Norfolk became one of the busiest ports in Virginia, both in shipbuilding and ship repair work. A shipyard had been established on the Elizabeth River in 1621 by John Wood and work had been almost continuous, though at times very slow, throughout the seventeenth century. An inventory in 1723, listed one brigantine, three sloops, and three flats owned by Robert Tucker. One of the sloops was forty feet in length and valued at 230 pounds sterling. Captain Samuel Tatum owned the ship _Caesar_, which was said to be worth 625 pounds sterling, and the sloop _Indian Creek_ valued at twenty-five pounds. William Byrd in his _History of the Dividing Line_, states that he saw at Norfolk, in 1728, twenty sloops and brigantines. Some of them were quite evidently of English origin. In 1736, the sloop _Industry_, "lately built in Norfolk," was loaded with tobacco in the James River to take to London. Captain Goodrich, master of the ship _Betty_ of Liverpool, which was built on the Elizabeth River for the Maryland trade, was permitted by the Council of Virginia, to sail to Liverpool without the payment of the usual port duties. The firm of John Glasford and Company contracted with Smith Sparrows in 1761, for a ship built at Norfolk, sixty feet in length, sixteen feet in the lower hold, and four feet between decks, the price being fifty shillings per ton. Many of the shipwrights, who came to Virginia and became land owners, settled in Norfolk. That port was especially known for this kind of citizen, ranking next to the merchant in wealth and influence. Among house owners were some ship-carpenters who carried on their trade, receiving for a day's work four shillings and a pint of rum, more wages than the salary of some clergymen. Several shipwrights listed in Lower Norfolk were large property owners. Abraham Elliott owned land both in Virginia and England. One John Ealfridge owned one-half interest in a mill, and acquired a plantation for each of his two sons in addition to his own. To secure a large sum of money due Robert Cary of London, Theophilus Pugh of Nansemond County mortgaged his lands, slaves, and vessels with all their boats. The vessels were listed as follows: ships, _William and Betty_, _Prosperous Esther_; sloops, _Little Molly_, _Little Betty_; schooners, _Nansemond Frigate_, _Pugh_. If the average planter had owned the equivalent of two ships, two sloops and two schooners, the total number of vessels in Virginia in the middle of the eighteenth century would have far exceeded any inventory reported.