Available on the Archives web site are transcriptions of names and hundreds from Somerset County Court (Tax Lists) for 1723-1759 in series C1812. Dr. Russo began the project during research for her dissertation, and since then has completed the transcriptions. She has generously made the database available to the Archives, along with a detailed introduction. Parts are extracted below. The entire text, including footnotes and technical notes, appear with the tax lists.

The Somerset tax lists are the surviving record of the poll tax levied on free males over the age of fifteen and slaves of both sexes over fifteen. During the colonial period officials for each Maryland county collected taxes to cover the costs of provincial government and the established church, as well as the various county expenses (e.g., maintenance of indigent residents, payment of jurymen, and per diem expenses for justices). For most counties just scattered lists have survived; only for Somerset County is a series of annual lists extant. 

At the fall court session justices calculated expenses for the past year. Division of this figure by the total number of taxables present in the county determined the amount of tax due for each taxable person. The head of every household was responsible for his own levy and for the taxes due for his dependents. As each constable made the rounds of his hundred [geographic subdivision of the county] he kept a list, organized by household, of the people who were taxed. Because the courts fined household heads if they did not inform the constable of every dependent, these lists 

...[A]lthough the tax lists are not available for every year, coverage is adequate for nearly forty years. For most years, the lists are both complete and legible. For those years in which lists are missing or worm-eaten, however, a significant portion of household information is lost. In 1722, for example, lists for four of the nine hundreds are missing. In 1728, the list for one hundred is missing entirely and three more survive only in fragments. The quality of the lists generally improves across the period (although the same cannot be said for the handwriting of the constables). Only two hundreds are missing from otherwise extant lists for the years after 1730 (Manokin in 1737 and Pocomoke in 1752). 

Legibility is a distinct issue from completeness. For some lists, such as the Nanticoke list for 1725, the parchment survives intact, but the ink is so faded that the text is barely discernible. Other lists are marred by large water stains or particularly cramped handwriting. Yet over the period as a whole, only a tiny percentage of
individuals are lost to illegibility. For the free population, less than 1 percent of names are completely illegible. On many lists constables included only the total number of enslaved persons in a household, not their names, but for the lists in which slave names are given, barely 0.5 percent are illegible. 
 
 

Whether the lists are truly accurate depends not so much on their physical condition as on the competence and diligence of individual constables, sheriffs, and justices. The taxation process involved several stages. Sometime during the summer months the constables would assemble their lists of households, at times evidently with the aid of a copy of the previous year's list. The preamble on many lists suggests that information was gathered on a single day.... Yet it appears unlikely that as the population of the county grew constables could continue to make their rounds in a single day. Having assembled their lists for the year, the
constables returned them to the justices at the August court session. The clerk of the court generally noted the return of the lists in the judicial record, as in 1737 when Thomas Hayward recorded that "the severall constables of the severall hundreds within the county of Somerset returns to the court their severall lists of taxables for this year." The justices then appointed one of themselves to meet with the sheriff to inspect the lists. In addition to examination by the court and the sheriff, the lists were made available for inspection by county residents, who could verify both their own taxables and those of their neighbors. Once the lists had been checked, the population totaled, and the taxes due per capita calculated, the constables or the sheriff returned to each household to collect the tax or some assurance of its future payment.... 

Neither pervasive incompetence nor deliberate fraud appears to have plagued the taxation system or to render the lists inaccurate. A more persistent problem lies in the varying degree to which constables (and justices and sheriffs) understood just who counted as a taxable and who did not. Several petitions to the county court indicate that taxable persons had to have resided in the county for the majority of the year and show some likelihood of continuing to reside there. While this stipulation did not affect the taxable status of most 

Changing perceptions about the status of women, especially mulatto and black women, also affected the accuracy of the tax lists and the comparability of the taxable population at the beginning of the period with that at mid-century. According to custom, the taxable population excluded free women. Yet free women do occasionally slip into lists, apparently because individual constables decided that free women who worked in the fields constituted taxable labor. In particular, free mulatto and black women appear in the lists with increasing frequency despite their status as free women. The inclusion of these women did not pass uncontested, which indicates that case-by-case decisions dictated whether free women were included in the lists, rather than directives from the county court or the Provincial Assembly.... 

