provisioning early american towns. the chesapeake

PROVISIONING EARLY AMERICAN TOWNS.
THE CHESAPEAKE: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY
CASE STUDY
FINAL PERFORMANCE REPORT
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
GRANT RO-22643-93
THE COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
LORENA S. WALSH, PROJECT DIRECTOR
PROVISIONING EARLY AMERICAN TOWNS.
THE CHESAPEAKE: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY
CASE STUDY
FINAL PERFORMANCE REPORT
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
GRANT RO-22643-93
THE COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION
LORENA S. WALSH, PROJECT DIRECTOR
Authors:
Lorena S. Walsh
Ann Smart Martin
Joanne Bowen
with contributions by:
Jennifer A. Jones
Gregory J. Brown
Graphics by:
Heather Harvey
30 September 1997
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
I. INTRODUCTION
A. ISSUES AND PROBLEMS............................................................................................2
B. SOURCES AND EVIDENCE ........................................................................................7
II. PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD IN A PLANTATION
ECONOMY
A. GENERAL PATTERNS FOR RURAL HOUSEHOLDS ............................................11
B. RURAL SUPPLIERS OF TOWNS...............................................................................13
C. LIVESTOCK HUSBANDRY .......................................................................................24
D. IMPACT OF TOWNS ON RURAL MARKET ORIENTATION
AND SPECIALIZATION.............................................................................................59
III. PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD IN TOWNS
A. OVERVIEW OF SOURCES OF SUPPLY, CONSUMER
STRATEGIES, AND MARKET ORIENTATION ......................................................67
B. MARKETS IN THE CHESAPEAKE...........................................................................82
C. MILLS .........................................................................................................................100
D. STORES.....................................................................................................................103
E. TAVERNS..................................................................................................................111
F. MISCELLANEOUS ENTREPRENEURS..................................................................113
G. CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................................116
IV. FOOD AND FUEL CONSUMPTION PATTERNS IN TOWNS
A. OVERVIEW OF DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS .....................................................119
B. CUSTOMERS OF LARGE PLANTERS AND COMPOSITION
OF THEIR PURCHASES...........................................................................................121
C. CUSTOMERS OF STORES AND COMPOSITION OF THEIR
PURCHASES .............................................................................................................124
D. PROVISIONING FUEL AND FODDER ...................................................................134
E. ECONOMICS OF ACQUISITION .............................................................................137
V. CONSUMPTION PATTERNS IN INDIVIDUAL HOUSEHOLDS
A. HOUSEHOLD DIET THROUGH HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS ..............................139
B. HOUSEHOLD DIET THROUGH ZOOARCHAEOLOGY.......................................158
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TABLE OF CONTENTS (cont’d)
Page
VI. URBAN CONSUMPTION, CULTURE, AND WELFARE
A. THE CULTURE OF FOOD PREPARATION AND
CONSUMPTION........................................................................................................175
B. SEASONALITY OF CONSUMPTION......................................................................178
C. MAJOR TRENDS IN FOOD PRICES AND THEIR
IMPLICATIONS FOR WELFARE ............................................................................180
D. CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................................188
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................189
APPENDICES AND ATTACHMENTS
1. ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSEMBLAGES ANALYZED.............................................219
2. ACCOUNT BOOKS ANALYZED .............................................................................277
3. DESCRIPTION OF ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES AND
COMPLETE DATA SETS ..........................................................................................301
4. DOCUMENTARY TECHNICAL OVERVIEW.........................................................355
5. ANNUAL COMMODITY PRICE SERIES ................................................................361
6. THE LAND TRACT PROJECT..................................................................................387
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LIST OF FIGURES
Page
1.1.
2.1.
2.2.
2.3.
2.4.
2.5.
2.6.
2.7.
2.8.
2.9.
2.10.
2.11.
2.12.
2.13.
2.14.
2.15.
2.16.
3.1.
3.2.
3.3.
3.4.
3.5.
3.6.
6.1.
6.2.
6.3.
Study Area.........................................................................................................................4
Carter’s Grove and Vicinity c. 1750 ...............................................................................15
Location of Archaeological Sites Analyzed for the Project ............................................26
Relative Dietary Importance in the Chesapeake 1620-1700...........................................28
Relative Dietary Importance, Rural Chesapeake 1620-1660 ..........................................29
Domestic Cattle Kill-Off Pattern Based on Long Bone Fusion......................................35
Domestic Cattle Kill-Off Pattern Based on Tooth Wear ................................................35
Domestic Swine Kill-Off Pattern Based on Long Bone Fusion .....................................37
Domestic Swine Kill-Off Pattern Based on Tooth Wear................................................37
Domestic Caprine Kill-Off Pattern Based on Long Bone Fusion...................................38
Chart Showing Relationship Between Foraging and Numbers of Livestock..................39
Domestic Swine Kill-Off patterns Based on Long Bone Fusion ....................................45
Domestic Swine Kill-Off Patterns Based on Tooth Wear ..............................................45
Domestic Cattle Kill-Off Patterns Based on Long Bone Fusion ....................................52
Domestic Cattle Kill-Off Patterns Based on Tooth Wear...............................................52
Domestic Caprine Kill-Off Patterns Based on Long Bone Fusion .................................57
Domestic Caprine Kill-Off Patterns Based on Tooth Wear............................................57
Relative Dietary Importance in Rural Chesapeake, 1620-Early 19th Century.................70
Relative Dietary Importance in Urban Chesapeake Areas, 1700-Early
19th Century.....................................................................................................................70
Mills, 1700-1719...........................................................................................................101
Mills, 1720-1739...........................................................................................................101
Mills, 1740-1769...........................................................................................................102
Mills, 1770-1784...........................................................................................................102
Seasonality of Meat Sales ............................................................................................180
Chesapeake Beef, Pork, and Mutton Prices ..................................................................184
Index of Urban Meat and Grain Prices .........................................................................185
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LIST OF TABLES
Page
2.1. Output Per Laborer and Gross Revenues From Field Crops in £ Sterling
Constant Value, Carter’s Grove, 1763 ............................................................................21
2.2. York County Probate Inventory Records, Percentage of Cattle in Specific
Age Groups .....................................................................................................................36
2.3. York County Probate Inventory Records, Percentage of Cattle in Various
Age Groups .....................................................................................................................53
2.4. Anne Arundel Country Probate Inventory Records, Percentage of Cattle
in Various Age Groups ...................................................................................................53
2.5. Anne Arundel Country Probate Inventories, Sheep Herd Age Structure........................58
2.6. Population of Selected Chesapeake Towns, 1704-1790 .................................................61
2.7. Williamsburg’s Population and Estimated Food Requirements in 1775 ........................62
2.8. Quantities of Selected Foods Produced on the Burwell and Bray
Plantations, 1736-1789 ...................................................................................................62
3.1. York County and Anne Arundel County Probate Inventories, Livestock,
1620-1800 .......................................................................................................................72
3.2. Element Distribution Firehouse Site (Benjamin Hanson, Butcher)................................74
3.3. Kill-Off Patterns Firehouse Site (Benjamin Hanson, Butcher).......................................74
3.4. Relative Proportions of Caprine Body Parts, Rural-Urban Comparison ........................75
3.5. Relative Proportions of Swine Body Parts, Rural-Urban Comparison ...........................77
3.6. Relative Proportions of Cattle Body Parts, Rural-Urban Comparison ...........................78
3.7. Relative Proportions of Calf Body Parts, Rural-Urban Comparison ..............................80
3.8. Documented Number of Mills: 1700-1784 Williamsburg, York County,
and James City County .................................................................................................100
3.9. All Stores, Purchases Only............................................................................................108
3.10. All Stores, Credits Only................................................................................................108
3.11. Major Suppliers of Beef to William Lightfoot’s Store 1752-1761 ...............................110
3.12. Debtor Transactions, Humphrey Harwood Account Book ...........................................114
3.13. Creditor Transactions, Humphrey Harwood Account Book.........................................115
4.1. Distribution of Occupational Groups and Their Property, Williamsburg
and Annapolis, 1782 and 1783......................................................................................120
4.2. Household Size by Occupational Group, Williamsburg and Annapolis.......................121
4.3. Buyers of Meat from Williamsburg Area Plantations, 1736-1807 ...............................123
4.4. Sales at the Anderson and Low Store, Williamsburg, 1784-1785 ................................127
4.5. Sales at the William Lightfoot Store, Yorktown, 1747-1764 .......................................128
4.6. Sales at the Francis Jerdone Store, Yorktown, 1751-1753 ...........................................130
4.7. Sales at the William Coffing Store, Annapolis, 1770-1771..........................................131
4.8. Sales at the John Davidson Store, Annapolis, 1780-1787 ............................................132
4.9. Sales at the James Brice Store, Annapolis, 1767-1800.................................................133
4.10. Sales at the William Farris Store, Annapolis, 1795-1800.............................................134
4.11. Fuel Customers in Williamsburg, 1740-1807...............................................................137
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LIST OF TABLES
Page
5.1.
5.2.
5.3.
5.4.
5.5.
5.6.
5.7.
5.8.
5.9.
5.10.
5.11.
5.12.
5.13.
5.14.
5.15.
5.16.
5.17.
5.18.
5.19.
5.20.
5.21.
5.22.
5.23.
5.24.
5.25.
6.1.
6.2.
Food and Drink Expenses for all Households...............................................................141
Local Foodstuff Purchases for all Households..............................................................141
Pounds of Useable Meat Purchased ..............................................................................142
Local Foodstuff Purchases at the Virginia Governor’s Palace .....................................144
Overall Household Expenses of a Williamsburg Craftsman: Robert
Lyon, 1749 ....................................................................................................................148
Food and Drink Expenses: Robert Lyon, Williamsburg, 1749.....................................149
Dinners for Orphan Girls in Boston 1803: Stretching Meat in the Diet .......................152
“An Estimate of the Annual Expenses of a Family in Annapolis” ...............................152
All Food and Drink Expenses: John Davidson, Annapolis, 1785.................................155
Food and Drink Expenses: John Davidson, Annapolis, 1783-87 .................................156
Food Purchases in Post-Revolutionary Annapolis, Money Spent ................................157
Kill-Off Patterns Based on Long Bone Fusion, Cattle, Wealthy/Elite
Households....................................................................................................................160
Kill-Off Patterns Based on Long Bone Fusion, Cattle, Craftsmen ...............................160
Kill-Off Patterns Based on Long Bone Fusion, Swine, Wealthy/Elite
Households....................................................................................................................160
Kill-Off Patterns Based on Long Bone Fusion, Swine, Craftsmen...............................161
Kill-Off Patterns Based on Long Bone Fusion, Sheep, Wealthy/Elite
Households....................................................................................................................161
Kill-Off Patterns Based on Long Bone Fusion, Sheep, Craftsmen...............................162
Element Distributions, Cattle and Calf, Craftsmen ......................................................165
Element Distributions, Swine and Sheep, Craftsmen ...................................................165
Element Distributions, Cattle and Calf, Wealthy Households......................................168
Element Distributions, Swine and Sheep, Wealthy Households ..................................168
Element Distributions, Cattle and Calf, Professional Households ...............................171
Element Distributions, Swine and Sheep, Professional Households ............................171
Element Distributions, Cattle and Calf, Taverns ..........................................................172
Element Distributions, Swine and Sheep, Taverns .......................................................172
Relative Dietary Importance, Percent Total Biomass ...................................................176
Food Price Indices for Chesapeake Towns and Philadelphia, 1733-1807 ....................186
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NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION
Among the major goals of our Provisioning Early American Towns project was the
systematic exploration and analysis of multiple sources of information on the production,
distribution, and consumption of food and fuel in urban settings during the early years of the
Industrial Revolution. Part of our work plan called for new research, including, on the
archaeological side, the cataloging, processing, identification, and analysis of previously
unprocessed faunal remains from a number of promising sites throughout the region. On the
documentary side, projected new work involved the creation of data bases on buyers and sellers
of food and of their purchases from selected plantation, store, and household account books for
Williamsburg and Annapolis, as well as research in historical sources on livestock husbandry
practices, public markets, and commercial food processors. Finally, we needed to do
biographical research on the occupants of many of the archaeological sites and on the individuals
named in the account books. Here we completed all the objectives outlined in the grant proposal.
The new sites and sources we analyzed are listed in the appendices to our Final Report.
The second major goal was to connect the new materials to a variety of already compiled
data bases, both artifactual and documentary, assembled over the past twenty years by a number
of historical museums, preservation agencies, and independent scholars. These included faunal
collections, a digitized cadastral tract map of the area surrounding Williamsburg, and
computerized biographical and probate inventory data bases. The archaeologists newly encoded
and entered raw data (which had not been computerized) from previously analyzed faunal
collections into a standardized format. Altogether information on faunal remains in one form or
another was collected for nearly fifty sites.
Gregory Brown and Jennifer Jones, who jointly handled data management and
programming, encountered numerous hurdles in converting and linking disparate data bases in a
variety of outmoded digitized formats. This involved conversion of data bases, variously
compiled in older and harder to use data management programs, primarily dBase and SPSS, into
FoxPro, the software system chosen for this project. Most of these files had been converted for
use on personal computers some years before, but a few, we discovered, were still perilously
stored only on university mainframe computers. Non-numeric information stored in numeric
codes, essential in order to save computer space at the time these files were created, were
converted into words. Data sets that were broken apart into cumbersome multiple separate files
(the biographical data base alone had nearly sixty), another necessity given the limited capacities
of early personal computers, needed to be radically condensed.
The newly designed computerized data bases were prepared as outlined in the grant
application and as described in the technical appendices to this final report. After moving into
the new Bruton Heights School Education Center at Colonial Williamsburg, we had the further
advantage of using networked computers for performing much of the analytical work.
Because it took longer than anticipated to finish converting and linking the various
historical data bases, at this point our analysis of some results that depended on linking
information on customers and purchases to biographical and probate files is not as far advanced
as we would wish. However we now have written all the necessary programs and have produced
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the output needed for further analysis. And we did accomplish what we set out to do in updating
the format of extremely valuable computerized data bases that were in danger of becoming
unusable due to technical obsolescence, and in devising a method for successfully linking them.
These materials have broad applications beyond our particular project, and Colonial
Williamsburg is now committed to making them available to the general public and is developing
a strategy for maintaining them in a usable and user friendly state as technology advances. (See
below.)
We made few changes in planned project activities, none of them major. The
zooarchaeologist decided, after preliminary work with live herd simulation programs, not to
pursue them at this time. The simple models currently used by some zooarchaeologists proved
too simplistic to provide answers to our questions, while others required detailed information on
animal feeding and reproductive behavior that are not available for historical periods. Instead we
chose to put more time into research on period documentary materials and primary texts on
livestock husbandry. Additional activities we undertook in the course of the project that were not
anticipated in the grant proposal include 1) the creation of new digitized cadastral tract maps for
the area surrounding Williamsburg for the later eighteenth century, 2) an analysis of newly
discovered early manuscript cookbooks from Virginia, and 3) creation of a data base on food
preparation and storage equipment for households at differing levels of wealth from probate
inventories and store accounts. We did find it necessary to apply for an extension of the grant
period, as we could not have finished the projected plan of work according to the original
schedule. We started substantive documentary work later than anticipated since we had to wait
for some project team members to become available, and it took an additional year to raise
matching monies to fund one of the archaeological positions. Finally, both of the research offices
involved had to move to new locations in 1996.
In quantitative terms, then, we fulfilled the research objectives proposed in our
application. We trust that our final report reflects qualitative accomplishments as well. We
believe we have made substantial progress in delineating and explaining urban food provisioning
systems during the transition from a rural to an industrialized economy and society. Individual
pieces of the project constitute sound contributions to the fields of historical archaeology, and
social, economic, and cultural history. What distinguishes our project from similar studies in
these fields is its multidisciplinary character. The project team approached artifacts and
documents as independent sources of evidence that had first to be dealt with according to the
standards of our respective disciplines. But we began with the understanding that none of us
would confine her or his efforts exclusively to the sources and issues peculiar to our individual
disciplines. We intended this investigation to be much more than a historical and an
archaeological report bound together between two covers. The content of our final report we
believe represents a more complete synthesis of different kinds of evidence focused on a
common set of issues and problems. As a consequence, we believe our results are more firmly
grounded and our explanations more persuasive than those any of us could have reached working
individually in isolation. We are particularly grateful to the Endowment for providing the
funding without which this collaborative effort would have been impossible.
Major staff changes were all positive. Ann Martin joined the team as the project’s
historical research fellow, rather than just as a consultant, contributing her already well
developed expertise in the areas of material culture and retail stores. Jennifer Jones assumed
viii
major responsibilities, unanticipated when we initially hired her as a data entry clerk, for the
development of computerized data bases. Finally we were exceptionally fortunate in attracting
several student interns from a number of colleges who helped with various segments of the
original research while earning college credit for the reports they prepared. In addition, an
unanticipated number of volunteers from the Williamsburg community helped with processing
and measuring faunal remains, documentary and bibliographic research, and the preparation of
graphs and charts. Their assistance was essential for completing our ambitious research plan, as
well as enabling us to pursue additional areas of investigation.
We were eventually successful in raising matching funds from outside sources. The
effort, however, even with the assistance of the staff of the Foundation Development Office, took
up a great deal of time and energy during the first year of the grant that we would have preferred
to have spent researching documentary materials and drafting text rather than researching
potential donors and writing scores of letters of application and nearly a dozen additional grant
proposals. Since we were unable to begin the faunal analysis on schedule, the zooarchaeologist
was hard-pressed to get the work completed on time.
The products anticipated from this project are multiple.
Museum Applications
The results of this project will be used in a number of ongoing museum programs at
Colonial Williamsburg including foodways, livestock, gardens, rural trades, operating and
exhibition taverns and stores, Carter’s Grove plantation, and special programs and tours dealing
with the themes of work, family life, slavery, material culture and standards of living. They will
also contribute to the planning and interpretation of two new exhibit complexes, the
reconstructed outbuildings at the Peyton Randolph House and a projected reconstructed public
market house. We will deposit copies of our final report in the Foundation Library, and we plan
to schedule a series of public presentations on project results for museum staff, museum visitors,
and interested members of the local community.
Other museums and cultural agencies who generously lent faunal collections for analysis
or shared original site data will of course receive reports on the work we performed. Copies of
our final report will be deposited in the Maryland State Archives and with Historic Annapolis,
Inc. Some members of the project team will meet with staff members from Historic Annapolis,
Londontown, and Historic St. Mary’s City to discuss results and possible public program
applications there. We will also share our findings with related research projects with which we
have been exchanging ideas and methods: Warren Hofstra and Robert Mitchell’s ongoing study
of urbanization in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (also supported in part by NEH), the
foodways program at Monticello with whom we shared a project intern, and “Feeding the City,”
a collaborative study of provisioning in London conducted by the Centre for Metropolitan
History, University of London, and the Department of Social and Economic History, Queen’s
University, Belfast.
Computerized Data Bases
Building upon the expertise they gained over the course of this project in linking data
bases, Jones and Brown are now working on a project at Colonial Williamsburg to link
ix
additional disparate data sources such as catalogues of archaeological collections and
architectural surveys with existing and future biographical and probate inventory files, as well as
to maps of the town and countryside. It is planned that this master file will be made available for
use by the public in the Foundation Library in an easy to use format. This further initiative offers
some assurance that the effort expended in this project in creating new data bases and in updating
digitized dinosaurs will not in turn be lost, through lack of use or of updating, in the next round
of technological advances.
Presentations to Academic Audiences
Over the next several years members of the project team will be giving papers based on
project findings at annual meetings of historical, economic, and archaeological associations, at
academic seminars and workshops, and at special conferences devoted to particular themes. We
then plan to submit articles on some of the more technical aspects of our project to academic
journals. We have also been approached by the editors of the planned new addition of Historical
Statistics about the possible inclusion of some of the project data in this widely used reference
work.
Publications
Ann Martin has already made considerable progress in drafting a manuscript on town
provisioning systems based on the results of this project for which she will be the principal
author. She is now seeking outside support to underwrite its completion next year. Joanne
Bowen plans to write an extensive monograph on Chesapeake husbandry systems in the near
future once additional documentary and archaeological research has been completed. This
includes further work on issues of livestock management and reproduction that we have found to
be critical as a result of the work we completed in the course of this project, and a study of
phytoliths (plant remains left on the teeth of domestic animals) in the faunal assemblages in
order to identify changes in livestock feeding practices that cannot be obtained from documentary
records.
Lorena S. Walsh, Project Director
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Acknowledgments
The principal authors of the narrative sections of this Final Performance Report are
Project Director Lorena S. Walsh, Zooarchaeologist Joanne Bowen, and Historian Ann Smart
Martin, assisted by team members Gregory Brown and Jennifer Jones. The technical appendices
are primarily the work of Brown and Jones. We wish to acknowledge our deep appreciation to
the many others who provided invaluable help over the course of the project.
Zooarchaeological Research—Joanne Bowen, Directing Zooarchaeologist
The zooarchaeology team has worked long and hard to make this project a success.
