CHAPTER XVIII

MANUFACTURED SUPPLIES: DOMESTIC—continued

It was in glass-making that the first step was taken in Virginia to promote manufactures in the wider sense of the word. The explanation of this fact lay in the necessity of providing a large quantity of beads for the use of the settlers in their trade with the Indian natives. There was doubtless a subordinate expectation that Virginia might be able to export raw glass for the English market. One of the most serious obstructions in England to all forms of manufacture involving the consumption of much fuel, was the growing scarcity of wood in consequence of the heavy inroads on the forests. This was felt most severely in the manufacture of iron, but it was also felt in glass-making. The abundance of trees in Virginia was thought to be a notable element of success in the manufacture of this latter commodity in the Colony. When Newport arrived in Virginia in the fall of 1608,¹ he was accompanied by a number of Dutch and Poles, who formed a part of the Second Supply, the object for which they had been sent out being, among other things, to make a trial of glass. A glass-house was accordingly erected about a mile from Jamestown.² The first material of this kind was made during the absence of Newport on his excursion into the country of the Monocans, and it was made under the supervision of Smith; when Newport

returned to England, he carried with him as a portion of his cargo, the specimens of glass which had been thus produced.¹ In the spring of 1609, the manufacture was continued with success.² During the memorable Starving Time following on the departure of Smith from the Colony, the work which had been in progress at the glass-house must have ceased entirely. Nothing more was heard of glass manufacture in Virginia until 1621, in which year there was an effort to reestablish it on a permanent footing.

In 1621, the Company entered into a contract with Captain William Norton, who had decided to emigrate to the Colony with his family, under the terms of which he was to carry over with him four Italians skilled in glass-making, and also two servants, the expense of transporting these six persons to be borne by him, while the Company was to furnish their general equipment. In the course of three months after his arrival in Virginia, Norton was required to erect a house for the manufacture of every variety of glass. The privilege of exclusive manufacture was to be enjoyed by him during a period of seven years, and he was expected to give not only his personal superintendence to the work, but also to instruct apprentices in the art of making glass. As a reward for this, he was to receive one-fifth of the moiety of the product reserved for the Company and was to be allowed in addition, four hundred acres of the public land. It was expressly provided that no beads were to be retained by Norton, for these could only be useful as a medium of exchange in the Indian trade, in which the Company alone had the right to engage.³

The contract with Captain Norton was reconsidered at a Quarter Court convened at a later date. Attention had in the meanwhile been called to the fact that the Company was at this time in no condition to undergo the heavy charge of supplying eleven persons—the number constituting the hand of Captain Norton—with apparel, tools, victuals, and other necessaries, and of transporting them to Virginia. It appeared, moreover, that the calculation of the expense in the beginning had not been sufficiently accurate. It was decided to recommend the proposed manufacture to private subscribers, the Company, however, to advance one-fourth of the amount required to set the enterprise on a firm basis. The patent to be granted was to continue in force for a period of seven years, and was to include the right to make not only glass but also soda, as a necessary ingredient of that substance. Fifty acres were to be allowed for every person sent over by the private adventurers. A roll was drawn at the same court at which the proposition was broached, and received the signatures of the proposed investors.¹ Having by this means secured the fund needed for the equipment of himself and his followers for the enterprise in which they were to engage, and to meet the charges for the ocean passage, Captain Norton, his family, and workingmen set sail for Virginia. There he succeeded in erecting a glass furnace. Unfortunately, Norton died, and the Treasurer, Sandys, who had been appointed to take his place in that event,² came in charge of the works but soon met with disappointment, as he found it difficult to obtain the proper variety of sand. On one occasion, he sent a shallop to the Falls for a supply,

but none adapted to his purpose was found there. He was successful in obtaining the kind which he required from the banks at Cape Henry, but its quality proved so unsatisfactory that Sandys wrote to Ferrer in England requesting him to forward two or three hogsheads of the proper material.¹ The difficulty did not lie only in securing the sand. The Italian workmen employed in the glass-house were wholly intractable; Sandys, in the violence of his anger and disgust, went so far as to say “that a more damned crew hell never vomited,” a character which their actions justified his attributing to them.² The Italians were anxious to return to Europe, and in order to effect their release, not only proceeded so slowly in their work as to accomplish nothing of consequence, but cracked the furnace by striking it with a crowbar. Their studied efforts to obtain permission to leave the country by breaking up the industry in which they were engaged ended in failure, for among those who were enumerated in the census of 1624-25 as residing on the Treasurer’s lands, were Bernardo and Vicenso, two of the four Italians who had come out with Norton in 1621.³

There is no positive evidence to show for how great a length of time the glass-house remained in existence

after the massacre. The land upon which it was situated was conveyed during Governor Harvey’s administration to Anthony Coleman. By the heirs of Coleman, it was assigned to John Senior; from Senior it passed first to John Pitchett, then to John Phipps and William Harris. Phipps having conveyed his interest to Harris, Harris in turn conveyed the tract to Colonel Francis Morrison. This was done in September, 1655.¹

One of the strongest motives that led to the colonization of Virginia by the English was the expectation that it would supply the mother country with a vast quantity of raw iron. The demand for manufactured iron was rapidly increasing in England, and yet the ability of the English furnaces to meet this demand was declining on account of the diminishing quantity of fuel furnished by the local forests. It was entirely just that the English people should look forward to the day when they might be forced to rely on foreign nations for their supply of a material which was coming rapidly into greater use each year.² In 1740, it is calculated that England and Wales together produced only seventeen thousand tons; ten years later, five thousand represented the increase.³ In 1621, the price of a ton of iron was about ten or twelve pounds sterling, equivalent in purchasing power to two hundred and fifty dollars.⁴ Virginia was expected not only to relieve England of its dangerous and uncertain dependence upon foreign nations for its supply of raw iron, but

also to furnish that commodity at a cheap rate, owing to the abundance of wood that could be used as fuel in the manufacture.¹ These anticipations were justified by the numerous indications of the presence of iron ore observed by the earliest settlers. Smith, whose mind was always directed to the practical and sober aspects of his surroundings, was among the first to call attention to the adaptability of the new country to iron manufacture as one of the most promising of its sources of wealth, and in order to show the substantial ground on which his expectations were based, he forwarded to England during his presidency two barrels of stones rich in tracings of iron ore.² In 1609, Captain Newport transported a large quantity of the same kind of ore to the mother country on his return in the course of that year. So excellent was the metal extracted from it, amounting to sixteen or seventeen tons, that it was purchased by the East India Company, according to whose statement it proved more satisfactory than any iron, procured from other countries; which they had as yet used.³ The metal was sold to that Corporation at the rate of four pounds sterling a ton.

