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Spanning from 1778 through 1800, criminal court records offer a vivid window into the chaotic early days of Wilkes County, North Carolina. They reveal stories of conflict, survival, and justice in a time of revolution and uncertainty. For genealogists, they provide rare clues to family ties and personal drama. For historians, they capture the raw texture of life in northwestern North Carolina.

Drawing from select documents preserved in the State Archives of North Carolina, this volume uncovers a forgotten trove of real-life cases -- tales of crime, controversy, and community that shaped the county's earliest years. Click here for an excerpt from the book.

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Taxes were collected annually by and for the county, but in 1798 a special Federal tax was collected. This one-time tax list provides an extraordinary amount of detail! In addition to the names of landowners, this list provides the number of cabins on the property, the sizes and types of cabins, and often how they were constructed. It lists 65 mills within the county, who owned them, and where they were located. Slaves were a part of the calculated tax, and the 161 slaveowners are listed along with the number of slaves owned by each. This book also includes a collection of original studies based on the property descriptions of notable locations including the Robert Cleveland cabin, the Boone family cabin on Beaver Creek, the Benjamin Hubbard house, and Carter Falls. It also includes summary lists of the wealthiest landowners, largest houses, largest barns, multi-story houses, and mills.

The 1798 county boundaries extended north to the Virginia line, and west to the Tennessee line. It bordered Burke County on the southwest, and Iredell County on the southeast. The eastern boundary was Surry County. This list will also be of interest to those with ancestors in the areas that became Alleghany, Ashe, Watauga, Caldwell, and Alexander Counties. All or part of those counties were part of Wilkes in 1798, and families who lived there are represented in this tax list.

In October 2024, this book won the North Carolina Genealogical Society's "Award for Excellence in Publishing for a Book of Abstracts of an Original North Carolina Record".

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Tax lists from the late 1700s are an underrated source for finding detailed information about our ancestors. Because taxes were collected annually at the county level, they reveal when settlers arrived and when they left. They show how much land a family owned and how quickly they acquired it - even in the absence of deeds. Some of these records reveal the number of horses, cattle, and slaves that a family owned.

With over 19,000 entries covering the first 23 years of the county's history, this book is the most comprehensive collection of Wilkes County tax records that has been assembled. The lists were studied along with deeds issued to the taxpayers. This allowed the author to create a series of 14 custom maps showing the district boundaries for each tax year.

Basic information from the 1798 Federal tax list is included in this book, but details about the size and construction of cabins and other structures are included in a separate book, "1798 Wilkes County, NC, Tax List".

Wilkes County extended north to Virginia and west to Tennessee, so settlers in present-day Alleghany, Ashe, and Watauga Counties are also included in these records.

Sample pages: a portion of the book's introduction, a page from the 1782 tax list, and three items from the book for the 1790 tax list: 1) list of the tax districts, 2) map of the tax districts, and 3) 21-page pdf file of the tax list.