Analysts Stephen C. Atkins, Jeremiah Dandoy, and Gwenyth Duncan each worked long hours to
identify in a very short period of time seemingly endless numbers of bones. Steve plowed
through old archaeological records to identify assemblages from sometimes poorly analyzed
materials. Susan Arter, Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, complete the tooth
wear analyses of numerous assemblages. Ethel Wu, who came to us through the New Horizons
School for gifted science students, initially learned to analyze tooth wear, then continued to
develop a system refining Grant’s method of tooth wear analysis. She also helped complete the
graphics needed to present the faunal data. Susan Trevarthen Andrews skillfully transcribed
faunal data from written cards and data sheets provided by Henry Miller and Elizabeth Reitz.
To define narrow time periods in various assemblages Fraser Neiman helped develop
statistical methods to quickly analyze artifact assemblages. Numerous Colonial Williamsburg
employees on temporary duty and volunteers helped to number the piles of bones, and enter data
into the computer. Our thanks to them all.
An integral and extremely important part of the team were several volunteers, including
Dr. Frank Carpenter, who used his considerable research abilities to single-handedly read and
transcribe thousands of records containing information on animal husbandry. His contribution to
this project will become the foundation from which further work in the Rare Breeds program at
Colonial Williamsburg will be based. Joseph Doyle contributed with his incredible support,
transcribing tax records, researching family histories for different sites, and measuring bones.
Lewis Madson helped to rough sort bones and to develop a computerized numbering system
capable of numbering 400-600 bones a day. Lyell Smollen took my class in Zooarchaeology,
then armed with analytical skills began to transcribe old data cards, conduct documentary
research, measure bones, and assist in printing out thousands of animal husbandry records. Tom
Pratt helped develop graphics. Each made their own important and unique contribution.
Students played an important role in completing this project. Rebecca Ferrell completed
her senior research project at the College of William and Mary on the Kingsmill Slave Quarter.
We have her to thank for ferreting out useful information on the multiple components of this site.
My class completed the analysis of the Ferry Farm assemblage—my thanks to each who analyzed
what seemed to them an ungodly number of bones. We all had a good time!
An additional thanks goes to Greg Brown, Susan Trevarthen Andrews, and Stephen
Atkins, who completed the analysis of additional assemblages that provided greater depth and
breadth to the data base. Those who contracted with us to complete additional work include the
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Mount Vernon Ladies Association, William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, and
the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Dennis Pogue, Esther White, David Hazzard,
Dennis Blanton, and Donald Linebaugh each worked closely with us to incorporate our research
goals into analyses performed for their projects. We are very grateful, and the results of this
work illustrates the best collaborative spirit of contract-related research.
We thank all the archaeologists and organizations who so kindly allowed us to analyze
faunal materials they had excavated years before. In particular, Beth Acuff and Keith Egloff of
the Virginia Department of Historic Resources worked patiently with us to pull out appropriate
assemblages and related documentation, then help get the assemblages physically to
Williamsburg where the analysis was completed. Archaeologists who had excavated the
assemblages on occasion kindly helped us to interpret maps and records. A special thanks to
David Hazzard, Daniel Mouer, Robert Hunter, Jr. for their advice, support, and knowledge of the
sites they had excavated.
We were delighted with the collegial spirit offered by Mark Leone and Laura Galke of
Historic Annapolis, by Henry Miller of the St. Mary’s City Commission, and by Elizabeth Reitz
and Justin Lev-Tov. Historic Annapolis kindly gave us permission to transcribe all raw faunal
data into our computer system. Elizabeth Reitz provided the data for the Calvert House and
Reynolds Tavern and Justin Lev-Tov kindly provided the raw data for the Jonas Green site.
Lastly, we want to thank our zooarchaeology colleagues who have encouraged this work
over the year. Pam Crabtree always lent a critical ear and gave helpful suggestions; Melinda
Zeder and Elizabeth Reitz both gave encouragement, support, and advice whenever I asked; and
Richard Meadows helped with advice on ageing techniques. The results speak for themselves.
Historical Research—Ann Smart Martin, Directing Historian
The historical team has benefited from the help and ideas of many. Ann Smart Martin
and Jennifer Jones were on the ground in Williamsburg. Larry Peskin worked with Maryland
materials in Annapolis. Lorena Walsh moved regularly between both worlds.
It is a joy to work with the knowledgeable and generous people who make up the
Research Division at Colonial Williamsburg. Our colleagues in the Department of Historical
Research unstintingly answered our many questions and graciously opened their impressive file
cabinets to us. Pat Gibbs, our departmental specialist on foodways, shared her vast library, files,
and ongoing research so that we began the project running. Julie Richter’s command of the York
County Project prevented many missteps in linking our data to older files. Kevin Kelly’s
extensive knowledge of Chesapeake history provided us with an instant resource, and he
invariably passed on his own research and reference files relating to our work. Lou Powers,
Linda Rowe, and Cathy Hellier provided us not only with a congenial working environment, but
also shared information.
The staff of the historic food programs also met with us in the earliest stages of this
project. Wendy Howell, Dennis Cotner, and Frank Clark all gave us good insights and we look
forward to further such collaboration.
Historic St. Mary’s City kindly provided original worksheets for York County
inventories that speeded our work on these materials as well as computer data files for York and
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Anne Arundel County probate inventories. Staff at Historic Annapolis, Inc. helped us identify
appropriate account books for analysis and speeded research in Annapolis by allowing us to use
biographical materials and other unpublished reports.
One pleasant outcome of this grant was a new collaborative effort between the
Department of Research at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation (Monticello) and
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. With the help of Anne Lucas, the two departments jointly
sponsored an intern, Amy Rider, in a project that will benefit both institutions.
Other colleagues have helped in inestimable ways by providing information. Thanks are
due to Jim Whittenburg, Harold Gill, Warren Hofstra, Robert Mitchell, Ellen Donald, Mary
Ferrari, Joseph Mosier, Bernie Herman, and, most especially, Mick Nichols.
We have had a vast array of interns, students, and volunteers, without whom this task
could never have been completed. Nancy Hess has had the longest connection with us and we
look forward to continuing work with her. We have relied on Nancy to do immense biographical
research and entry and she cheerfully picked up every task assigned. Matt Churchill quickly
mastered data base management skills to coordinate the entry of hundreds of biographical entries.
Michele Jarrett acquired intimate knowledge of the eighteenth-century neighborhood around
Williamsburg, creating the original maps that are so impressive in Appendix 6. Amy Rider not
only entered several thousand records relating to Jefferson’s Washington, D.C. kitchens, she also
accomplished the formidable task of translating them from French. Nicholas Kimpan’s culinary
and historical skills were combined in the transcription and study of Virginia manuscript
cookbooks. Jill Bender spent many quiet Friday afternoons in the Department of Historical
Research reading eighteenth-century newspapers. Meg Schwartz stole time from her internship
with another staff member to help us with biographical research. David Rinker applied his
interest in brewing to several months of research on the process of making beer and bread in the
eighteenth century. Mike Ward continued the research of Michele Jarrett in expanding our study
of eighteenth-century land changes in York County. Heather Wainwright spent several years in
the department of Historical Research becoming an expert on eighteenth-century tavern keeping.
Her forthcoming master’s thesis is based on the work she did for us in the coding and
biographical research for the Anne Pattison account book. We look forward to seeing her
completed work.
Finally, we would like to express our thanks to Heather Harvey and Tami Carsillo, who
along with Nancy Hess provided invaluable last-minute production help.
xiii
xiv
I. INTRODUCTION
This report surveys the preliminary results of an extended interdisciplinary study of urban
provisioning systems in the Chesapeake region in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In
providing some answers to the question, how did townspeople in Virginia and Maryland supply
themselves with food and fuel, it addresses a little-studied topic of great importance to every
urban place, regardless of its size or primary economic or governmental functions. Wherever, in
the eighteenth century, there were significant concentrations of people who did not make their
living from farming, their provisioning requirements had a pronounced impact on the surrounding
countryside. This study demonstrates that as few as a hundred such households was sufficient, in
the mid-eighteenth century, to have a noticeable effect on the productive strategies of farmers in
nearby rural areas. When, by the early nineteenth century, those numbers swelled into the
thousands, the effects of urban markets expanded, sometimes restructuring the productive
strategies of farmers in far distant hinterlands.
At the same time, town-dwelling families who were largely dependent on food they did
not provide for themselves faced problems of procurement that hardly ever troubled rural folk.
Specialized urban occupations afforded some townspeople opportunities for advancing individual
and family fortunes in ways seldom available in rural areas. For more marginal sorts, including
widows, single women and free blacks, who lacked either special skills or the resources and
connections that were increasingly necessary to obtain use rights to, not to say outright ownership
of land, the business of supplying services to more affluent townspeople afforded a much better
chance for possible advancement, or at least more certain survival, than did agricultural labor or
tenant farming. In a stable or expanding economy, town dwellers could purchase basic food and
fuel with combined family earnings. In bad times, dependence on others for the necessities of life
put all but elite town-dwellers at a decided disadvantage. Then, obtaining some form of credit was
essential to avoiding a reduction in the quantity and quality of their diets, a requirement that not
all could meet. The only alternative was poor relief which was usually restricted to the chronically
sick, disabled, and elderly.
These tensions between rural self-sufficiency and urban dependence had for hundreds of
years played a prominent role in the places from which most Chesapeake colonists originated. In
most of northern Europe, towns and cities were from the early middle ages a prominent feature of
local societies. Relatively sophisticated urban provisioning systems were already in evidence by
the 1300s, and the rulers of emerging European states devoted considerable attention to the
problems of ensuring an adequate urban food supply, if for no other reason than to contain town
unrest should shortages arise.1 Differential meat and grain provisioning systems likely developed
at about this time in Europe. Grain and meat were often supplied by different sets of producers
and distributed through separate marketing networks. Moreover the meats that various economic
and social groups consumed often came from different sorts of suppliers and distributors. Affluent
1
See, for example, Bruce M. S. Campbell, James A. Galloway, Derek Keene, and Margaret Murphy, A
Medieval Capital and its Grain Supply: Agrarian Production and Distribution in the London Region c. 1300
(Institute of British Geographers, Historical Geography Series, no. 30, 1993) and Maryanne Kowaleski, Local
Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
1
town dwellers doubtless always found ways to ensure adequate supplies of fresh meats, but the
poorer sorts had to depend on local butchers who presumably sold small amounts only for ready
cash, or else they had to obtain whatever protein they consumed primarily from alternative
sources to fresh meats such as milk, cheese, preserved meat, and shellfish. Distinct meat and grain
distribution networks were common in eighteenth-century Europe, but, until this study, with the
exception of Bowen’s findings for eighteenth-century Connecticut, differential food distribution
networks have not been identified as a common pattern in the American colonies.2
Moreover, in England, an in other parts of northern Europe, urban populations increased
dramatically in the 1500s and 1600s, and farmers living within the reach of these expanding
markets had begun to restructure their activities accordingly. Many forced African immigrants, in
contrast, came from overwhelmingly rural economies, but even in such regions, frequent local and
regional provision markets were a regular feature of rural life. Moreover, some had been
transported from areas where sizeable towns and cities posed similar problems and opportunities.
Once they arrived in the Chesapeake, many white colonists revised their expectations. An
abundance of apparently unclaimed land promoted a desire among most to become independent
landowners. Local topography and natural resources encouraged diffuse rather than concentrated
settlement. The initial absence of towns and of significant numbers of people earning their living
by anything other than agriculture discouraged any reliance on producing foods or other products
for local domestic markets. Finally the unparalleled opportunities that emerged for getting ahead
by concentrating on the production of tobacco for European markets soon locked almost
everyone into an export centered staple economy. Enslaved Africans were soon denied any chance
for eventual freedom, as well as ownership of substantial property such as livestock or guns.
However slaves residing within traveling distance of town markets made the most of opportunities
to better their lives by producing or gathering petty perishable produce, a traffic widely tolerated
in practice, if not always entirely sanctioned by law.
A. ISSUES AND PROBLEMS
After a century of European settlement, some few permanent towns did finally take root in the
Chesapeake region. The most substantial began as centers of government, while lesser
concentrations of population grew around tidewater shipping centers and fall line transshipment
points. Until the 1790s all remained at best small market towns by comparison to such
metropolises as Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and larger English cities. Still these urban places
were similar to country towns throughout the colonies and in provincial England that had
2
N. S. B. Gras, The Evolution of the English Corn Market (Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press,
1915); Steven Laurence Kaplan, Provisioning Paris: Merchants and Millers in the Grain and Flour Trade during
the Eighteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); Roger Scola, Feeding the Victorian City: The
Food Supply of Manchester, 1770-1870 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991); R. B. Outhwaite, Dearth, Public
Policy and Social Disturbance in England, 1550-1800 (Cambridge, Eng.; Cambridge University Press, 1991); Erik
Aerts and Peter Clark, eds., Metropolitan Cities and Their Hinterlands in Early Modern Europe, vol. 9 of
Proceedings, Tenth International Economic History Congress, Leuven, August 1990 (Leuven: Leuven University
Press, 1990), especially E. A. Wrigley, “Metropolitan Cities and their Hinterlands: Stimulus and Constraints to
Growth,” pp. 12-20; Joanne Bowen, “A Study of Seasonality and Subsistence: Eighteenth-Century Suffield,
Connecticut,” Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1990.
2
comparable or only slightly larger populations. Our study area is shown in Figure 1.1. These lesser
urban places commanded sufficiently large populations that could either strain available local rural
food resources, or more likely, encourage some area farmers and their enslaved workers to
restructure their productive strategies in order to accommodate and take advantage of emerging
urban needs. Understanding how the residents of towns like Williamsburg and Annapolis fed and
warmed themselves supplies insight into the developing provisioning systems that supplied other
colonial towns, less thoroughly investigated, in the Chesapeake and elsewhere. And, our results as
well as other comparative studies suggest, even in such small urban places, by the early nineteenth
century, the methods of production and distribution of foods and fuel was becoming recognizably
modern. As all but the most isolated of rural areas were increasingly drawn into more integrated
international marketing networks, the residents of modest market and administrative centers, no
less than inhabitants of leading metropolises, had no option but to accommodate themselves and
their families to at least some of the operating modes and relations of international capitalism.3
While humankind does not live by bread alone, until the industrial revolution was well advanced,
most ordinary families in Europe or in North America spent between half and two-thirds of their
incomes on food and another six to nine percent for fuel. The expenses of transportation,
processing, and distribution of these essentials made living in towns more costly than maintaining
comparable standards in the countryside. The increased costs weighed especially heavily on the
urban poor.4 Among the costs of town living, current research suggests, was a worse diet for
many urban residents than that available to even the most humble of rural folk, this despite the
fact that most urban workers earned higher real wages than rural laborers. Higher costs explain
only part of the discrepancy, leaving open the possibility that town dwellers instead used their
earnings to buy other, more prestigious kinds of goods.5 Alternatively, poor people may
3
See, for example, Lorena S. Walsh, “Consumer Behavior, Diet, and the Standard of Living in Late
Colonial and Early Antebellum America, 1770-1840,” in Robert E. Gallman and John Joseph Wallis, eds.,
American Economic Growth and Standards of Living Before the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1992), pp. 217-64; Christopher Clark, The Roots of Rural Capitalism: Western Massachusetts, 1780-1860 (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1990); Peter O. Wacker and Paul G. E. Clemens, Land Use in Early New Jersey: A
Historical Geography (Newark, N.J: New Jersey Historical Society, 1995; Karen J. Friedman, “Victualling
Colonial Boston,” Agricultural History 47 (1973): 189-205; D. C. Smith and A. E. Bridges, “The Brighton Market:
Feeding Nineteenth-Century Boston,” Agricultural History 56 (1982): 3-21; Ritchie Garrison, “Farm Dynamics
and Regional Exchange: The Connecticut Valley Beef Trade, 1670-1850,” Agricultural History 61 (1987): 1-17;
Andrew H. Baker and Holly V. Izard, “New England Farmers and the Marketplace, 1780-1865: A Case Study,”
Agricultural History 65 (1991): 29-52; Winifred Barr Rothenberg, From Market-Places to a Market Economy: The
Transformation of Rural Massachusetts, 1750-1850 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992); Joan M. Jensen,
Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750-1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986).
4
Carole Shammas, The Pre-Industrial Consumer in England and America (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1990), chap. 5; Billy G. Smith, “‘The Best Poor Man’s Country’: Living Standards of the ‘Lower Sort’ in Late
Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” Working Papers from the Regional Economic History Research Center 2
(1979); 53; Billy G. Smith, The “Lower Sort”: Philadelphia’s Laboring People, 1750-1800 (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1990), chap. 4; Simon Kuznets, Modern Economic Growth: Rate, Structure, and Spread (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 262-84; Philip J. Coelho and James F. Shepherd, “Differences in
Regional Prices: The United States, 1850-1880,” Journal of Economic History 34 (1974): 551-91.
5
Gregory Clark, Michael Huberman, and Peter H. Lindert, “A British Food Puzzle, 1770-1850,” paper
presented at the annual meeting of the Economic History Association, September, 1992. See also Nathan Koffsky,
3
Figure 1.1. Study area.
sometimes have found bread, tea, sugar, alcohol, and prepared foods more readily available,
sometimes perhaps to be purchased on credit, than meat, milk, or good quality fresh vegetables.
Doubtless some marginal residents of these Chesapeake towns suffered, as did poor town
dwellers in larger urban places, during economic downturns, political crises, and individual
misfortunes such as prolonged illness, but here their numbers were too few either to exert much
political pressure on local officials or to elicit sustained demands for public or private relief.
We do know that the evolving local provisioning system did not completely satisfy all
town dwellers. Immigrant Europeans, who in the eighteenth century made up a disproportionate
percentage of Chesapeake town populations, voiced dissatisfaction with the lack of variety and
“Farm and Urban Purchasing Power,” in Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 11 of Studies in
Income and Wealth (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1949), pp. 151-219.
4
especially the exorbitant prices, compared to Europe, of the foods available in town markets.
Wealthier native-born townsfolk sometimes voiced similar complaints, but remedied the
deficiency by having everything from fattened cattle to nuts, fruits, and firewood transported to
town from both nearby plantations and holdings up to two hundred miles away. The towns’ poor
left no written accounts of their hardships or of their coping strategies. However studies of the
poor in other towns demonstrate that low and irregular wages, shortages of fuel, and inadequate
cooking facilities could often lead to diets decidedly lacking in variety, adequate nutrients, and
sometimes adequate calories.
Our research design has placed special emphasis on the economic relationships of early
Chesapeake towns with their hinterlands, the social connections between town residents and
farmers in the countryside who produced food for them, the networks created and used by
different social and economic groups engaged in provisioning towns like Williamsburg,
Yorktown, and Annapolis, and differences in urban and rural diets that resulted from
townspeople’s dependence on others for most of their food. For convenience we use the term
“provisioning system” to include local production of food and fuel, importation of foods and fuels
from other regions, transportation of these goods to market, food processing by intermediaries,
distribution of these essential to consumers, and the social connections that facilitated economic
exchanges.6
For townspeople, the process of feeding and warming themselves involved more than
simple economic transactions. They, also of necessity, often became enmeshed in special social
relationships with those who produced, distributed, and processed their food. Town residents and
their neighbors in the adjacent countryside participated in two very different marketing systems.
First, there was the international mercantile sector through which cash crops were exported,
goods from outside the region imported and retailed in country as well as town stores, and credit
extended to planters by British firms. The international trading system moved large volumes of
goods, and many middlemen intervened in the multitude of transactions that separated planters
from the final consumers of their crops in Europe and the West Indies.7
Second, there was the local trade sector. It differed from the first both in scale and
character. Most local transactions involved the exchange of smaller quantities of goods, and most
exchanges were made face to face between persons who knew each other, sometimes intimately.
The organization of this second sector centered around economic relationships in which the social
content was often a fundamental determinant. The social relations that underlay local provisioning
systems are not clearly described in the documentary sources and so have remained elusive to
economic historians. This failure has been reinforced by the habit of thinking first and foremost of
the tight-knit networks of kin, friends, and neighbors that James Henretta, Robert Gross, and
6
Jay Anderson, “‘A Solid Sufficiency’: An Ethnography of Yeoman Foodways in Stuart England,” Ph.D.
diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1971; Jack Goody, Cooking, Cuisine, and Class: A Study in Comparative
Sociology (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Mary Douglas, Food and the Social Order:
Studies in Food and Festivities in Three American Communities (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1984).