While free women occasionally slip into the taxable population, free males and slaves regularly slip out of it. Constables routinely left individuals off the tax lists if, in the opinion of the county justices, their physical condition prohibited working and therefore they were not taxable labor.... Those who were too old to labor or too poor to pay the levy also could be exempt either for several years or for the remainder of their lives.... 

Slaveowners frequently petitioned for relief from paying taxes for their slaves who were "past labour" or disabled.... 

In nearly every instance, the court responded to petitions by granting tax free status for at least one year, and usually for the future or "until such time as [the petitioner] shall be restored to his ability of body to labour." 
 

Those who obtained tax free status from the court did not always disappear from the lists as they should. As a result of considerable turnover of constables and sheriffs, officials were not always aware of past decisions of the court.... 

The accuracy of the tax lists is further undermined by enumeration errors. Several types of enumeration errors could result in the omission of taxable individuals in the tax lists. For example, individuals may have been overlooked by the constable as he made his rounds through the hundred. The tax lists contain many examples of additions, as in the Bogerternorton list for 1735, when the constable appended the names of six men "not found in the list." Alternatively, the constables could have mistakenly included one individual twice. Confusion about hundred boundaries could result either in omissions or  duplications. Families that lived along the boundaries between two hundreds could be omitted if each constable assumed that these households were enumerated in the other hundred. Duplications were more likely to be corrected, as householders would naturally resist being taxed twice.... 

Despite the pitfalls, the Somerset tax lists constitute a remarkable series of documents. Transcribed, they yield over sixty-two thousand records for free adult men, over thirty-two thousand records for adult slaves, and over forty-one thousand records for households. The quality of the lists is generally very good and the population enumerated is largely consistent over time. Although such problems as enumeration errors, shifting definitions of taxable status, and illegibility occur, they affect only a very small percentage of the labor population. For the free taxable population overall, the lists provide reliable information about its size and structure as well as comprehensive residential histories. 
 

Appearing in the latest issue of the White House History Journal is an article written by Elaine Rice Bachmann, Curator of Artistic Property. "Circa 1961: The Kennedy White House Interiors" is featured also on the web site of the White House Historical Association.

In her article, Elaine describes the efforts of Jacqueline Kennedy to redecorate the White House by incorporating both history and artistry. The First Lady wanted to make the White House "a home reflecting the lives of those who had lived there and the historic events that had taken place within its walls. Instead of department store reproductions, she envisioned museum-quality furniture from the period of the earliest occupancy of the White House. Dismayed by the prevalence of 1950s-era carpeting and curtains, she envisioned grandly designed window treatments and rugs based on historic documents. And where there was little to show visitors that evoked the great story of America and its people, Jacqueline Kennedy envisioned a White House that was a showcase for the finest examples of American art and culture - a residence befitting the nation's highest elected official, with an American stateliness and grandeur to match in power the palaces of Europe." 

Elaine concludes with the enduring legacy of the Kennedy restoration. "The years between 1961 and 1963 are a watershed in White House history. Though marked by good intent, all earlier attempts to "restore" a historical appearance to the White House failed due to lack of infrastructure and government  support to back up the efforts. The Kennedy restoration ensured that never again would White House furniture be auctioned off indiscriminately or "lost" in a warehouse. The office of the White House curator, initially one person operating 
 

out of a ground floor storeroom, now houses a small staff devoted to the preservation and interpretation of the White House  Collection. The effort within the White House is backed up by valuable external support from the National Park Service. 

And Jacqueline Kennedy's Fine Arts Committee has evolved into the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, continuing to oversee all aspects of the decoration of the State Rooms."

Elaine's research on the Kennedy White House began with her MA thesis for the Winterthur program in Early American History & Culture.  This thesis evolved into the book "Designing Camelot" that she co-authored with James Abbot.