together with half a hundred shoemaker’s thread, some twenty or thirty gallons of train oil and proper colorings for leather. He had set up a tan-house and wished to convert the product into shoes, on his own plantation.[1] The need of importing shoemakers was probably greater in the Northern Neck, in which part of the Colony Fitzhugh resided, than in the older communities, where the representatives of the trades were more numerous and more skilful.
The county records of that period contained many indentures between planters and shoemakers. Of these, a fair example was the contract between Robert Cate and Peter Wyke of Henrico in 1679. Cate entered into bonds to serve Wyke for a term of four years. He was to be exempted from the task of planting and tending tobacco, but was required to perform all other agricultural work; he was to receive by way of remuneration, food, drink, apparel, washing, and lodging, and when his agreement expired, a good suit and three barrels of Indian corn were to be given him. It will be observed that while Cate was engaged principally for his knowledge of the shoemaker’s trade, he was also expected to make himself useful in other branches of industry.[2] This was probably the case with all classes of mechanics who earned a livelihood in the employment of landowners in the seventeenth century.
Many of the tanners were men of considerable property. The personalty of Roger Long of York was valued at sixty-four pounds and fifteen shillings, and he owned in the form of debts to him, fourteen thousand pounds of tobacco.[3] In several instances in Lower Norfolk County, members
