Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/185

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two sugar-dishes, a porringer, a tankard, two dram cups, two punch and one candle, and a pair of snuffers.[1] Henry Spratt of Lower Norfolk possessed, in the form of silverware, three plates, one tankard, one salt-cellar, a beaker, three candle, three dram, and seven sack cups, two porringers, and fourteen spoons. Thomas Sibsey of the same county was the owner in silver of two beer-bowls, two wine-cups, a tankard, a beaker, twenty-four spoons, and four salt-cellars. The silver pieces belonging to Mrs. Sarah Willoughby were still more valuable; they were a large sugar basin, one large and three small salt-cellars, twenty-four spoons, two beer-bowls and one claret, a small tankard, a candle and a dram cup, and a small porringer.[2] The silver owned by Robert Beverley of Middlesex were two tankards, one beaker, six cups, a porringer, a sugar-box, three trencher salts, one large salt-cellar, and seventeen spoons, amounting in value to thirty-one pounds sterling.[3] Corbin Griffin of the same county possessed one hundred and sixty-six ounces of silver plate.

In bequeathing their personalty, the testators were generally careful to apportion the silver plate equally among their heirs. This seems to have been in a marked degree the case in the disposition of spoons. The example

  1. Records of Northampton County, original vol. 1689-1698, p. 500.
  2. Records of Lower Norfolk County, Spratt, original vol. 1680-1695, f. p. 95; Sibsey, original vol. 1651-1656, f. p. 54; Willoughby, original vol. 1666-1675, p. 170.
  3. See Beverley’s inventory on file in Middlesex County.