7
The extensive literature on the international market sector is surveyed in John J. McCusker and Russell
R. Menard, The Economy of British America, 1607-1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985).
5
other historians have described as commonplace in small rural communities.8 However social
relations in market systems, economic anthropologists have shown, usually extend beyond these
primary relations to include acquaintances and strangers with whom mutually beneficial personal
relationships may eventually develop.9
In the two Chesapeake capitals, with their mix of native-born inhabitants with long and
deep roots in the surrounding countryside, and of recent immigrants from distant places who had
few local connections and fewer of long standing, the marketing system was decidedly more
complex than those of surrounding rural areas which experienced little immigration in the last
three quarters of the eighteenth century.10 Most large Chesapeake planters, for example, traded
with their rural neighbors and with more distant kin primarily by means of book credit. Individual
accounts often ran on for years, with balances calculated infrequently and irregularly, and creditor
planters often loathe to aggressively pressure heavily indebted neighbors. Similarly, country
storekeepers found they could not long survive without extending credit freely and sometimes
imprudently to their rural customers.
Large area planters producing for urban markets also traded with some regular town
customers on book credit, especially for substantial amounts of meat or grains, but were more
likely to balance such accounts more frequently, and to seek payment of outstanding balances
more rigorously, and indeed often to receive such payment somewhat more promptly. While they
on occasion also sold foodstuffs in small quantities to poorer and less well-established townsfolk,
large planters were usually willing to sell in these circumstances only for ready cash. Town
merchants extended long-term credit for foodstuffs purchased, but also ran long list of cash sales.
Town provisioning systems thus involved a combination of the more familiar and often
personalized credit arrangements that characterized economic transactions in the countryside, but
also involved a greater percentage of more impersonal cash transactions. Indeed, since the big
area planters continued to make a greater proportion of their incomes from the production of
tobacco and grain for export markets than from the sale of food in town, they largely confined
their local provisioning trade to more affluent and regular customers. Their slave workers could
be much more profitably employed in the fields than in huckstering small quantities of foodstuffs
8
For example, James A. Henretta, “Families and Farms: Mentalité in Pre-Industrial America,” William
and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 35 (1978): 3-32; Robert A. Gross, The Minutemen and Their World (New York: Hill
and Wang, 1976).
9
Anthropologists who have made contributions in the study of market economies include Ralph Beals,
The Peasant Marketing System of Oaxaca, Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975); Scott Cook
and Martin Diskin, eds., Markets in Oaxaca (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976); Paul Bohannan and George
Dalton, eds., Markets in Africa (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1975); Sidney Mintz, “Pratik:
Haiian Personal Economic Relationships,” in Proceedings of the American Ethnological Society (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1961); Sidney Mintz, Caribbean Transformations (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1989); Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (New York: Aldine Publishing Co., 1972);
William Davis, Social Relations in a Philippine Market (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).
10
The composition of the populations of Williamsburg and Annapolis and their occupational structures
are summarized in Lorena S. Walsh, “Characteristics of the York County Urban Population”; Walsh, “A
Comparison of the Social Structures of Williamsburg and Annapolis in 1783,” and Peter V. Bergstrom, “The
Business of Williamsburg and Yorktown,” in “Urbanization in the Tidewater South, Part II: The Growth and
Development of Williamsburg and Yorktown,” Final Report to the National Endowment for the Humanities,
Project #RO-20869-85, 1989.
6
in town. The trade in meat by the pound or in grain by the bushel was thus left largely to a layer of
lesser middlemen and mixed entrepreneurs whose role in the provisioning system is discussed in
later sections of this report.
B. SOURCES AND EVIDENCE
We chose to concentrate our efforts on Williamsburg and Annapolis because the necessary
background research on the local economy and the social and occupational structure were already
available. This prior work identified relevant documentary sources, supplied already assembled
biographical materials and computerized data bases of tax lists and probate inventories, and also
well-documented archaeological assemblages required for this project. Our current results are
built on earlier work by several research organizations in the region, supported in part by the
National Endowment, including studies of population growth in Williamsburg and Annapolis,
their occupational structure, distribution of real and personal wealth, and urban/rural contrasts in
living standards.
In order to understand how local planters responded to growing urban markets, we
analyzed closely the surviving accounts of three large area planters who progressively altered their
productive strategies to make the most of local urban markets. The role of international marketing
systems was investigated through analysis of town merchants’ accounts. These also turned out to
reveal the concurrent role of town storekeepers as intermediate retailers for smaller quantities of
locally produced grains, meats, and butter. Some merchants vended as well small amounts of
market provisions like poultry and vegetables. Next, we analyzed accounts of private town
households and institutional buyers in order to better understand what sorts of foods urban
families purchased and from whom. In addition to providing detailed evidence about the food
consumption patterns of a few relatively well-documented families at differing economic levels,
the household accounts also provide otherwise absent evidence on the significant role of slaves,
free blacks, and poor whites in supplying town dwellers with much-desired, highly perishable
produce. Analysis of the contents of urban probate inventories revealed the abilities or inabilities
of town dwellers at differing levels of wealth to preserve, process, and consume differing kinds
and amounts of foods. And study of livestock holdings among all inventoried decedents in the
countryside around Williamsburg and Annapolis added to our understanding of changing urbaninfluenced animal husbandry practices.
We also investigated town market regulations, miscellaneous documentary evidence on
intermediate processors such as millers, bakers, and butchers, period manuscript cookbooks, and
tax lists (unfortunately available only for the 1780s) for evidence of self-sufficiency or its absence.
Compilation of price series for all items of produce for which we could obtain unit prices allowed
us to explore major trends in absolute and relative food costs. Finally, collection and careful
cross-indexing of a wide variety of documentary sources concerning livestock husbandry practices
complements the archaeological findings and constitutes a valuable reference source for future
investigations.
Reconstruction of the Chesapeake provisioning system has drawn upon multiple sources,
each of which contributes independent pieces of information that are different views on the same
topic. Each has its own biases and strengths, but the different sources can inform each other, and
7
together provide a more complete picture of the past. Initially we treated the historical and
archaeological data as independent resources, each providing different types of information and
bringing different perspectives to bear on questions about the rural production of animals,
regional market systems, and the provisioning of urban residents. Given the interdisciplinary
character of our research design, however, the principal investigators, from the outset,
collaborated closely and continued to relate ongoing work to the central issues. An exciting result
has been a greater level of synthesis across sources and disciplines than is commonly found in
collaborative urban studies projects.
Bones found in archaeological sites, known as faunal remains to archaeologists, contain
important information on a range of food-related topics, including animal husbandry, marketing
and distribution of animals and animal products, butchery, food preparation, and diet, or the
actual consumption of different meats.
Many historic sources contain information on food and food-related topics, but of all
sources available to scholars of Chesapeake history, bones are possibly the best surviving record
of past meals. From them it is possible to obtain an overview of the diets of all segments of
colonial Chesapeake society since everyone, including the literate and the illiterate, and the
wealthy, the poor, and the enslaved threw away bones into trash piles, wells, and abandoned
cellars. But like any resource, these bones have biases that must be carefully considered and their
evidence weighed. In selecting bone assemblages for study, zooarchaeologists carefully evaluate
potential biases, considering field techniques that were used to recover the bones, soil chemistry,
exposure to dogs, human feet, and the extended exposure to sun and the elements. By analyzing
only those bones that have survived in excellent condition, thus assuring a relatively complete
representation of the meat diet, Colonial Williamsburg and other zooarchaeologists working in the
Chesapeake have over a period of two decades built up an impressive data base on dietary
patterns, animal husbandry, and marketing practices, one that rivals data bases from any region in
the country, and possibly the world. For the study of the colonial Chesapeake diet, it has no
parallel.
While these faunal remains have provided a broad-based picture of animal husbandry,
urban provisioning, and what meats were consumed, patterns revealed in the archaeological
record can be interpreted in different ways. Bones, for example, show the proportion of different
meats consumed, but identifying how households drew upon differing economic resources and
social connections, whether they butchered their own animals, purchased entire carcasses, or
purchased special meat cuts, has come from historical sources.
The various historical records have each provided a particular view of how urban
households provisioned themselves. Plantation accounts have provided essential information on
how livestock were raised and what types of meat were brought into town to be sold in complete
carcasses. Household accounts have provided specific information on which meats were
purchased in cuts and how beef, veal, and fowl were processed. Probate inventories and tax lists
have documented what animals were kept by urban households. Store accounts revealed the foods
available for sale by retailers. Manuscript receipt books have provided specific information on
special cuts of meat. And municipal records outline market laws and procedures.
8
Similarly, while the faunal remains have provided an anchor for understanding what
different households actually consumed, historical records have provided the economic and social
context of consumption. The historical records identified the components of the provisioning
system and how they operated in the region. But through analysis of the age of slaughter and
different cuts of meat found in faunal assemblages associated with different households in town,
faunal remains have provided a more concrete measure of the development of the market and of
the degree of household dependency on market resources. Each source has provided its own
specific, and sometimes limited, view of provisioning, but together the multiple sources have
helped to spell out the different paths individuals took to obtain their food.
9
10
II. PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD IN A
PLANTATION ECONOMY
A. GENERAL PATTERNS FOR RURAL HOUSEHOLDS
Once the economic and social dislocations accompanying the years of initial European settlement
were overcome, in the seventeenth century Chesapeake planters , great, middling, and small,
established a system of extensive husbandry centered around the maximum production of tobacco
for the European market. Although until well into the eighteenth century most relied almost
entirely on Europe for manufactured goods, farming households did achieve a self-sufficiency in
basic foods that was probably more complete than that achieved by most farmers in New England,
long supposed the quintessential example of household self reliance. New World maize, a crop
especially suited to frontier farming, quickly became the predominant starch. Except on newlyestablished farms, a planter and his wife, along with any bound laborers present in the household
could easily raise enough corn to meet the household’s food needs without taking away time from
the critical tobacco crop. For protein, planters relied primarily on cattle and hogs which multiplied
readily in the Chesapeake environment and which could survive, with little care or supplemental
feed, on the forage available in woods and old fields. Hogs were briefly fattened with corn in the
fall, all but a small breeding stock slaughtered, and the meat salted down to provide a regular
supply of protein across much of the year. Cattle were slaughtered from late fall to early winter
when range-fed animals still retained annual maximum weight and the meat would keep longest.
Generally farmers consumed only older cattle, some of whom had outlived their alternative uses
as breeding stock, milk producers, and draft animals. Younger surplus cattle were more often
marketed at various times across the year to buyers interested primarily in these alternative uses.
Even so, the meat diet of ordinary whites was abundant by European standards.1
To these basics of bread and meat planters added vegetable gardens for seasonal produce
and orchards for fruit and cider. Once their farms were established, rural households at all levels
of wealth had little need to purchase foods from others. And given that all but new households
were basically self sufficient, planters who had labor enough to raise surplus food had little
incentive to do so. Even so there were indeed often surpluses. Planters adopted a strategy of
planting sufficient corn to provision their families and dependent laborers in all but the most
adverse of growing seasons. So in good years, they often harvested more corn than was needed
1
For the 17th century Chesapeake see Russell R. Menard, Lois Green Carr, and Lorena S. Walsh, Robert
Cole’s World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991)
and Henry M. Miller, “Colonization and Subsistence Change on the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake Frontier,”
Ph.D. diss., Michigan State University, 1984. For New England see Betty Hobbes Pruitt, “Self-Sufficiency and the
Agricultural Economy of Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 41 (1984):
333-64; Sarah F. McMahon, “A Comfortable Subsistence: the Changing Composition of Diet in Rural New
England, 1620-1840,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 42 (1985): 25-65; Carole Shammas, “How SelfSufficient Was Early America?” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 13 (1982): 247-72. For livestock husbandry in
the two regions see Joanne Bowen, “A Comparative Analysis of New England and Chesapeake Herding Systems,”
in Paul Shackel and Barbara Little, eds., Historical Archaeology of the Chesapeake (Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), pp. 155-68.
11
for bread. And, since they could not allow their herds to grow too large for the available forage,
sometimes their increase was more than the household needed for meat. These extra provisions
could be sold to new households, to established planters who had added additional new
indentured servants or slaves to their workforces, to provision visiting ships, and occasionally
exported to the West Indies. By the 1660s and 70s such largely unplanned surpluses had become
an important supplementary source of income for established planters, accounting for at least 20%
of farm income.2
Towards the end of the seventeenth century large planters throughout the tidewater and
many residents in areas marginal for tobacco had begun to pursue a more diversified agriculture.
Downturns in the tobacco market and a rising proportion of women and children in the overall
population encouraged import replacement and other strategies of diversification. Some small
grains were raised which added variety to the diet, cider and brandy production rose, more
households began making butter, and large planters integrated sheep into their livestock herds.
Thus the components of a customary urban diet had become available at the time viable towns
became established.3
We must emphasize that many current economic theories that relate the phenomenon of
urban growth to changes in the hinterlands are not applicable to the Chesapeake. In order for a
town to grow, either in Europe or in British America, a dependable supply of food had to be
routinely available. European economic historians have posited that, once towns were established
urban growth then increased the scale of agricultural surpluses by offering the rural sector a range
of consumer goods and services that induced farmers to further increase their output in order to
satisfy their own ambitions for the citified goods they were offered in payment. Commercialization
of agriculture might also lead to increased specialization of function among farmers, with rural
producers concentrating on those crops and livestock to which their farms were best suited, and
countryfolk might begin substituting city-manufactured goods for home-produced items.4 In the
Chesapeake, farmers were already participating in an international economy in which they
exchanged cash crops—primarily tobacco, corn, and wheat—for European manufactures and
West Indian sugar and rum. These were acquired either from ship captains, country store-keepers,
or, in the case of the more affluent, directly from England. Both rural home manufacturing and
town industries were limited. Thus local rural/urban exchanges of manufactured goods were of
much less importance in the Chesapeake than they were in Europe.
In the mid eighteenth century grains became an increasingly important source of income
for large planters. (Small planters often lacked both sufficient land and labor to do anything but
continue in the older, tobacco-centered ways.) Rising international grain prices, occasioned by
shortages of wheat in Europe and growing slave populations in the West Indies much too
numerous to be provisioned with island resources made raising wheat and corn for export an
increasingly attractive supplement to tobacco revenues. Substantial corn surpluses (and its byproduct, corn fodder) could also be used for fattening livestock either for local sale or for export.
2
Menard, Carr, and Walsh, Robert Cole’s World, chap. 4.
Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, “Economic Diversification and Labor Organization in the
Chesapeake,” in Stephen Innes, ed., Work and Labor in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1988), pp. 144-88.
4
Aerts and Clark, eds., Metropolitan Cities and Their Hinterlands.
3
12
Large planters learned that by making more use of plows for preparing ground for and weeding
corn they could produce substantial surpluses without cutting back on their tobacco crops. Many
middling planters began raising surplus corn as well. Commercial crops of wheat could be
produced by the existing plantation workforces if the ground was prepared in the fall, just before
and after the tobacco harvest. Extra labor was required only to assist during the brief mid-summer
wheat harvest. Then the grain could be threshed during otherwise slack times during the winter.5
Other evidence of local economic development could be found along many tidewater
streams where large planters were constructing grist mills that served their own plantations and
those of smaller neighbors. As the grain trade boomed, some few constructed larger, merchant
mills that processed flour and bread for export, as well as grinding grain for local consumption.
Although the mix of crops and production strategies on large plantations were similar
throughout the region, big planters living near towns could choose between selling grain in intercolonial and inter-national markets and selling it locally. With grain prices set, in the case of maize
by larger regional markets, and in the case of wheat, by international ones, local sales may not
have offered a particular advantage. On the other hand, nearby town populations afforded unusual
opportunities to profit handsomely from the sale of grain by-products—fodder and straw—as well
as from perishables such as butter. Supplying town dwellers with fuel also presented planters in
the immediate area of town another unique opportunity. High overland transport costs made the
firewood supply business highly localized. Favorably situated planters, however, stood to make
considerable profits, since demand peaked in winter months when their slave workers, carts, and
draft animals might otherwise be not fully utilized.
B. RURAL SUPPLIERS OF TOWNS
Chesapeake town residents obtained the bulk of the foods they did not produce themselves from
the adjacent countryside. By the late 1730s, when surviving plantation accounts begin, large area
slave owners living within one to two hours’ travel time from Virginia’s capital had emerged as
the primary suppliers of the grains, meat, beverages, fodder, and fuel that Williamsburg’s
inhabitants required. At this time the town was composed of between 50 and 75 households, with
permanent town residents numbering less than 500. By 1747/48 the number of households had
increased to nearly 100, with the total population estimated to be 885. Even these small numbers
were enough to prompt significant restructuring of crop mix and livestock husbandry among those
local planters who were abundantly supplied with land and labor. By 1775, when Williamsburg’s
resident population reached 1,400 living in just under 200 households, production for town
markets figured prominently in such planters’ management strategies.
The first plantation ledger we analyzed is that James Bray III (by 1715-1744) who owned
Littletown, a 1,280 acre plantation on the James/York peninsula about five miles southeast of
Williamsburg. See Figure 2.1 for the location. Bray, a third generation Virginia native and a
member of a prominent gentry family, owned about 80 slaves at his death.6 Like other large
5
Lorena S. Walsh, “Plantation Management in the Chesapeake, 1620-1820,” Journal of Economic History
49 (1989): 393-406.
6
William F. Kelso, Kingsmill Plantations, 1619-1800: Archaeology of Country Life in Colonial Virginia
(Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1984), pp. 36-40.
13
tidewater Virginia planters, Bray derived the majority of his income from high quality tobacco
produced for the English market. However by the late 1730s he was also supplying Williamsburg
residents with substantial amounts of meat, including stall fed beef and mutton, and some grains,
cider, and firewood. In the early 1740s he both increased corn production and made a major
commitment to wheat. Already Bray was finding it worthwhile to redirect labor time into
diversified production for local markets.
A nearly continuous run of accounts, some quite full, and some less complete, document
plantation production for the Williamsburg market on adjacent Carter’s Grove plantation from
1738 through 1807. Members of the Burwell family farmed the 1,400 acre plantation located
about ten miles outside Williamsburg as well as five additional outlying quarters situated nearer
the town. Carter’s Grove had been purchased by Robert “King” Carter sometime before 1720 as a
gift to his daughter Elizabeth, who had married gentry planter Nathaniel Burwell of Gloucester
County in 1709. She was to have the income of the plantation, and of the slaves and livestock that
her father also provided, for her life and after she died, all was to go to their second son Carter
Burwell. Nathaniel Burwell managed the plantation during his lifetime from his Gloucester County
estate just across the York River, marketing “fine Stemd Tobo” that had a high reputation among
London merchants. After Nathaniel died in 1721, Robert Carter, as acting executor and guardian
of the Burwell estate, resumed management of the plantation through an estate agent for the
benefit of his daughter and her children. After “King” Carter’s death in 1732, a Burwell uncle
managed the estate until the heir came of age. During this time Burwell and Carter concentrated
almost exclusively on raising tobacco for export, along with enough corn and livestock to feed the
resident slaves.7
Carter Burwell turned twenty-one in the fall of 1737 and married two months later,
immediately setting up housekeeping at Carter's Grove. He had a more than favorable start in his
career as a planter. The estate was unencumbered, for his mother had died four years before.
Besides the land with its complement of livestock and about 25 slaves that his grandfather Carter
had supplied, Burwell would add to his labor force other slaves willed to him by his father.
Apparently Burwell inherited all the workers he required. His accounts mention some 82 adult
slaves between 1740 and 1745, but only two are identified as “new” negroes; presumably he had
little need to purchase additional hands. By 1755 his workforce was approaching 150 slaves,
about half of whom would have been adult laborers. His wife Lucy's dowry of £250 sterling
supplied further capital. With these assets Burwell would acquire another plantation in James City
County and three undeveloped tracts further west in Frederick and Prince William Counties.
Political office too followed from rank and wealth. Burwell shortly became a justice and a burgess
and aspired to, though failed to get, a seat on the Virginia Council.
Carter Burwell began an account book in 1738 when he settled at Carter's Grove which he
kept until his death in 1756. Although it is not possible to reconstruct a full accounting of
plantation revenues and expenditures from his records, they still tell us a great deal about how he
changed the operation of his farms to take advantage of the growing town market. Like many
other planters, he failed to record the sales of his tobacco crops, and only occasionally noted sales
7
For documentation on Carter’s Grove see Lorena S. Walsh, From Calabar to Carter’s Grove: The History
of a Virginia Slave Community (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, forthcoming 1997). The analysis of
agricultural operations is based on Walsh, “‘To Labour for Profit’: Plantation Management in the Chesapeake,
1620-1820,” manuscript in progress.
14
Figure 2.1. Carter’s Grove and Vicinity, c. 1750.
of all his surplus corn, wheat, and livestock. Income from cider, wool, and fodder are not
mentioned, but there is reason to believe that, as at adjoining Littletown, some must have been
marketed. Similarly, major outlays including taxes, clothing for the slaves, and tools are either
incompletely recorded or impossible to disentangle from unrelated family expenses.
Like most other large slave owners, Burwell divided his hands into small work groups.
There were field laborers quartered at the home house, and additional work units located on two
outlying farms and on the newly-purchased plantation in James City County. There were also two
smaller quarters near Carter's Grove, one managed by a slave and one at the site of a plantation
mill, and a group of about five male carpenters seem to have lived and worked separately from the
other slaves. Three and sometimes four overseers supervised the larger quarters for shares of the
crops produced. A general manager, who worked for an annual salary, directed the overseers,
managed the home farm, and often looked after the mill as well. Some of the lesser overseers
lasted only a year or so, but several of them and the manager too had longer tenures of five to
nine years each. Thus there was unusual continuity in the operation.