The earliest attempt to manufacture iron in Virginia, if reliance can be placed on the testimony of Don Maguel, a Spanish witness, was made previous to 1610. Already in the course of the first three years following the foundation of the settlement at Jamestown, machinery had been erected by the English settlers to work the iron mines.⁴

The adventurers of Southampton Hundred were perhaps the first who undertook to manufacture iron in the Colony in a systematic way. The circumstances in which this attempt had its origin were peculiar. In 1619, some unknown person contributed five hundred and fifty pounds sterling for the conversion of Indian children living in the Colony, and this large sum was deposited in the hands of the Company to be used for the prescribed purpose in the manner which seemed to be most advisable. That body after some deliberation decided to place the money with the adventurers of Southampton and Martin’s Hundreds, in order that the wishes of the anonymous benefactor might be carried out, relieving itself thus of the burden of a very troublesome and perplexing trust. The adventurers of Martin’s Hundred, however, were too shrewd to undertake the difficult and thankless task; they declined to accept their share of the benefaction, on the ostensible ground that their property in Virginia was in a state of so much confusion as to render it impossible for them to expend the fund in the manner desired. The adventurers of Southampton Hundred were as anxious as the Company to evade the trust, but being destitute of a plausible excuse such as that of the adventurers of Martin’s Hundred, they expressed their willingness to add one hundred pounds to the gift or, condition of not being required to assume the proposed responsibility. Their offer was not accepted, although to that extent the conversion of Indian children would have been facilitated. At a meeting held shortly afterwards, the adventurers of Southampton Hundred

determined to conform to the wishes of the Company, but in a manner somewhat different from what was anticipated by the unknown Indian benefactor. Instead of deciding to use the money directly for the benefit of Indian children, they concluded to increase the amount by adding to it a large sum out of their own purse, and to employ the whole in establishing iron works in Virginia, the profits of which, ratably to the benefaction, were to be expended in instructing thirty Indian children in the doctrines of the Christian Church. Two purposes would be thus accomplished, one of which would promote the economic welfare of the colonists, and the other elevate the moral condition of the heathen.¹ A letter was addressed to Yeardley, who was not only Governor of Virginia, but also Captain of Southampton Hundred, in which he was urged to show the utmost care and industry in setting the projected works on foot, as upon these works were fixed the “eyes of God, Angels, and men.” Captain Blewit was dispatched to the Colony to superintend the manufacture of iron, but, like so many others who went out to Virginia at this early period, he succumbed to disease soon after his arrival. This had the effect of obstructing the proposed industry for a time.² He had been accompanied by eighty men. After the death of Blewit, Mr. John Berkeley, with twenty experienced iron workers, came to Virginia to reinforce the survivors of the original band. These additional workmen had been obtained by Berkeley on condition that the Company would assume the expense of transporting himself, his son and his three servants. The cost of sending over the workmen was also defrayed by that Corporation, and they

were to be supported at its charge for a period of twelve months and to remain in its service for the term of seven years.¹ The original purpose was to establish three iron works,² but only one furnace appears to have been erected, its site being on Falling Creek, in the present county of Chesterfield.

It is interesting to find that this spot as a place for iron-making had already been regarded with great enthusiasm by George Sandys, who declared that if Nature had intentionally prepared it with a view to this special manufacture, the advantages for that purpose which it possessed could not have been more remarkable. In expressing this opinion, he had in mind the circumstance that there were present in proximity here not only ore and water, but wood, and stones with which to construct the furnace.³ A mine was opened and a successful effort made to work it. The men employed were provided with food and clothing by the Company, whilst the adventurers of Southampton Hundred allowed them the use of five kine.⁴ The cost of setting up the iron works was in 1621 calculated by Sir Edwin Sandys to be four thousand pounds,⁵ but it is stated by other authorities to have been as much as five thousand.⁶ According to the assertion of the enemies of the Southampton administration, the only practical return which the Company obtained for this enormous outlay was an iron shovel, a pair of tongs,

and a bar of iron.¹ To such a point of perfection, however, had the works been brought by this expenditure of money, that in 1622, it was confidently anticipated by those in charge that in three months they would be in a position to forward large quantities of raw iron to England. Very soon, however, the massacre by the Indians brought destruction to the little settlement on Falling Creek. The tools were destroyed or thrown into the river by the savages,² and the workmen, with the exception of a boy and girl, were killed.

The attack upon the iron works at Falling Creek and its results, disheartening as they were, did not at the moment diminish the interest in that undertaking felt both by the Company in England and by the colonial authorities. But for the revocation of the charter of the former, it is highly probable that the works would have been restored and the manufacture of iron resumed. After receiving information of the massacre, the Company instructed the Governor and Council in Virginia to place the men surviving, who had been connected with the iron works, in charge of Mr. Maurice Berkeley, to be employed by him elsewhere until the works could be set in operation. In the meanwhile, a note of what tools would be needed when the manufacture began the second time was to be transmitted to England. The Company declared that it would know no quiet until the works were again perfected, since they regarded them as absolutely

necessary to the prosperity of the Colony.¹ The colonial officers showed great willingness to respond to this spirit, and seem to have taken some steps looking to the restoration of the furnace.

Five years after the massacre, William Capps, who had a few years before been in correspondence with the Warwick faction among the members of the Company, being at that time a resident of the Colony, was sent by the King to Virginia with a general commission to establish a number of industries, including the manufacture of iron.² The Governor and Council expressed the utmost readiness to give Capps all the assistance in their power, but he became involved in trouble very soon, and before he could put any of his plans in operation, was forced to leave the country.³ A proposition was made to the King in 1628 to incorporate a number of persons residing in England, whose names were subscribed, with special privileges for manufacturing iron in Virginia. They petitioned for the exclusive right, during fourteen years, of producing that commodity in the Colony, and also sought exemption from customs, subsidies, and other duties in importing it into England. There is no evidence that this charter was granted, but the desire to obtain it indicates that the demand for iron in the mother country

had directed the attention of many enterprising Englishmen to Virginia as a place where that material could be manufactured at a profitable rate. In the same year, probably in reply to an inquiry from the English Government, the Governor and Council state that they had recently sent ore to England, presumably from Falling Creek, declaring at the same time, that the cost of restoring the works and importing operatives was too great to be assumed by the Colony.¹

In 1630, Governor Harvey made a journey to the site of the old iron works on Falling Creek, with a view to discovering whether they could be restored. He found the spot surrounded by a heavy growth of timber sufficient to supply an abundance of fuel. There was a bold stream near by, from which water could be procured; and also a large bed of freestone and numerous outcroppings of iron ore. As a result of the impressions received on this visit, he wrote to the authorities in England that all the conditions of the locality were favorable to the reëstablishment of the works; he sent over at the same time two specimens of ore, one of which he had obtained from the valley of the Upper James, probably near the Falls of the river, the other from the valley of the Lower. A few years later, Sir John Zouch and his son seem to have taken steps to establish iron works in Virginia,² but the project collapsed on account of the failure of their partners to come to their assistance.³ The cost of reviving

the manufacture of iron in the Colony was so great that practical interest in it died out for a period of many years. The author of the New Description of Virginia, published in 1649, recognized the possibilities of iron manufacture in the Colony. He dwelt at length on the number of the streams there to furnish water for the works, the amount of the wood to supply fuel, the quantity of stone suitable for the construction of furnaces, and the abundance of ore. He declared that works of this kind would be as valuable as a silver mine, since their product could be used not only for plantation purposes but also in building ships, casting ordnance, and making armor and muskets. There were many laborers in Virginia whose services could be easily secured, and it would entail but a small cost to provide for them, since food was plentiful. He stated that it would require only six months to erect the works, and that the charge for importing skilled men and the necessary tools ought not to exceed four hundred pounds sterling. The expensiveness of iron manufacture in the Colony appears from the suggestion of the author of the New Description of Virginia, that the undertakers of a new enterprise, with this object in view, should give their workmen one-half of the annual product, instead of paying them definite wages, in case of a successful issue to their operations; the scheme would thus be carried out on the coöperative principle, probably the first instance in colonial history in which it was proposed that this principle should be given a practical test.¹

In 1657-58, a law was passed by the General Assembly, prohibiting the exportation of iron, in addition to hides and wool.² This was expressly intended to apply to old iron only.³ The object of the law, so far as that commodity

was concerned, was to promote the blacksmith’s trade, but as it did not accomplish this among the other purposes for which it was designed, it was in 1658-59 repealed. In 1661-62, it was again enacted, only to be repealed a second time in 1671.¹ There is no indication of the manufacture of iron in Virginia in the period between the first enactment and the last repeal of this statute; in the interval, Berkeley had been instructed to report on the feasibility of establishing iron works in the Colony, the King having expressed a determination to erect these works at his own expense if the ore justified the great outlay necessary.² Berkeley in his reply discouraged the project on the ground that the quantity of iron ore in Virginia was not sufficient to keep one mill going for seven years.³ Clayton, during his visit to the Colony, inquired into the practicability of carrying on iron manufacture there, and his conclusions were adverse to the undertaking. No one there, he wrote, had money enough to bear the expense of starting and sustaining iron works, and in view of the great distance rendering personal supervision impossible, it would be equally impracticable for a resident of the mother country to assume the risks of the enterprise.⁴ In 1682, the original law prohibiting the exportation of iron, among other articles, which, as has been seen, was repealed in 1671, was reenacted in the hope of giving employment to many persons who were then idle and in want of the necessaries of life. The penalty for exporting a pound of the material was fixed at ten pounds of tobacco,⁵ but this provision, like the original law, must

have been intended to apply to iron which had been brought into Virginia, since none appears to have been manufactured at this time in the Colony. Under the Act for the establishment of ports, which was passed in 1691, but never put in operation, a duty of one penny was imposed upon every pound exported.¹

