sessed technical knowledge of common surveying. When Argoll arrived in 1617, he was probably accompanied by some one who had been trained in this art, since Martin’s and Smith’s Hundreds were laid off before the close of his administration. If the services of a surveyor were called into requisition, his name remains unrecorded. The first member of this profession known to be associated with Virginia, was Richard Norwood, who had at one time been engaged in the task of surveying the Somers Islands.[1] There must have been several surveyors in the Colony a few years before the suggestion of his name, as a division was made of a large extent of soil as soon as Governor Yeardley had finally established himself in a position to enforce the instructions of the Company. Norwood was recommended by Captain William Tucker as a man who was well versed in his business and who was also anxious to emigrate to Virginia. At the court at which this recommendation was made, the session being held in May, 1621, a committee was appointed to arrange with him the terms on which he would carry out the work he proposed to perform. These negotiations, however, came to nothing.[2]
Only a short time afterwards, the Company employed William Claiborne in the place of Norwood, and sent him to the Colony. The annual remuneration allowed him was fixed at thirty pounds sterling, to be paid either in the form of tobacco, or such other commodity as had a high value in the English markets. There is evidence to show that he received the amount of wages which had
- ↑ The Bermudas. British State Papers, Colonial Papers, vol. II, No. 33, I; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1623, p. 113, Va. State Library. It would appear from this authority that Norwood had obtained a grant to land in Virginia. See Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 638, for reference to his map of Somers Isles, 1609.
- ↑ Abstracts of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London, vol. I, p. 122.