15
Whatever opportunities urban markets presented, the international tobacco market
continued to take top priority in the Burwell family’s management strategies. Carter Burwell's
slaves produced on average between 725 and 965 pounds of tobacco per hand per year, an output
comparable to that raised on plantations with no connections to towns. In bad seasons the output
might drop to about 550 pounds, while in favorable years the workers sometimes raised over
1300 pounds each. In addition, like many other large tidewater planters, by the late 1730s Burwell
began to take advantage of expanding local and international markets for grains. In the 1740s
tobacco probably accounted for between two-thirds and three-quarters of Burwell's revenues from
field crops. By the mid 1750s, grains were bringing in more, and tobacco's share may have
dropped to about half of gross revenues.
The increases in farm productivity were achieved by making greater use of plows for
ground preparation and cultivation and by more fully exploiting the slaves’ labor in off seasons.
Between 1738 and 1755, on the home farm and adjacent quarters, about 800 barrels of corn were
grown annually. Yields per laborer ranged from a low of 5 barrels to a high of 22 barrels; the
average crop was 9 to 12 barrels per hand. Although there were many slaves to be fed, and
additional corn needed to fatten livestock, between a quarter and a half of the crop was
marketable surplus. By the late 1740s Burwell was also growing 500 to 800 bushels of wheat a
year, almost all of which was sold. Either Burwell had exceptionally good land or he was using
better cultivation techniques than most. In 1755 he was getting 36.6 bushels of wheat to the acre
off old tobacco fields, as much as six times the usual yield for the region.
In the 1730s, 40s, and 50s, the Burwell plantation was unusual in its access to a nearby
urban market, a situation of which few other tidewater planters could take advantage. Still the
crop mix remained typical of most of the large tidewater plantations. However, unlike some other
planters of the period who commanded similar amounts of land and labor, Carter Burwell did not
invest any of his capital into mines, ships, merchandise, or rental properties—forms of investment
that appealed to some of his enterprising rural contemporaries. Given his unusual location, the
Williamsburg market apparently offered more certain opportunities.
Livestock too became an increasingly important part of Burwell’s operation. Each quarter
has its complement of hogs, cattle, and horses, and by 1753 Burwell had at least 250 sheep on
two of the farms. Many more animals were raised than were needed for plantation consumption.
Each year excess cattle were sold or older animals slaughtered for butcher's meat. Burwell also
marketed as much as 10,000 pounds of pork a year. At an average weight of 100 pounds per
animal, this represents as many as 100 surplus hogs a year. In the later 1740s and early 1750s
when the accounts are fullest, sales of livestock and meat brought in between £50 and £100
sterling constant value annually. Some of the meat may have been destined for the West Indies or
sold as ship provision. The bulk, however, went to residents of Williamsburg.
Burwell was producing for several markets, a strategy that spread risk and minimized the
impact of price declines for any one of his three staple crops. Almost invariably he consigned his
high quality tobacco to London factors in return for English goods; in only one year did he choose
to sell tobacco in the country. For corn and wheat there were several outlets. At least once
Burwell sold most of his surplus to a ship captain, presumably bound for the West Indies. In years
for which the accounts record few grain sales it is likely that Burwell was selling most of his
grains in the form of meal and flour processed at his plantation mill. In other years he turned to
nearby Williamsburg. The College of William and Mary was his single best customer, sometimes
16
buying over 500 bushels of wheat annually, and paying promptly in cash. Tavern keepers, the
royal governor, and assorted town tradespeople and professionals bought up the rest. Doubtless
Burwell, himself a graduate of William and Mary, traded on local connections established in
school days.
The eldest Burwell son, Nathaniel (1750-1814), was not quite six at his father's death in
1756. Nathaniel's guardian and uncle by virtue of marriage, merchant William Nelson of
Yorktown, managed the estate until the boy came of age in 1771. Although Carter's wife Lucy
survived him, she took no active role in managing the farms and had moved out of the home
house by 1771. Nelson retained Carter Burwell’s mix of crops, but began putting more emphasis
on products for the local urban market. This strategy satisfied the needs both of a growing
resident town population and of increasing numbers of transients who spent more time in the
colony's capital as the political crisis worsened.
From 1764, when Nelson’s surviving accounts for the estate begin, he was allocating
somewhat less labor to raising tobacco than had Carter Burwell, and was putting more into corn,
wheat, cider, livestock, butter, and firewood. Nelson probably continued tobacco culture only on
the best lands where he could still make quality leaf for the English home market. Between 1763
and 1771 tobacco production per hand in York and James City Counties dropped, while that of
other products increased. This was almost certainly a result of conscious policy (except in 1766
and 67 when bad weather shortened crops), rather than of deteriorating soil. The lowland estate
tobaccos—all of which were sent to the London firms of Athawes or Cary—continued to fetch
top prices, equal to or better than those Nelson received for his own crops grown on fresher lands
in Hanover County. The sales, he wrote, ranged from “good” to “extremely pleasing” to
“admirable.” Since the best soils had now been in periodic cultivation for as much as half a
century, the use of some animal manures was probably essential for making good tobacco. The
number of cattle and sheep the farms could support would have set an upper bound to the number
of acres that could be put in tobacco. Nelson clearly understood the balance; in 1770 he wrote
Samuel Athawes: “You make me smile when you talk of the Lands being too much worn &
impoverish'd to bring good Tobo—when you know We make more & I trust as good Tobo as We
formerly did and I know that a skillful Planter can make it fine from any Land, it being his Part &
Interest to improve any that he finds worn or wearing out.” Indeed the total volume of estate
tobacco rose during Nelson's administration, reaching 95 hogsheads in 1770. But all the increase
came from new quarters in Frederick County where transplanted Burwell slaves were making big
crops.
Nelson behaved as a typically conservative executor in that he invested little in building
repair; made no new investments except for a few head of livestock, primarily horses; and
maximized immediate revenues for the support of the Burwell children by hiring out some of the
slaves. On the other hand, he must have looked after the farms more closely than the average
executor, for under his guardianship levels of salable surpluses rose. Doubtless this was possible
in part because Nelson continued to employ several of Carter Burwell's already experienced
overseers. Certainly the Burwell slaves worked hard and well. Gross revenues per hand in sterling
constant value from field crops alone (incomplete since wheat is missing before 1773 and tobacco
in 1774) rose from about £12 in the early 1760s to over £18 between 1769 and 1771. These were
higher returns than most large planters had achieved in the 1750s (indeed Carter Burwell had
17
averaged only £10 ½ a hand between 1740 and 1755), and equal to or better than those most
resident owners managed in the late 1760s and early 1770s.
Nelson also paid careful attention to exploiting fully the labor of all the slaves year round.
Some activities geared especially to the town market—like cutting firewood—could be done by
slave men in the winter. Others, like butter making, drew more women into market production.
Here Nelson recruited overseer's wives to supervise dairying and paid the couples a share of the
butter the wife and the slave women she directed made. By the mid 1760s the estate was
producing butter on a level equivalent to a middling size Pennsylvania dairy of the mid-nineteenth
century. Some of the slave women acquired new domestic skills usually reserved for whites, while
overseer's wives gained an opportunity to supplement family income.
Nelson's records of the operations of the Burwell estate are more complete than those of
either the father or the son, for in his case there were legal obligations for full accounting. Indeed,
Nelson carefully recorded local sales and expenditures, but like most other contemporary planters,
failed to account for the tobacco crop or for the goods imported with the proceeds. These
transactions were preserved in the form of loose accounts received from English correspondents
which have not survived. Since accounts with overseers for their shares of the tobacco and corn
crops, an alternative source of information on production, are also incomplete, total plantation
revenues and expenditures cannot be calculated. From the information available, it appears that in
the 1760s tobacco continued to account for about half of gross plantation revenues, and sales of
surplus corn another third. Lesser sources of income came from wheat, livestock, butter, cider,
fodder, wood, and rents.
With his inheritance of Carter's Grove and associated quarters in York and James City
Counties (altogether 4,588 acres), over 6,000 acres with two quarters in Frederick County, and
between 150 and 200 slaves, Nathaniel Burwell ranked as one of the major planters of the lower
York. He entered grammar school at William and Mary in 1759 at age nine and remained there
until he secured a college degree. Nathaniel began active management of the estate in 1771, and
was completely on his own after William Nelson's death in November 1772. In the same month
Nathaniel married Susannah Grymes, daughter of a Middlesex County planter. Because there was
some ambiguity in his father's will about how the profits of the estate were to be divided,
Nathaniel decided to remain in college through the fall of 1772. As Nelson explained, “Nat doth
not chuse to marry & go to House keeping till he is sure of something before hand; which I look
upon, among others, as an Instance of his Prudence & Good Sence.” The “something before
hand” Nathaniel sought presumably included not only a two-thirds share of estate balances in the
hands of London factors but also Susannah's marriage portion of £800. Unfortunately father
Grymes paid nothing but £40 interest a year until 1785, and still in 1787, after Grymes' death, part
of Susannah's dowry remained uncollected. Nelson, in contrast, had accumulated sufficient
reserves with London factors to pay the Carter girls' dowries as they married, and Nathaniel paid
his remaining sister's marriage portion as well as all the women's shares of their brother Carter's
estate promptly.
Indeed, family concerns may always have counted most with Nathaniel. While accepting
the public duties expected of a man of his rank (he became a justice of the peace and a vestryman
in 1772), and subsequently supporting the American cause as a member of the James City County
committee of safety in 1775, as county lieutenant during and after the war, and as a delegate to
the state Constitutional ratifying convention in 1788, Nathaniel did not assume a prominent public
18
role at any time in his career. Perhaps managing his estate and raising the eight children (two of
whom died in infancy) that Susannah bore was enough.
Nathaniel increasingly turned his home farm into a specialized unit geared to the
comfortable living of its owner. By 1774 he had ceased to cultivate tobacco at Carter's Grove,
and raised only enough corn for plantation use. Instead he grew more wheat and large quantities
of oats to feed his horses, along with small patches of peas and barley. Quite possibly he had made
improved meadows. The Nelsons grew both clover and timothy, and as early as 1769 William had
had sufficient experience with clover to report “it makes fine Pasturage & helps to recover Land
by feeding it.” Nathaniel likely followed Nelson's example. There was also more domestic
production on the adjacent quarters. At Foaces and New Quarter Nathaniel continued to grow
tobacco, though in decreasing quantities, and large crops of corn and wheat. Each quarter also
made surplus pork, beef, wool, cider, and butter. Hogs and beeves were fattened at the quarters,
not exclusively at the home farm, and the overseers had some responsibility for marketing meat,
cider, and butter in town. In 1772 Nathaniel built a new plantation mill and by 1775-76 was
selling wheat, flour, and corn meal to neighbors and to townsfolk in Williamsburg and Yorktown.
The grain came mostly from his own farms or was purchased from a few local planters; his was
not a large scale merchant mill geared to the export trade.
In addition to his interests in the tidewater, Nathaniel also set about developing his
quarters in Frederick County. In 1771 he settled additional slaves in the west. There, where soils
were fresh, Nathaniel's slaves could make bigger tobacco crops than in the tidewater. Indeed, if
the farms were to be profitable they had to, for the price of upland tobacco was often lower than
that of York County leaf, and the expense of wagoning to the nearest warehouse high. The
quarters also produced considerable quantities of corn, though most was required for plantation
consumption. On the other hand, sales of wheat, rye, oats, and livestock supplemented tobacco
revenues. During the war Nathaniel also made crops of flax and hemp. Because the Frederick
plantations were so far away, Burwell had to find good managers and to allow them considerable
latitude in marketing crops. The overseers handled sales of everything but tobacco and
periodically sent Burwell the proceeds.
Unfortunately Nathaniel's accounting procedures were rather haphazard. Many entries in
plantation daybooks and ledgers record only receipts or disbursements of cash for unspecified
purposes, while other transactions (with overseers for example), indicate only the balance
remaining after periodic settlements and reveal nothing of the flow of transactions. In 1774 and
1775 Nathaniel attempted to measure the net profits of the various quarters, but his calculations
omitted nearly as much as they included. He counted the total corn crops as revenue and then
subtracted what was consumed by humans and animals as expenses, for example, but recorded
only marketed surpluses of livestock, cider, and butter as revenue, while ignoring other produce
such as firewood completely. He included as costs the overseers' shares and allowances of corn
and meat as well as seed requirements, but did not consider expenditures for clothing, tools,
taxes, and salaried workers. Burwell did not repeat this attempt, and indeed his struggles to
calculate annual profit or loss for his much less complicated milling operation shows that complex
accounting was not his strong point.
Over time, Nathaniel seems to have left more of the day to day accounting to his steward
and to the various overseers once he had gotten an idea of how things were going. In 1776 for
example, he carefully recorded sales of large amounts of milk to Williamsburg residents; no sales
19
are recorded for later years though it seems unlikely that none was sold. He also began to leave
the details of the firewood business to overseers and wagoners. Nathaniel kept sufficient records
so that he could keep track of what was going on, but had no interest in recording more detail
than was necessary for his own understanding. The materials on which he based his cryptic ledger
entries were preserved either in the form of loose papers or in steward's daybooks which have not
survived. Such plantation revenues as Nathaniel recorded are shown in Table 2.1.
How did Nathaniel and his family cope with the Revolution? The only evidence of intense
patriotic commitment was a contribution of 50 bushels of wheat sent for the relief of Boston in
1774. Thereafter he did the best he could in uncertain circumstances, and in fact did very well
indeed—Nathaniel seems always to have had a sharp eye for new opportunities. He curtailed his
tobacco crops, which he could no longer be sure of selling, beginning in 1776. Later crop
allocations are uncertain, for Nathaniel stopped paying his overseers in shares between 1778 and
1781, but it is likely he planted little tobacco, concentrating instead on surer things.
While imported goods were scarce and expensive, Nathaniel's location guaranteed him
first chance at whatever came in. This allowed him to keep his slaves working at things that would
turn a profit, not just provide subsistence. Getting enough salt, for example, was surely a problem,
but buy it he did through 1777. By the end of the year he commenced limited salt production, but
only enough for plantation use. Somehow he managed to lay hands on enough ready-made cloth
to clothe the slaves. Before the war few local whites were spinning and weaving for wages—in
1771 and 72 Nathaniel hauled surplus wool from the peninsula farms west to Frederick County in
order to sell it. In 1775 he tried growing some cotton and probably assigned some old slave
women and younger girls to spinning that and the plantation's wool. However, his accounts show
no sign of the all-out effort, so evident on plantations further up the bay, to make most or all
essential coarse cloth. And, although he paid an outrageous price for it, the white family
continued the luxury of drinking tea throughout the war.
So long as Williamsburg remained the state's capital, the town market was the first
recourse. Nathaniel sold large amounts of meat, fodder, meal, flour, cider, butter, and milk to
urban tavern keepers and professionals. In 1776 and 77 he sold most of the flour his mill ground
to two commercial bakers. He began using bran, a byproduct of milling, to fatten extra hogs.
Responding to an increased demand for firewood, Nathaniel cut down so much timber one
suspects his farms may have been seriously depleted of cover by the end of the war. In 1776 alone
his slaves carried over 2,000 cartloads of firewood, worth over £475 sterling constant value, into
town, most of it sold to the state government. Nathaniel next traded in whisky, suddenly in great
demand as supplies of West Indian rum dried up. In 1776 he had a distillery built in Frederick
County and by the next year was receiving regular shipments back east. This he retailed, along
with locally-made cider, in town and at his mill. In 1776 his gross revenues from the tidewater
farms exceeded £1000 sterling constant value, exclusive of the value of foodstuffs consumed on
the home farm and quarters. A third enterprise was transportation. Beginning in 1779 he
employed a wagoner to haul goods for himself and for hire both around the neighborhood and
back and forth from Frederick County.
20
Table 2.1.
OUTPUT PER LABORER AND GROSS REVENUES FROM FIELD CROPS
IN £ STERLING CONSTANT VALUE, CARTER’S GROVE, 1763-1789
Year
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
Source:
Note:
Tobacco
Lbs.
£
Output Revenue
1062
6.17
1350
7.79
761
4.25
750
5.23
694
6.19
692
6.02
868
7.43
870
6.41
1028
6.98
572
2.78
n.a.
n.a.
712
4.81
558
6.04
697
7.58
176
1.53
241
2.10
333
2.90
494
4.96
489
4.36
472
3.92
753
6.43
471
3.23
756
5.53
Corn
Bbls.
£
Output Revenue
n.a.
n.a.
21.4
6.18
17.8
5.59
17.7
7.72
26.3
10.56
26.8
9.22
15.5
5.53
15.0
5.11
21.7
9.21
9.0
2.91
25.4
8.18
18.9
6.38
20.0
6.66
19.6
6.53
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
16.0
9.50
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
Wheat
Bus.
£
Total
Output Revenue Revenue
n.a.
n.a.
[ 6.17]
n.a.
n.a.
[13.97]
n.a.
n.a.
[ 9.84]
n.a.
n.a.
[12.95]
n.a.
n.a.
[16.75]
n.a.
n.a.
[15.24]
n.a.
n.a.
[12.96]
n.a.
n.a.
[11.52]
n.a.
n.a.
[16.19]
7.7
1.01
6.70
13.4
2.16
[10.34]
13.4
2.04
13.23
n.a.
n.a.
[12.70]
n.a.
n.a.
[14.11]
n.a.
n.a.
[1.53]
n.a.
n.a.
[2.10]
n.a.
n.a.
[2.90]
n.a.
n.a.
[4.96]
n.a.
n.a.
[4.36]
n.a.
n.a.
[13.42]
n.a.
n.a.
[6.43]
n.a.
n.a.
[3.23]
n.a.
n.a.
[5.53]
Burwell Family Account Books.
Bracketed figures for total revenues are incomplete; data for one or more of the three crops is missing.
The removal of the capital to Richmond must have been a blow, and indeed, Nathaniel's
accounts suggest that sales of butter, wood, and fodder declined considerably in 1780 and 1781.
(Records are incomplete for 1778 and 79.) On the other hand, in 1779 he was able to sell a
backlog of accumulated tobacco. Nathaniel promptly deposited much of the questionable paper
money he received in the state treasury, and soon used the rest to pay off debts or to speculate in
produce. In 1781 the French army arrived to assist in Cornwallis's defeat at Yorktown, and
Nathaniel was able to sell food and whisky to officers and commissary agents for welcome French
gold. By 1782 (if not before) he had reestablished ties with remaining Williamsburg residents.
Frequent sales of flour, whisky, meat, and wood to townspeople resumed, while Williamsburg's
mental hospital (Nathaniel served on its board of governors) provided an additional customer.
From firewood alone Nathaniel grossed between £130 and £150 sterling constant value annually
between 1782 and 1784 . His daybook suggests that 1782 was an exceptionally good year,
although one cannot be sure that this reflects anything more than a spate of unusually diligent
record-keeping. Another cache of tobacco yielded a return of over £300 sterling constant value,
while the whisky business contributed a similar amount. Nathaniel also purchased a share in a ship
(possibly a privateer) in 1780, and in an unidentified “factory” sponsored by the Nelson family in
1783. His profits from these ventures, if any, cannot be traced.
21
Overall, the Burwells appear to have suffered remarkably little from the war. Their
favorable location near the mouth of the bay enabled them to keep on buying imported cloth and
for a time, salt, despite acute shortages elsewhere. And while they could not count on making
much from tobacco, they could rely on continued sales of grain, firewood, livestock products, and
liquor to Williamsburg and Yorktown residents, markets more augmented than curtailed by the
war. Finally, they were lucky. While many area planters suffered heavy losses to the British in
1781, there is no evidence of enemy depredations at Carter's Grove. Legend has it that Tarleton
occupied the farm that spring, and indeed recent archaeological excavations uncovered a brass
insignia with his family crest in the vegetable garden. But if the enemy did raid the farm, Burwell
apparently had ample warning. His accounts suggest no significant damage, much less the loss of
any slaves. All in all the family benefited much more than it lost from its location.
With the return of peace, there were new commercial opportunities, and these inevitably
included tobacco. By 1784 Nathaniel could import over £500 sterling worth of English
manufacturers from long-time family factor Samuel Athawes, with all but a fraction of the cost
balanced by a favorable pre-war credit. In 1785 he repaired his mill. And between 1787 and 1789
Nathaniel for the first time in his career plunged directly into commerce, acting as a tobacco agent
for the London firm of Rowles, Grymes, and Company.