Much interest was shown by planters in the closing years of the century in finding out whether the ores in Virginia were adapted to iron making. Both Fitzhugh and Byrd shipped specimens to England to be examined there. In 1689, Fitzhugh sent a considerable quantity to Mr. Boyle for this purpose.² Byrd tested some of the lead ores by the use of a charcoal fire and a pair of hand bellows.³

As early as 1612, it was anticipated that Virginia would become an important seat of linen manufacture, owing to the adaptability of the soil to the production of flax. In this respect, it was considered superior to the soil of England. The early explorers confidently expected that in time the Colony would furnish the mother country with an abundant supply of linen, not only from the flax plant, which grew there in such profusion in a wild state, but also from the water-flag found in the marshes. This latter plant, when boiled, was found to yield an integument remarkable for the strength of its texture as well as for its length. From this product was derived a material that could be used, it was said at the time, in making the finest linen. Some portions of it were adapted, it was thought, to the manufacture of a stout and durable cordage. Two hundred pounds of this stuff were imported into England not long after the settlement of

Virginia, and proved on trial to be of excellent quality both for show and use.¹

In spite of the repeated instructions given by the authorities in England to the Governors of Virginia, in the long interval between 1612 and 1646, to promote the cultivation of flax, no persistent effort was made until the last year to manufacture linen in any quantity. In 1646, the General Assembly decided upon the erection of two houses at Jamestown for this purpose. They were to be built of substantial timber and were to be forty feet in length, twenty in width, and eight in pitch. The roofs were to be covered with boards properly sawed, and in the centre of each house, brick chimneys were to be placed. Each house was to be divided into rooms by convenient partitions. The different counties were respectively required to furnish two children, male or female, of the age of eight or seven years at least, whose parents were too poor to educate them, to be instructed in the art of carding, knitting, and spinning. In order that ample provision might be made for the health and comfort of the pupils, each county was required to supply the two children whom it sent, with six barrels of Indian corn, a sow, two laying hens, linen and woollen apparel, shoes, hose, a bed, rug, blanket, two coverlets, a wooden bowl or tray, and two pewter spoons. This law, whether fully carried out or not, reveals the interest which was felt in the Colony at this time in the manufacture of linen.²

It was during this period of colonial history that Captain Mathews, who resided at Blunt Point on the Lower James, was offering to the people of Virginia a notable illustration of the ease with which a planter, by skilful management of property, could procure within the bounds

of his own estate all the supplies needed in carrying it on, whether springing directly from the soil and used in their natural state or after undergoing the process of manufacture. Among the numerous artificers who were found in the list of his servants and slaves, were spinners of the flax which he had produced in the cultivation of his own land.¹ There were probably other planters, contemporaries of Captain Mathews, who made a similar use of the same plant obtained in it like manner, and this continued through the interval preceding 1681. In that year, we find Colonel Fitzhugh writing to Thomas Mathew and congratulating him on his progress in manufacturing linen, and expressing the hope that it would be profitable, and at the same time, commending his example to all the landowners of the Colony.²

In 1682, at the instance of Lord Culpeper, a law for the encouragement of linen and woollen manufactures was passed, on the ground advanced by the Governor, that “it might be of some use,” which reveals that previous observation had not led him to be very sanguine as to any important development of these industries.³ The provisions as to the manufacture of linen were very complete in detail, but they show that there was no general effort on the part of the planters to convert their fiax into this material. To every person who brought flax or hemp to the court of the county in which he resided, in a condition to be placed on the spindle, two pounds of tobacco were given for every pound of flax or hemp so presented, but it must have been the product of his own land. The certificate

which he received entitled him to be paid by the General Assembly out of the public levy. If the owner of the flax or hemp manufactured it into linen cloth, he was allowed six pounds of tobacco for every ell, which was to be three-quarters of a yard in width at the least. This linen was first examined by the county court, and proof of its being of the growth and manufacture of the owner had to be offered and accepted before the regular certificate could be obtained. Every tithable was required to produce either two pounds of flax, or hemp, or one pound of each, every year, and the penalty for the neglect of this regulation was the forfeiture of fifty pounds of tobacco. To ensure its performance, the heads of families and the overseers of servants and slaves were directed, before the annual levy was made, to appear before the nearest justice of the peace, and give in for each tithable under him, the amount of dressed flax or hemp prescribed by law.¹

The statute was to continue in force until 1685, but it was repealed before its limitation was reached, on the ground that it imposed too heavy a burden on the public, both in the quantity of tobacco paid out under its provisions, and in the loss resulting from the passing of that commodity through the hands of officers. It was also stated that the advantages derived by the planters from this form of manufacture would be so great that there was needed no further encouragement to ensure its continuation.²

The disapproval which the English Government expressed with reference to the original regulation does not seem to have influenced the General Assembly in deciding to declare its provisions inoperative. Whether this was the case or not, the inventories placed on record in the county courts in the period between the repeal of the law and its

reënactment show that there were few of the more important households in the Colony, in this interval, in which linen-stuffs were not manufactured for domestic uses. Linen-wheels are frequently enumerated.¹ In 1693, the statute offering a reward for the encouragement of linen production was again passed. This is only one among several instances disclosing how little attention was paid by the General Assembly to the opposition with which all colonial laws looking to the promotion of manufactures was regarded by the English authorities. Under the revived Act of 1693, the justices of the peace were required to levy upon the inhabitants of their respective counties a proportionate amount of tobacco for distribution among the persons who should present specimens of linen of their own manufacture, this linen to be at least fifteen ells in length and three-quarters of a yard in width. Each person claiming the reward was to bring forward three pieces representing different grades in texture. For the piece of the finest quality, eight hundred pounds of tobacco were to be allotted; for the piece of second rate quality, six hundred pounds, and for the piece of third rate, four hundred pounds. This Act was to continue in force until 1699.² The county records show that its rewards were claimed by local manufacturers of linen. One of the first instances entered was that of Thomas Chisman of York, who, in 1694, presented to the court of this county a piece of linen cloth which had been made in his dwelling-house by members of his family. On the same occasion, Thomas

Fowler offered a similar piece. In the course of the same year, Chisman presented a second piece of linen cloth and was allowed eight hundred pounds of tobacco.¹ The same amount of tobacco was granted for the same reason to John Smith of Middlesex in 1695,² and to Thomas Cocke of Henrico.³ In 1697, Tobias Hall of Lancaster claimed the reward for the production of this kind of cloth, and again in 1698.⁴ Among the manufacturers of linen in Middlesex were Ralph Wormeley, who, in 1684, brought into court one hundred pounds of dressed flax fit for the spindle; Captain Henry Creyk, who presented seven yards of cloth; and Richard Parrott, who presented thirty-five yards. Thirty-three yards were offered by other persons.⁵ In 1698, the court of Middlesex, replying to a communication from the Governor asking to what extent linen had been manufactured in this county, stated that the quantity had amounted annually to about fifty yards.⁶

