Indiana Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

Indiana is a common-law state, and its legal system descends from England. In 1818 the General Assembly made the common law of England, the British statutes passed in aid of it before 1607, and Indiana's own statutes the rule of decision in its courts.¹ That remained the foundation through 1950. Where a statute did not say otherwise, the English rule applied.

The oldest European settlement in the state is French. Settlers were living on the lower Wabash by 1727, and a fort went up about 1732. The town that grew around it became Vincennes.² French, British, and Virginia authority each reached that settlement before American law arrived, but none of them left a body of civil law that Indiana courts went on applying.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was the region's first fundamental law. It sent the estate of a person who left no will to the children in equal parts. That ended the old English rule giving land to the eldest son. It also gave a widow the use of a third of the real estate for her lifetime and a third of the personal estate outright.³

Indiana became a territory in 1800 and a state in 1816. Three general revisions of the statutes carry most of the rules a researcher needs. The first was printed in 1824 and gathers the early statehood law, some of it passed as early as 1817. The second was printed in 1843 and states the law for the years before the Civil War.⁴ The third followed the new constitution of 1851. A new descents act replaced the widow's lifetime use of land with outright ownership, and the whole body of statute law was reprinted in two volumes in 1852.⁵ Where a rule below changes, it usually changes in 1852.

Knowing which court held the papers matters as much as knowing the rule. Probate, guardianship, and estate settlement belonged to the county probate courts in the 1840s.⁶ From 1852 that business went to the county court of common pleas, which had exclusive jurisdiction over wills, letters testamentary and of administration — the papers appointing the person who settles an estate — guardianships, and the sale of a minor's land.⁷ The common pleas courts were abolished in 1873, and their business went back to the circuit court, which kept it through 1950.⁸ So a probate file is in the probate court to 1852, the common pleas court from 1852 to 1873, and the circuit court before 1852 and again after 1873. Marriage licenses issued from the clerk of the circuit court throughout.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Full majority was 21, for women and men alike, throughout the period.⁹ Anyone under 21 was an "infant" in legal language, even a 20-year-old. The 18 that turns up so often in Indiana records is a marriage age: the age at which a woman could marry without her parents' consent.

A minor could own property at any age. What the law limited was the power to dispose of it. Infants and persons of unsound mind could not alienate land — that is, transfer it to someone else — nor any interest in land.¹⁰ One kind of bargain did bind a minor: a contract for necessaries, meaning food, clothing, lodging, and the like suited to his station.¹¹

Marriage loosened the rule, and it did so long before 1852. A married woman over 18 and under 21 could release her dower — the widow's claim described under Property Ownership below — if her father or guardian declared before the officer taking the acknowledgment that the sale was for her benefit.¹² Later a married person under 21 whose spouse was of full age could convey or mortgage separate real estate, so long as the adult spouse joined and the circuit court found the transaction was for the minor's benefit.¹³ A wife under 21 could also join her husband in a conveyance of his land exactly as though she were 21.¹⁴

Marriage

Age and parental consent

Marriage was a civil contract, and the marrying ages changed four times between the territorial period and 1877. In the territorial period males of 17 and females of 14 could marry.¹⁵ The revised laws of 1824 lowered the figures to 14 and 12,¹⁶ and the revised laws of 1831 repeated them.¹⁷ The revised statutes of 1838 raised them to 18 and 14.¹⁸ The revision of 1843 settled on 17 and 14, provided the match was not forbidden by the laws of God.¹⁹ The act of 1852 repeated those two figures. It also barred marriage within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity — blood kinship close enough that the law would not allow a marriage.²⁰ The last change came in 1877, which set 18 and 16 and in the same sentence barred anyone nearer of kin than second cousins. Those rules held through 1950.²¹

The consent ages never moved at all. From the territorial period to 1950, a male under 21 or a female under 18 needed the consent of a parent or guardian.²²

The consent was not a casual matter, and it left paper. From 1843 the parent or guardian either appeared in person before the clerk, or signed a certificate attested by a witness who then swore before the clerk that he had seen it signed.²³ Either way a named parent or guardian enters the license file, which is often the reason to pull it.

Which county issued the license changed twice, and that decides where to look. Under the revised laws of 1824 the license came from the clerk of the circuit court of the county where either party usually lived.²⁴ From 1843 it issued only in the county where the woman lived, and the clerk could not grant it until a competent and disinterested witness, resident in that county, swore that she had lived there for the month before the application.²⁵ That affidavit names a neighbor and fixes her residence to a month. From 1 March 1940 the license issued in the county where the couple applied, so for the last decade covered here either county may hold the record.²⁶

Ministers and priests of every church, judges of the courts, justices of the peace, and the Society of Friends could all solemnize a marriage — that is, perform the ceremony. The list is the same in 1824, 1831, 1843, and 1852.²⁷ Quakers married according to the rules of their own society, which is why those marriages appear in meeting minutes rather than in a return filed by the officiant.

Common-law marriage

Indiana recognized common-law marriage through 1950, and the rule can be dated. From 1843 a marriage was not void merely because the person who performed it lacked authority, or because something was wrong with the license, so long as the couple believed they had been lawfully joined.²⁸ The act of 1852 put it far more broadly: no marriage was void or voidable for want of a license or any other formality, if either party believed it to be a legal marriage at the time. That section carried forward unchanged into the compilation in force in the 1930s and 1940s.²⁹ The courts held that a couple who intended to be husband and wife, and then openly acknowledged the relation, were married whatever the paperwork showed.³⁰ An act of 1957 ended this for the future, making void any common-law marriage entered into after 1 January 1958.³¹ Every such marriage formed before 1950 stands.

A couple with children, a shared surname, and no license may still have been lawfully married, and the proof is cohabitation and reputation rather than a document.

Who could not marry

From 1843 a marriage was void where either party had a husband or wife living whose earlier marriage had not been dissolved by a court. A white person could not marry a Black or mixed-race person. An insane person could not marry at all, nor could a person the statute called an idiot.³² The act of 1852 kept all three grounds and fixed the racial bar by proportion, voiding a marriage where one party was white and the other had one-eighth or more Black ancestry.³³ The same list, with kinship and affinity — relationship by marriage rather than by blood — spelled out, was still in force in the 1940s, and such marriages were void without any legal proceeding.³⁴ The racial bar ended in February 1965, two years before the Supreme Court struck down such laws nationally, when the General Assembly rewrote both lists of void marriages and left the racial ground out of each.³⁵ Couples barred by that rule generally have no Indiana license, and some married elsewhere.

Going elsewhere did not always work. A couple living here who married in another state in order to evade these rules, meaning to return and live here, and who did return, had a void marriage. That rule ran from 1843 and was re-enacted in 1905.³⁶

From 1905 the clerk could issue no license where —

• either party was an imbecile, an epileptic, of unsound mind, or under guardianship as a person of unsound mind;
• a male applicant was, or had been within five years, an inmate of a county asylum or home for indigent persons, unless the cause had been removed and he could support a family;
• either party was afflicted with a transmissible disease; or
• either party was under the influence of liquor or a narcotic when applying.³⁷

A refusal went straight to the circuit court. The clerk certified the proceeding at once, the judge heard it without a jury, and his finding was final.³⁸ A refused license therefore leaves a circuit court file naming both parties.

From 1939 both applicants filed a test for syphilis taken within thirty days.³⁹ From 1941 a male applicant had to show he was supporting the children of any former marriage.⁴⁰

The same act of 1905 required a written, sworn application before any license could issue, and made the book it went into a public record. The statute prescribes what the application had to state: each party's name, color, occupation, birthplace, residence, and age, whether the marriage was a first or a later one, and the same details for both sets of parents, including each mother's maiden name.⁴¹ Applications from 1905 onward are filed with the marriage records of the county clerk. This is the best document Indiana marriage law produces, naming four parents and placing two of them by birth a generation further back than the couple.

Property Ownership

Who could own land

Land could be taken, held, conveyed, devised — that is, left by will — or inherited only by a citizen of the United States, or by a non-citizen who was at the time a genuine resident of the United States.⁴² A foreign-born ancestor's naturalization paper is therefore part of his land title. Anyone actually in possession of land on 1 November 1851, and anyone claiming through him, kept his title whatever his own or his predecessors' citizenship.⁴³

A child could own land at any age, by inheritance, gift, or will. The limit was on disposal.⁴⁴ A minor's land was sold by a guardian on a court order, which leaves a petition, an order, a bond, and a deed signed by someone other than the owner.⁴⁵

Signing and witnessing a deed

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 had required that land be conveyed by an instrument signed, sealed, and delivered by a person of full age, and attested by two witnesses.³ The territorial revised code of 1807 repealed every law not contained in itself and left that clause out. From 1807 the adopted common law of England governed instead. A deed was good between the parties once the grantor — the person making it — had signed, sealed, and delivered it, and witnesses served only to help prove it later. The supreme court settled the point in 1839.⁴⁶ What the early statute did require was a writing: from 1818 no interest in land could be granted or assigned except by a deed or note in writing signed by the party.⁴⁷ Territorial deeds before 1807 should therefore show two witnesses. After it, many show none.

From 1852 a conveyance of land had to be a deed in writing, signed, sealed, and acknowledged by the grantor before an authorized officer. Leases of three years or less were excepted.⁴⁸ Acknowledging a deed means appearing before that officer and confirming the signature, and it is the acknowledgment that let the deed be recorded. A grantor's signature and an officer's certificate were the whole of it, which is why Indiana deeds so often show nothing else.

Before 1852 a witness mattered in one situation. Where a deed was offered for record without the grantor's acknowledgment, it had to be proved instead. No instrument could be proved that way unless at least one subscribing witness — a witness who had signed the deed himself — had attested it at execution, or afterwards at the grantor's request.⁴⁹ The proof had to come from a disinterested and competent witness, whose name and place of residence the officer then wrote into his certificate.⁵⁰ The statute set no age for that witness. Competency was decided by the general test described under Courts below, so a young witness who understood the oath could serve.

Married women

A married woman lived under coverture — the common-law rule merging a wife's legal identity into her husband's — until Indiana dismantled it by statute. The dismantling was real but partial, and the part that survived is the part that matters in deed research.

She could take, acquire, and hold property by gift, will, inheritance, or purchase with her own money. That property, with all its rents, income, and profits, stayed her separate estate under her own control as if she were unmarried. The same section carried the catch: her husband had to join in any contract, conveyance, or mortgage touching her separate real estate.⁵¹ She could carry on any trade or business on her own account, and her earnings from labor other than for her husband or family were hers alone.⁵² Her legal disabilities to make contracts were abolished, which is also why she could be held liable for family necessaries bought on her account.⁵³

That joinder requirement dates from 1852, when the joint deed of husband and wife was made sufficient to pass her land, though it bound her to no promise contained in it.⁵⁴ It was still law in 1948. A court could lift it only on proof that the husband was insane, had deserted her, was imprisoned for felony, was incapacitated by habitual drunkenness and neglecting his family, had renounced the marriage covenant, or refused to live with her on religious grounds.⁵⁵ A petition of that kind is a candid record of a failed marriage, and it is filed with the circuit court.

The rule ran both ways: her husband's separate deed conveyed no interest in her lands.⁵⁶

A conveyance to husband and wife created an estate by the entirety, in which the survivor takes the whole without any court proceeding.⁵⁷ Land held that way passed outside probate, so a widow may hold property that appears in no estate file.

When a wife signed a deed

Before 1852 a widow's claim was dower: a life estate, meaning the use of the land for as long as she lived, with no power to sell it and nothing to pass on at her death. The rule was settled early. From 1824 she was endowed of one full and equal third part of all the lands, legal or equitable, of which her husband had been seized — that is, had held title to — at any time during the marriage, and a sale of his property did not extinguish it.⁵⁸ The revision of 1843 restated the same third.⁵⁹ Because dower reached back over every parcel he had ever held, a purchaser needed the wife's signature to get a clear title, and she barred her dower by joining in her husband's deed and releasing it there.⁶⁰ Nothing the husband did alone touched it: no act, deed, or conveyance of his, without her assent shown by her own acknowledgment, cut off her dower.⁶¹ A wife who left her husband and lived with another man lost her dower entirely, and recovered it if he took her back.⁶²

Her acknowledgment took a particular form, and it is visible on the record. The officer had first to make known to her the contents and purport of the deed. She then had to acknowledge, on a private examination taken separately and out of her husband's hearing, that she had signed of her own free will and without any coercion from him. The officer had to certify all of it.⁶³ This is the privy examination, and its certificate on a recorded deed before 1852 proves the wife was alive, present, and named on that date.

Tenancies by the curtesy — the widower's matching life interest in his wife's land — and in dower were abolished outright in 1852 and replaced by a share the survivor owned in fee, meaning owned outright and freely sellable.⁶⁴ The private examination went with them. From 1852 a wife simply signed the joint deed. Her signature still mattered, and its absence matters more.

A widow took a share of her husband's land in three situations:

• land he owned at his death;
• land he held an equitable interest in when he died, or land he conveyed during the marriage without her joining; and
• his land sold under a court order in a proceeding that did not affect her interest.⁶⁵

She barred her own right by joining in the conveyance.

A husband's sole deed did not clear his wife's interest. She took a one-third interest outright in land he had conveyed during the marriage without signing.⁶⁶ A deed signed by a man alone is worth a second look: either he was unmarried, or a claim survived the sale.

One restriction ran against a remarried widow. Land she held by virtue of a previous marriage she could not sell during a later one, and if she died during that marriage it went to the children of the marriage it came from. By the 1930s she could sell it where those children were adults and joined in the deed.⁶⁷ A deed with grown stepchildren joining as grantors is this rule at work.

Black and Native landowners

Article 13 of the Constitution of 1851 forbade any Black or mixed-race person to come into or settle in the state, and declared void all contracts made with such a person.⁶⁸ A void-contract rule reaches deeds, and it clouded titles.

The enforcing act created a valuable record series in this guide. Each circuit court clerk was to keep a register in which Black and mixed-race people already living in Indiana before 1 November 1851 recorded their right to remain.⁶⁹ The surviving registers are described in a published record guide, which gives the content of an entry: the person's name, age, physical description, place of birth and residence, and the names of the witnesses who proved the right.⁷⁰ For a family with no other paper trail in the 1850s, that is often the only physical description and stated birthplace that survives, and the witnesses are usually neighbors or kin.

The Indiana Supreme Court held Article 13 void in 1866, the legislature repealed the enforcing act in February 1867, and the article left the constitution by amendment in 1881.⁷¹ In the territorial and early statehood years, people held in slavery or under long indentures were treated as property and appear in inventories and wills rather than as owners.⁷²

Native land followed a different route entirely. Title passed by federal treaty rather than by ordinary conveyance, and Indiana's own tax law recognized as much: land reserved to an individual by a treaty became taxable only once the treaty was confirmed.⁷³ Native land will therefore not be found in the county deed books for the years before a reserve was sold on.

Inheritance

Someone who died without a will died intestate, and a statute divided the estate.

Equal shares

Real and personal property went to the children in equal shares, whatever their sex or their age. Indiana adopted that rule at the first opportunity: an act of 1817 sent the estate of an intestate to the children or their descendants in equal parts, the children of a dead child taking their parent's share, and saved the widow's dower.⁷⁴ The descents act of 1852 restated it and added that posthumous children — those born after the father's death — inherited equally with those born before it.⁷⁵ Equal division was the rule from the Northwest Ordinance forward, so it holds through 1950.

Advancements were charged against the child who received them. An advancement is property a parent hands over during life as that child's portion. It was valued as at the time given, and an excess over an equal share did not have to be repaid. Money spent maintaining or educating a child, with no view to a settlement in life, was not an advancement.⁷⁶ An estate division that shorts one child is usually an advancement at work rather than a quarrel.

The widow's share

Until 1852 a widow took dower, the lifetime use of a third described above. From 1852 she took a share she owned in fee. A widow of that period is an owner rather than a life tenant, and she could sell.

Her third of the real estate came to her in fee simple free of her husband's creditors, whether or not he left a will. In a large estate the fraction fell, but only where the rest of the property could not pay his debts. In that case she took one-fourth where the real estate was worth more than ten thousand dollars, and one-fifth where it was worth more than twenty thousand, in each case as against those creditors.⁷⁷ In a substantial estate, check the appraisal and the debts before assuming the widow took a third.

Where he died intestate leaving one child only, widow and child took half each.⁷⁸ In personal property, with not more than two children she took a child's share; with more than two, never less than one-third of the whole.⁷⁹ With no child but a parent surviving she took three-fourths,⁸⁰ and with neither, everything.⁸¹ A surviving husband took one-third of his wife's real estate.⁸²

One survivor took a life interest rather than ownership. A childless second or later wife took only a life interest in one-third of the land where her husband left children of an earlier marriage, and at her death it passed to those children. By the 1930s the same rule was written to cover a surviving husband in the same position.⁸³ This keeps land in the first family's line, and explains an estate where a widow enjoys property she cannot sell.