Burwell also began increasing tobacco production on his own farms in the early 1780s,
and by 1789 was making crops per hand similar to those pitched before the war. While his lands
had been cultivated for over half a century, he still had some extremely productive patches. York
River tobacco prices dropped in 1789, and Nathaniel ceased buying tobacco from others, but he
continued to grow full crops on his own farms into the early 1790s. Because post-war accounts
do not record the size of grain crops, we cannot compare gross revenues per hand with pre-war
receipts. By 1787 revenues per hand from tobacco, sterling constant value, again equaled those of
the 1760s. If Burwell was also able to match pre-war levels of grain production—and continued
to produce butter, wood, cider and meat for town markets—he probably did nearly as well after
the war as before.
After the Revolution, Burwell spent more and more time and invested ever more capital in
his Frederick County holdings, including several merchant mills and a distillery. After his first
wife’s death in 1788 Nathaniel quickly remarried, and thereafter the white family spent most of
each year at the main Frederick County farm. Burwell appreciated the greater opportunities for
estate building that the west offered, and surely his need to augment his fortune increased along
with his family. In addition to six children surviving from his first marriage, Nathaniel and his
second wife had another eight offspring between 1789 and 1805. Burwell removed most of the
agricultural laborers from Carter’s Grove in late 1796 or early 1797. Thereafter only enough adult
workers remained at the Grove to keep the great house running, care for the livestock, maintain
the garden and orchards, and perhaps to raise some small grains. Nathaniel turned over the old
home plantation to his oldest son, Carter III (1773-1819), in 1804. Unlike his father, who had
begun running his estate at majority, Carter Burwell III had to wait until he was thirty-one before
obtaining title to his inheritance. This included twelve adult slaves and perhaps as many children.
The Burwell family had long relied on income from the adjacent quarters to maintain a high
standard of living at the Grove, and with these eventually parceled out among other family
members, the 1,135 acres and twelve taxable slaves attached to the home farm could not produce
returns sufficient to maintain later heirs in the style of the father and grandfather. In addition,
22
Nathaniel may have demanded, as he did of at least one other of his sons, that Carter pay him part
of the value of the lands he inherited. If so, the tidewater estate would have been further
encumbered with debt. At any rate Carter III barely outlived his father, leaving as his only heir a
minor son, “unhealthy and much spoiled.” Carter's widow, her second husband, and a series of
administrators ran through most of the estate's assets. They hired out and probably eventually sold
off the remaining the bonds people.
Nathaniel Burwell intended the York County quarters to descend eventually to other of his
heirs, but the estate was not fully settled until after his widow’s death in 1843. An estate manager,
increasingly in charge during Burwell’s frequent absences, directed the eastern division, with
overseers supervising work at Foaces and New Quarters, and a miller running a grist mill and
eventually a distillery at Mill Quarter. Between 1801 and 1805 a younger son, another Nathaniel
who would soon inherit farms in Frederick County, took over direction of these quarters as part
of his training as a plantation manager. By and large the son deferred to the direction of his father
and to that of the general manager.
Unlike most other York peninsula planters who dropped tobacco in the 1790s, the elder
Nathaniel Burwell continued to grow the weed on the best quarter lands into the 1800s. At
Foaces and New Quarter the field hands could still raise high quality crops that continued to fetch
top prices on the London market. The quarter soils were good enough to permit relatively high
annual yields (for the area) of about 675 pounds per laborer. Wheat and corn remained the other
major cash crops, with oats, barley, and clover hay cultivated mainly for plantation use.
Williamsburg continued to offer an outlet for wood, beef, and pork; however, in contrast to the
1770s and 1780s, such sales seem not to have amounted to much. Instead, the Burwells marketed
most of their surplus grain through Norfolk and Baltimore. Perhaps marketing opportunities
contracted once Williamsburg was no longer the state capital and its population stagnated. But
the Burwells or their agents may have found it easier to sell most surplus crops to two or three
wholesale merchants, who by the turn of the century usually paid in cash in timely installments,
rather than making deliveries to dozens of townspeople who were accustomed to paying off their
debts more slowly and irregularly.
Guardian accounts for estates of five middling York County planters administered
between 1735 and 1764 allow us to compare the operation of smaller farms on the York River
peninsula with that of Littletown and Carter's Grove. All of the decedents were landholders who
owned about 300 acres each, who had between four and eight adult slave field hands, and who
left personal estates of between £100 and £400 sterling constant value. These accounts reflect the
most conservative management practices of the period, for guardians were required only to
maintain the value of the estate, to produce enough income to maintain the orphans, and to avoid
any risks that might jeopardize the orphans' future inheritance. So it is not surprising to find that
almost nothing was put into new buildings or livestock and that none of the guardians invested in
additional slaves. Still, these accounts reveal that by the 1730s, even small York County
plantations had become somewhat diversified operations. Diary products, cider, fodder, and wool
were probably produced on all the farms, and some had modest surpluses for sale. Most too
raised more livestock than were required for plantation needs. All of the estates also grew a little
wheat, and most made a surplus of corn. Revenues from these sources, however, were small, for
the surpluses were never very large. Tobacco was by far the most important source of income for
four of the five estates, accounting for 55% to 82% of gross revenues from field crops, and up to
23
72% of total gross revenues. Only on one estate in the early 1760s did income from grains exceed
that from tobacco.
Comparison of these smaller farms with the much larger operation at Carter's Grove
suggests that there were definite economies of scale. Supervision was a prime example. Only
when there were enough field hands to make up work groups of six or more was it likely to pay to
employ an overseer. In addition, the variety of tasks that had to be performed on these somewhat
diversified farms clearly cut into the time that could be devoted to tobacco. Carter Burwell's field
laborers produced roughly 850 pounds of tobacco, 10 ½ barrels of corn, and perhaps 10 bushels
of wheat a year. Annual gross revenues per field hand from the three major crops were about £10
sterling constant value. On the orphan's estates, adult slaves made only about 385 pounds of
tobacco, a bushel or so of wheat, and about five barrels of corn per hand. Total gross revenues
from all plantation products averaged only £5 per hand per year. Where there were only a few
hands to plow the land, look after the livestock, run the dairy, shear the sheep, spin yarn, gather
fodder, catch fish, make cider, plant a vegetable garden, sow and harvest wheat, beans and peas,
tend corn, make cask, and keep fences and buildings in repair, most of the slaves could not tend a
full crop of tobacco as well. In the seventeenth century, many such secondary activities had been
foregone on orphans' plantations, and free whites hired to do all the carpentry and coopering.
However, on the York County estates in the 1740s, 50s, and 60s, diversified activities like
dairying, wheat culture, and sheep raising were continued in the absence of the white family. Then
such surpluses could be sold in town markets. On farms where the owner’s family was present,
however, most of these products were likely consumed on the plantation.
C. LIVESTOCK HUSBANDRY
Determining when planters adopted specialized husbandry techniques aimed at producing
livestock for sale to urban markets begins with a basic understanding of animal husbandry in the
Chesapeake. Particularly since the specialized production of livestock evolved directly out of the
region’s plantation economy, a basic understanding of the underlying structure of animal
husbandry, including how domestic livestock were reared and cared for, and the important role
they played in subsistence on the plantation, is a necessary first step in the study of urban
provisioning. Towards this end Bowen and her colleagues in the Department of Archaeological
Research have carefully analyzed numerous archaeological faunal assemblages from the lower
Chesapeake and combined this data with data from other sites that were previously analyzed by
several specialists not associated with Colonial Williamsburg (Fig. 2.2). After two years of hard
work, approximately fifty faunal assemblages have been analyzed, and of these, the largest, best
preserved, and most tightly-dated have been combined to form one large data base broken into
significant historical periods matching those established by Henry Miller, Lorena Walsh, and Lois
Carr. Already the general outline of the herding system and periods when significant changes
occurred are clear, although the continued analysis of these assemblages and additional research
will eventually enable scholars to outline in great detail how animal husbandry evolved over a
two-hundred-year period.
The presence of domesticated livestock in the Chesapeake landscape was pervasive,
beginning at Jamestown with the earliest arrivals of settlers, who brought with them cattle, pigs,
goats, horses, and sheep to provide food, labor, and transportation. How these animals were
24
sustained in a world that lacked pastures, fences, and protective barns, however, has been
misinterpreted. For the most part, it is believed that livestock were given little or no supplemental
foods and they were allowed to range freely through the woodlands. The only clear controls were
some fences, which were built to keep them out of fields of corn and tobacco.8
Europe has a long and well-established traditional husbandry system that intermixes the
cultivation of plants with the raising of livestock. On pastures and on fields after harvest, cattle,
sheep, and other livestock graze, leaving their manure to fertilize the soil. Formerly pigs also fed
in forests surrounding farms and villages. How Chesapeake colonists faced the problem of feeding
livestock in the New World has been interpreted in terms of this tradition. Since livestock were
allowed to graze and browse unsupervised in the unused woodlands surrounding the fields, some
have viewed this woodland management system as a non-herding system, that is, the only control
was to fence them out of valuable fields and orchards. But the system that evolved incorporated
forms of traditional husbandry, which had been present in Britain for many generations, into the
Native American landscape.
Domestication studies have guided this research.9 Biologists and archaeologists studying
domestication have shown that by managing the feeding, breeding, and care of a population,
livestock become more or less isolated from their wild progenitors. In effect, humans insert
themselves as the dominant leader over herds. Without some form of control, natural selection
would again become the predominant force. Coloring and other physical traits present in the
domestic form would revert to characteristics of the wild progenitor, and livestock that had once
been domesticated would return to a feral, or wild state.
Colonial livestock were not feral, since settlers could and did distinguish between those
they controlled and those they did not. Numerous documentary references describe livestock that
were tame and those that were wild, who they referred to as the “wild gang.” Period documents
describe wild stallions who stole mares for their harem, and wild cattle herds, who “resorted in
company with tame cattle.”10 Given this reality, our research came to focus on identifying
specifically how colonists created a herding system in a Native American landscape by
constructing a system of fences and other man-made barriers that would support an open
woodlands form of husbandry.
8
Lewis Cecil Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860, vol. 1 (Washington,
D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1933); Wesley Newton Laing, “Cattle in Early Virginia,” Ph.D. diss.,
University of Virginia, 1984; Miller, “Colonization and Subsistence Change on the Seventeenth-Century
Chesapeake Frontier”; Bowen, “A Comparative Analysis of New England and Chesapeake Herding Systems.”
9
Juliet Clutton-Brock, Domesticated Animals from Early Times (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1981); H.M. Hecker, “Domestication Revisited: Its Implications for Faunal Analysis,” Journal of Field
Archaeology 9(1982):217-238; Helmut Hemmer (ed.), Domestication: The Decline of Environmental Appreciation
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Pamela J. Crabtree, “Early Animal Domestication in the Middle
East and Europe,” in Michael B. Schiffer (ed.), Archaeological Method and Theory 5 (Tucson: University of
Arizona Press, 1993), pp. 201-246.
10
Descriptions from “An Act concerning the Killing of wilde Cattle.” Archives of Maryland, Proceedings
and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland. Vol. I, January 1637/38-September 1664. Ed. William Hand
Browne (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1883), pp. 418-419.
25
Figure 2.2. Location of archaeological sites analyzed for the project.
26
When settlers arrived in Jamestown in 1607 to establish plantations, they encountered
Native American settlements that were composed of houses and palisaded towns with adjacent
fields. Surrounding these settlements were woodlands, which were cleared of small wood and old
trees for firewood and fired to clear the underbrush, where enemies could conceal themselves. So
effective was this clearing that John Smith wrote in 1608 “a man may gallop a horse amongst
these woods any waie, but where the creekes or Rivers shall hinder.”11 Also present in this
landscape were old fallow fields, which created for the newly introduced livestock rich meadows
composed of indigenous weeds, and pine and hardwood forests, which held acorns and the many
tubers pigs thrive on.12 When woodlands were burned, there were plentiful grasses and browse for
cattle, horses, and goats. Beaches along the local streams and rivers provided access to shellfish,
and mudflats and marsh zones provided shellfish, rushes, and cattails — all rich food for swine,
cattle, horses, and goats.
Zooarchaeological data shows that by the 1620s herds of cattle and swine in the lower
Chesapeake thrived and that they were capable of supporting the local human population
(Fig.2.3). Based on useable meat weight estimates, domesticated animals composed 77% of the
total meat diet during the period 1620-1660, and by 1660-1700, 91% of the total meat diet.
According to Miller and others, colonists continued to hunt, but the growth of the plantations
leveled forests and destroyed an ideal deer habitat.13 In lieu of this diminishing resource, domestic
livestock became increasingly important. It has also been suggested that the decline in deer
populations was the result of the introduced competitors for their food. Through grazing and
browsing, cattle, horses, swine, and goats did much to damage the native deer habitat.14
Documents support the archaeological evidence, showing in the Virginia Company
records that livestock populations increased rapidly. In a memorandum to England dated 1616,
colonists claimed they were able to maintain themselves with food.15 In a 1619 census record, this
view is reinforced by a description of 120 humans, 500 cattle, some horses and goats, and an
11
Helen C. Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1989), p. 60.
12
Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic
Forests, 1500-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 49.
13
Henry M. Miller, “An Archaeological Perspective on the Evolution of Diet in the Colonial Chesapeake,
1620-1745,” in Lois G. Carr, Philip D. Morgan, and Jean B. Russo, eds., Colonial Chesapeake Society (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), pp. 176-241; Henry M. Miller, “Colonization and Subsistence
Change on the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake Frontier” (Ph.D. diss., Michigan State University, 1984); Joanne
Bowen, “Foodways in the 18th-Century Chesapeake,” in Theodore R. Reinhart, ed., The Archaeology of 18thCentury Virginia, Archeological Society of Virginia Special Publication No. 35 (Richmond: Archeological Society
of Virginia, 1996), pp. 87-130; Elise Manning-Sterling, “Great Blue Herons and River Otters: The Changing
Perceptions of All Things Wild in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake” (master’s thesis, The
College of William and Mary, 1994).
14
Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside, p.177-180.
15
Description from “A Briefe Declaration of the present state of things in Virginia…” Reproduced in
Alexander Brown, ed., The Genesis of the United States A Narrative of the Movement in England, 1605-1616,
which Resulted in the Plantation of North America by Englishmen, Disclosing the Contest between England and
Spain for the Possession of the Soil Now Occupied by the United States of America; Set Forth through A Series of
Historical Manuscripts Now First Printed Together with a Reissue of Rare Contemporaneous Tracts, Accompanied
27
Rural 1660-1700
Rural 1620-1660
Wild
9%
Wild
23%
Domestic
Domestic
Figure 2.3. Relative dietary importance in the Chesapeake 1620-1700;
wild vs. domestic species (based on usable meat weight).
infinite number of swine. Another census taken two years later showed the number of cattle had
increased to 800.16
So successful was this woodland herding system that by the 1622 uprising, when local
Native Americans killed half the European and livestock populations, livestock had established
themselves to the point that colonists could rely upon domestic meat, rather than wildlife, as a
primary resource (Fig.2.4). During the first half of the seventeenth century, herds of cattle had
stabilized and contributed on the average 51% of the useable meat weight to the diet, while swine
herds contributed 22%. Caprines (including both sheep and goats), which were present only in
small numbers, contributed only 1%.
Biological evidence for the success of herds can be found in these records. In 1619 John
Pory wrote that cattle “do mightily increase here, both kine, hogges and goates, and are much
greater in stature, than the race of them first brought out of England. No lesse are our horses and
mares likely to multiply, which proove of a delicate shape, and of as good spirite and metall.”17
Another wrote “the cattell already there are much encreased and thrive exceedingly with the
pasture…though the ground was covered most with snow, and the season sharpe, lived without
other feeding than the grasse they found….”18
by Bibliographical Memoranda, Notes, and Brief Biographics, Vol. I (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company,
1890), p. 776.
16
The Virginia Company. “A Note of the Shipping, Men, and Provisions, Sent to Virginia, by the
Treasurer and Company in the Yewere 1619.” Reproduced in Susan Myra Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the
Virginia Company of London, Vol. III (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1933), p. 118; “The Discourse
of the old Company, 1625 [a discussion by a committee of the Virginia Company for a committee of Charles I’s
Privy Council].” Reproduced in Lyon Gardiner Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Virginia 1606-1625 (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907, reprinted, Barnes & Noble, 1946). The discourse was originally published in The
Virginia Magazine of History I: 155-167, 287-302, 404.
17
“John Pory. “A Letter to ‘The Right Honble and my Singular Good Lorge [Dudley Carleton],’” in
Narratives of Early Virginia. Also reproduced in Susan Myra Kingsbury, ed., Records of the Virginia Company,
Vol. III, P. 220 (Washington, D. C., 1933), p. 283.
18
“The Relation of the Right Honourable the Lord De-La-Warre, Lord Governour and Captaine Generall
of the Colonies, planted in Virginea…to the Lords and others of the Counsell of Virginia…” (London: Printed by
William Hall for William Welbie, 1611). Reproduced in Narratives of Early Virginia, p. 213.
28
Rural Chesapeake 1620-1660
(6 sites)
60.0
50.9
50.0
40.0
30.0
22.2
15.7
20.0
1.3
0.3
Domestic
Fowl
6.7
Caprine
10.0
Swine
Cattle
Other Wild
Fish
0.0
Figure 2.4. Relative dietary importance, rural Chesapeake 1620-1660.
Based on usable meat weight.
Both predators and Native Americans were serious threats to livestock. To protect their
animals colonists placed them on islands and built palisades across peninsulas. As early as 1611
palisades were run from river to river to secure hogs and cattle.19 One is reported to have been
four miles long, “with twenty miles for cattle and hogs to circuit in.”20 Particularly during the first
years of settlement, structures were also built to protect them. As early as 1611 Sir Thomas Dale
requested that a “stable for our horses... and a block house be built to prevent the Indians from
killing the cattle.”21
The early Virginia Company records, together with legal documents and a handful of diary
and traveler accounts, provide evidence from which it is possible to develop a sense of the herding
system. Controls existed over all livestock, even swine. A law in 1640 required “hoggs to be
confined in pens by night and watched by keepers during the day or owner to satisfie all damages
done by them.”22 But more so than any other species, swine were allowed to run in the woods
throughout the seventeenth century, as Robert Beverly reported, “Hogs swarm like Vermine upon
the Earth..[They] run where they list, and find their own Support in the Woods, without any Care
19
Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia. 1705. Ed. Louis B. Wright. (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1947), p. 37.
20
Captain John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia: The Fourth Booke. (London, 1624).
Reproduced in Narratives of Early Virginia, p. 306.
21
“Letter of Sir Thomas Dale to the President and Counsell of the Companie of Adventurers and Planters
in Virginia.” Reproduced in Edward Duffield Neill, ed., Virginia Vetusta During the Reign of James the First,
Containing Letters and Documents Never Before Printed (Albany: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1885), p. 81.
22
William Waller Hening , ed., The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia,
from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619 (New York: Printed for the Editor by R. & W. & G.
Bartow, 1823). Facsimile reprint published for the Jamestown Foundation of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
(Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1969), Vol. I, XXIII, p. 228.
29
of the Owner….”23 This notion of running loose in the woods, however, must be viewed from the
animal’s perspective. From the perspective of wild and feral populations today, running loose
means living within a well-defined home range, which will be expanded only in times of extreme
food shortages.24 According to biologist Caroline Grigson, pigs are recalcitrant nomads, who
given a desirable food source will remain sedentary. Human sources of food such as peach
orchards and newly harvested cornfields could easily have brought swine in from the woodlands in
time for fattening for the fall butchering.
It is clear colonists capitalized on the social behavior of pigs. Young pigs tend to stay in a
herd with the adult females, while the adult boars go off on their own, taking up with sows only
during rut season.25 Beverley recognized this social nature when he remarked that if “a Proprietor
could find and catch the Pigs, or any part of a Farrow,” then they could claim ownership of all
that ran together, since they were aware that pigs of the same litter stayed together. Beverley
noted, “as they are bred in Company, so they continue to the End.”26 Thus, it clear that within the
free range system there were natural controls that restricted the movements of swine.
Other forms of control described in the documents include castrating the older boars;
marking individuals to establish ownership; and requiring substantial fences be kept around fields,
where pigs could be kept in after harvest. It appears there were few changes in pig husbandry
during the seventeenth century, since there appears to be an overall consistency in the records, but
it may well be that as the century progressed some owners had begun to keep a closer watch on
their hogs.
This herding system is strikingly similar to an ancient form of pig husbandry that was
present in Britain for hundreds of years. Known as pannage husbandry, pigs were kept in large
numbers wherever there were sufficient forests.27 Often pigs were born at home during the spring.
When they were weaned at three months they were sent to the woods to feed alongside their
elders on mast, tubers, rhizomes, herbaceous plants, insects, birds, and carrion. There they
remained until the end of the mast season, when they were brought in December.28 At times when
mast was scarce, pigs were allowed to root around parks, and to graze on stubble in fields after
harvest, and on whatever surplus agricultural produce was available. As in the New World these
pigs had great freedom, but they were not “wild,” a fact that Trow-Smith reinforces by stating
that “pasturing of pigs at virtually free range either in wood or upon the open waste presupposes
a close control of their movements, and ability to drive them in for shelter from prey or for
23
Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia., p. 318.