No special attempt was made to foster by the offer of statutory encouragement the growth of domestic cotton manufacture, although Governor Andros, towards the close

of the century, took steps to extend the culture of the plant in Virginia. There are many indications, however, that this material was spun in considerable quantities in the households of the people. In a letter written in 1685 to one of his correspondents in England, Colonel Byrd refers to the rivalry among his dependents as to who should spin the most cotton, and this was not an uncommon case, as is revealed by the number of spinning-wheels included in the inventories, the use of which could not have been confined to wool and flax.¹

There was always a stronger opposition in England to the manufacture of woollen cloths in Virginia than to the manufacture of linen. The author of the Nova Britannia, which was written in the early part of the century for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Colony by calling the attention of the English people to the many advantages it offered, was careful to depreciate its adaptability to sheep husbandry. God, he declared, had denied sheep to Virginia, and yet among its population there was a rapidly increasing demand for clothing. He predicted that this would in the end cause the Colony to become a market of great importance for the sale of garments of English manufacture, and thus be the means of restoring the English trade in cloth, now fallen into a state of decay in spite of the anxiety in the mother country to reestablish it.² From an early period, woollen manufactures were carried on in a small way in the homes of the planters, the quantity thus made being restricted rather by the paucity of sheep than by the limited facilities for production. Colonel Mathews, perhaps the leading citizen of Virginia in 1646,

not only spun linen from flax, but also wove cloth of wool. In the list of his employees there appear a number of artisans for this purpose.¹ In 1656, the authority was given to Northampton County to pass laws to promote and govern its own manufactures, among which the woollen were probably of importance.²

In 1659, a regulation was adopted prohibiting the exportation of wool, among other articles.³ Seven years later, the difficulty of obtaining clothing from England to supply the needs of the people became so great that the General Assembly determined to take more active steps for the encouragement of domestic woollen manufactures. What could be accomplished in this direction had already been illustrated in Governor Berkeley’s success in furnishing his own household. The Assembly estimated that five women, or the same number of children of ages not exceeding thirteen years, could provide clothing for thirty persons. In order to remove the objection that there were no looms in the Colony, the court of each county was instructed to set up one of these machines and to employ a weaver to work it. A failure to comply with this order exposed the court derelict to a fine of two thousand pounds of tobacco.⁴ In 1668, the scope of this law was enlarged

by conferring upon the commissioners of the different counties the authority to erect houses in which the children of indigent parents were to be taught the art of spinning and weaving as well as other trades, these children to be selected at the discretion of the commissioners.¹

In 1671, the statute prohibiting the exportation of wool, among other articles, was repealed on the ground that the handicraftsmen whose trades it was designed to aid had failed to take advantage of it.² In 1682, it was reënacted. Wool and woolfels and the other articles named, the statute declared, were essential to the welfare of the people of the Colony, as furnishing necessary materials for use, and also as offering subsistence to many persons because they would find occupation in working them up. The penalty for exporting wool and woolfels was now placed at forty pounds of tobacco for every pound of these materials carried out of the country. The owner of the ship transporting it forfeited his interest in the vessel if aware of its presence on board, while the master and seamen were deprived of their goods and chattels for their participation in the act, besides being made subject to imprisonment for three months. If any person who had knowledge of the fact that a certain quantity of wool and woolfels were to be exported seized upon it, he was entitled to one-half of it as a reward for furnishing information as to its prospective illegal removal. The collectors were instructed to announce to every shipmaster arriving, the passage of this statute, and to insert in the entry bond of each one, a condition that he should observe its provisions.³ With a view of encouraging the manufacture of the wool thus kept in Virginia, a second law was passed in 1682, which, as we have seen, was also applicable to linen, prescribing that six pounds of tobacco should be paid to every person who

brought to the court of the county in which he resided, a yard of woollen cloth or linsey-woolsey three-quarters of a yard wide, the same to be examined in the manner required in the case of linen. The fact that it was of the growth and manufacture of the person delivering it, was also to be shown and embodied in the certificate to be presented to the Assembly to ensure the payment of the reward. Under the provisions of the same law, ten pounds of tobacco were granted to every one in the Colony who made a fur or woollen hat, and twelve pounds to the maker of every dozen pair of worsted hose for men and women.¹

The rewards offered by these statutes had a strong influence in directing the attention of the planters to local woollen manufactures. In 1684, Ralph Wormeley produced before the court of Middlesex, fourteen yards of woollen cloth woven on his estate. Christopher Wormeley, on the same occasion, presented ninety-five yards, Captain Henry Creyk sixty-one, John Farrell fifty-five, and Richard Parrott thirty-four. Forty-five yards were brought in by different planters at subsequent meetings of the same court.² There is reason to think that persons in other counties took advantage of the same public inducements to manufacture woollen cloth.

As far as possible, the English authorities discouraged the manufacture of every form of cloth in Virginia, and it is, therefore, not surprising to find that the statute prohibiting the exportation of wool and woolfels, and the statute passed to encourage woollen and linen production, should have been regarded with the strongest disapproval by the English Government.³ In 1683, both measures

were expressly disallowed by the commissioners of the customs on the ground that they diminished the correspondence between the mother country and the Colony; weakened the dependence of the colonial population upon England; curtailed the freight which was furnished to English shipping, and thus obstructed an increase in the number of English seamen; seriously narrowed the market for English woollen and other manufactures; advanced the cost of tobacco to the English consumer by raising the charges of navigation; and finally, reduced the volume of the customs.¹ It has been pointed out that the statute to encourage the growth of linen and woollen manufactures was repealed in 1684, but for reasons which did not include the opposition of the English Government to its continuation. In spite of the adverse report of the commissioners, this law was revived in 1686, to continue in force for four years, and was again reenacted at the end of that time, to remain in operation until the close of 1694.² In the famous Act for Ports, a duty of six pence was placed on exported wool. The determination of the local authorities to establish woollen manufactures was shown in 1693 in the valuable privileges extended to all persons who proposed to erect fulling mills; if such persons owned land on but one side of a stream, they could have condemned an acre on the other side for the convenience of carrying on the work of their mills, provided that there were no housings or orchards on the tracts thus appropriated.³

During his tenure of the governorship, Nicholson recommended to the English Government that measures should be adopted to discourage woollen manufactures in the Colony, an additional indication that the opposition of the mother country to these manufactures had proved ineffective. Nicholson was justly charged by Beverley with gross inconsistency in this recommendation, for in the same letter, he had informed the English authorities that the price of tobacco had sunk to such a point that the people were unable to purchase clothing, which, as Beverley remarked with some bitterness, left it to be inferred that the planters were to go naked.¹ Nicholson was really advising Parliament to pass a law which it was impossible for that body to put in operation. To suppress the branch of domestic manufacture to which he referred, it would have been necessary to instruct constables to visit the different homes in their respective districts and destroy every loom and spindle. It is easy to see how such a duty, if performed at all, would have been performed with reluctance by the officers of the law, in consequence of their sympathy with their own people and the injury which they would have been inflicting upon their own interests. It is even probable that these officers would have openly connived at the disregard of such an Act of Parliament, on the part of the population at large; but, admitting that they might have sought with zeal and honesty to carry out their instructions, the distance between the plantations, and the remote life which the inhabitants led, would have been fatal obstacles to success in any attempt to put an end to local manufactures altogether. A prohibitory Act of this kind would not have had the approval of any class in the Colony, and the welfare of the whole population would have prompted a general combination to defeat the officers of the law.

Parliament was too wise to consider the suggestion of Nicholson seriously; but in 1699, it adopted the rule that no wool or woollen goods produced by the plantations in America should be transported from one Colony to another, or from one point in a Colony to another point in the same Colony, or to any foreign place whatever.¹ Only a few years before, the English Government had expressed the most emphatic disapproval of the order passed by the General Assembly forbidding the exportation of wool or woolfels, on the ground that it conflicted with the spirit of the Navigation laws. England had now become apprehensive lest the transfer of wool and woolfels from Colony to Colony should diminish the volume of her own trade in clothing with her American possessions. There was in the statute no prohibition of the making of woollen goods for private use.