The widow's first claim

Before anything was distributed the widow took a fixed sum in personal property, chosen by her at its appraised value. From 1852 that sum was $300, and where the whole estate was worth $300 or less it passed to her without administration at all. She held it in trust for herself and any infant children while they remained infants and unmarried.⁸⁴ By the 1930s the figure was $500, and an estate worth no more than $500 passed to her by decree of court.⁸⁵

She also kept the family clothing, the Bibles and schoolbooks, and the provisions in the house. She and the minor children could stay in the family dwelling and up to forty adjacent acres rent-free for a year.⁸⁶ There was no matching provision for a widower. Each of these leaves a paper in the estate file naming the widow, and usually the children.

Where a will left the survivor anything, the survivor took nothing under the laws of descent unless the will said so. The survivor could instead renounce the will within six months of probate and take the statutory share.⁸⁷ The election, or its absence, tells you which she chose.

Minors and guardians

A minor's inheritance went to a guardian, under the court's supervision and under bond. A guardian was appointed where —

• the minor had no parent able to act;
• the minor lived in the county, or held property there;⁸⁸
• the minor came into property from a source other than the father. This is the one people miss. A legacy from a grandparent or an uncle triggers a guardianship of the estate even where the father is alive and well, and the guardian is often someone else.

At 14 a minor chose his own guardian, and the court had to appoint the person chosen if suitable. Below 14 the court chose. The rule ran back at least to 1843, and under it the choice could be proved by a competent witness without the child appearing in court at all.⁸⁹ The act of 1852 restated it, and added that a guardian appointed for a younger child was not displaced at 14 except for good cause.⁹⁰ A guardianship record in which the child does the choosing is evidence the child had reached 14.

Guardianship ended at 21, and the final accounting dates the minor's twenty-first birthday within a few months. One exception moves that date. Where a female minor under 21 married a man of full age, the court could treat the marriage as discharging the guardianship and authorize the guardian to account to her, with her husband's assent. That rule was already in the 1843 revision and was still in force in the 1930s.⁹¹ A guardianship that closes early, with a new surname on the receipt, is a marriage record in disguise.

Natural guardianship rested on both parents jointly, and a guardian named in a parent's will took preference over all others.⁹²

Children born outside marriage

All three rules below, governing what a child born outside marriage could inherit, date from 1852.

• From the mother — the child inherited from her as if born in the marriage, and through her if she was dead.⁹³
• From the father — if he married the mother and acknowledged the child as his own, the child became legitimate. Marriage alone did not do it, so the acknowledgment is the thing to look for.⁹⁴
• The mother inherited from the child, where the child died leaving no descendants.⁹⁵

Both parents owed support, and an unmarried mother could compel the adjudged father to contribute and to pay the expenses of birth.⁹⁶ That proceeding is a court file, and it names the father.

Making a will

The age to make a will was 21, for land and personal property alike. Both revisions put it by exclusion rather than by naming a figure. Under the revision of 1843 all persons except married women, infants, idiots, and persons of unsound mind could devise land, and anyone who could devise land could also leave personal property by will.⁹⁷ A married woman of any age was therefore shut out entirely before 1852. The act of 1852 dropped her from the list, leaving only infants and persons of unsound mind excluded.⁹⁸ An infant in Indiana was anyone under 21.

The form did not change across the revision. A will had to be in writing, signed by the testator or at his direction in his presence, and attested and subscribed in his presence by two or more competent witnesses. Witnesses competent when they attested stayed good even if they lost competency later.⁹⁹ The 1852 act carried the same requirement.¹⁰⁰ A spoken will, called a nuncupative will, was the one exception, and a narrow one. It could pass no more than fifty dollars. Two competent witnesses present when it was spoken had to prove it, the words had to be written down, and it could not be proved more than six months after the death, nor until the widow and next of kin had been given reasonable notice. A soldier in actual service and a sailor at sea were free of those last limits as to wages and goods in hand.¹⁰¹

The age to serve as executor was also 21. Letters testamentary went to the executors named in the will unless they were disqualified. The grounds were being incapable of making a contract, being under 21, or having been convicted of an infamous crime — a serious crime such as perjury or forgery that cost a person the right to hold office or testify. A court could also refuse a named executor for improvidence, meaning habitual carelessness with money, or for habitual drunkenness or other incapacity. Married women were expressly excepted from the contract disqualification.¹⁰² A married woman was not free of the matter, though. No married woman was entitled to letters testamentary unless her husband filed his written consent with the clerk, and that consent made him jointly responsible with her for what she did.¹⁰³ The requirement lasted until 1935.¹⁰⁴ Between 1852 and 1935, a widow serving as executrix leaves her husband's signed consent in the estate file. Where a named executor was disqualified, the letters name whoever actually settled the estate.

From 1852 a married woman could make a will as freely as her husband, and neither spouse could defeat the other's statutory third by will.¹⁰⁵

Taxation

Indiana levied taxes on polls and on property. A poll tax — a flat charge on the person, also called a capitation, the person taxed being the poll — reached a wider age band in the early years than it did later. Under the revenue act of 1824 the county commissioners could excuse a man over sixty who owned no real estate, or who was bodily disabled, which puts the working top of the band at 60.¹⁰⁶ The revenue act of 1831 set the charge at thirty-seven and a half cents on every male inhabitant between 21 and 60 who was sane and not a pauper. The county board could excuse a man over 50 who was unable to pay or was bodily disabled. The same act exempted the personal property of a widow and orphan children up to two hundred dollars, exempted Revolutionary War veterans from the poll tax on their own affidavit, and let counties add a poll tax of their own up to fifty cents.¹⁰⁷

The revision of 1843 narrowed the band to 21 through 50 and dropped the sanity and pauper wording. The tax fell on every male inhabitant of the state between those ages, with no racial limit in the text, and all real and personal property in the state was liable to taxation subject to listed exemptions.¹⁰⁸ Those exemptions matter for two groups. The polls of Indians were exempt outright, so a Native man will not appear on the poll list at all. So were the persons and property of Revolutionary soldiers, and the property of a widow or orphan child up to two hundred dollars.¹⁰⁹

The act of 1852 restated the scheme and narrowed the poll. All taxes for the support of the state were assessed on polls and on property,¹¹⁰ and the poll tax now fell on every white male inhabitant between 21 and 50.¹¹¹ The property tax fell on real property in the state and on residents' personal property wherever it lay,¹¹² at a rate the Constitution of 1851 required to be uniform and equal.¹¹³ Each man was listed for his poll in the township where he lived when the enumeration was made.¹¹⁴ That scheme — a poll charge and a property charge, entered name by name and township by township on the county auditor's tax duplicate — is the one reflected in the county tax records through 1950.¹¹⁵

The 1852 racial limit lasted twenty years. The next general revenue law, approved 21 December 1872, restated the scheme in almost exactly the words the 1852 act had used, and struck one word out of the poll tax section: a poll tax was assessed on every male inhabitant of the state between 21 and 50.¹¹⁶ The word "white" is gone, two years after the Fifteenth Amendment took effect. Each man was listed for his poll in the township where he lived when the enumeration was made. The act of 29 March 1881 re-enacted both sections almost word for word and moved the township rule up into the poll tax section itself.¹¹⁶ The act of 6 March 1891 repealed what had gone before and governed through 1950, carrying the same rule forward and adding a town or city to the township as the place of listing.¹¹⁷ The age band is the one the 1843 revision had set. One rule therefore runs from 1872 to 1950, re-enacted three times without change of substance.

From 1907 a separate state poll tax of fifty cents ran alongside it, charged on each legal voter and carrying the same exemptions.¹¹⁸ Both sections of the 1891 act were still in force in 1907, and both carry into the twentieth-century compilation, where they are sections 10140 and 10141.¹¹⁹ The levies themselves ran on past 1950: a dollar a poll on one county levy in the 1930s, and the state's fifty cents a poll still being collected in 1939.¹²⁰ An exemption for disabled veterans was still in the code in 1951.¹²¹

One more charge fell on the individual rather than on his property. A road or highway tax ran beside the poll and property taxes and had its own column on the tax duplicate. A man could discharge it by working on the roads instead of paying, which is why road work lists survive naming men who owned nothing.¹²²

The value to a researcher follows from the age limits. A man's first appearance on the poll list brackets his twenty-first birthday. His disappearance brackets his fiftieth, his death, or his removal, in the years between federal censuses. The list also catches men who owned nothing at all, which makes it a census substitute for the landless. Township assessors made the returns, and the county auditor and treasurer kept them.