Caroline Grigson, “Porridge and Pannage: Pig Husbandry in Neolithic England,” in Martin Bell and S.
Limbrey, eds., Archaeological Aspects of Woodland Ecology. British Archaeological Reports, International Series,
146 (Oxford: B.A.R. Series, 1982), p. 297-312.
25
Grigson, “Porridge and Pannage: Pig Husbandry in Neolithic England.”
24
26
Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia, 318.
Kathleen Biddick, The Other Economy: Pastoral Husbandry on a Medieval Estate. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1989), p. 23-45; Grigson, “Porridge and Pannage: Pig Husbandry in Neolithic England”;
Robert Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957),
pp. 50-55.
28
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700, pp. 50-55; Grigson, “Porridge and
Pannage: Pig Husbandry in Neolithic England.”
27
30
slaughter or for castration or for several other reasons that require pigs to be confined and
handled….”29
Even when left in the woodlands, constraints were used in the form of pens, where swine
were kept by night.30 So successful was this herding system that it was not until the late
eighteenth century, when woodlands had decreased in many parts of Britain, and the commercial
production of pigs had increased, that pig keeping diverged from pannage husbandry to a more
controlled system based on penning.
During the early years of settlement, Jamestown colonists focused their commercial
interests on creating fields to grow tobacco and other crops, leaving the herding of livestock as a
subsistence-related activity, rather than a potential source of profit. Building on pannage
husbandry, they introduced swine into a Native American landscape that included woodlands
similar to those they had known in Britain. Swine had to be protected from predation, which they
accomplished by pasturing them on islands and building palisade lines across peninsulas, but other
methods colonists used to manage swine all had origins in their homeland. They had to be fenced
out of corn fields during the growing season, but this had also been a problem for the British, who
alleviated crop damage by passing even during the seventh century laws requiring individuals to
fence out stock from their crops. In medieval times, farmers restrained pigs from grazing on the
commons during certain times of the year using pens, fences, and hedges.31 In the New World,
with the protection of islands and palisades in the ideal wooded environment, pigs adapted so
successfully that feral herds developed and colonists’ herds proliferated, in spite of losses to
predators and Native Americans.
Cattle husbandry appears to have been defined within the parameters set out in the
woodlands husbandry system. In Britain there also was a precedent for woodlands-based
husbandry that permitted communal use. In areas where woodlands were common, cattle were
allowed to graze alongside swine; in areas where mixed agriculture was practiced, cattle were
allowed to graze freely on common woods and fields after harvest. Here in the Chesapeake, cattle
also were allowed to graze freely, although in comparison to swine herding, colonists kept a
relatively close watch on them, for every reference clearly distinguishes hogs—and not cattle—
being “in the woods.” Following an ancient precedent that has been traced back to prehistoric
times, livestock were restrained by stock enclosures that ranged from as much as 1,000 acres to
less than 12 acres, that were defined by boundary earthworks and reinforced by timber fences.32
In the Chesapeake, during the early years when Native Americans were a serious threat,
colonists took great care to protect their cattle from marauders by keeping them within palisade
boundaries, penning them near homes, and even keeping them in their houses.33 But even after the
threat had subsided, cattle were managed. Those kept on islands and on peninsulas protected by
29
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700, pp. 50-53.
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700, p. 51; Grigson, “Porridge and Pannage:
Pig Husbandry in Neolithic England.”
30
31
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700, p.50.
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700, p. 23-24 .
33
Current research by Charles Hodges is exploring this issue. See “Pig Snouts, Lion Teeth, and Human
Eyes: A Study of Two Prime Competitor Species with Early Homo sapiens” (paper completed for Anthropology
501, The College of William and Mary, 1994, photocopy).
32
31
palisade lines found ample, relatively secure grazing lands that in some cases were at least 20
square miles in size.34 To maintain control within these boundaries, ownership of cattle was
maintained by branding and earmarks, and they were herded, as one statute stated, “Catle [should]
be kept in heards waited and attended on by some small watch or so enclosed by them selues that
they destroy not yor corne and other seed provisions….”35 Other management techniques included
penning calves close to home, where their mothers would return from the forest to nurse them
and pens which were used in fields and pastures to restrain cattle movements. As early as 1609
there are references to oxen, who require constant attention and training from birth to work as a
team. But even though these management techniques are well documented, many, or maybe even
most, colonists left cattle to graze with little supervision, as the Frenchman Durand commented in
1687, “their animals all graze in the woods or on the untilled portions of their plantations, where
they seek shelter nightly rather by instinct than from any care given them.”36
Early on colonists introduced goats, which can withstand predators better than sheep,
produce milk readily, and will browse on a quite diverse diet. Here in the Chesapeake, goats
assisted in clearing pastures and woodlands by browsing, and provided milk to male colonists who
were not used to doing the female task of milking cattle. By mid-century, however, sheep began
to replace goats, even though in 1658 goats still outnumbered sheep.37
Sheep were extremely important in Britain of course, where they had been relied upon for
centuries. Whether colonists postponed introducing sheep until predators had largely been
exterminated, or whether sheep were introduced only when sufficient pastures had been created
by felling forests, is not clear. Unfortunately, there are few indications in the early records of how
either goats or sheep were herded, although a 1666 law required adequate fencing for “sheep and
other cattle”, an indication that the two were pastured together on pastures and fallow fields.38
Durand de Dauphine’s 1687 description reinforces this view in his description of cows, sheep, and
horses who grazed together on wheat fields.39 In all probability, the herding of sheep and cattle
were intertwined. Mary Beaudry, in her dissertation on Chesapeake probate inventories, drew
attention to this shift when she observed a change in the manner in which cattle were listed. By
34
Captain John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia: The Fourth Booke. Reproduced in Narratives of
Early Virginia, p. 330.
35
Statute in “Instruccons Orders and Constitucons To Sr Thomas Gates Knight Governor of Virginia.”
(Ashmolean Manuscripts, 1147, folios 175-190A). Quoted in Kingsbury, The Records of the Virginia Company of
London, Vol. III, p. 18.
36
Durand de Dauphine, A Huguenot Exile in Virginia or Voyages of a Frenchman exiled for his Religion
with a description of Virginia & Maryland. Tr. and Ed. Gilbert Chinard (New York: The Press of the Pioneers,
1934), p.122.
37
John Hammond, “Leah and Rachel, or, the Two Fruitfull Sisters Virginia and Mary-Land, Their
Present Condition, Impartially stated and related” (London: Printed by T. Mabb, 1656). Reproduced in Peter Force,
ed., Tracts and Other Papers, Relating Principally to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North
America, from the Discovery of the Country to the Year 1776, Vol. III, No. 14 ([1844], reprinted, New York: Peter
Smith, 1947), p. 13.
38
Hening, The Statues at Large, Vol. II, XV, p. 243.
39
Durand de Dauphine, A Huguenot Exile in Virginia or Voyages of a Frenchman exiled for his Religion
with a description of Virginia & Maryland, p. 119.
32
the last quarter of the seventeenth century, cows were often referred to by their names, a sign that
owners had established a greater familiarity with their animals.40
This herding system, which incorporated many elements of management techniques
colonists had known in Britain, underwent few changes during the seventeenth century. A reading
of historical texts shows that with the exception of the wealthiest elite, planters continued to allow
livestock to graze freely in the available woodlands, marshes, and on fallow fields, providing them
almost no housing and little or no supplemental feed. Those wealthy individuals such as Landon
Carter, who began to engage in the commercial production of livestock during the first half of the
eighteenth century, were probably exceptions.
If an assessment of herding systems is based exclusively on the historical texts available for
this study, then the only possible conclusion would be that no significant change in husbandry
occurred even for the wealthy planters until the eighteenth century. The analysis of the
archaeological remains of livestock and systematic reconstruction of slaughter patterns from the
remains of cattle, swine, and caprines, however, paints a slightly different picture, one that shows
that subtle changes occurred. Since many of the assemblages analyzed for this study are the
deposits of wealthier planters, they provide an ideal measure for determining how wealthy
planters adapted their herding methods to changing conditions and new market demands.
The approach taken in this analysis is synthetic; each source of information provides an
independent measure of past behavior with its own peculiarities, biases, and strengths. If each
source is carefully considered in terms of what it can, and cannot tell about the past, then the
analyst is in a position to incorporate the strengths and to produce a more viable interpretation of
the past. Following this approach, documentary and archaeological evidence can tell the story of
how animal husbandry evolved in the Chesapeake, and how it adapted ancient elements to a
Native American landscape to form a coherent herding system that managed swine, cattle,
caprines, and horses.
The zooarchaeological data includes diversity assessments, and slaughter age data based
on both epiphyseal fusion and tooth wear assessments. The strength of this data base is that
slaughter ages monitors change in livestock husbandry, but while it is a very sensitive barometer,
it can not identify the causative factor or factors, which can include diet, changes in the
environment, herding system, or intended use for the animal.41
The historical data base for this project draws upon animal husbandry information from
probate inventories from York County in Virginia and Anne Arundel County in Maryland, plus
descriptions of husbandry found in the Virginia Company records, legal documents from both
Virginia and Maryland, diaries of elite planters, and the plantation records of two progressive
planters from the region, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Information from probate
inventories, which record at the time of death the number of livestock and to varying degrees of
40
Mary C. Beaudry, “‘Or What Else You Please to Call It’: Folk Semantic Domains in Early Virginia
Probate Inventories” (Ph.D. diss. , Brown University, 1980).
41
Mark Maltby, “Patterns in Faunal Assemblage Variability,” in Graeme Barker and Clive Gamble, eds.
Beyond Domestication in Prehistoric Europe (New York: Academic Press, 1985), pp. 33-74; Joanne Bowen, “A
Comparative Analysis of the New England and Chesapeake Herding Systems,” in Paul A. Shackel and Barbara J.
Little, eds., Historical Archaeology of the Chesapeake (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), pp. 155168.
33
specificity the ages of different types of livestock, provide a much needed independent assessment
of the archaeological data. The rich textual data pulled from numerous other sources, which
describes management techniques used by the wealthy, laws concerning the care of livestock, and
general descriptions of husbandry, bring to light the specifics of the herding system. Together with
the archaeological data, this historical information can help to identify the husbandry techniques
and various causative factors contributing to the change. When combined with documentary
evidence on husbandry, which reflects the husbandry of the wealthy, the picture that is emerging is
bolstered by several independent data bases.
For those readers who are unfamiliar with the archaeological data base, a brief discussion
of the principles underlying aging methods is in order. Since the age at which an animal is killed is
related to a specific use or combination of uses, the age at which livestock were slaughtered is key
to any understanding of husbandry and the economic and environmental forces that drive it. For
example, when cattle or sheep are raised for multiple purposes, as they are in subsistence-oriented
economies, they are slaughtered only after they have served their purpose. But if livestock are
raised for sale, then farmers shift to using husbandry methods that are efficient at producing one
product economically. Slaughter ages reflect these specialized purposes. Thus, it is presumed that
when the purpose for raising an animal changes, so too will the age at which livestock are
slaughtered.
Two methods were used to determine slaughter ages. The first is assessing the
extensiveness of wear on mandibular teeth.42 Since teeth are the most resilient of all mammalian
bone, this method is thought to be extremely reliable.43 The second method is measuring the
degree of fusion of mammalian long bones.44 On either end of a long bone shaft are “epiphyses”
that fuse to the shaft at a known stage during the maturation process. Since different epiphyses
fuse at different times, zooarchaeologists use large assemblages that contain elements in
proportions roughly even to that of the normal skeleton to determine the different age groups
represented in the assemblage. However, because young immature bone is said to be the most
susceptible to damaging taphonomic factors such as dog chewing, there is a potential for some
bias in the data reflecting and skewing toward older animals.
Both methods require large samples of ageable material that have not been significantly
altered by either exposure to harsh weather or to damage by humans and animals. Since faunal
assemblages from North America tend to be extremely small in comparison to assemblages from
Europe and the Near East, analysis has therefore tended to focus on epiphyseal fusion rather than
tooth wear, since the number of long bones is generally greater than the number of ageable
mandibles. Consequently, for all previously analyzed assemblages only the fusion data are
available. For assemblages analyzed for this project, plus others where mandibles could be easily
pulled for study, tooth wear analyses were performed. To provide yet a third independent measure
42
Sebastian Payne, “Kill-Off Patterns in Sheep and Goats: The Mandibles from Asvan Kale,” Anatolian
Studies 23 (1973): 281-303; Bob Wilson, Caroline Grigson, Sebastian Payne, eds., Ageing and Sexing Animal
Bones from Archaeological Sites (British Archaeological Reports, British Series 109, 1982).
43
J.N.P. Watson, “The Interpretation of Epiphyseal Fusion Data,” in Don Brothwell et al., eds., Research
Problems in Zooarchaeology (London: University of London Institute of Archaeology, 1978).
44
I. A. Silver, “The Aging of Domestic Animals,” in Don Brothwell and Eric Higgs, eds., Science in
Archaeology. (New York, Praeger Publishers, 1969), pp. 283-302; Raymond Chaplin, The Study of Animal Bones
from Archaeological Sites (London: Seminar Press, 1971).
34
Rural 1620-1660
N=215
>48
51%
Rural 1660-1700
N=839
>48
68%
0-12
19%
0-12
9%
24-36
6%
36-48
24%
36-48
19%
24-36
4%
Figure 2.5. Domestic cattle kill-off pattern based on long bone fusion.
Rural 1620-1660
N=13
Rural 1660-1700
N=15
40-50
31%
40-50
33%
36-40
8%
30-36
8%
>50
7%
0-6
33%
0-6
53%
>40
27%
Figure 2.6. Domestic cattle kill-off pattern based on tooth wear.
of livestock slaughter patterns, livestock entries from seventeenth and eighteenth-century probate
inventories were analyzed.45 For more complete technical descriptions of each method and the
analytical technique chosen for this study, see Appendix 3.
There are clear hints from the epiphyseal fusion, tooth wear, and probate data that change
occurred in Chesapeake husbandry sometime during the last quarter of the seventeenth century
(see Fig. 2.5 and 2.6). Such changes in slaughter ages are normally viewed by zooarchaeologists
in economic terms, meaning when the intended use of livestock changes, so too will the age at
which it is slaughtered. However, as Mark Maltby has pointed out, it is equally reasonable to
consider that the animals themselves responded to changing environmental and economic
conditions, much like wild populations respond today to human encroachment on their habitat.46
If one considers the colonial pannage-free ranging herding system, where little or no supplemental
food was provided livestock, then it should be reasonable to assume the situation was not much
different for colonial livestock. Slaughter ages, therefore, also could reflect in addition to
economic changes any significant shift in the environment and food resources.
By the 1660s, slaughter ages for cattle and swine tended to be older than those that were
slaughtered during the first half of the seventeenth century. Based on this age data, it is clear that
45
Richard Redding, “Decision Making in Subsistence Herding of Sheep and Goats in the Middle East”
(Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan. 1981); Roger Cribb, “The Logic of the Herd: A Computer Simulation of
Archaeological Herd Structure,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6(1987):376-415.
46
Mark Maltby, “Patterns in Faunal Assemblage Variability.”
35
Table 2.2.
YORK COUNTY PROBATE INVENTORY RECORDS
PERCENTAGE OF CATTLE IN SPECIFIC AGE GROUPS
Age Group
0-6 months
6-12 months
12-36 months
36-48 months
> 48 months
Total Cattle (Specific Age Only Given)
Source:
1620-1660
0.0%
0.8%
58.8%
20.6%
19.8%
131
1660-1700
0.1%
0.0%
43.7%
17.2%
38.9%
1,482
York County Records
slaughter ages tended to increase during the late seventeenth century (Figs. 2.5 and 2.6). As
measured by epiphyseal fusion, during the early seventeenth century 51% of the cattle population
were slaughtered when they were four years and older. As measured by tooth wear, a third of the
cattle population was over 40 months of age when slaughtered. Although this data is a very small
sample, it shows that the long bone data under-represent the youngest age group. Such a pattern
has been attributed to grass feeding, where it takes upwards of four years for cattle to mature to a
good slaughter weight. By the third quarter of the seventeenth century, however, in the epiphyseal
fusion the proportion of the population slaughtered at greater than four years increased to 68%,
while in the tooth wear data the population slaughtered at greater than 40 months increased to
67%.
Ages derived from the York County probate records for the periods 1620-1660 (Table
2.2) support the archaeological evidence for cattle, indicating there was a decrease in livestock
aged one to three years, but a large increase in cattle aged greater than 4 years. For
zooarchaeologists this documentary evidence is comforting news, since the method used to depict
long bone fusion data in surviving age groups has long been criticized for biological and
taphonomic biases. Unfortunately, probate inventories do not include ages for either swine or
sheep, thus a similar assessment is not possible for these species, but the clear resolution in ages
demonstrates the simple but statistically clumsy method, which is used as either survivor or
decedent curves by Chaplin, Zeder, and Redding, does portray real age groups.47
Age data for swine indicate that there was a similar increase in the age of slaughter during
the late seventeenth century (Figs. 2.7 and 2.8). Although there is not as clear a match between
the long bone and tooth wear data as there is in the cattle long bone and tooth wear data, the
swine data base portrays a slaughter pattern of primarily younger individuals during the first half
of the seventeenth century and an older population during the late seventeenth century. In terms
of the long bone data, the proportion of the younger age groups decreased from 67% to 38% of
47
Raymond Chaplin, The Study of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites; Melinda Zeder, Feeding
Cities: Specialized Animal Economy in the Ancient Near East (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Instition Press,
1991); Richard Redding, “The Faunal Remains in an Early Town on the Deh Luran Plain,” in Henry T. Wright
ed., An Early Town on the Deh Luran Plain, Museum of Anthropology Memoirs 13 (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan, 1981), pp. 231-261.
36
Rural 1660-1700
N=618
Rural 1620-1660
N=138
>42
21%
>42
28%
24-36
16%
0-12
27%
36-42
17%
0-12
48%
12-24
15%
24-36
17%
12-24
11%
Figure 2.7. Domestic swine kill-off pattern based on long bone fusion.
Rural 1660-1700
N=10
Rural 1620-1660
N=28
>30-36
10%
>30-36
11%
30-36
4%
0-6
11%
18-24
46%
6-12
10%
30-36
40%
6-12
14%
12-18
40%
12-18
14%
Figure 2.8. Domestic swine kill-off pattern based on tooth wear.
the population, while the proportion of individuals aged greater than three years being slaughtered
increased from 37% to 62% of the population. In terms of the tooth wear data, the proportion of
younger age groups (0-6 months and 6-12 months) drops from 25% in the early seventeenth
century to 10% in the second half of the seventeenth century, while the proportion of individuals
aged greater than 30 months increased from 15% to 50% of the population.
Historically it is known that, except for the first half of the seventeenth century, few goats
were kept in the Chesapeake. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to distinguish skeletally
between sheep and goats, and only in the presence of certain anatomical features on a particular
bone can it be identified as one or the other. Thus, as only one bone from this period could be
distinguished as goat the decision was made to combine all the caprine (sheep or goat) remains
into a single group. While this data does potentially include some goat, there can be little doubt
that most, if not all, of the remains are those of sheep.
The archaeological data for the slaughter ages for caprines during the early seventeenth
century is extremely small, reflecting the numbers of sheep and goats that were kept by planters
(Fig. 2.9). Consequently, nothing can be said for this period. However, for the second half of the
seventeenth century, there is one strong slaughter pattern that was obtained from long bone fusion
data, which indicates 44% of the population was killed at greater than 3½ years.
For the late seventeenth century, these long bone data suggest meat was an important
product, despite the fact that most early references refer to the usefulness of sheep for primarily
37
Rural 1660-1700
N=308
>42
44%
6-10
21%
36-42
19%
12-36
16%
Figure 2.9. Domestic caprine kill-off pattern based on long bone fusion.
wool production. Robert Beverley provides some documentary support for the interpretation
thatsheep were raised for meat as well as wool, when he remarked in 1705 that since sheep fleeces
were often torn from their backs by briars and bushes, planters often sheared their wool to cool
them rather than collect their wool.48 According to zooarchaeologist Sebastian Payne, the
developer of one of the most sophisticated aging techniques available and a specialist on caprines,
when sheep are raised in non-specialized circumstances primarily for their meat, kill-off patterns
show that the greatest proportion is slaughtered after the animal has matured, during the second
and third year of life. But if wool is the primary objective, then the kill-off pattern should show
only small numbers from the second year until the sixth year, when the wool quality tends to drop
off, when sheep are slaughtered at a rate of approximately 10% each year.49
From an economic perspective, developments in animal husbandry during the seventeenth
century Chesapeake occurred within the plantation economy, where the commercial production of
tobacco was combined with corn production. To grow tobacco for sale and corn for settlers and
livestock to eat, colonists felled forests to create fields. But within a few years, the intense
production of tobacco and corn had worn out the soil. It is well documented that when the
production of corn and tobacco had depleted the soils, planters shifted to growing wheat and
raising sheep. Zooarchaeological evidence, however, indicates herding played an additional role in
degrading the landscape.
