Boston Tax Records: 1780-1821

With a few minor exceptions, the entire collection can be accessed online. See the link in the menu on the left.

To make navigation easier, once you are in the Internet Archive book viewer, be sure to change the settings to "one-page view" in the lower right side of the screen. It will then be possible to scroll through one opening (left page plus right page) at a time.

Working offline

There are several ways to download images in order to work with offline.

PDF

To download a pdf, simply click "PDF" in the Download Options menu on the right side of the Internet Archive viewer. Please note: the microfilms in this collection were digitized by reel. Because single reels usually contain many individual tax manuscripts, the PDF file will be quite large.

Individual images

To download individual images, first take note of the page number you want. You can find this by checking the last few digits in the address bar in your browser, which will be preceded by the letter "n."

Once you have your page number, click on "show all" at the bottom of the Download Options menu.

In the menu of files that comes up, look for the jp2.tar file, and click "(View contents)". This will open a list of all of the image files for the digitized reel. Each file will end in a number; these are the image files for each individual page. Find the one that corresponds to your page number (in the example below, 0322.jp2 corresponds to page 322). Once you have found the file that corresponds to your page, click on the file name to download a full-resolution image file. Alternately, click on "jpg" next to the file name in order to download a full-sized jpeg.

The original manuscripts in this collection are available for consultation in the BPL Rare Books and Manuscripts Department. As of July, 2019, the department is closed to all public services in order to accommodate major renovations. A complete set of microfilms is, however, accessible through the BPL Research Services Department in Bates Hall.