It was the logical effect of these restrictive laws relating to navigation and the exportation of wool and woollen products, that they stimulated a manufacturing spirit in the Colonies. The Navigation Acts were passed chiefly because England was unable to compete with Holland in the carrying trade of the world owing to the greater cheapness with which a cargo could be transported in the bottoms of the latter nationality. The exclusion of the Dutch had signified to the planters of Virginia not only the payment of higher freight rates in the conveyance of their tobacco to England, but the payment, moreover, of higher prices for the goods which they purchased from the English merchants for their servants, slaves, and their own families. This resulted from the fact, that now that the competition of the Hollanders was removed, the merchants of the mother country were only restrained in their charges by competition among themselves. During the years in which

the value of tobacco sank very low, any addition to the rates of transportation, however small, or to the price of manufactured articles imported, however trivial, had a serious effect in still further depressing the condition of the people. At once, there arose a desire to make at home all the goods which were needed in the plantation households.¹ This was a measure of economy inevitably suggested by the circumstances. On several occasions, the House of Burgesses boldly protested against the imposition of new duties on tobacco, on the ground that all measures tending to reduce the profits of the Virginians in the commodity inclined them to turn their attention to manufacturing on their own account, because their ability to purchase articles of English production had been impaired.² In an address by the Governor and Council to the Privy Council in 1692, that body was warned that unless the people were supplied from the mother country with an abundance of the goods which they needed and at the proper season in the year, “great inconveniences were likely to follow by the planters being forced to betake themselves, as many of them had already begun, to the improving and making several commodities”³ usually brought to them from England.

It will be seen from this quotation that the authorities of the Colony looked upon a general system of local manufactures as a condition precipitated by low prices or deficient

supplies from abroad. There was no disposition among the inhabitants to foster manufactures on a large and important scale independently of the pressure of these merely temporary influences. They probably did not seriously object to the Act of Parliament of 1699, since it was in direct conformity, so far as wool was concerned, with the letter and spirit of their own statute passed in 1682. The Virginians, when they made clothing at all, made it not for shipment, but for their own use. The Colony was not sufficiently adapted to sheep husbandry at this early period to render the exportation of wool very profitable, and there was no prospect of its becoming a seat of woollen manufactures beyond the point of supplying the needs of its own plantations. As early as 1700, it had grown to be the habit of the people to mix cotton, linen, and wool in the manufacture of coarse garments for the use of their negroes and white servants, but although this form of manufacture was carried to such a point of development by 1710 that one county alone in that year produced forty thousand yards of woollen, cotton, and linen cloth, nevertheless, it was expressly stated by Spotswood that this manufacture had sprung from necessity rather than from inclination; that the people gave little promise of attaining to skill in it; and that the clothing obtained in this manner really cost more than that which was imported when tobacco was commanding a high price.¹

While the amount of clothing manufactured in the households of the planters was always diminished by any advance in the value of tobacco, since their ability to buy English goods of this character was thereby increased, there is no reason to think that in any year or series of years, however prosperous, the manufacture of woollen garments for rough domestic use fell into abeyance. From

the middle of the century to the close, there are few inventories of large personal estates among the items of which wool-cards and woollen-wheels do not appear. A few instances drawn from different periods may be given. Edward Jones of Henrico had four spinning-wheels; William Porteus of Lower Norfolk and Richard Pargatis of Middlesex, two each; John Nicholas of Lower Norfolk and Nicholas Gage of Lancaster, one each.¹ Joseph Croshaw of York left three woollen-wheels.² In 1670, a woollen-wheel and two reels formed a part of the Hubbard estate,³ and also of the estate of John March of the same county.⁴ A pair of wool-cards were in the same year included in the Bond estate.⁵ The Newell estate possessed nine pairs.⁶ John Collins of York owned eleven and John Hubbard eight wool-cards,⁷ William Marshall of Elizabeth City eighteen,⁸ Henry Spratt of Lower Norfolk five,⁹ and Henry Jones of Henrico four, and Thomas Osborne two.¹⁰ The

inventories of Middlesex, Lancaster, and the Eastern Shore disclose an equal number.

The presence of the loom is also shown in a number of cases. In 1668, William Parker, a former servant of Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., owned and operated a machine of this character in York with valuable encouragement from the county.¹ Many years later, there was recorded in Elizabeth City an indenture, by the terms of which John Stringer was bound out for a period of five years to serve as an apprentice of Charles Combs and his wife in the trade of a weaver.² John West of Lower Norfolk, William Glover, William Cocke, and Martin Elam of Henrico, John Wallop of Accomac, and Charles Kelly of Lancaster were owners of looms.³ William Phillips, also of Accomac, a weaver by profession, was a plan of property; in 1696, he is found buying a plantation in that county covering one hundred acres.⁴ The manufacture of these looms extended to blankets and to flannel.⁵

The wills of the seventeenth century on record in the county courts indicate that there were many negroes, more especially of the female sex, who had been carefully educated to take part in domestic manufacture. After the cloth had been made, it was converted into suits, either by the slaves or by the servants. Byrd, in his instructions to his English merchants to send him mechanics, occasionally wrote for a tailor, stating that the term of the one then in his employment was on the point of expiring.¹ The conditions upon which such tradesmen were engaged doubtless varied in different instances. The covenants into which Luke Mathews, a tailor of Hereford, entered with Thomas Landon of Virginia were probably fairly representative; Mathews bound himself to serve Landon for a period of two years, his term to begin when he reached the Colony; the remuneration was to be six pence a day when working for members of Landon’s family, but when for other persons, he was to be entitled to one-half of the proceeds of his labor, whatever it might be.²

There were cases in which tailors bound by covenants had, before the date of their indentures, acquired or inherited such large means, or had enjoyed such opportunities

to accumulate property in the hours during which they were not engaged for their masters, that they were able to purchase their freedom.¹ Many of the persons who followed this calling secured a livelihood by working by the day or by the special task. In 1678, Philip Thomas of Henrico brought in a statement of indebtedness against Captain Crews of that county, which showed that he had for forty-two days and a half been employed in the service of the latter under an agreement promising him twenty pounds of tobacco each day. Among the other articles of clothing made by Thomas during this time was a pair of leather drawers.² In 1692, the estate of Robert Booth owed to John Bradford, a tailor, the sum of one pound sterling, eighteen shillings and six pence.³ William Murray of Elizabeth City County was, in 1697, sued by John Nelson, also a tailor, for the amount which had been determined upon as his reward for services extending over six weeks. This was one thousand pounds of tobacco.⁴ Some years previously a tailor residing in Rappahannock County had charged forty pounds of tobacco for making a coat, seventy for making a leather waistcoat, and ninety for making a complete suit.⁵ The charges in Lancaster at this time were somewhat higher. The remuneration asked for making a coat was sixty pounds of tobacco, and for a pair of breeches twenty pounds.⁶ Hatters were not on

known in the Colony; William Harrison of Henrico followed this trade, and the names of others might be mentioned.¹

A curious instance which throws light upon the social standing of the men in the Colony who were engaged in these trades is recorded in York County. James Bullock, a tailor, entered into a wager with Mr. Mathew Slader that in a race to take place between their horses he would prove the winner. The court, instead of allowing him the amount agreed upon in the bet, which he seems to have won, fined him one hundred pounds of tobacco, on the ground that it was illegal for laborers to participate in horse-racing, this being a sport reserved exclusively for gentlemen. Tailors, nevertheless, were considered sufficiently respectable to act as the attorneys of leading planters in special transactions, and also in a long course of business.²

There are numerous indications that the tailors enjoyed a large measure of prosperity. In 1674, Henry Chaney of Accomac, a member of this trade, purchased a plantation

which included one thousand acres in its area.¹ A few years previous to this, John Watterson of Northampton had bought four hundred and forty-four acres.² In Rappahannock, towards the close of the century, Joseph Smith, Thomas Winslow, and Herman Skilderman are found selling large tracts of land which they owned.³ John Elder of Lower Norfolk purchased three hundred and seven acres. A few years later, John Winder of the same county bought one hundred.⁴ In 1660, John Walker of Lancaster was in possession of four hundred and thirty acres; and a few years afterwards, John Carpenter of the same county sold five hundred,⁵ and Nicholas West of Middlesex purchased two hundred.⁶ It is probable that in all of these instances the area of ground held by the tailors named was very much in excess of that which has been mentioned.

