Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century — John Shaqi
Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth CenturyJester, Annie Lash
History
Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century
Jester, Annie Lash
Plantation life; Virginia -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
Since all the early Virginia plantations, both large and small, were
located either on the rivers or their estuaries, travel was almost
entirely by sloop for distances, and by shallop or skiff for brief
journeys. The families used such craft to attend church, and the
planters to attend Court, the Council or sessions of the Assembly. In
the latter half of the century, travel by horseback to the centers, or
to attend funerals, or to visit friends, if not too far distant, became
popular, especially as horses bred in the Colony had multiplied. The
more affluent planters owned numerous horses mentioned in wills and,
also, in inventories along with bridles, bits, stirrups and saddles.
In 1679, the Justices of Warwick County noted that a great number of
small horses were running wild on "every man's land" and, in
consequence, issued an order requiring that horses be penned, in order
that the breed in the County "might not be crossed unfavorably." The
same year, young Thomas Harris, son of Major William Harris of Henrico
County, bequeathed to "my cousin Richard Ligon all my horses, mares or
foals that can be proved to be mine ... they not being given by my
grandfather into the hands of the overseers." His grandfather, deceased
about 1657, was, prior to that time, in possession of horses as the
aforesaid entry shows. Colonel Joseph Bridger, of Isle of Wight County,
owned fourteen horses at the time of his death. These are shown in the
inventory of his estate entered, 1686. Thomas Cocke of Henrico County,
who died in 1696, disposed of a large estate in his will, including his
horses.
The absence of vehicles, except for a coach, a calash and carts, was due
perhaps not so much to cost and the necessity for importing them as to
the complete lack of passable roads in the Colony. Cartways, which were
the worn and widened Indian trails, over which oxen hauled heavy loads,
were the open ways over which travel by land could be undertaken. The
bodies of the carts were made in the Colony usually and attached to
wheels imported from England. Both the pillion and the side-saddle, the
latter an item listed in the inventory of Mrs. Elizabeth Digges, 1692,
were used by the women in accompanying the men on journeys. A pillion
and a pillion cloth were bequeathed in 1652, by Captain John Upton, of
Isle of Wight County, to his stepdaughter.
Notwithstanding the almost complete lack of highways, two Virginians are
known to have owned vehicles for travel in the seventeenth century. The
commission sent over from England to look into conditions which brought
about Bacon's Rebellion complained, 1677, that Governor Berkeley had
sent them from his plantation "Greenspring" to Jamestown, a distance of
three miles, in his coach with the common hangman as a postillion.
William Fitzhugh, a well-to-do planter of Stafford County, owned a
calash, a sort of a cab imported from England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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