instances, in which patents to tracts of considerable extent were secured by persons in this pursuit, might be given. Still more numerous were the private conveyances in which a carpenter was either the grantor or the grantee. Only the most important can be mentioned. In 1669, John Waggener purchased a large tract in Rappahannock County in consideration of fifty-five hundred pounds of tobacco, and in a short time he transferred the property to Henry Lucas, who was a member of the same calling. John Williams of the same county was the owner of eighteen hundred acres.[1] The most prominent and prosperous of all the carpenters of Rappahannock was Thomas Madison, whose name appears with great frequency in the records as a seller or purchaser of land;[2] at his death, he had to his credit in England seventy pounds sterling, a proof that the means which he had accumulated had been gained, at least in part, by shipments of tobacco to the mother country.[3]
John Ladd of Lower Norfolk in 1672 disposed of four hundred acres, and, a few years later, Mathew Causwell of the same county, of two hundred. In 1685, Robert Cartwright became the purchaser of five hundred acres.
In the succeeding decade, Augustin Whiddon bequeathed several large tracts to members of his family.[4] Thomas
- ↑ Records of Rappahannock County, vol. 1668-1672, pp. 141, 142. See, also, Ibid., pp. 59, 81, 143; Williams, Ibid., vol. 1656-1664, p. 88; also vol. 1656-1664, p. 124; vol. 1680-1688, p. 95; vol. 1677-1682, pp. 146, 364, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Ibid., vol. 1668-1672, pp. 48, 59, 215, Va. State Library; Ibid., original vol. 1656-1664, p. 149.
- ↑ Ibid., vol. 1664-1673, p. 78, Va. State Library. Madison is sometimes referred to as “ship carpenter.”
- ↑ Records of Lower Norfolk County, Ladd, original vol. 1666-1675, p. 121; Causwell, original vol. 1675-1686, f. p. 181; Cartwright, Ibid., f. p. 205; Whiddon, original vol. 1686-1695, f. p. 190. See, also, Ibid., original vol. 1651-1656, f. p. 133; original vol. 1695-1703, p. 80; original vol. 1686-1695, f. pp. 87, 116, 164; original vol. 1666-1675, pp. 148, 167, 182. The inventory of a carpenter’s personal estate in this county will be found in original vol. 1651-1656, f. p. 205.
