it one-fourth of one per cent for territorial purposes; and such rate for the county purposes, not to exceed the territorial levy, as the county courts should decree. The kinds of property taxed included: "Town lots and improvements (farms excepted), carriages, mills, clocks, and watches, horses and mules, cattle, sheep and hogs. Every qualified voter under sixty years of age must pay a poll tax of fifty cents." Merchants' licenses were classified as follows: With capital employed under $10,000, a tax of $20 was imposed; with capital employed over $10,000, a tax of $30 was imposed; with capital employed over $15,000, a tax of $45 was imposed; with capital employed over $20,000, a tax of $60 was imposed. Auctioneers' and peddlers' licenses were taxed $10 each; upon ferry licenses the tax ranged from $5 to $25 at the discretion of the county court. There was paid into the county treasury for hearing and deciding each petition of a public nature, $1; for hearing and determining each motion of counsel, $1; for each final judgment, $3; for allowing an appeal, $1. The taxes not paid on or before the first Monday in October in each year should be collected the same as debts due on execution. The law subjecting property to execution, however, provided that "no property of any description whatever, shall be sold on execution, or by virtue of any other process issued by any officer, for less than two-thirds of its value at the time of such sale, after deducting all encumbrances."[1]
The holder of any lawfully attested draft or scrip, in his own name, of a larger amount than his tax, could have it exchanged for two or more drafts, making together the same amount as the original, one being of the same amount as his tax to be applied in payment of it. As wheat was a legal tender at this time it was necessary to name the places in the several counties where it must be delivered when offered in payment of taxes. These were "depots for receiving the public revenues" and the person in charge of each was
- ↑ Oregon Spectator, February 19, 1846, and Oregon Archives, p. 33.