Courts

Jury service

The early rule set both an age and a property test. From 1824 the county commissioners drew jurors from the persons returned as taxable, taking the discreet householders and freeholders resident in the county between the ages of 21 and 60.¹²³ A freeholder is a landowner and a householder is the head of a household, so a man on the panel did not have to own land, but he did have to be on the tax list.

The revision of 1843 kept the substance and dropped the age. The commissioners selected eighteen grand jurors — the jury that decides whether to charge someone — and twelve petit jurors — the jury that hears the trial — for each week of court, drawing names from a box. A juror had to be a good reputable freeholder or householder, resident in the county and taxable there.¹²⁴ The act of 1852 kept the same test in still shorter form: the county treasurer, auditor, and recorder wrote the names of one hundred reputable male householders competent to serve onto slips, and the clerk drew twelve.¹²⁵ Notice that 1852 drops the freeholder alternative and names no age at all.

Later, jury service followed the vote. The constitution gave the vote to citizens of 21 and upwards, after six months in the state, sixty days in the township, and thirty days in the voting precinct.¹²⁶ From 1881 jurors were drawn from the legal voters whose names appeared on the county tax duplicate — the clerk's copy of the year's tax list — for the current year.¹²⁷ So the working test for the last seventy years of the period was an adult man of 21 who voted and whose name sat on that list.

Women and Black men on juries

Women became eligible in 1920, and without new legislation. The constitutional voter clause described the elector as "he or she," and the courts held that women who had gained the franchise were qualified jurors. The Supreme Court confirmed the point in 1926, and held in 1935 that commissioners who deliberately kept women's names out of the jury box had drawn an invalid panel.¹²⁸

Both the Constitution of 1816 and that of 1851 limited the vote to white males. The word stayed in the text until the amendment of 1881, though the Fifteenth Amendment had overridden it from 1870.¹²⁹ Because jurors came from the voter rolls, Black men's formal eligibility for Indiana juries tracks that same span.

Witnesses

Under the revision of 1843 a witness had to be white in most cases. No Black, mixed-race, or Native person could testify except in prosecutions by the state against such persons, and in civil cases where such persons alone were parties. The bar caught anyone with one fourth or more Black ancestry, or a single Black grandparent.¹³⁰ The revision of 1852 left the rule out, so competency briefly turned only on age and soundness of mind. The legislature restored the bar in February 1853 in a wider form, barring any Native person, and any person with one-eighth or more Black ancestry, from testifying in any cause in which a white person was a party in interest.¹³¹ Wherever a white person stood on the other side of a case, a Black or Native witness's account never entered the file. The bar ended on 11 March 1867, when the General Assembly declared every person of competent age a witness in any civil or criminal cause and repealed all laws in conflict, sweeping the 1853 act away without naming it.¹³²

For everyone else Indiana set a presumption rather than a flat minimum. Children under ten were presumed incompetent, and children over ten presumed competent. A person of unsound mind when produced was incompetent, and the court could examine a child of tender years to decide. The same act of 1867 recast the test: a child under ten was incompetent only where the child was also incapable of properly understanding the facts in question, so from that year a young child who understood could be sworn.¹³³ The same standard governed who could witness a will and who could prove a deed.

Criminal responsibility and the juvenile court

At common law the child's age decided the question.

An act of 1903 created a juvenile court in every county containing a city of 100,000 — Marion County alone at first — and elsewhere the circuit judge sat as juvenile judge. The clerk of the circuit court kept the proceedings in a book called the juvenile record.¹³⁴

The act reached a boy up to his seventeenth birthday and a girl up to her eighteenth, on a complaint for any offense not punishable by death or life imprisonment.¹³⁵ The magistrate had to notify the probation officer before taking any other step. That officer investigated the child's surroundings, age, habits, and record, and reported to the juvenile court.¹³⁶

Juvenile courts did not gain exclusive jurisdiction until 1941.¹³⁷ From 1903 a boy short of 17 or a girl short of 18 has a juvenile record entry rather than a criminal case file, and juvenile files are typically closed.

Sources and Where to Verify

Constitutions

• Indiana Constitution of 1816. Art. VI (suffrage limited to white male citizens). Printed in the front matter of the Revised Statutes of 1843. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1843 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Indiana Constitution of 1851. Art. 2, § 2 (suffrage, and the elector described as he or she); art. 10, § 1 (uniform and equal taxation); art. 13 (exclusion of Black and mixed-race settlers, repealed by amendment 1881). Printed in the front matter of 1 Revised Statutes of 1852, pp. 55–76. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-1/page/n68 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Sec. 2 (equal descent among children, the widow's third for life, and conveyances attested by two witnesses). Indiana Historical Bureau. https://secure.in.gov/history/about-indiana-history-and-trivia/explore-indiana-history-by-topic/indiana-documents-leading-to-statehood/the-northwest-ordinance-1787/ (accessed 4 August 2026).

Codes and compilations

• The Revised Laws of Indiana. Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1824. Passed at the eighth session of the General Assembly, and gathering acts gone back to 1817. Ch. 31 (descents, 1817), ch. 33 (dower), ch. 47 (frauds and perjuries, covering conveyances and devises), ch. 55 (grand and petit jurors), ch. 58 (what laws shall be in force), ch. 62 (marriage), ch. 86 (revenue). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-gov-acts-1824-r (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Laws of Indiana. Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1831. Passed at the fifteenth session of the General Assembly. Ch. 63 (marriage) and ch. 82 (revenue, including the poll tax and its exemptions). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-acts-1831-r (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana. Indianapolis: Douglass and Noel, 1838. Passed at the twenty-second session of the General Assembly. Ch. 68 (marriage: ages, officiants, licenses, and parental consent). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-gov-acts-1838 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana. Indianapolis: John Dowling and R. Cole, State Printers, 1843. Passed at the twenty-seventh session of the General Assembly. Ch. 12 (revenue), ch. 28 (conveyances and dower), ch. 30 (wills), ch. 35 (domestic relations: marriage, guardians, and minors), ch. 40 (practice, including witness competency), ch. 50 (grand and petit jurors). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1843 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1. Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852. Passed at the thirty-sixth session of the General Assembly. The general laws: ch. 6 (revenue), ch. 23 (real property and alienation), ch. 27 (descents), ch. 67 (marriage), ch. 74 (the act enforcing article 13). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-1 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2. Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852. Courts and practice: ch. 8 (courts of common pleas and their probate jurisdiction), ch. 9 (petit jurors), ch. 10 (settlement of decedents' estates), ch. 11 (wills), ch. 12 (guardian and minor), and the code of civil practice containing the witness-competency sections. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-2 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Special Session of the General Assembly. Indianapolis: R. J. Bright, State Printer, 1872. Begun 13 November 1872. Ch. 37 (taxation: the poll tax section as it stood after the word "white" was dropped, and the township listing rule). Digital images. Acts of Indiana Archive, Indiana General Assembly. https://iga.in.gov/publications/act/archive/1872ss-EO.pdf (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Special Session of the General Assembly. Indianapolis: Carlon & Hollenbeck, 1881. Begun 8 March 1881. Ch. 96 (taxation, re-enacting the 1872 poll tax section). Digital images. Acts of Indiana Archive, Indiana General Assembly. https://iga.in.gov/publications/act/archive/1881ss-EO.pdf (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Annotated Indiana Statutes, 1933: Containing All Acts of a General and Public Nature in Force September 1, 1933. Edited by Harrison Burns; revised by Benjamin F. Watson. 12 vols. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1933–34. The compilation in force through the last decades covered here, and the source of every rule cited below to a section in the form 6-2313 or 44-101. Each title opens with a compiler's note giving the earlier compilation it came from, and the front matter carries a table of the effective dates of Indiana acts from 1843 forward. Read the volumes in a law library, or take the same rules, with the same section numbers, from the Women's Bureau bulletin listed under Books and Articles below.
• Burns' Annotated Indiana Statutes, Showing the General Statutes in Force January 1, 1914. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1914. A finding aid for the section numbering used before the 1933 compilation. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/burnsannotatedi00indigoog (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Laws Concerning the Assessment of Property for Taxation, 1899. Annotated by Thomas B. Buskirk, member of the State Board of Tax Commissioners. Indianapolis, 1899. Prints the tax act of 6 March 1891 in full, including the poll tax section, with the cases construing each section. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsconcerninga00commgoog (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Laws Relating to the Assessment of Property for Taxation. Prepared by James Bingham, Attorney-General of Indiana; issued by the State Board of Tax Commissioners. Indianapolis: Wm. B. Burford, 1907. The same 1891 act as it stood in 1907, keyed section by section to Burns' Revised Statutes of 1901, with the state poll tax added by the act of 1907 noted at the poll tax section. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsrelatingtoas00indi/page/n9 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Indiana Code, title 29 (probate) and § 31-11-8-5 (common-law marriage). The history line printed after each current section traces the rule back to its source act. Justia. https://law.justia.com/codes/indiana/title-29/article-1/chapter-2/ (accessed 4 August 2026).

