permanent satisfaction. The author of the New Description of Virginia, which was perhaps written about forty years after the foundation of Jamestown, asserts that the people were in possession of a store of brick at that time, and that both houses and chimneys were constructed of this material.[1] The correctness of this statement is proved at least by one instance, evidence of which has survived in the records of Surry County; it is there related that about 1652, Mr. Thomas Warren owned a residence of brick sixty feet in length.[2] Under the terms of the Cohabitation Act of 1662, it was provided that thirty brick houses should be erected at Jamestown, the brickmakers and bricklayers employed in this work to be obtained from different parts of the Colony. No difficulty in securing the number required seems to have been anticipated.[3] From the middle to the end of the century, the number of brickmakers steadily increased. Some were men of considerable property. Thus in 1682, John Robert of Lower Norfolk bought of George Newton two hundred acres of land, for which he gave sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco. In the following year, he appointed Joseph Knott his attorney to collect the some due him in different counties.
- ↑ New Description of Virginia, p. 7, Force’s Historical Tracts, Vol. III. Bullock, writing about this time, says: “The soil (of Virginia) is a rich black mould for two feet deep, and under it a loam of which they make a fine brick,” p. 3. He advised the planters to build their houses of this material. Bullock’s Virginia, p. 61.
- ↑ Records of Surry County, vol. 1671-1684, p, 254, Va. State Library. One of the rooms in the house of Captain Robert Spencer of the same county was known as the “Brick Room.” Ibid., vol. 1671-1684, p. 451, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, p. 172.