As herds of cattle, swine, goats, sheep, and horses grew and flourished, by the late
seventeenth century herds had stocked the woodlands, fields, and pastures. Livestock ecology and
management studies show that these developments had to have impacted the feeding areas.50
Light grazing probably increased the productivity of wild pastures, but as the animals fed, they
reduced available resources both in quantity and quality. Through grazing livestock change the
habitat not only for themselves, but in extreme cases also alter future animal/habitat relations.
Given the specific environment, grazing by too many animals, or too heavy use by a few animals,
results in overuse, loss of vigor, and ultimately the disappearance of desirable plants. If
deterioration proceeds even the soil will become unstable. In specific areas where livestock
48
Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia, pp. 297, 317.
Sebastian Payne, “Kill-Off Patterns in Sheep and Goats: The Mandibles from Asvan Kale.”
50
Harold F. Heady and R. Dennis Child, Rangeland Ecology and Management. (Boulder: Westview Press,
49
1994).
38
Figure 2.10. Heady and Child’s chart showing relationship
between foraging and numbers of livestock.
frequented, excessive trampling might have reduced the size of soil aggregates and plant
litter to the point that the soil deteriorated and the rains hastened the erosion of once-productive
soil. The extent to which fields, where increasing numbers of livestock fed on harvest stubble, and
forests, where livestock fed on new growth, were degraded by this behavior is not known.
In the animals themselves, excessive foraging results in reduced growth rate, weight gain,
fertility, and overall health. Animals must feed for a longer period of time, but they gain less and
eventually lose weight. This relationship between forage and numbers of livestock is expressed in
Figure 2.10, which has been taken from Heady and Child.51 On the left, it shows a low-stocking
rate, where few animals graze abundant forage. There, individual animals reach their biological
potential, meaning they gain weight rapidly, increase in size, and reproduce easily. The point in
the middle, where the curve breaks is the optimum level. Slightly to the right is known as the peril
point, where the number of animals grazing on the land is high. Here, animals are beginning to
lose weight and lose condition. With stocking at even slightly greater rates, forage availability
declines and pasture conditions deteriorate. Here animals rapidly lose condition.
When two or more species of domestic animals graze together, the result can be
advantageous, but historically mixed species grazing has resulted in severe overgrazing. The
extent to which overgrazing in the Chesapeake was a problem remains a future research topic; at
present the archaeological data simply suggests that these principles were in effect. Possibly the
age data might be measuring the decline of an environment where introduced species initially
thrived, but by the second half of the seventeenth century, in areas where tobacco farming had
51
Heady and Child, Rangeland Ecology and Management.
39
depleted soils and sheep herds had increased significantly, livestock experienced the decline of a
once lush environment.
There is evidence in the documents to support the interpretation that over time, as
livestock fed upon the woodlands and fields that had endured tobacco and then the introduction
of sheep, some level of degradation had occurred. Durand’s 1687 description of one plantation
reflects on this situation and the probability that cattle, horses, and sheep were likely to have been
pastured in fields together. “As to wheat at M. Wormeley’s plantations I saw the cows, horses, &
sheep grazing on it. It was Christmas-time when I was there, & I told him they would spoil it. The
servants replied that they left the cattle there until the fifteeenth of March, & unless they had it
thinned they would gather only straw.”52
Rather, early seventeenth century references tend to extol the size, health, and general
fecundity of the livestock, but the late seventeenth century references describe a different
situation. Clayton wrote, for example, Cattle “have little or no Grass in winter, so that …(they)
are pined and starved, and many that are brought low and weak, when the Spring begins, venture
too far into the Swamps after the fresh Grass, where they perish; so that several Persons lose ten,
twenty or thirty head of Cattle in a Year.”53 Robert Beverley, one of the most eloquent writers,
wrote in 1705 that his own countrymen were ill-treating their cattle by not feeding them in winter,
“By which means they starve their young cattle, or at least stint their growth, so that they seldom
or never grow as large as they would do, if they were well manag’d.”54 A number wrote of the
diminished size of livestock, and the diminished size of horses became enough of a problem in
both Maryland and Virginia that laws requiring small horses be gelded in order to not “Lessen and
spoil the whole breed and Streyne of all horses….”55 These documents support the interpretation
that over time, as increasing numbers of livestock fed on available woodlands and pastures, their
health and stature declined.
Building a more complete understanding of the parameters of the herding system as it
evolved within the Chesapeake, and the impact the relationship between the land and animals had
on each other, requires more documentary and archaeological research. More information is
needed on species-specific feeding practices, social behavior, econiches, and the impact
agricultural shifts from tobacco to wheat production had on the pasturing of cattle, horses, and
sheep. As well, more documentary evidence is needed on the fecundity rates for each species of
livestock. Alongside more detailed work with documentary sources, future work with
archaeological data is needed. Additional evidence on feeding practices of different species and
how different econiches were used throughout the entire colonial period can be obtained from
phytoliths found on domestic mammal teeth. Additional evidence on the changing sizes of
livestock can be found in measurements that have been taken on the archaeological remains of
52
Durand de Dauphine, A Huguenot in Virginia or Voyages of a Frenchman exiled for his Religion with a
description of Virginia and Maryland, p.119.
53
John Clayton, “A Letter from Mr. John Clayton, Rector of Crofton at Wakefield in Yorkshire, to the
Royal Society, May 12, 1688.” Published in Force, Tracts and other Papers, Vol. III (12), pp. 25-26.
54
Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia, p. 318.
55
“An Act to prevent the greate Evill occasioned by the multiplicity of horses within this Province,” in
Bernard Christian Steiner, ed., Archives of Maryland, Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of
Maryland, Hitherto Unprinted, Vol. XXXVIII, 1694-1729 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1918), p. 11.
Also see Hening, The Statutes at Large, pp. 36-37.
40
cattle, swine, and caprines. Together with documentary evidence pulled from laws and legal
documents, diaries, probate inventories and tax records, this evidence can spell out the ecological
interrelationship that exists between livestock, the woodlands herding system, and the land they
fed upon.
Husbandry in the eighteenth century built upon the foundations laid by the early colonists,
and evident in both historical and archaeological sources is a clear picture that the woodlandsbased herding system remained intact, essentially unchanged for the majority of planters.
Introduced animals, both feral and tame, had flourished in the Chesapeake, but at the same time,
the woodland pastures for these animals had decreased through the growth of human populations
and the expansion of the tobacco-focused economy. Woodlands still abounded in the region, but
their ability to support large herds in good health had decreased.56 In the very early years palisades
had created rich pastures as much as forty square miles and herds grew. But within a short period
time planters fenced in their crops to protect them from grazing livestock, and by 1642 all persons
were required to make fences at least four and a half feet high, and livestock owners were liable
for any damage to crops within adequately fenced areas.57 Livestock continued to break through
these protective barriers as they are want to do, however, and later laws required colonists to
make fences five feet high, although some are reported to have built fences as high as seven or
eight feet.58 The image of rural plantation life with livestock roaming from their owners’ property
onto their neighbors, where they fed in the wooded and cleared lands, is strong.
As herds increased, so too did the damage to the plant community, and during the first
decades of the eighteenth century laws were passed to protect landowners. As frustrating as it
was for a landowner, permitting access to livestock owned by neighbors who lacked sufficient
land to support their animals was considered a public right, and ever since arriving in the
Chesapeake individuals who owned no pasture lands were legally permitted to graze their
livestock on the land of others, provided they pay the land owner for whatever crops their
livestock destroyed. But as livestock populations increased, it became enough of a problem that in
1713 a law was passed rescinding this right. “Whereas it is found by daily experience, that the
great number of horses and mares, kept by persons who have no freehold or tenancy in lands, and
suffered to go at large on the lands of other persons, is not only prejudicial to the breed of horses,
but also injurious to the stocks of cattle and sheep of this colony …no person whatsoever…not
having a freehold of fifty acres of land, or tenement of the value of twenty pounds, or not being a
tenant of, and occupying lands or tenements, … shall pay five hundred pounds of tobacco, or fifty
shilling in money, yearly, shall keep... any stoned horse, or unspaid mare, or…one gelding, or one
spaid mare…”59 Clearly, roaming livestock were becoming much more than a nuisance, and
individual rights came to prevail over communal grazing, which had been tolerated for a hundred
years.
As towns began to emerge in this rural landscape, many residents kept animals, which they
allowed to run on the property of nearby planters. As in rural areas, increased numbers of
56
Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside.
57
Hening, The Statutes at Large, p. 332.
Thomas Anburey, Travels through the Interior Parts of America, Vol. II. Ed. William Harding Carter
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, Riverside Press, 1923), p. 187.
59
Hening, The Statutes at Large, pp. 46-47.
58
41
livestock meant increased stress on nearby pastures, and laws such as the one passed in 1714
rescinded the long-held privilege for urban residents. “Whereas the Inhabitants of the Town of
Delaware, at West Point…, do keep great Numbers of Cattle, Horses, Sheep, and Hogs which
feed and root upon the adjacent Lands and Marshes belonging to William West, Gentleman,
depriving him of many advantages he might otherwise make of his pasturage in supporting greater
stocks of his own, for relieving him therein, Be it enacted…That from and after … no House
keeper residing in said Town, without the Consent of the said William West or other Owner of the
said adjacent Lands, shall keep in the said Town above Two Cows and Two Horses….”60
The dependency of urban dwellers on rural produce began at a very early phase in urban
development. Within the continuity of the open woodlands pasture system, planters responded to
the decline of the tobacco production by focusing their efforts on growing wheat and producing
agricultural produce for the newly emerging urban markets. Livestock were among those
products; hence planters who intended to raise livestock for profit adopted new techniques aimed
at producing livestock for sale, rather than the old subsistence-oriented methods they had grown
up with.
The British, including Arthur Young, Robert Bakewell and others, have long been thought
as the developers of progressive, commercially-focused husbandry. But, for as long as markets
and cities have been around in Britain and indeed in ancient civilizations, commercially-focused
husbandry has been practiced.61 In order to identify what techniques colonial planters used to
produce livestock for market, English agricultural history texts were consulted for traditional
commercially-focused husbandry methods, then the historical data base on Chesapeake animal
husbandry was thoroughly combed to identify which of these techniques were used in the New
World.
In Britain throughout the eighteenth century, pigs remained the mainstay of subsistence
farming. As Trow-Smith expressed it, “Compared to improvements in breeds and techniques of
feeding cattle and sheep which were made in the course of the eighteenth century, the husbandry
of the pig remained backward in the extreme. Pigs were the last species of farm animal to receive
the attention of the improver or skillful commercial breeder and feeder, because its end-products
of pork and bacon were still mainly the home-grown comestibles of countryman.”62
Subsistence-oriented husbandry utilized the woods by day, and sometimes penning in an
enclosure by night.63 From as early as Saxon times, pigs were kept in yards and in stys, where they
were bred and overwintered with waste and legume crops. Fattening pigs for slaughter was done
when the pigs were any age, although if they were meant to be either baconers or porkers, they
were slaughtered when they were “rising to two years,” a time when pigs take on weight rapidly.
How pigs were fattened varied according to the specific environment. With woodland herds, pigs
were fattened on peas, beans, whey, and buttermilk. They were slaughtered when they were in
60
Waverly K. Winfree, compiler, The Laws of Virginia Being a Supplement to Hening’s The Statutes at
Large 1700-1750. (Richmond: The Virginia State Library, 1971), p. 357.
61
Zeder, Feeding Cities: Specialized Animal Economy in the Ancient Near East.
62
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry 1700-1900, p. 216.
63
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700, pp.51-53.
42
their first year, or about nine months, since the weight was sufficient for a family and any
additional substantial flesh gain occurred later at 18-24 months.64
Commercial pig husbandry brought the increased use of stys.65 Since pigs are efficient
consumers of the by-products of cheese making, skim milk, buttermilk, and whey, there was a
close association with dairying, and commonly dairymen kept pigs to consume the milk residue
left from their operation.66 Since pigs also are efficient consumers of the by-products of
distilling—barley and grains which were used for malting—distillers also kept swine on a large
scale. As commercial production got underway, pigs were kept until their second year
approached. Since fattening immature pigs was inefficient, farmers took store pigs (those kept for
fattening) in lean condition and finished them on pulses and cereal meats. By the end of the
eighteenth century, progressive farmers had begun to fatten with potatoes and turnips. Invariably,
the potatoes were boiled or steamed and fed with meal to both store and fattening stock.67
In the Chesapeake, in Beverley’s words, “hogs run where they list, and find their own
support in the woods, without any care of the owner.”68 Native resources found in the woodlands
and marshes were prime food sources, although colonists intentionally allowed pigs to graze on
field stubble after harvest.69 In 1744 Joseph Ball instructed his nephew, “The pasture fence must
be at all times kept up Strong, close, & high, as a right Good Cornfield Fence; so that neither
Horse, nor Hog, can get in or out, but as they are let in, or out…I would have the hogs kept in
the Pasture in Peach time, so that they may go in and out of the Peach orchard, and no other
People’s hogs get in. At other times, I would have them kept out of the Pasture….”70 Fattening
before slaughter seems to have been accomplished with the staple Indian corn and fodder.
From reading through the historical references on swine husbandry, it is difficult at this
time to pinpoint exactly when planters began to use more aggressive fattening techniques.
Descriptions by Landon Carter, John Clayton, Hugh Jones, and others are what has survived—
indications are scattered, and methods that would fatten swine more quickly could well have been
instituted before the historical account. However, it is clear that by the second half of the
eighteenth century planters such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who both read the
British promoter of progressive husbandry Arthur Young, adopted potatoes, hominy, and meal to
make them an integral element in swine husbandry.71
64
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700, pp. 250-251.
Grigson, “Porridge and Pannage: Pig Husbandry in Neolithic England.”
66
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry 1700-1900, p. 220.
67
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry 1700-1900, pp. 42, 76.
65
68
Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia, p. 318.
Hugh Jones, The Present State of Virginia Giving a particular and short Account of the Indian, English,
and Negroe Inhabitants of that Colony. Showing their Religion, Manners, Government, Trade, Way of Living, &c.
with a Description of the Country (London: Printed for J. Clarke, 1724). Published as Richard L. Morton, ed., The
Present State of Virginia (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1956), pp. 78, 79, 138.
70
Joseph Ball, “Instructions for my Newphew Jos. Chinn in Virginia to observe abut my affairs there.”
Letterbook. England, 02/18/1744 to 12/03/1759, p. 8.
71
See John Beale Bordley, Essays and Notes on Husbandry and Rural Affairs (Philadelphia: Printed by
Budd and Bartram for Thomas Dobson, At the Stone House, No. 41, South Second Street, second edition, 1801);
69
43
Archaeological age data, which is a sensitive monitor of slaughter ages, may well be a
more accurate indicator of when commercial production began. This is particularly so, since
virtually every rural faunal assemblage represents the household consumption of a wealthier
planter, a person who was more likely to engage in commercial husbandry, at least more so than
tenants or other poor households who were more likely to raise swine primarily for their own
household’s consumption. By comparing the rural slaughter ages from the different time periods,
and then comparing these ages with those found in urban assemblages from the same time
periods, it should be possible to monitor the swine husbandry of wealthy planter, and determine
when a more concerted effort at producing swine for market purposes began, and the extent to
which these animals were sold in town.
Further, since historians and zooarchaeologists specializing in British agriculture have
clearly distinguished the first-year population as being the target slaughter age for subsistence
farming, and the 18-24 month population as being the target slaughter age for pigs intended for
sale, identifying the changing proportions of these age groups should help to distinguish when pig
husbandry changed in response to emerging markets.
Beginning with the long bone data, there is a strong presence of the youngest age group
throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century assemblages, but a decrease over time,
particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century. The early seventeenth century data shows
almost half the population was less than a year when slaughtered, then in each subsequent time
period, (1660-1700, 1700-1750, 1750-1775, and 1775-1800), the youngest age group fluctuates
between 19% and 28% (see Figs. 2.11 and 2.12). The 12-24 month age group, on the other hand
(which encompasses the commercial target age of 18-24 months), shows an increase over time,
particularly during the second half of the eighteenth century. In the seventeenth century and first
half of the eighteenth century, this age group ranges from 11% to 17% of the total population.
Then, in the third and fourth quarters of the eighteenth century, it jumps to 31% and 38% of the
population.
Comparing the proportion of ages in the rural and urban assemblages dating to the first
half of the eighteenth century shows there is a very close similarity, a signal to zooarchaeologists,
who interpret the similarity as being indicative of a largely unspecialized economy. What is
striking, however, is what happens in the age data for the second half of the eighteenth century.
Proportionately more of the youngest age group remained at home on the plantation, while
proportionately more of the 12-24 month age group went to market. This evidence is significant
because it points to two issues; it identifies when rural planters had begun to alter their husbandry
in response to commercial markets, and it points to when urban consumers became increasingly
dependent upon commercially produced goods, rather than those they might have produced
themselves or obtained from friends and relatives living in the nearby countryside.
The archaeological tooth wear data, which is thought by zooarchaeologists to be the more
accurate, does not support the long bone data as closely as the two sets of data do for the cattle
and caprine remains. These data show, on the whole, a much younger population, and the older
age groups are almost absent. If the cattle and caprine tooth wear data behaved similarly, one
could support the standard interpretation that zooarchaeologists should rely upon tooth wear and
see also “Letter to Matthew Leonard Overseer at Cole’s Point Quarter” (Carter Papers. Letter Book of Robert
Carter of Nomini Hall. Vol. III-b, January 9, 1776 to November 26, 1777), p. 72.
44
Rural 1700-1740
N=273
Rural 1775-1800
N=244
Rural 1750-1775
N=233
>42
3%
>42
19%
36-42
21%
>42
17%
36-42
18%
0-12
19%
36-42
9%
24-36
29%
0-12
20%
0-12
28%
24-36
7%
12-24
17%
24-36
24%
12-24
38%
Urban 1700-1740
N=228
12-24
22%
36-42
5% >42
9%
24-36
18%
0-12
12%
>42
10%
36-42
24-36 10%
10%
0-12
12%
24-36
29%
Urban 1775-1800
N=348
Urban 1750-1775
N=403
>42
11%
36-42
26%
12-24
31%
0-12
13%
12-24
56%
12-24
57%
Figure 2.11. Domestic swine kill-off patterns based on long bone fusion.
Rural 1700-1750
N=26
Rural 1775-1800
N=95
>30-36
5%
>30-36
7%
30-36
41%
30-36
17%
0-6
22%
18-24
22%
Urban 1700-1750
N=26
30-36
27%
24-30
30%
6-12
29%
12-18
5%
Urban 1775-1800
N=84
Urban 1750-1775
N=88
0-6
4%
>30-36
12%
18-24
32%
6-12
4%
24-30
4%
0-6
12%
>30-36
2%
12-18
8%
30-36
37%
0-6
13%
12-18
11%
18-24
19%
18-24
32%
>30-36
1%
6-12
2%
30-36
34%
24-30
4%
0-6
14%
6-12
5%
18-24
23%
12-18
19%
24-30
3%
Figure 2.12. Domestic swine kill-off patterns based on tooth wear.
45
dismiss the long bone data as being too problematical. However, given the extremely close
correlation between the cattle long bone, tooth wear, and probate inventory data, such a dismissal
should not be made. Additional analyses of these data are needed, but for now one theory
explaining the discrepancy between the swine long bone and tooth wear data is under
consideration. Following the zooarchaeological assumption that tooth wear captures all age
groups, and it should therefore be the more reliable, one must ask the question, “Where are the
mandibles of the older population?” It appears that the distribution of pig heads followed separate
rules. Perhaps pig heads had become enough of a delicacy that wealthy planters kept the younger
ones for themselves, and served them as elegant dishes to themselves and their guests. In kitchen
refuse related to George Washington’s household, for example, a large number of young pig
mandibles was carefully butchered axially and longitudinally, leaving no doubt that they represent
intentional cuts of meat. Heads from the older individuals may have gone to their slaves. Future
analyses of faunal assemblages associated with slaves and poorer white households may some day
help to verify this theory.
Nonetheless, a careful consideration of the tooth wear evidence shows that a large
proportion of the population was slaughtered between 12 and 24 months, and that over time an
increasing number of individuals this age group were slaughtered. In town, the proportion of 1224 month old individuals consumed grew from 27% in the first half of the century to over 40% of
the population in the second half of the eighteenth century. In this sense, there is a
strongagreement between the long bone and tooth wear data, and they both point to 1750 as a
time when planters began to fatten pigs specifically for market.
