York ordered the sale of a farm which he possessed in the vicinity of Walton, with the view of investing the proceeds in a Virginian plantation.[1] Miles Cary owned two houses in Bristol.[2] John Page had an interest for a term of seven years in five tenements situated in the city of Westminster. In 1692, Benjamin Read devised landed property which he possessed in England.[3] Nicholas Spencer left a valuable estate in Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Essex.[4] The inventories belonging to the period preceding 1650, upon which we have to rely to obtain a just conception of the size of the personal holdings in Virginia in that age, were comparatively few in number. The records of York alone throw any real light upon the point in inquiry. The largest estate in this county appraised by order of court previous to the middle of the century was that of William Stafford, which amounted to 30,681 pounds of tobacco in value, which, at the rate of two pence a pound,[5] was equal to £250, or in purchasing power perhaps to about six thousand dollars at the present day. The personal estate of Thomas Deacon follows next in size at an appraisement of 19,343 pounds
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1687-1691, p. 100, Va. State Library.
- ↑ General Court Orders, Robinson Transcripts, p. 257.
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1690-1694, John Page, p. 132; Read, p. 257. James Blaise of Middlesex County owned an interest in a lease hold in Pall Mall, London. Original vol. 1698-1713, p. 49.
- ↑ New England Historical and Genealogical Register, January, 1891, p. 67.
- ↑ It is impossible to follow the exact fluctuations in the price of tobacco from year to year. It maintained an average rate ranging from one and a half to two pence a pound. Fitzhugh, in the account of his property given in the first note to the present chapter, places the value at the time at which he was writing at ten shillings a hundred-weight, or one and one fifth pence a pound. In the chapter on Agricultural Development, 1685-1700, I have given references which would seem to show that Fitzhugh’s estimate was extremely conservative. In the present chapter, I adopt two pence as the average price, as being within the highest limit possible.