Session laws

• Pease, Theodore C., ed. The Laws of the Northwest Territory, 1788–1800. Illinois Historical Collections 17. Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1925. Chapter 7, the marriage law adopted by the governor and judges: the marrying ages, the officiants, publication of banns — the public announcement of an intended marriage — or a governor's license, and parental consent. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofnorthwestt17nort (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, 1853. Ch. 42, barring the testimony of Native people and of persons with one-eighth or more Black ancestry wherever a white person was a party in interest. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/acts-1853/page/n59 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Forty-Fifth Regular Session of the General Assembly, Begun on the Tenth Day of January, A. D. 1867. Indianapolis: Alexander H. Conner, State Printer, 1867. Ch. 120, pp. 225–27, making every person of competent age a witness, restating the rule on child witnesses, and repealing all laws in conflict, which ended the racial bar on testimony; and ch. 128, p. 233, repealing the act that enforced article 13. Full view. HathiTrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000050074651 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Sixty-Fourth Regular Session of the General Assembly, Begun on the Fifth Day of January, A. D. 1905. Indianapolis: Wm. B. Burford, 1905. Ch. 126, pp. 215–16, the marriage act: the written verified application and what it must contain, the grounds on which a clerk must refuse a license, the circuit court hearing on refusal, and the voiding of out-of-state marriages entered into to evade it. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofind0000dani (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, 1965. Ch. 15, p. 24, and ch. 17, p. 25, the two acts of February 1965 that rewrote the lists of void marriages and dropped the racial ground from each. Full view. HathiTrust. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.a0001996693 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Laws of the State of Indiana. The remaining acts cited in the notes are to be read in the session volume for the year named, held by the Indiana State Library and by most law libraries: Acts 1877, ch. 53, p. 94 (marrying ages raised to 18 and 16); Acts 1881, Spec. Sess., ch. 69, § 2, p. 557 (jury selection from the tax duplicate); Acts 1903, ch. 237 (the juvenile court act); Acts 1935, p. 828 (married women as executrixes); Acts 1937, p. 1010 (election against a will); Acts 1939, ch. 100, pp. 513–14 (the county where a license issues, and the premarital health certificate); Acts 1941, p. 103 (support of children of a former marriage); Acts 1941, p. 301 (support of children born outside marriage); Acts 1941, ch. 233, and Acts 1945, ch. 356 (juvenile court jurisdiction); Acts 1947, p. 789 (conveyances by married minors); Acts 1957, ch. 78 (common-law marriage abolished for the future). The Indiana General Assembly publishes scans of the older session volumes on its own site, but they are served through a search interface rather than at a fixed address, so no direct link is given here.

Court cases

Full texts of the Indiana decisions below are free at CourtListener, searchable by citation.

• Bauman v. Grubbs. 26 Ind. 419 (1866).
• Bowers v. Lillis. 187 Ind. 1 (1917).
• Davis v. Thompson. 179 Ind. 539 (1913).
• Dunlop v. Dunlop. 101 Ind. App. 43 (1935).
• Hanley v. State, Department of Conservation. 234 Ind. 326, 123 N.E.2d 452 (1954).
• Huffman v. Copeland. 139 Ind. 221 (1894).
• Hughes v. Yates. 195 Ind. 185 (1924).
• Jalbert v. State. 200 Ind. 380 (1928).
• Koehring v. Bowman. 194 Ind. 433 (1924).
• Mansur v. Hinkson. 94 Ind. 395 (1884).
• Marion School Township v. Smith. 215 Ind. 586, 21 N.E.2d 412 (1939).
• Moore v. State. 197 Ind. 640 (1926).
• Muga v. Fenn. 198 Ind. 372 (1926).
• Palmer v. State. 197 Ind. 625, 150 N.E. 917 (1926).
• Sigler v. Hooker. 30 Ind. 386 (1868).
• Smith v. Moody. 26 Ind. 299 (1866).
• State ex rel. Brookshire v. Snodgrass. 98 Ind. 546 (1884).
• State ex rel. School City of South Bend v. Thompson, Auditor. 211 Ind. 267, 6 N.E.2d 710 (1937).
• Stevenson v. Cloud. 5 Blackf. 92 (1839).
• Teter v. Teter. 101 Ind. 129 (1885).
• United States v. Board of School Commissioners. 332 F. Supp. 655 (S.D. Ind. 1971).
• Walter v. State. 208 Ind. 231, 195 N.E. 268 (1935).
• Wilkinson v. State. 197 Ind. 642 (1926).
• Williams v. Williams. 460 N.E.2d 1226 (Ind. Ct. App. 1984).

Books and articles

• Grimes, John S. "Development of Descent in Indiana." Indiana Law Journal 29, no. 3 (1954), art. 1. Traces the descents act of 1852 and its amendments. Digital Repository, Indiana University Maurer School of Law. https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol29/iss3/1/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Hart, Hastings H., ed. Juvenile Court Laws in the United States, Summarized. New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1910. A section-by-section summary of the Indiana act of 1903 as amended in 1905 and 1907. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cu31924032591491 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Henderson, Harold. "Indiana Marriage Laws, 1788–1997." Table 2 in Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History (Fall/Winter 2013), 15. A dated chronology of the marrying age, the age to marry without consent, and the residency rule, each row cited to its own statute. Digital images. Indiana Historical Society. https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/api/collection/p16797coll68/id/7512/download (accessed 4 August 2026).
• HeinOnline. "Burns Indiana Statutes and Priors: Titles/Volumes by Subject and Year." A volume-by-volume listing of the compilation, which establishes what each numbered title covers. https://home.heinonline.org/media/contents/6277.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Indiana Archives and Records Administration. "Registers of Negroes and Mulattoes." The record guide and the digitized registers, describing the content of an entry. Cited here under the title the records themselves carry. Indiana State Library Digital Collections. https://digital.library.in.gov/Record/ISL_p16066coll68-183 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Indiana Historical Bureau. "Indiana's First Jury of Women." Indiana History Blog. https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/indianas-first-jury-of-women/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Indiana State Library. "Robert Dale Owen's Law of Descents." Indiana State Library Blog. https://blog.library.in.gov/tag/descents/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• "Jury — Intentional Exclusion of Women." Indiana Law Journal 11, no. 4 (1936), art. 12. Names the jury-selection section in the 1933 compilation, traces it to the special session of 1881, and reviews the cases settling women's eligibility. Digital Repository, Indiana University Maurer School of Law. https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol11/iss4/12/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• McDonald, Earl E. "The Negro in Indiana Before 1881." Indiana Magazine of History 27 (December 1931). IU ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/6622 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• National Park Service. "Vincennes, Indiana." In Explorers and Settlers, National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings. On the age of the settlement. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/explorers/sitee10.htm (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Thornbrough, Emma Lou. The Negro in Indiana Before 1900. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1957. Chapter 3 online. IU ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/items/a11d2d3d-4617-4f27-93d5-9ca218cde53b/full (accessed 4 August 2026).
• U.S. Women's Bureau. "The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Indiana." Bulletin 157-13 (Revised). Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949. States the law as of 1 January 1948 — majority, married women's property, the statutory share, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, and jury service — with citations to the 1933 compilation. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-13-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).