The list of artificers for whom the London Company advertised in 1609 did not include tanners, curriers, and shoemakers, from which it would be inferred that the corporation expected to furnish the settlers with shoes from England in addition to every other form of clothing.⁷

This is confirmed by the enumeration given by the author of Nova Britannia of the artificers whose services would be required in Virginia; it is significant to note that the tradesmen just named were omitted, the explanation being that the author was anxious to advance the interests of the Colony, and was, therefore, careful not to present it as a possible rival of the English people in any branch of trade in which they were largely engaged. He wished to make them favorable to Virginia by showing that an increase in its population would cause it to become a larger market for the sale of English manufactured goods, and in that character grow in importance each year. In the broadside issued by the Company in 1611, tanners and shoemakers were among those to whom inducements to emigrate were offered;¹ and these inducements proved effective, for it is known that there were shoemakers and tanners in the Colony in 1616 who followed their trades as well as cultivated the ground.² It is evident, however, that the Company was still anxious not to create the impression in England that the settlers would be able to manufacture their own supply of shoes. When a committee was appointed from among its members to report upon the best course to be pursued in the development of the lands assigned to the College in Virginia, they recommended that smiths, carpenters, bricklayers, brickmakers, potters, and husbandmen should be sent over,³ but made no reference to tanners, curriers, and shoemakers, who, it is true, were not especially needed to carry out the purpose in view. In 1648, Samuel Mathews, in addition to having spinners and weavers among his servants

and slaves, owned a tannery and employed eight shoemakers, a number so great that they must have been engaged in part in making shoes for sale.

There are many indications in the records of the latter half of the seventeenth century that both tanners and shoemakers constituted a class of importance in the Colony, including those who were free as well as those who were serving under articles of indenture. It was not infrequent that the sons of planters were apprenticed to these trades.¹ Beverley declared that the workmanship of the tanner and shoemaker was so careless and defective that the people were unwilling to use the product of their rude skill whenever shoes of English manufacture could be obtained. This statement was undoubtedly exaggerated. That shoes made in the mother country were preferred, was natural enough, but that the trade either of the tanner or the shoemaker languished in Virginia is not borne out by the facts recorded in the books of the county courts. There were few planters of easy fortune who did not, like Colonel Mathews, have tradesmen of this character in their employment. Colonel Edmund Scarborough, in a complaint which he entered in the court of Northampton County in 1662, mentions incidentally that he had nine shoemakers in his service, and that he had been at a heavy charge in tanning leather and making shoes. It is probable that he was a party to a contract with the local authorities for supplying the public wants in these particulars. He petitioned that Nathaniel Bradford, a currier by trade, should be punished for his failure to perform the duties which the law imposed upon all who followed that business.² Bradford was the

owner of a tan-house and a shoemaker’s shop, and at the time of his death was m possession of three hundred and eighteen hides and forty-six lasts.¹ Daniel Harrison of Lancaster gave employment to three shoemakers. His personal estate included, when appraised, one hundred and twenty-two sides of leather, seventy-two pairs of shoes, thirty-seven awls, and twenty-six paring knives, twelve dozen lasts, and numerous currier’s and tanner’s tools.² Richard Willis and Ralph Wormeley, who were planters of wealth, left large quantities of sole leather³ and hides. This was also true of Mathew Hubbard of York.⁴

The leading planters were in the habit of importing shoemakers from England for the same reasons that moved them to bring in representatives of other trades. Fitzhugh, writing to John Cooper, one of his London correspondents, in 1692, requests him to send over to Virginia several shoemakers, with lasts, awls, and knives,

together with half a hundred shoemaker’s thread, some twenty or thirty gallons of train oil and proper colorings for leather. He had set up a tan-house and wished to convert the product into shoes, on his own plantation.¹ The need of importing shoemakers was probably greater in the Northern Neck, in which part of the Colony Fitzhugh resided, than in the older communities, where the representatives of the trades were more numerous and more skilful.

The county records of that period contained many indentures between planters and shoemakers. Of these, a fair example was the contract between Robert Cate and Peter Wyke of Henrico in 1679. Cate entered into bonds to serve Wyke for a term of four years. He was to be exempted from the task of planting and tending tobacco, but was required to perform all other agricultural work; he was to receive by way of remuneration, food, drink, apparel, washing, and lodging, and when his agreement expired, a good suit and three barrels of Indian corn were to be given him. It will be observed that while Cate was engaged principally for his knowledge of the shoemaker’s trade, he was also expected to make himself useful in other branches of industry.² This was probably the case with all classes of mechanics who earned a livelihood in the employment of landowners in the seventeenth century.

Many of the tanners were men of considerable property. The personalty of Roger Long of York was valued at sixty-four pounds and fifteen shillings, and he owned in the form of debts to him, fourteen thousand pounds of tobacco.³ In several instances in Lower Norfolk County, members

of this trade bought or disposed of valuable and extensive tracts of land. Thus in 1691, James Jackson sold one hundred acres, and George Valentine purchased one hundred and fifty.¹ A few years previously, Thomas Nicolson of Accomac had sold four hundred.² The shoemakers of the Colony were probably in possession of still larger areas of ground. In 1681, Joseph Carling of Lower Norfolk bought one hundred acres; James Loun, a few years later, the same number, and Benjamin Robert one-half that area.³ Thomas Sadler, a shoemaker of Rappahannock, purchased one hundred acres of land on a single occasion. If the leather produced in the Colony was as defective as Beverley represented it to have been,⁴ the fact was not to be attributed to lack of legislative attention; tanners, carriers, and shoemakers were subject to very careful restrictions in following their callings. In order to ensure its proper condition, no leather was to be thrown into the vat until the lime had been thoroughly soaked, nor was the leather to be allowed to remain there until it had become over-limed. The carrier was not permitted to use salt in its preparation, and if he did so, he was to pay the owner of the hide ten shillings as a fine for the offence. He was suffered to charge two shillings and six pence for a bundle of ten hides or six dozen calf-skins. The shoemaker was forbidden to work up leather which had not been legally sealed as well-tanned and well-curried. He was to use only thread that was sound, twisted, and waxed or rosined. The stitches were to be drawn with the utmost care. The inspectors or viewers were

instructed to appropriate all leather that was badly tanned or curried, and all boots, shoes, and bridles manufactured from defective material. Six persons were appointed as inspectors and they were required to perform their duties in open court. Acceptance of bribes, or the exaction of a larger amount than was sanctioned by the law, exposed them to a fine of twenty pounds sterling. If they refused to place their stamp on leather of good quality, they were mulcted forty shillings. Five pounds sterling constituted the penalty for declining to accept the office of inspector. Under the provisions of this law, leather consisted of the skin of the ox, steer, bull, cow, calf, deer, goat, and sheep.¹

