Taking books (referred to as “valuation books” beginning in 1818) follow the order of the tax assessors' progress through each ward, street-by-street, and record names of individual residents or businesses, assessed values of realty and personalty, poll tax status, info on domiciles, and the names of property owners. Frequently, taking books also contain notes on occupation and economic status of individual residents, along with other details recorded by the assessors. Names of streets are often, but not always recorded, though they are present consistently beginning in 1811. The transfer and tax books represent subsequent stages of record keeping, in which residents of each ward -- initially recorded in the taking books -- are relisted in rough alphabetical order, with entries containing a range of details related to individual assessments. When two sets of tax books are present for a given year, payments are only recorded in one of the two sets, here labeled as set "B" through 1816 and set "A" from 1817 through 1821. Abatements are recorded in both annual volumes and in volumes combining multiple years.

The digital images in this collection are scanned from microfilm copies of the original manuscripts, held in the Boston Public Library Rare Books and Manuscripts Department.