Every April our thoughts, mostly bad, turn to taxes. Back in 1833, Peter Bott got really upset when he was passed over for tax collector of West Manchester Township.
Bott expressed his displeasure in a letter to Jacob Dietz, one of the County Commissioners. The letter found its was to the April 16, 1833 issue of the York Gazette, along with disparaging remarks about Mr. Bott's literacy and spelling.
English was probably not Bott's first language. He might have written a more elegant letter in German, but you have to admit he strongly got his point across in very phonetic, unpunctuated English:
"M. Jacob Dietz I thank you vari Kindly for the Faivor you Don me for Collect the tax I alwais had respect for you and thought you was a man of Brinsable bud I now See that you have no more Brinseble than Drunken John Fisher or els you wood not Servt me as you did for I think I Sest the tax as onnest as Eny Sessor in the County and I think you Did nod serve one the way you Did me and I Dond no wad you Don it for only for party work an pollysi for I wood be able to collect the tax as well as Casper Loucks all do I have nothing again Loucks he is a more Brinsebleler man than you ar an I will inshure you that you will never gid 20 wods no more in our township for no offis no more no more at bresend Bud your respectfull frind PETER BOTT"
Click here for a post showing the amount of taxes collected by the county a few years later.
During the Civil War, Peter Bott owned land that was used as a campsite by Confederate Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon's brigade on June 29/30. Rebels rested on his property, and he later filed a border claim for $160, citing the loss of 100 bushels of ears of corn, damage to 14 acres of growing oats (estimated at 300 bushles), and fences destroyed or burned.
Thanks Scott. I hope he made out better on the claim for the lost crops and fences than he did in his quest for the tax collector job. Otherwise, maybe he sent off another steaming letter.