The first Act interdicting the exportation of hides from Virginia was passed in 1632. It was designed to apply to the skins of deer as well as to the skins of all sorts of domestic animals. The same provisions were shortly reënacted, furs, such as those of the beaver and otter, for example, being excepted from its scope.² In 1645, a prohibition was laid upon the shipment of raw hides and leather, together with a variety of other articles specified in the same statute.³ In the succeeding year, this regulation was repealed. Seventeen years later, the exportation of hides as well as of wool and iron was strictly forbidden, the penalty incurred in violating the law falling only upon the buyer. At the following session of the Assembly, the penalty was extended to the seller, this penalty amounting to one thousand pounds of tobacco. In the Act passed in the course of this year,

deer and calf skins were declared to be included in the meaning of the word “hide.”¹

The scope of the original Act was in 1665 again extended. The penalty for shipping hides from the Colony had previously been restricted to the buyer and seller, but it was now made to apply to all tanners who sought to export leather and shoes, and to all masters of vessels who received these articles. By the original law, a large ship was permitted by special license to carry out eight hides, and smaller ships a number in proportion to their size, according to what was calculated to be sufficient for the needs of their crews. The collector issued the licenses before the hides were brought on board, and the masters and commanders of vessels were liable for an excess over the number allowed by a special clause in their bonds. For every hide or skin beyond this number exported, the seller, whether a tanner or not, was fined one thousand pounds of tobacco, and the same penalty was imposed upon the shipmaster or commander who received it. For every pair of shoes transported from the country, the seller and buyer forfeited one hundred pounds of the same commodity.²

All the laws relating to the exportation of hides, as well as of iron and wool, were repealed in 1671 on the ground that the tradesmen whom it was intended to benefit had failed to derive any advantage from them.³ It is difficult to see how the welfare of the tanners, carriers, and shoemakers in the Colony could be advanced materially by enactments expressly prohibiting the shipment of dressed leather and shoes, but this clause was inserted probably to remove the apprehension of the English Government lest Virginia should become an active competitor

of the English shoe manufacturers in countries lying outside of its own borders. The Assembly had, in 1660, adopted rules which would furnish this class of workmen, it was supposed, with an ample market at home. Each county was instructed to erect a tan-house and to employ tanners, carriers, and shoemakers. There was appointed for each house an overseer, who was directed to receive all hides brought in, paying two pounds of tobacco for each pound of hide. To the persons presenting hides he was required to sell plain shoes at the rate of thirty pounds a pair. French falls of the largest size were to be sold to such persons at the rate of thirty-five pounds a pair, whilst those of the smallest were to be sold at twenty pounds. A penalty of five thousand pounds of tobacco was imposed upon every county that failed to erect a tan-house in pursuance of this legislative act.¹

By the law of 1682, the rule prohibiting the exportation of hides and skins, tanned and untanned, together with the other articles named, was reëstablished on the ground, as has already been pointed out, that it would give employment to many idle and suffering people, besides supplying the Colony with manufactured goods. The penalty for sending out hides and skins, or leather worked up into wearing apparel, was, by the terms of this measure, fixed at one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco. The shipowner and seamen detected in the act of transporting these articles from Virginia, were subject to the same punishment as we have seen imposed in the case of wool. The duty of the collectors was the same.²

In 1682, a dressed buckskin was appraised at two shillings four pence and three-quarters, and one undressed at a shilling and two and a quarter pence; the value of a dressed doeskin was fixed at one shilling and nine and a half pence; if undressed, at eleven pence.¹ In the Act for Ports, passed in 1691, but never put in operation, an export duty was laid upon all skins and furs shipped from the Colony, thus being tantamount to a repeal of the law forbidding their exportation. On every raw hide, the export duty was one shilling; on every tanned hide, two shillings; on every buckskin, dressed or undressed, eight pence; on every doeskin, dressed or undressed, five pence; on every elkskin, one shilling. A duty was also placed on the skins of beaver, otter, raccoon, wild-cat, mink, and muskrat.²

In 1693, an export duty was laid on skins for the benefit of William and Mary College; on every raw hide, the tax was three pence; on every tanned hide, six pence; on every dressed buckskin, one penny and three farthings; on every undressed buckskin, one penny; on every doeskin dressed, one penny halfpenny; on every undressed doeskin, three farthings. A graduated tax was also laid on the skins of the beaver, otter, raccoon, wild-cat, minx, fox, and muskrat.

Passing from articles of a general character to certain forms of food, or ingredients of food, manufactured in the Colony, it is found that an attempt to produce salt was made as early as 1616. Seventeen men, who were provided for at the expense of the Company, were established at Dale’s Gift at Cape Charles in the course of that year

for the purpose of engaging in this work.¹ For evaporation, they appear to have relied at first principally on the heat of the sun. Until Argoll assumed the administration of affairs, the people obtained their supplies of salt from this source,² but in the common wreck precipitated by his government, the little band of men were dispersed, and their appliances fell into decay;³ this led to much suffering, as the settlers were forced to eat their pork and other meats in the fresh state. The distempers resulting from this necessity were so severe that the Company in 1620 decided to erect the salt works again, and in the following year Miles Pirket, who was skilled in salt-making, was sent to Virginia.⁴ The object which the Company had in view was not only to furnish the people with the salt needed, but also in time to produce so great a quantity that all the fisheries on the American coast might look to the Colony for supplies of this article.⁵ In 1621, John Pory was instructed by Yeardley to visit the Eastern Shore to select a spot combining the most conveniences for the proposed manufacture.⁶ The supervision of the erection of the works was given to Maurice Berkeley, who had as his principal subordinate, Miles Pirkett, and also the assistance of a second man trained in making salt.⁷ The undertaking could not have been placed on a permanent

footing, for, in 1627, William Capps was sent to the Colony to try an experiment in the manufacture of bay salt in addition to carrying out the other objects of his mission to Virginia. If he began the experiment at all, he was soon interrupted by a contention in which he became involved, and which ended in his expulsion from the country.

The General Court at Jamestown, in 1630, passed an order, in conformity probably with instructions from England, that the manufacture of salt should be begun again.¹ This seems to have been done, for the Governor and Council shortly afterwards informed the English authorities that the colonists, who in the production of this article had hitherto employed artificial heat in the process of evaporation, would soon be using the heat of the still.² Harvey indulged in many hopeful expectations when writing upon the point at this time.³ Thirty years after the close of his administration, the General Assembly rewarded Mr. Dawen, a citizen of Accomac, for the specimens of salt which he had produced by requiring the costs which he had incurred in visiting Jamestown, to be defrayed out of the general levy. He was also exempted from the levy of Accomac.⁴ In 1660, the Assembly offered to grant ten thousand pounds of tobacco to Colonel Edmund Scarborough of Northampton if he should succeed in making eight hundred bushels.⁵ In the following session, still more valuable encouragement was extended to him in consideration of his having erected works for that purpose. He was made the beneficiary of the whole amount of revenue collected in Northampton County in the settlement of the

duty of two shillings imposed upon every hogshead exported, subject, however, to the condition that he was to deliver to persons designated by the Assembly the salt which he manufactured, the exchange to be made at the rate of two shillings and six pence a bushel. No salt was to be imported into the county of Northampton after 1663, and if the master of a ship, bark, or any smaller craft disregarded this order, he was to suffer the confiscation of his vessel.¹ Anticipating that Colonel Scarborough might be unable to supply by his own manufacture the people of the Eastern Shore with the whole amount they required, the Assembly at a later date granted to him the exclusive privilege of importing this article into that Peninsula, and if the needs of the inhabitants in this respect were not met in spite of these additional facilities for obtaining salt, they were to be permitted to buy it of any one who possessed it, for their own use, but not for the purpose of selling it.² This monopoly having been found to be repugnant to the public health and convenience, it was withdrawn as far as it related to Northampton, and was not again renewed.³ There is no evidence that salt was manufactured anywhere in Virginia in the seventeenth century except on the Eastern Shore, the waters of the inland bays and estuaries being less impregnated with brine than the waters of the open sea. The reference to the importation of the foreign article became more frequent towards the close of the century. This importation was never interrupted in the greater portion of the Colony, salt being brought in as a part of the annual supplies consigned to Virginia.⁴

