higher price than in the more newly settled communities of Rappahannock and Henrico. It is probable from the figures given that one-fifth of a pound, or four shillings, in that age perhaps equal in purchasing power to five dollars in our modern currency, represented the average; value of an acre on a plantation under cultivation.[1] It must be remembered that the estates of the seventeenth century were for the most part confined to the lowlands adjacent to the streams, which consisted of the most fertile loam. Reduce the four shillings to two in order to be very moderate and apply this standard of value to the real estate owned by Robert Beverley, and it is found that he held landed property to the value of £3700, which at modern rates would perhaps be equivalent to about £18,500 or ninety-two thousand five hundred dollars. To be still more moderate, reduce these figures one-half and it will be seen that the whole estate of Beverley, personal and real, amounted to one hundred and severity-six thousand dollars at the least. It would be reasonably safe to say that it was equal in value to two hundred thousand dollars, perhaps to two hundred and fifty thousand.[2] When it is recalled that Virginia had only been settled for eighty years when Beverley died, the statement of Lord Baltimore, that fortunes were more easily acquired in this age in that Colony than in England, seems entirely consistent with the fact. The whole property of William Byrd, who made great additions to an inheritance already large, was
- ↑ That is, taking the cleared and uncleared land on such a plantation together. The average value of cleared land alone in good condition was perhaps twice as high as the figures given.
- ↑ I have reduced the value of the land held by Beverley to the very lowest print, because in a holding amounting to 37,000 acres, an enormous proportion must have been covered with forest, and was, therefore, of little practical worth beyond furnishing an almost boundless range for cattle.
