Robert Carter, member of the council and sometime owner of a large home next to the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, had workers on his plantations, white and black apparently, trained as coopers, carpenters, weavers, blacksmiths, millers, sailors, bricklayers, shoemakers, and in other skills. He sold iron articles made on his Nomini Hall plantation to his neighbors for cash or produce—such items as hoes, axes, plows, and nails. Although Carter was by no means typical, he being one of Virginia’s wealthiest and most successful farm entrepreneurs, the example of plantation blacksmithing could be repeated many times over. An instance of the availability of indentured servants is found in the 1773 advertisement of James Mills in the _Virginia Gazette_: Just arrived the _Success’s Increase_, Captain _Curtis_, with about eighty choice healthy Servants, among whom are many Tradesmen, viz. Shoemakers, Weavers, Carpenters, Black and White Smiths, Tailers, a Sailmaker, a Tanner, a Glazier and Painter, a Bricklayer, a Brass Founder, a Turner, an Upholsterer, Surgeons, and Apothecaries, Hair Dressers, Schoolmasters and Book-Keepers, with many Farmers, Labourers, &c. &c. The sale will commence at _Leeds_ Town, on Monday the 3d of _January_ and will continue till all are sold. Reasonable Credit will be allowed.... Tobacco will be taken in Payment for the above. John Tait, another planter, wrote to England for a blacksmith who was “accustomed to coarse Country work,” such as hoes and axes, to be indentured for four or five years and to receive £10 sterling per year in wages, plus “meat, drink, washing & lodging.” Francis Jerdone, a planter and merchant of Louisa County, had an indentured servant who did all of the plantation’s blacksmithing and also brought in as much £7 in one month of 1767 for work done for neighboring farmers. The following bill of John Cock indicates the kinds of work done by rural Virginia blacksmiths and the prices they charged in 1759: