Maryborough 1873 Audit
An interesting document was passed from the municipal office to the Mapleton Historical Society recently.
It is the hand written audit of the financial affairs of Maryborough Township for the year 1873. Curiously, the pages have been glued together to form a continuous length of paper which is neatly rolled on a piece of wooden dowel about nine inches long and one inch in diameter.
Fortunately, the auditors wrote an abstract summary of the receipts and expenditures along with their audit statement, all of which is attached at the end of the roll.
As today, the majority of their funds were raised by municipal taxes, listed as “Collectors Rolls.” A government school grant of $652 was paid to 16 school sections and two union schools. (union schools had pupils from two townships, for example Riverbank School was in Maryborough but over half of the pupils lived in Peel Township).
As well the municipality paid a grant of $598. There must have been a formula based on the number of pupils because no two school sections were paid the same amount. It appears the money was paid in cash to the individual teachers, not to the board of trustees for each section. Perhaps it was part of their salary.
There were ten tavern licences at $15 each issued in the township that year. As well fines levied by the Justice of the Peace brought in $38. About $281 was received for the clergy reserve but it was apparently forwarded to the owners of the reserve.
The wild land tax of $150 is a mystery I would love to solve. The pound keeper collected $11 for stray animals. Expenses show he was returned the $11. Was this his pay for the job?
The municipality paid $152 in expenses for the care and burial of small pox victims that year and several indigents shared funding of $45. The election that year cost the municipality $26 – for salaries of the five returning officers and the hall rental.
The cost of bridge building and repairs and road maintenance was $3,067 – about 30% of the taxes collected.
The county levy was $3,901 – 39% of taxes collected. There were also coupons with the Bank of Montreal (outstanding debentures?) on which the interest that year was $1,860. The cost of administration and council, salaries and expenses amounted to $981.
All these numbers seem such small amounts, but I wonder if we extrapolated them into today’s numbers if we would find the percentages that much different.