The need of some means of grinding grain was felt in the Colony as early as 1620, and in the summer of that year, to meet this want, a proposition was brought forward at a General Court of the Company to send over skilful wrights to construct water-mills. In 1621, Governor Yeardley built a windmill in Virginia, which was the first building of this character erected in North America.¹ In the same year, the Treasurer of the Colony was commanded to construct a water-mill. The numerous streams of Virginia rendered it easy to secure the necessary power for grinding, and after the first mill was erected, the number steadily increased with the growth of population. In 1634, a mill was erected at Kecoughtan by the millwrights whom Claiborne had introduced into the Colony.² In the following year, it is found that there was a structure of this kind standing on the plantation of William Brocas, situated not far from Jamestown.³ Corn-mills were also owned in Virginia at this time by Hugh Bullock.⁴ In 1645, there were a sufficient number in the Colony to require that legislative provisions should be adopted for their regulation. As, in consequence of the small trade or local monopolies, the charges of the owners had become excessive, the law stepped in to protect the planters in the matter of rates, declaring that the miller should take as his remuneration only one-sixth of the Indian corn brought him for grinding. Means, however, were found to evade this provision in the levying of toll, and it was consequently prescribed that all mill-owners

should keep scales and weights on hand for the ensurement of accurate measures.¹ In 1649, there were five water-mills in Virginia, four windmills, and a great number of horse, and hand mills.² Some years later, it became necessary to make the regulations adopted to secure accurate weights still more rigid, as there was a stronger disposition to disregard them. All grain received was to be carefully weighed, as well as all meal delivered. Stilyards or statute scales were to be used. A fine of one thousand pounds of tobacco was to be imposed in every instance in which there was an intentional failure to observe these requirements.³ In 1667, the number of mills in the Colony was not sufficient to supply the needs of the population, and valuable inducements were offered to encourage their erection, these inducements being the same as those extended in the case of fulling mills at a later date, that is to say, if the person who wished to erect a mill was in possession of land lying only on one side of the stream upon which he proposed to build, he was granted the right to appropriate an acre on the other side, two commissioners being appointed by the court to appraise its value. The appropriation, however, was not permitted, and this, we have seen, was also the case in the instance of falling mills, if it involved the destruction of houses, orchards, and other conveniences.⁴

From 1667 to the close of the century, there was a rapid increase in the number of mills. The references to them in the description of metes and bounds in patents become more and more frequent.¹ There are also many references to the transfers of this form of property.² The details of the expense of erecting a building of this character at this time have been transmitted to us in the recorded account of a mill belonging to Edward Chisman of York. The stones and iron were imported from England at a cost of thirty-seven pounds and thirteen shillings.³ The remuneration of the millwright was ten thousand pounds of tobacco. The other items of expense were the labor of the sawyers in preparing the plank, of the smith in putting in the machinery, the wages of two persons in superintending the workingmen, the food and lodgings of the latter, the timber which entered into the construction of the building and the gates of the race, and finally the nails. The entire cost amounted to twenty-one thousand four hundred and five pounds of tobacco, equivalent in value to one hundred and seventy pounds sterling. It is interesting to note that the annual profits

of this mill were calculated at four thousand pounds of tobacco.¹

In 1671, we discover the first indication of the existence of flour-mills in the Colony, from the legal provision of that year that the toll for grinding wheat should be one-eighth instead of one-sixth of the amount of grain brought to the mill, one-sixth, as has already been pointed out, being the proportion allowed in the case of maize.² Towards the end of the century there were a number of flour mills in Virginia. Fitzhugh mentions incidentally in his correspondence in 1686 that there was a mill not far from his house which ground both wheat and maize, and it was here that he obtained his regular supply of meal and flour.³ Colonel Byrd was the owner of two grist-mills managed by men whom he had obtained from England. In 1685, he informs an English correspondent that he expected in the course of another year to forward to England a sample of flour manufactured on his plantation, his bolting-mill at this time not being finished.⁴ Much of the wheat shipped to the West Indies was first converted into flour.⁵

I have already adverted to the saw-mills in Virginia during the existence of the company. In 1630, land at Jamestown was granted to persons who undertook to erect mills of this kind, and that they were built is shown in the correspondence of Harvey at this time.¹ As late as 1649, however, it is stated that a mill to saw boards was very much needed in Virginia. Either the term “board” was not used to include the material of which the houses were usually constructed, or the demand for plank in the Colony was so great that the mills already in operation were unable to supply it.² After the middle of the century, the saw-mills became as numerous as the grist-mills. In some cases, they were propelled by horse power.³ The steel saws were imported from England. Patterns were sent to the mother country to obtain saws of the exact size desired, and the same method was adopted as to the rest of the iron machinery.⁴

There are indications that a small quantity of plank, which had been sawed in the Colony, was occasionally exported to England. In 1695, Fitzhugh sent walnut plank to John Mason of Bristol, but was so much discouraged by the pecuniary outcome of the venture that he

wrote that he was unwilling to repeat the experiment.¹ It seems that Fitzhugh was not the only planter who had made such a shipment; Captain Brent also had forwarded several cargoes of the same material for the use of Mr. Blaithwaite, having purchased it in Virginia at the rate of six pence a foot.²

Pipe-staves and clapboards were manufactured in Virginia from an early date. This was one of the employments in which the colonists were engaged during the presidency of Smith. Among the conditions inserted in every grant of land, as laid down by the Orders and Constitutions of 1619-20, was one that the patentee should, among other tasks imposed on him at the same time, fashion boards for house-building.³ Williams calculated in 1650 that a man was able to make annually fifteen thousand pipe-staves and clapboards, which could be sold in the Canary Islands for twenty pounds sterling a thousand.⁴ That this manufacture was carried on at the time in question, is proved by the statement of the author of the New Description of Virginia, who declared that the shipmasters, when they were unable to obtain a full lading, carried out pipe-staves, clapboard, walnut, and cedar timber.⁵ The freight to Barbadoes on the first, towards the close of the century, was one-half of the charge imposed for their transportation to England. On one occasion, Fitzhugh was about to make a shipment of staves to Barbadoes, but on the captain’s deciding to go to England, Fitzhugh sold them to him at the rate of

fifty shillings a thousand, a hamper of canary being thrown in.¹ At a later date, Fitzhugh transported six thousand two hundred and forty articles of the same kind to Barbadoes.² At still another time, he proposed to send to his merchant in London ten thousand, and expressed himself as ready to dispatch, if a fair profit could be secured, as many as seventy thousand trunnels.³ In 1690, John Waugh of York gave a note to William Sedgwick, promising to deliver on a designated day, fourteen thousand pipe-staves, which were now valued at two pounds and ten shillings a thousand. Notes of this character were not uncommon, and they were frequently causes of suit.⁴ Pitch and tar were produced in Virginia in small quantities during the administration of the Company, several Poles having been sent out to the Colony for that purpose. It was proposed that a number of apprentices should be set to learn the art of this manufacture under the foreigners.⁵ There is no evidence that these articles were made on it scale of importance in the subsequent history of the Colony, although England was compelled throughout this period to import large quantities from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.⁶ In 1698, the only place where pitch and tar were produced in Virginia in a considerable quantity was in Elizabeth City County. The amount did not exceed twelve hundred barrels

annually, knots of old pine trees being the material used.¹ Barrels of tar were from an early period very frequently included in the inventories of estates in Lower Norfolk County, and the entries of this form of property increased in a very notable degree in the last five years of the century. This commodity became an important consideration in the transfer of titles to land; in some instances, it was offered in part payment and in others in whole.² There were also fitful attempts to manufacture potashes. In several cases, samples were shipped to England, but at no time did the production of this commodity develop into an important industry.³ It sold for about 7s. 6d. a barrel.⁴