Citations

1. The Revised Laws of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1824), passed at the eighth session of the General Assembly, ch. 58, "An Act declaring what Laws shall be in force," approved 2 January 1818, p. 257, making the common law of England, the British statutes passed in aid of it before the fourth year of James I, and the state's own statutes the rule of decision in Indiana courts; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-gov-acts-1824-r/page/n130 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
2. National Park Service, "Vincennes, Indiana," in Explorers and Settlers, National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings, which records settlers living at the site by 1727 and a fort built about 1732, and notes that the first date of settlement is not known; National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/explorers/sitee10.htm : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
3. Northwest Ordinance of 1787, sec. 2, the estates provision, which carries the rule of equal descent among children, the widow's third of the real estate for life and third of the personal estate, and the requirement that a conveyance of real estate be signed, sealed, and delivered by a person of full age and attested by two witnesses; Indiana Historical Bureau (https://secure.in.gov/history/about-indiana-history-and-trivia/explore-indiana-history-by-topic/indiana-documents-leading-to-statehood/the-northwest-ordinance-1787/ : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩ ↩
4. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana (Indianapolis: John Dowling and R. Cole, State Printers, 1843); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1843 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
5. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, "An Act regulating descents and the apportionment of Estates," approved 14 May 1852, p. 248; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-1/page/n261 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
6. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 1, § 6, p. 595, naming the judges of the probate courts among those who could solemnize a marriage, and art. 4, §§ 78–82, p. 607, placing the appointment of guardians in that court ↩
7. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 8, "An Act for the organization of Courts of Common Pleas," §§ 4–5, p. 17, giving that court original and exclusive jurisdiction over the probate of wills, letters testamentary and of administration, guardianships, the settlement of estates, and the sale of a minor's real estate; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-2/page/n30 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
8. "Courts in Marion County," Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, which records that the common pleas courts were abolished in 1873 and their pending cases transferred to the circuit courts (https://indyencyclopedia.org/courts-in-marion-county/ : accessed 4 August 2026); and see "Indiana Court Records," FamilySearch Research Wiki, for the county-by-county effect on the order books (https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Indiana_Court_Records : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
9. Annotated Indiana Statutes, 1933: Containing All Acts of a General and Public Nature in Force September 1, 1933, edited by Harrison Burns, revised by Benjamin F. Watson, 12 vols. (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1933–34), § 2-4701, subsec. 6. Cited below in the short form Burns' (1933). The same rule is stated in U.S. Women's Bureau, "The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Indiana," Bulletin 157-13 (Revised) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949), 3: the statutory age of majority is 21 years for both sexes. And see Bauman v. Grubbs, 26 Ind. 419 (1866) ↩
10. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 23, "An Act concerning real property and the alienation thereof," approved 6 May 1852, § 2, p. 232; carried forward as Burns' (1933), § 56-102; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-1/page/n245 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
11. Burns' (1933), § 58-102 ↩
12. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 28, art. 2, § 41, p. 421 ↩
13. Acts 1947, p. 789, summarized in Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 3 ↩
14. Burns' (1933), § 56-207 ↩
15. Theodore C. Pease, ed., The Laws of the Northwest Territory, 1788–1800, Illinois Historical Collections 17 (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1925), 28–29, ch. 7, "A Law regulating Marriages," adopted and published by Governor Arthur St. Clair and Judges Samuel Holden Parsons and James Mitchell Varnum: males of 17 and females of 14 may be joined in marriage, and males under 21 and females under 18 not without the consent of the father, or on his death or incapacity the mother or guardian, where the parent or guardian lives within the territory; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofnorthwestt17nort : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
16. The Revised Laws of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1824), passed at the eighth session of the General Assembly, ch. 62, "An Act to regulate Marriages," approved 30 January 1824, § 1, p. 260: male persons of the age of fourteen years and female persons of the age of twelve years, whose marriage is not prohibited by the laws of God, may be joined in marriage; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-gov-acts-1824-r/page/n133 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
17. The Revised Laws of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1831), passed at the fifteenth session of the General Assembly, ch. 63, "An Act to regulate Marriages," approved 4 February 1831, § 1, p. 368, repeating the ages of fourteen and twelve; § 2 names the ministers, justices of the peace, judges, and the Society of Friends who could solemnize a marriage; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-acts-1831-r/page/n183 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
18. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Noel, 1838), passed at the twenty-second session of the General Assembly, ch. 68, "An Act to regulate marriages," approved 17 February 1838, § 1 (males of 18 and females of 14) and § 4 (consent of parents or guardians for males under 21 and females under 18); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-gov-acts-1838/page/n206 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
19. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, "Of the Domestic Relations," art. 1, §§ 1–2, p. 595; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1843/page/n616 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
20. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 67, "An Act declaratory of the law regulating Marriages," approved 5 March 1852, § 1, p. 361; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-1/page/n374 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
21. Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Fiftieth Regular Session of the General Assembly (Indianapolis: Sentinel Company, Printers, 1877), ch. 53, p. 94, approved 5 March 1877, amending § 1 of the act of 5 March 1852 so that marriage is a civil contract into which males of eighteen and females of sixteen, not nearer of kin than second cousins and not having a husband or wife living, are capable of entering; in force from 2 July 1877; carried to Burns' (1933), § 44-101 ↩
22. Revised Laws of 1824, ch. 62, § 4, p. 260; Revised Statutes of 1838, ch. 68, § 4; Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 1, § 10, p. 596; The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 67, § 5, p. 361; and Burns' (1933), §§ 44-202, 44-203 for the requirement as it stood at the end of the period ↩
23. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 1, § 11, p. 596 ↩
24. Revised Laws of 1824, ch. 62, §§ 3, 5, p. 260, requiring a license from the clerk of the circuit court of the county where one or more of the parties usually resided ↩
25. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 1, §§ 8–9, p. 595; and The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 67, § 4, p. 361 ↩
26. Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Eighty-first Regular Session of the General Assembly, 1939 (Indianapolis: Wm. B. Burford, 1939), ch. 100, approved 9 March 1939, § 1, pp. 513–14, amending § 4 of the act of 5 March 1852 so that the license issues from the clerk of the circuit court of the county in which application is made; in force from 1 March 1940 ↩
27. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 1, §§ 6–7, p. 595; Revised Laws of 1824, ch. 62, § 2, p. 260; Revised Laws of 1831, ch. 63, § 2, p. 368; and The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 67, § 3, p. 361 ↩
28. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 1, § 14, p. 596, which saves a marriage from any want of jurisdiction or authority in the person solemnizing it, or any omission or informality in the license, where the parties believed themselves lawfully joined ↩
29. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 67, § 7, p. 362: no marriage shall be void or voidable for the want of license, or other formality required by law, if either of the parties believed it to be a legal marriage at the time; carried to Burns' (1933), § 44-302; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-1/page/n375 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
30. Teter v. Teter, 101 Ind. 129, 134 (1885); Dunlop v. Dunlop, 101 Ind. App. 43, 50 (1935) ↩
31. Acts 1957, ch. 78, §§ 1–2, effective 1 January 1958; the rule descends from Burns' (1933), § 44-302 through that act to Indiana Code § 31-11-8-5; and see Williams v. Williams, 460 N.E.2d 1226 (Ind. Ct. App. 1984) ↩
32. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 1, §§ 3–4, p. 595 ↩
33. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 67, § 2, p. 361 ↩
34. Burns' (1933), § 44-105, as summarized in Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 11 ↩
35. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana (1965), ch. 15, approved 20 February 1965, p. 24, § 1, amending the section codified at Burns' § 44-105; and ch. 17, approved 24 February 1965, p. 25, § 1, amending 1 Revised Statutes of 1852, ch. 67, § 2. Neither rewritten list carries a racial ground; full view, HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.a0001996693 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
36. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 1, § 5, p. 595; re-enacted as Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Sixty-Fourth Regular Session of the General Assembly (Indianapolis: Wm. B. Burford, 1905), ch. 126, approved 6 March 1905, § 5, p. 216; carried to Burns' (1933), § 44-209; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofind0000dani : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
37. Laws of Indiana (1905), ch. 126, §§ 3–4, p. 216; carried to Burns' (1933), § 44-207 ↩
38. Laws of Indiana (1905), ch. 126, § 4, p. 216, requiring the clerk to certify a refusal at once to the circuit court, which heard the matter without a jury ↩
39. Laws of Indiana (1939), ch. 100, approved 9 March 1939, § 2, p. 514, adding § 14 to the marriage act: no application accepted unless accompanied by a licensed physician's statement that each applicant has had a standard serological test for syphilis made not more than thirty days before the license is applied for ↩
40. Acts 1941, p. 103, summarized in Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 11 ↩
41. Laws of Indiana (1905), ch. 126, §§ 1–2, p. 215, which requires a written, sworn application, prescribes what it must state for each party and for both sets of parents, and makes the book it is entered in a public record ↩
42. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 23, § 1, p. 232 ↩
43. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 23, § 3, p. 232 ↩
44. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 23, § 2, p. 232 ↩
45. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 12, "An Act touching the relation of Guardian and Ward," approved 9 June 1852, p. 321, which requires a court order, a petition, and a bond before a guardian may sell a minor's land; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-2/page/n334 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
46. Stevenson v. Cloud, 5 Blackf. 92 (May term 1839), holding a deed executed since 1807 valid between the parties though unacknowledged and without a subscribing witness; the court traced the rule to the territorial revised code of 1807, which repealed all laws not contained in itself and left out the Ordinance's attestation clause. The case is printed in the annotation beneath 1 Revised Statutes of 1852, ch. 23, § 11 ↩
47. The Revised Laws of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1824), passed at the eighth session of the General Assembly, ch. 47, "An Act for the prevention of Frauds and Perjuries," approved 26 January 1818, §§ 1, 3, requiring a writing signed by the party for any grant or assignment of an interest in land, and § 5 for devises ↩
48. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 23, § 4, p. 232; and see § 5 for conveyances by attorney ↩
49. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 28, art. 2, § 36, pp. 418–19 ↩
50. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 28, art. 2, § 35, p. 418 ↩
51. Burns' (1933), § 38-102, which states both the separate-estate rule and the husband's joinder in one section; Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 4, 6 ↩
52. Burns' (1933), § 38-103 ↩
53. Burns' (1933), §§ 38-101, 38-102, in the Husband and Wife title ↩
54. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 23, § 6, p. 232 ↩
55. Burns' (1933), §§ 38-116 to 38-122; Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 4 ↩
56. Burns' (1933), § 38-113 ↩
57. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 23, §§ 7–8, p. 232; Koehring v. Bowman, 194 Ind. 433, 436 (1924) ↩
58. The Revised Laws of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1824), passed at the eighth session of the General Assembly, ch. 33, "An Act for the assignment of Dower," approved 7 January 1824, § 1, p. 156: the widow shall be endowed of one full and equal third part of all the lands, legal or equitable, of which her husband was seized at any time during the coverture, and her dower is not extinguished by a sale of his property; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-gov-acts-1824-r/page/n80 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
59. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 28, art. 4, § 80, p. 427 ↩
60. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 28, art. 4, § 94, p. 431 ↩
61. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 28, art. 4, § 95, p. 431 ↩
62. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 28, art. 4, § 93, p. 431 ↩
63. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 28, art. 2, § 40, p. 421 ↩
64. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 16, p. 250; the rule descends through Burns' (1933), § 6-2353 and Acts 1953, ch. 112, § 211 to Indiana Code § 29-1-2-11; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-1/page/n263 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
65. Burns' (1933), §§ 6-2313, 6-2325, 6-2337, 6-2341; Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 7–8 ↩
66. Burns' (1933), § 6-2325; Mansur v. Hinkson, 94 Ind. 395, 397 (1884) ↩
67. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 18, p. 250; Burns' (1933), § 6-2318; Davis v. Thompson, 179 Ind. 539 (1913) ↩
68. Indiana Constitution of 1851, art. 13, §§ 1–3 ↩
69. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 74, "An Act to enforce the 13th Article of the Constitution," approved 18 June 1852, §§ 2–5, p. 375; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-1/page/n388 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
70. Indiana Archives and Records Administration, "Registers of Negroes and Mulattoes," the record guide and digitized registers, which set out the content of an entry: name, age, physical description, place of birth and residence, and the witnesses who proved the right to remain; Indiana State Library Digital Collections (https://digital.library.in.gov/Record/ISL_p16066coll68-183 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
71. Smith v. Moody, 26 Ind. 299 (1866); the enforcing act was repealed by Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Forty-Fifth Regular Session of the General Assembly (Indianapolis: Alexander H. Conner, State Printer, 1867), ch. 128, approved 22 February 1867, p. 233; full view, HathiTrust (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000050074651 : accessed 4 August 2026). Article 13 itself left the constitution by amendment in 1881 ↩
72. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 74, §§ 6–7, p. 375 (contracts void; penalty for employing); and the 1820 census figures recited in United States v. Board of School Commissioners, 332 F. Supp. 655 (S.D. Ind. 1971) ↩
73. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 12, § 8, p. 208: lands reserved to or for any individual by a treaty between the United States and an Indian tribe or nation became liable to taxation only from the time the treaty was confirmed ↩
74. The Revised Laws of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1824), passed at the eighth session of the General Assembly, ch. 31, "An Act to regulate Descents," approved 2 January 1817, § 1, p. 155: the real and personal estate of a person dying intestate descends to the children or their descendants in equal parts, the children of a deceased child taking their parent's share, and saving to the widow her right of dower; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-gov-acts-1824-r/page/n79 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
75. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, §§ 1–2, p. 248 ↩
76. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, §§ 12–14, pp. 249–50 ↩
77. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 17, p. 250, including the proviso reducing the widow's share to one-fourth where the real estate exceeds ten thousand dollars and to one-fifth where it exceeds twenty thousand, as against creditors; carried to Burns' (1933), § 6-2313; and see Bowers v. Lillis, 187 Ind. 1, 9 (1917) ↩
78. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 23, p. 251; Burns' (1933), § 6-2314 ↩
79. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 24, p. 251; Burns' (1933), § 6-2320 ↩
80. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 25, p. 251; Burns' (1933), § 6-2323; Hughes v. Yates, 195 Ind. 185 (1924) ↩
81. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 26, p. 251; Burns' (1933), § 6-2324 ↩
82. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 22, p. 251; Burns' (1933), § 6-2321 ↩
83. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 24, proviso, p. 251; Burns' (1933), § 6-2315; Sigler v. Hooker, 30 Ind. 386 (1868) ↩
84. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, §§ 19–21, pp. 250–51 ↩
85. Burns' (1933), §§ 6-711, 6-1701, 6-1704; Muga v. Fenn, 198 Ind. 372, 374 (1926); Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 9–10 ↩
86. Burns' (1933), §§ 6-703, 6-704 ↩
87. Burns' (1933), §§ 6-2332, 6-2333; Acts 1937, p. 1010 ↩
88. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 12, § 1, p. 321 ↩
89. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 4, §§ 79–81, p. 607 ↩
90. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 12, §§ 2–3, p. 321 ↩
91. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 35, art. 4, § 102, p. 609; Burns' (1933), § 8-134; Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 3 ↩
92. Burns' (1933), §§ 8-110, 8-103 ↩
93. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 8, p. 249 ↩
94. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 9, p. 249 ↩
95. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 27, § 10, p. 249; Burns' (1933), §§ 6-2311, 6-2312 ↩
96. Acts 1941, p. 301 ↩
97. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 30, art. 1, §§ 1, 7, p. 484 ↩
98. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 11, "An Act prescribing who may make a will," approved 31 May 1852, § 1, p. 308; the age was raised to 18 only in 1971, by Acts 1971, P.L. 404, § 1, now Indiana Code § 29-1-5-1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-2/page/n321 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
99. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 30, art. 2, § 28, p. 491 ↩
100. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 11, §§ 18–19, p. 310 ↩
101. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 30, art. 2, §§ 31–33, pp. 491–92 ↩
102. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 10, "An Act providing for the settlement of Decedents' Estates," approved 17 June 1852, § 1, p. 246; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-2/page/n259 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
103. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 10, § 2, p. 246 ↩
104. Acts 1935, p. 828, summarized in Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 5: a married woman may act as executrix or administratrix without her husband's written consent ↩
105. Burns' (1933), §§ 7-101, 7-102; Huffman v. Copeland, 139 Ind. 221 (1894); Women's Bureau, "Legal Status of Women: Indiana," 7 ↩
106. The Revised Laws of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1824), passed at the eighth session of the General Assembly, ch. 86, "An Act for Assessing and Collecting the Revenue," approved 20 January 1824, § 1, p. 334, allowing the county commissioners to excuse a man over sixty who owned no real estate, or who was bodily disabled, from the poll tax; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-gov-acts-1824-r/page/n171 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
