert Barnes, Guide to Research in York & Adams Counties (Westminster, MD:

Family Line Publications, 1996). Thanks are due to Emma Latzko for doing the tracing.

6. See Lemuel Molovinsky, “Tax Collection Problems in Revolutionary Pennsylvania,”

Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 47, no. 3 (1980): 253-259 and Lemuel

Molovinsky, “Taxation and Continuity in Pennsylvania during the American Revolution,”

Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 104, no. 3 (1980): 365-378 for descriptions of

the tax structure in Pennsylvania around 1783.

7. The information in all of the tables and figures was compiled by the author from the

manuscript tax schedules.

8. The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, Volume 11, Chapter 1021, 90. See

John Gilbert McCurdy, “Taxation and Representation: Pennsylvania Bachelors and the American

Revolution,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 129, no. 3 (2005): 283-315 for a

discussion of the political status of single freemen in Pennsylvania.

9. Howard F. Barker, “National Stocks in the Population of the United States as Indicated by

Surnames in the Census of 1790,” in Surnames in the United States Census of 1790, An Analysis

of National Origins of the Population, ed. American Council of Learned Societies, Committee on

Linguistic Stocks in the Population of the United States (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical

Publishing Company, 1969), 126-163; Keith A. Dull, Early Families of York County

Pennsylvania, Volumes 1 and 2 (Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2007); Keith A. Dull, Early

German Settlers of York County, Pennsylvania (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 2003); Wayland F.

Dunaway, “Early Welsh Settlers of Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-

Atlantic Studies 12, no. 4 (1945): 251-269; Wayland Fuller Dunaway, “The English Settlers in

24

Colonial Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 52, no. 4 (1928):

317-341; Wayland Fuller Dunaway, “The French Racial Strain in Colonial Pennsylvania,”

Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 53, no. 4 (1929): 322-342; Early Lutheran

Baptisms and Marriages in Southeastern Pennsylvania, The Records of Rev. John Casper

Stoever from 1730 to 1779 (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1982); William

Henry Egle, Notes and Queries Historical, Biographical and Genealogical Relating Chiefly to

Interior Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing Company, 1898); William Henry

Egle, Pennsylvania Genealogies; Chiefly Scotch-Irish and German (Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg

Publishing Company, 1896); Grier Hersh, “The Scotch-Irish in York and Adams Counties,” in

The Scotch-Irish in America, Proceedings and Addresses, Eighth Congress (Nashville, TN:

Scotch-Irish Society of America, 1897), 319-379; Albert Cook Myers, Immigration of the Irish

Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750, With Their Early History in Ireland (Baltimore, MD:

Genealogical Publishing Company, 1985); Pennsylvania Society of Friends, Pennsylvania

Quaker Records: Warrington, York County; Little Brittain, Lancaster County; Centre, Centre

County; West Branch, Clearfield County; Dunnings Creek, Bedford County (2 Parts) (London:

Forgotten Books, 2017); I. Daniel Rupp, A Collection of Upwards of Thirty Thousand Names of

German, Swiss, Dutch, French and Other Immigrants in Pennsylvania From 1727 to 1776

(Philadelphia, PA: Ig Kohler, 1876); A. Stapleton, Memorials of the Huguenots in America With

Special Reference to Their Emigration to Pennsylvania (Carlisle, PA: Huguenot Publishing

Company, 1901); Margaret B. Walmer, 100 Years at Warrington: York County, Pennsylvania

Quakers Marriages, Removals, Births and Deaths: Newberry, Warrington, Menallen,

Huntington and York Meetings (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1989); Abdel Ross Wentz, The

Beginnings of the German Element in York County, Pennsylvania (Lancaster, PA: New Era

Printing, 1916); Don Yoder, Pennsylvania German Immigrants , 1709-1786: Lists Consolidated

from Yearbooks of The Pennsylvania German Folklore Society (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical

Publishing Company, 1980).

10. See Thomas L. Purvis, “Patterns of Ethnic Settlement in Late Eighteenth-Century

Pennsylvania,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 70, no. 2 (1987): 107-122 for an

overview of the issues in estimating national origins.

11. The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, Volume 10, Chapter 961, 390.

12. Anne Bezanson, Prices and Inflation During the American Revolution: Pennsylvania. 1770-

1790 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1951), 338. A hundredweight measured

112 pounds. There were 20 shillings to the pound.

13. The importance of distilleries as a processor of the county’s agricultural output continued

into the nineteenth century. See David A. Latzko, “York County’s Manufacturing Economy in

1810,” Journal of York County Heritage, (2010): 23-29.

14. The large number of unspecified workers is due to assessors for both Heidelberg and

Manheim Townships not reporting a specific trade on the tax returns.

15. See Edward Raymond Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania: Slavery--Servitude--Freedom,

1639-1861 (Washington: American Historical Association, 1911) and Darold D. Wax, “The

Demand for Slave Labor in Colonial Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-

Atlantic Studies 34, no. 4 (1967): 331-345 for histories of slavery in Pennsylvania. Larry C.

25

Bolin, “Slaveholders and Slaves of Adams County,” Adams County History 9, no. 1 (2003): 4-92

is a comprehensive accounting of slavery in Adams County.

16. The manuscript tax returns make no accounting of servants in Yorktown. Karl Frederick

Geiser, Redemptioners and Indentured Servants in the Colony and Commonwealth of

Pennsylvania (New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor, 1901) is an account of indentured

service in Pennsylvania. See also Chessman A. Herrick, White Servitude in Pennsylvania:

Indentured and Redemption Labor in Colony and Commonwealth (Philadelphia: J. J. McVey,

1926).

17. Livestock and other information is incomplete for Codorus, Shrewsbury, and Windsor

Townships. A note on the microfilm of the manuscript tax returns (York County, PA Board of

County Commissioners. Microfilm Reel #5740, York County Archives) states that “when the

York County History of ‘1886’ was being published this assessment ‘1783’ was taken from the

Court House garret. It was not recovered until 1898 when R. C. Bair found it in Hanover, York

Co. When returned it was found that it had been torn apart for publication. Thus Windsor &

Shrewsbury Townships (and part of Codorus Township were lost).” The microfilm does contain

part of Windsor, Ort through the end, and Codorus Townships, A through S. Number of acres

held, number of inhabitants, and assessed valuation information for the missing households is

found in John Gibson’s History of York County Pennsylvania.

26

References

Barker, Howard F. “National Stocks in the Population of the United States as Indicated by

Surnames in the Census of 1790.” In Surnames in the United States Census of 1790, An

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