LEVY COURT

A court formerly existing in the District of Columbia. It was a body charged with the administration of the ministerial and financial duties of Washington county. It was charged with the duty of laying out and repairing roads, building bridges, providing poor houses, laying and collecting the taxes necessary to enable it to discharge these and other duties, and to pay the other expenses of the county. It had capacity to make contracts in reference to any of these matters, and to raise money to meet such contracts. It had perpetual succession, and its functions were those which, in the several states, are performed by “county commissioners,” “overseers of the poor,” “county supervisors,” and similar bodies with other designations. Levy Court v. Coroner, 2 Wall. 507, 17 L. Ed. 851. In Delaware, the “levy court” is an administrative board elected and organized in each county, composed of from five to thirteen “commissioners,” who, in respect to taxation, perform the functions of a board of equalization and review and also of a board to supervise the assessors and collectors and audit and adjust their accounts, and who also have certain powers and special duties in respect to the administration of the poor laws, the system of public roads and the officers in charge of them, the care of insane paupers and convicts, the government and administration of jails, school districts, and various other matters of local concern. See Rev. St. Del. 1893, c. 8; Mealey v. Buckingham, 6 Del. Ch. 356, 22 Atl. 357.