107. The Revised Laws of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1831), passed at the fifteenth session of the General Assembly, ch. 82, "An Act for Assessing and Collecting the Revenue," approved 10 February 1831, §§ 1–2, p. 426; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-acts-1831-r/page/n210 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
108. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 12, §§ 1–2, p. 208 ↩
109. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 12, § 5, pp. 207–08, exempting the polls of Indians, the persons and property of Revolutionary soldiers, and the property of a widow or orphan child up to two hundred dollars; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1843/page/n228 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
110. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 6, approved 21 June 1852, § 1, p. 105 ↩
111. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 6, § 2, p. 105; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-1/page/n118 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
112. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 6, § 3, p. 105 ↩
113. Indiana Constitution of 1851, art. 10, § 1 ↩
114. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 6, § 12, p. 108 ↩
115. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 6, §§ 75, 78, pp. 126–27, prescribing the columns of the county auditor's tax duplicate, which carried the poll tax beside the property assessment for each name in each township ↩
116. Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Special Session of the General Assembly, Begun on the 13th Day of November, A. D. 1872 (Indianapolis: R. J. Bright, State Printer, 1872), ch. 37, "An act to provide for a uniform assessment of property, and for the collection and return of taxes thereon," approved 21 December 1872, §§ 1–2, p. 57, assessing all taxes for the support of the government on polls and on property, and laying the poll tax on every male inhabitant of the state between 21 and 50 — the wording of the 1852 section with the word "white" struck out — and § 36, p. 64, listing each person for his poll tax in the township where he resided when the enlistment was made; and Laws of the State of Indiana, Passed at the Special Session of the General Assembly, Begun on the Eighth Day of March, A. D. 1881 (Indianapolis: Carlon & Hollenbeck, 1881), ch. 96, "An act concerning taxation," approved 29 March 1881, §§ 1–2, p. 611, re-enacting both sections almost word for word and carrying the township rule into the poll tax section itself; digital images, Acts of Indiana Archive, Indiana General Assembly (https://iga.in.gov/publications/act/archive/1872ss-EO.pdf and https://iga.in.gov/publications/act/archive/1881ss-EO.pdf : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩ ↩
117. Laws relating to the assessment of property for taxation, prepared by James Bingham, Attorney-General of Indiana, and issued by the State Board of Tax Commissioners (Indianapolis: Wm. B. Burford, 1907), 11 and 13, printing "An Act concerning taxation, repealing all laws in conflict therewith, and declaring an emergency," Acts 1891, p. 199, approved and in force 6 March 1891. Section 1 assesses all taxes for the support of the government on polls and on property, the amount charged on each poll for state and school purposes being fixed by law and the county charge by the board of county commissioners. Section 2 is printed in full: "A poll-tax shall be assessed upon every male inhabitant of this State between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years, and every person shall be listed for his poll-tax in the township, town or city of his residence." Noted there as 3 Burns' Revised Statutes 1901, §§ 8408 and 8409. The same section is printed, with the same wording, in Laws concerning the assessment of property for taxation, annotated by Thomas B. Buskirk of the State Board of Tax Commissioners (Indianapolis, 1899), 4; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsrelatingtoas00indi/page/n9 : accessed 4 August 2026) and digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsconcerninga00commgoog : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
118. Acts 1907, p. 505, recited in Laws relating to the assessment of property for taxation (1907), 13, note 3: there is for the year 1907 and annually thereafter a state poll tax of fifty cents upon each legal voter, subject to the same exemptions as other poll taxes; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsrelatingtoas00indi/page/n9 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
119. Burns' Annotated Indiana Statutes, Showing the General Statutes in Force January 1, 1914 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1914), general index, under Taxes and under Poll-Tax, carrying the two sections of the act of 1891 forward as § 10140 (assessment of taxes on polls, and rates of levy) and § 10141 (who is taxed for polls); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/burnsannotatedi00indigoog : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
120. State ex rel. School City of South Bend v. Thompson, Auditor, 211 Ind. 267, 6 N.E.2d 710 (1937), setting out a county levy that includes a poll tax of one dollar on each male inhabitant; and Marion School Township v. Smith, 215 Ind. 586, 21 N.E.2d 412 (1939), a state levy on property with a poll tax of fifty cents on each taxable poll in addition — the same fifty cents the act of 1907 had fixed ↩
121. Burns' Indiana Statutes Annotated, 1951 Replacement, § 64-220, the poll tax exemption for disabled veterans, cited in Hanley v. State, Department of Conservation, 234 Ind. 326, 123 N.E.2d 452 (1954) ↩
122. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 12, § 48, p. 216, and The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 1 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 6, § 78, p. 127, both of which give the tax duplicate a separate column for the road tax; and State ex rel. Brookshire v. Snodgrass, 98 Ind. 546 (1884), on the poll tax assessed for highway purposes, known as commutation, which a man could discharge by working on the roads instead of paying ↩
123. The Revised Laws of Indiana (Indianapolis: Douglass and Maguire, 1824), passed at the eighth session of the General Assembly, ch. 55, "An Act regulating the mode of summoning and empannelling Grand and Petit Jurors," approved 31 January 1824, § 1, p. 235: the county commissioners select from the persons returned as taxable all the discreet householders and freeholders resident in the county between the ages of twenty-one and sixty; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/isl-ind-gov-acts-1824-r/page/n119 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
124. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 50, "Of the Mode of Summoning and Empannelling Grand and Petit Jurors," §§ 1–4, p. 514, the qualification at § 2; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1843/page/n535 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
125. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), ch. 9, "An Act prescribing the manner of impanneling Petit Jurors, the number and compensation thereof," approved 20 May 1852, §§ 1–2, p. 24: the county treasurer, auditor, and recorder write the names of one hundred reputable male householders competent to serve as jurors on slips and deposit them in a box, from which the clerk draws twelve; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-2/page/n37 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
126. Indiana Constitution of 1851, art. 2, § 2 ↩
127. Burns' (1933), § 4-3304, descending from Acts 1881, Spec. Sess., ch. 69, § 2, p. 557, which provides for the selection of jurors from the names of legal voters and citizens of the United States on the tax duplicates of the county for the current year. Both the section number and its derivation are given in "Jury — Intentional Exclusion of Women," Indiana Law Journal 11, no. 4 (1936), art. 12, at 387 and n. 8; Digital Repository, Indiana University Maurer School of Law (https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol11/iss4/12/ : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
128. Burns' (1933), § 4-3317; Palmer v. State, 197 Ind. 625, 150 N.E. 917 (1926); Walter v. State, 208 Ind. 231, 195 N.E. 268, 270 (1935); and see Moore v. State, 197 Ind. 640 (1926), Wilkinson v. State, 197 Ind. 642 (1926), and Jalbert v. State, 200 Ind. 380 (1928) ↩
129. Indiana Constitutions of 1816 and 1851, suffrage articles; the word "white" was removed by amendment in 1881, as recited in United States v. Board of School Commissioners, 332 F. Supp. 655 (S.D. Ind. 1971) ↩
130. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 40, art. 10, § 251, p. 718; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1843/page/n739 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
131. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), code of civil practice, § 239, p. 81, whose general competency section turns only on age and soundness of mind; the bar was restored by Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana (1853), ch. 42, approved 14 February 1853, § 1, p. 60; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/acts-1853/page/n59 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
132. Laws of Indiana (1867), ch. 120, approved 11 March 1867, §§ 1, 3, pp. 225, 227, making every person of competent age a witness in any civil or criminal cause and repealing all laws in conflict; full view, HathiTrust (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000050074651 : accessed 4 August 2026). And see Earl E. McDonald, "The Negro in Indiana Before 1881," Indiana Magazine of History 27 (December 1931), 301–02 ↩
133. The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana, vol. 2 (Indianapolis: J. P. Chapman, State Printer, 1852), code of civil practice, § 239, p. 81; the test was recast by Laws of Indiana (1867), ch. 120, § 2, p. 226; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/rev-stat-1852-vol-2/page/n94 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
134. Acts 1903, ch. 237, approved 10 March 1903, § 1 ↩
135. Acts 1903, ch. 237, § 3, which reaches any boy up to his seventeenth birthday and any girl up to her eighteenth, on a complaint for any offense not punishable by death or life imprisonment. A section-by-section summary of the act as amended in 1905 and 1907 is printed in Hastings H. Hart, ed., Juvenile Court Laws in the United States, Summarized (New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1910); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/cu31924032591491 : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
136. Acts 1903, ch. 237, § 3 ↩
137. Acts 1941, ch. 233; Acts 1945, ch. 356, §§ 15, 21 ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.