The excellent harbor in the York River, plus restrictive legislation on trade, stimulated the growth of the town as the framers of the Port Act had hoped. It became a tobacco port of first importance as it drew on the crops grown on the plantations round about. None was better known, perhaps, than the famous “E. D.” brand grown on the Digges estate (later Bellfield) just above Yorktown. Ships came singly and in fleets to get hogsheads of tobacco which had been duly examined by the inspectors provided through the Colonial Government. Warehouses and wharves were busy with tobacco shipments, and later in the century, with other crops. Incoming freight for the town residents, plantation owners, and others included clothing of latest fashion, wines and liquor, furniture, jewelry and silver plate, riding gear and coaches, swords and firearms, books, and slaves for the fields and kitchens. This was the trade that made Yorktown a thriving business center in the 18th century—a port that led in Chesapeake Bay commerce until it was later outstripped by its rivals. Yorktown stood overlooking the York River, with the better homes, inns, and public buildings on the bluffs in the town proper. Below the bluffs on the waterfront wharves, warehouses, small stores, and drinking places predominated. Along the water’s edge, too, were establishments such as that of Charles Chiswell, who was given a patent for land there on which to build accommodations “for his greater Conveniency in Victualing His Majesties Ships of War according to his Contract.” [Illustration: _Yorktown in 1754. From a sketch (now in the Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Va.) drawn by a British Naval Officer._] When fully extended and at peak prosperity, colonial Yorktown must have been a rather pleasant little town. At best, its population very likely never exceeded 3,000—a small number by present standards, yet sizeable for that period. An English visitor who stopped here in 1736 wrote of it: You perceive a great Air of Opulence amongst the Inhabitants, who have some of them built themselves Houses, equal in Magnificence to many of our superb ones at _St. James’s_.... Almost every considerable Man keeps an Equipage.... The Taverns are many here, and much frequented.... The Court-House is the only considerable publick Building, and is no unhandsome Structure.... The most considerable Houses are of Brick; some handsome ones of Wood, all built in the modern Taste; and the lesser Sort, of Plaister. There are some very pretty Garden Spots in the Town; and the Avenues leading to Williamsburg, Norfolk, &c., are prodigiously agreeable.