Documentary sources confirm this interpretation. In particular laws passed restricting
livestock movements help pinpoint when urban residents began to depend upon market foods
rather than foods they obtained through their own personal sources. This dependency began as
early as 1710, when Williamsburg residents began a campaign to restrict hogs from rooting within
the city and in certain adjacent places. Later in 1714 they enacted a law restricting hogs. “…after
the first day of March, …no hog, shoat, or pig, which shall be above the age of Two Months, not
being Ringed or having the nose thereof Cutt Sufficiently to prevent such Hog, Shoat, or pig from
Rooting, Shall be suffered to go at large within the Space of one Mile from the Church now
building in the Said City, or within the Limitts of the Ports to the Said City…”.72 Despite the
passing of this laws, pigs still were going at large in the city, for again in 1722 another petition
was made.73
Maryland colonists also made moves to restrict hogs, when in 1731 a bill was passed by
the lower House prohibiting the raising of hogs in any town in the Province.74 In Virginia,
however, legislatures chose to restrict livestock movements town by town, and petitions
restricting not only hogs, but also cattle, sheep, and horses continued to be made through the
72
Virginia Council, Legislative Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia. Ed. H.R. McIlwaine. 3 Vols.
Vol. I (1680-1714) (Richmond), pp. 495, 497, 498; H.R. McIlwaine, ed., Journal of the House of Burgesses, 10
Vols., 1619-1776. Vol. IV 1702/03-1705, 1705-06, 1710/12 (Richmond, 1912), pp. 269, 272-273; Winfree, The
Laws of Virginia Being a Supplement to Hening’s The Statutes at Large 1700-1750, p. 134.
73
Virginia Council, Legislative Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, Vol. II (1715-1753), p. 678.
74
“Assembly Proceedings,” in Steiner, Archives of Maryland, Proceedings and Acts of the General
Assembly of Maryland, Vol. XXXVII (1730-1732), p. 273.
46
1740s. This is very close to the time the zooarchaeological evidence identifies as the period in
which planters began to raise hogs for profit.
Cattle
In the British Isles farmers had responded to markets for many hundreds of years, but for the most
part they engaged in subsistence agriculture and raised livestock using the husbandry methods
they had known for generations. On medieval farms little supplemental feed was provided. Oxen
were given hay and then oats in the winter, calves were given a little barley or oats, and cows
received only hay and straw. When bullocks were fattened, they were mostly fed straw and hay,
and stall-feeding, which was expensive, was rare among these farmers.75 Those farmers who did
raise livestock for sale used fattening techniques to hasten the growth of their livestock. Biddick
demonstrates in a study of manoral husbandry that monasteries having differing types of land each
kept cattle during different phases of their development, then when they had matured to a good
slaughter weight sent them to market. During the first half of the eighteenth century, when
progressive agrarian writers had begun to promote the use of highly specialized foods such as
turnips, many areas still continued to rely upon old methods.76 In the highlands of Scotland, cattle
continued to graze on hilly unimproved pastures most of the winter, they were fed little
supplemental feed, and consequently they tended to be very small. Here in this environment cattle
reached a marketable age usually in the autumn of their fourth or fifth year of life.77
In the lowlands where pasturage was rich, however, different techniques were used.
During the winter months cattle were fattened by way of yard or stall-feeding with peas and oats,
hay, cabbage and turnips.78 Here heifers reached maturity at 3 years of age, while steers, who
matured more slowly, were ready to finish at 4-5 years.
As markets developed between 1700 and 1750, British farmers responded to the demand
for meat by bringing into use the new fodder crops being promoted by the agrarian pioneers, but
using them within the parameters of their traditional form of husbandry. “All in all, the early
eighteenth century practices may be seen as extensions of the mediaeval and post-mediaeval
husbandry methods, made to meet the needs of the great mouth [urban consumer]…. Only here
and there were men to be seen digging the first trial trenches for the foundations of the great
superstructure of the new stock and the stockmanship.”79 As Trow-Smith advises, identifying the
commercially-focused husbandry of this period is not so much in identifying fundamental shifts in
herding methods, as it is in identifying the use of these new fodder and pasturage crops.
The turnip and cabbage began to replace the bare fallow obtained in mixed husbandry,
while clovers, lucerne, and sainfoin were brought in to enrich pastures. Techniques used to add fat
to fully grown and lean frames of mature animals varied. One method was for cattle breeders to
gauge the quality of grass on their land. If it was in poor condition, they might sell off store beef
cheap, but if pastures were lush and hay was plentiful, they would fatten the store cattle
75
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry 1700-1900, pp. 116-117, 238-239.
Biddick, The Other Economy: Pastoral Husbandry on a Medieval Estate.
77
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry 1700-1900, p. 238.
78
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry 1700-1900, pp. 4-6, 32-33.
79
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry 1700-1900, pp. 43-44.
76
47
themselves, then sell them at market for high prices.80 Working between these two extremes,
graziers used pastures, grain they could not sell, hay, cereals, pulses, and the new fodder crops of
the seventeenth century, turnips and cabbages. The imported concentrated foods such as oilcakes,
and carrots and potatoes, which were the result of the progressive writers of the eighteenth
century, were not used until the second half of the century, when the more progressive farmers
introduced these into their husbandry and they began to alter the physical environments of their
farms.
Cattle husbandry in the Chesapeake remained firmly rooted in the open woodlands pasture
system throughout the eighteenth century. From the early seventeenth century constraints were
placed on cattle. At the beginning tight constraints were in large part due to the need to defend
them from Native Americans, which they did by keeping them enclosed at night and in herds that
were watched by keepers.81 After these early years, constraints loosened, but penning was
retained as an integral element of their herding system. References describe this element of
herding in the wealthy planter’s husbandry of the late seventeenth century. “After they clear’d a
fresh piece of Ground out of the Woods, it will not bear Tobacco past two or three Years, unless
Cow-pened; for they manure their Ground by keeping their Cattle, as in the South you do your
Sheep, every night confining them within Hurdles, which they have removed when they have
sufficiently dung’d one spot of Ground….”82 Since manure imparted a bad taste to tobacco, it has
been presumed that planters avoided this ancient method of fertilizing soils. However, the
increased numbers of references to pens for cattle and sheep, cowyards, and pig stys and their
close association with manuring during the eighteenth century indicates confining livestock
remained an integral and strong element of plantation agriculture, possibly for fertilizing tobacco
but maybe more frequently for fertilizing corn and wheat fields83.
In the eighteenth century planters followed a path that was similar in many ways to the
path followed by British farmers. Immersed in their own traditions of allowing cattle, probably
steers and dry cows, to feed in woodland pasturage, and keeping cows on fields alongside the
growing numbers of sheep, they managed their free ranging stock. Thomas Anburey, a Lieutenant
in the Army of General Burgoyne, left valuable accounts of this form of husbandry, since he
observed husbandry as it was practiced by the less privileged planters and tenant farmers.
According to this visitor, even in the 1780s cattle husbandry remained firmly rooted in the past,
cattle were fed little supplemental feed, and their growth remained stunted.84 Another statement
80
Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry 1700-1900, p. 33.
“Instruccons Orders and Constitucons to Sr Thomas Gates Knight Governor of Virginia” (Ashmolean
Manuscripts, 1147, folios 175-190A). Quoted in Kingsbury, The Records of the Virginia Company of London, Vol.
III.
81
82
John Clayton, “Letter to Royal Society (May 12, 1688),” in Force, Tracts and other Papers, Vol. III, No.
12., p. 21.
83
Jack P. Greene, ed., The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, Vol. I
(Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1965), pp. 155-156, 237-238; John Wily, “A Treatise on the
Propagation of Sheep, the Manufacture of Wool, and the Cultivation and Manufacture of FLAX, with Directions
for making several Utensils for the Business. (Williamsburg: Printed by J. Royle, 1765), p. 6; “Charles Carter of
Corotoman, from Cleve, to Landon Carter [1710-1778]” (Letters of Landon Carter, 1737-1778. Letters and Papers
of the Carter Family of Virginia, 1667-1862, Folder 2).
84
Thomas Anburey, Travels through the Interior Parts of America, Vol. II, pp. 260-261.
48
by visitor John Smyth exhibits a firm European bias, but it provides useful clues on how livestock
were generally cared for. “…very great numbers of black cattle, horses, and hogs actually … run
at large, entirely wild, without any other proprietors than those of the ground they happen to be
found upon. In some parts, each person, in possession of a plantation, has what is called a right in
the woods; by which he is entitled to the property of a certain proportion of the livestock that
runs wild, such as I just described….”85 There can be no doubt that livestock herding remained
firmly rooted in the woodland pasture system.
How extensive these woodland pastures were at any time during the colonial period
remains uncertain. One late-seventeenth century traveler, Dauphine de Durand remarked that
farmers generally kept the proportions of their lands at about half in woodland, a fourth as
pastures, and the other quarter under cultivation, but further research is needed to determine how
different farmers and planters developed their field systems at different times and in different
regions.86 What is clear is that woodlands remained an integral part of the pasture system
throughout the colonial period. So too was penning. A traditional element in English husbandry
that was originally incorporated into the Chesapeake herding system, it remained an integral part
throughout the colonial period, but determining the extent to which different farmers and planters
incorporated penning into cattle, sheep, and pig husbandry needs further work.
Even as wealthy planters began to raise livestock for sale, they did so within the
framework of this woodland pasture system. George Washington, who corresponded with
agriculturalist Arthur Young and wrote copiously on his plantation activities at the end of the
eighteenth century, gives us a balanced view of woodland husbandry. Woodlands were considered
pastures. In 1787 he wrote, “…No more cattle is raised than can be supported by lowland
meadows, swamps, & c., and the tops and blades of Indian corn; as very few persons have
attended to sowing grasses, and connecting cattle with their crops….”87 In another passage he
tells us this pasture system was widespread, and that in its unimproved form still existed
throughout the middle and upper parts of the country, where cattle were raised cheaply on the
“spontaneous food of forests.” In the eastern portion of the Chesapeake, which had been
cultivated long enough that forests were depleted, here the farmers probably managed their
woodland pastures, but they still did not pen large numbers of cattle and sheep as a means of
recovering manure for their fields.88
Woodland pastures remained an integral element in even the wealthy planters herding
system. Washington himself refers in 1799 to how he incorporated this traditional element into his
85
John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth, A Tour in the United States of America, Vol. I (London: Printed for G.
Robinson, Pater-Noster Row, 1784), pp. 143-144.
86
Dauphine de Durand, A Huguenot Exile in Virginia or Voyages of a Frenchman exiled for his Religion
with a description of Virginia & Maryland, p. 151.
87
Arthur Young, “Letters from His Excellency George Washington to Arthur Young—containing an
account of his husbandry, with a map of his farm; his opinions on various questions in agriculture; and many
particulars of the rural economy of the United States” (London: Sold by W.J. and J. Richardson, 1801). Also
published in Farmers’ Register, October, 1837, Vol. V, No. 7.
88
Arthur Young, “Letters from His Excellency George Washington to Arthur Young—containing an
account of his husbandry, with a map of his farm; his opinions on various questions in agriculture; and many
particulars of the rural economy of the United States” (London: Sold by W.J. and J. Richardson, 1801). Also
published in Farmers’ Register, October, 1837, Vol. V, No. 7.
49
progressive herding system, when he reported that the common, or woodland pasture, was to be
enclosed with a post and rail fence running from the slave quarters to the river in a manner where
the stock would have free and uninterrupted passage from the barn yard to the woodland
pasture.89
The current understanding obtained from this research is that woodland pasturage and
penning co-existed, but as planters began to raise livestock for sale, they developed fattening
techniques using the traditional husbandry methods. Penning probably became the focus for
keeping dairy cows, sheep, and beef cattle, while woodland pastures remained the focus of dry
cows, yearlings, steers, and pigs. With additional research with plantation records and other
sources, the inter-relationship that existed between penning, fields, and woodland pasture systems
for both subsistence and commercial husbandry should become clear.
Documentation makes it clear that from as early as the 1730s wealthy planters managed
their pastures. Fences and ditches were built to keep livestock out of fields and orchards, but it
also controlled when livestock could profitably be kept in to graze on wheat and corn stubble
after harvest, and to keep orchards in manageable condition. Joseph Ball affirms this technique
when he requested that the calves and yearlings, along with horses, be given the free liberty to go
in at all times into the peach orchard, where they would keep the broom grass which would kill
the trees down.90
The use of Indian corn for supplemental feed and the use of blades and tops as fodder was
widespread and probably the manner in which most farmers fed their livestock. Beginning in the
1690s, corn tops and blades began to be valued in York County, Virginia probate inventories, and
indication of their more systematic preservation and use. But as early as 1724 Hugh Jones
reported that some planters had introduced good clover and oats, and some even planted the
imported perennial herb sainfoin. Later in 1744 Joseph Ball had begun to sow worn out tobacco
soil with rye to let it revert back to a cowpen.91 In the 1760s, references to introduced feed and
grasses increase, indicating more were beginning to experiment with different methods, including
feeding meal and hominy, and planting burnet and lucerne in pastures. By the 1770s references
indicate new feeds included potatoes and turnips, which Landon Carter tells us he used as winter’s
food for “the cattle that gives milk”.92
Wealthy planters also recognized the effect too many livestock had on their pastures. To
prevent them being overgrazed, Joseph Ball gave specific instructions of how many cattle, hogs,
horses, and sheep should be kept on any one of his plantations. Writing to his nephew, he
instructed him, “You must not keep too many cows, nor sows: and when there are too many
calves, or Pigs, you must kill some and Eat them, and you must kill the Cow calves, if they be out
89
George Washington, “Crops for the River Farm, and operations thereon, for the year 1800.”
Reproduced in John C. Fitzpatrick, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources
1745-1799 (Washington, D. C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1940), Vol. 37 (1798-1799); see also
“Washington’s Agricultural Notes” (Farmers’ Register, December 1, 1837, Vol. 5, No. 8), pp. 468-469, 489.
90
Joseph Ball, “Instructions for my Newphew Jos. Chinn in Virginia to observe abut my affairs there.”
Letterbook. England, 02/18/1744 to 12/03/1759, pp. 15-16, 18.
91
Jones, The Present State of Virginia, p. 78; Joseph Ball, “Instructions for my Newphew Jos. Chinn in
Virginia to observe abut my affairs there.” Letterbook. England, 02/18/1744 to 12/03/1759, p. 14
92
Landon Carter, The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, Vol. II, p. 1137.
50
of proportion. The best way to have a Good Stock, is not to have too many breeders and steers
are more easily kept than Cows: & will sell better….”93
Much of this effort was driven by commercial goals, and as planters responded to markets
they began to shift from a subsistence-oriented form of husbandry, where livestock were allowed
to fatten as they matured. As in Britain the Chesapeake planters kept an eye on profit, and
husbandry techniques aimed to produce livestock more profitably for market were introduced.
Penned cattle gained weight faster and their dung that accumulated in the pens could be used as
fertilizer.94 Stalls also were built as a relatively new way to fatten cattle. In 1757 Landon Carter
described his new additions. The pens were 40 square yards and held 60 cattle, where dung could
be collected, and the new roofed cow stalls kept the cattle and their feed dry and warm. Built to
hold 30 head of cattle, the stall was roofed, raised a foot above the yard, and contained a crib
where cattle could feed themselves. Here, Carter kept yearlings which he fed wheat chaff and hay,
and cows which were about to give birth. These calves were allowed to remain with their mother
while nursing, so that they would grow strong and healthy.95
The archaeological age data supports the interpretation that cattle husbandry remained
firmly rooted in its woodland-based husbandry system throughout the eighteenth century (see
Figs. 2.13 and 2.14). Comparing the rural seventeenth and eighteenth century assemblages, the
oldest age group composed of all cattle older than 48 months remained the dominant group for
two hundred years, with the troublesome exception of the assemblages dating to the first half of
the eighteenth century, which contains far greater numbers of individuals aged 24-36 months than
any other period. Zooarchaeologists point to differential preservation, particularly dog chewing,
as the most likely explanation for biases in the long bone data base. The tooth wear evidence,
which is claimed to be the more accurate, however, does not refute the long bone data; in fact it
supports ages found in the long bone data. A fuller discussion of the fine points in this problem
can be found in Appendix 3. For now it appears the apparent problem might be explained in terms
of variability in cattle husbandry on either a regional or individual level, but sorting the technical
from husbandry-related issues requires further study. For now, the long bone data, which is
supported by the tooth wear data, shows that as the eighteenth century progressed, the slaughter
population in general was younger, and included larger proportions of individuals aged between
24-48 months. This fact leaves little doubt that the increasingly specialized form of cattle
husbandry being adopted by the wealthy plantation owners produced cattle who matured to a
slaughter weight at less than approximately four years of age.
Comparing the rural and urban assemblages, it becomes immediately apparent that from
the early eighteenth century on, urban dwellers consumed proportionately greater numbers of the
very young aged less than 12 months than their rural counterparts. It also is apparent that urban
dwellers tended to consume younger beef, as seen in the oldest age group. During the last half of
the century, this group is proportionately smaller in the urban assemblages than in the rural, and in
their place are greater numbers of the middle age groups, those aged between 24-48 months.
93
Joseph Ball, “To Mr. Jos. Chinn in Lancaster County Rappa. Virginia By Capt. Wilcox.” Letterbook.
England, 02/18/1744 to 12/03/1759., pp. 64-65, 173.
94
Landon Carter, The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, Vol. II, p. 697.
95
Landon Carter, The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, Vol. I, pp. 150, 155156, 195.
51
Rural 1700-1740
N=349
Rural 1750-1775
N=281
Rural 1775-1800
N=346
12-24
3%
0-12
6%
>48
31%
24-36
5%
24-36
16%
24-36
33%
36-48
33%
36-48
36%
Urban 1700-1740
N=219
12-24
0-12
7% 1%
>48
53%
>48
53%
36-48
23%
Urban1750-1775
N=432
Urban 1775-1800
N=404
0-12
4%
12-24
0-12
1%
10%
>48
31%
0-12
9%
>48
39%
>48
42%
12-24
6%
12-24
8%
24-36
13%
36-48
29%
36-48
45%
24-36
12%
24-36
15%
36-48
36%
Figure 2.13. Domestic cattle kill-off patterns based on long bone fusion.
Rural 1700-1740
N=8
Rural 1750-1775
N=6
Rural 1775-1800
N=105
0-6
1%
>50
11%
40-50
50%
40-50
49%
0-6
33%
36-40
38%
Urban 1700-1740
N=21
36-40
11%
>40
30%
>40
17%
>40
13%
30-36
8%
40-50
39%
Urban 1750-1775
N=44
Urban 1775-1800
N=28
>50
5%
40-50
27%
40-50
38%
0-6
24%
0-6
33%
>40
23%
>40
14%
36-40
24%
40-50
28%
36-40 6-9
7% 5%
>50
7%
0-6
25%
>40
18%
36-40
11%
6-9
11%
Figure 2.14. Domestic cattle kill-off patterns based on tooth wear.
52
It has been suggested that cattle raised in either the Carolinas or the western part of
Virginia may well have been marketed in Williamsburg. This indeed may be the case, but
considering the similarities that exist between the urban and rural assemblages from the same
periods (1700-1740, 1750-1775, and 1775-1800), it seems unlikely that imported cattle played a
great role in provisioning Williamsburg residents. In summary, then, it appears that the specialized
fattening methods introduced first during the second quarter, then increasingly during the third
and fourth quarters of the eighteenth century, reduced the amount of time needed to fatten cattle,
and that many of these individuals were bound for market.
While the tooth wear data is statistically very weak, they provide a greater resolution in
the slaughter ages. Comparing the rural and urban data, they show that veal was marketed in town
Table 2.3.
YORK COUNTY PROBATE INVENTORY RECORDS
PERCENTAGE OF CATTLE IN VARIOUS AGE GROUPS
Age in Months
0-6
6-12
12-36
36-48
>48
1620-1660 1660-1700
0.0%
0.1%
0.8%
0.0%
58.8%
43.7%
20.6%
17.2%
19.8%
38.9%
Total Cattle (Specific Age 131
Given)
Young
Old
Total Cattle (General Age
Given)
Source:
Note:
1,482
1700-1750
0.0%
0.0%
63.2%
22.3%
14.5%
1,258
1750-1775
0.0%
0.0%
91.1%
6.7%
1.3%
1775-1800
0.0%
0.0%
93.7%
6.3%
0.0%
225
112
50.0%
50.0%
52.0%
48.0%
58.0%
42.0%
68.0%
32.0%
86.0%
14.0%
10
102
844
463
284
York County Records
Total number of probate records: 1620-1660 (52); 1660-1700 (214); 1700-1750 (628); 1750-1775 (316);
1775-1800 (172).
Table 2.4.
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY PROBATE INVENTORY RECORDS
PERCENTAGE OF CATTLE IN VARIOUS AGE GROUPS
Age in Months 1660-1700
12-36
36-48
>48
1700-1750 1750-1775
57.1%
46.0%
3.6%
26.6%
39.3%
27.6%
Total Cattle (Specific Age
Given)
Source:
Note:
28
3.570
1775-1800
57%
24.9%
18.1%
1,350
49.3%
28.0%
22.7%
708
Anne Arundel County Probate Records
Total number of probate records: 1660-1700 (4); 1700-1750 (777); 1750-1775 (542); 1775-1800 (707).
53
but seldom consumed on the plantation. Since there are consistently greater proportions of young
in the urban assemblages, it is also clear that proportionately greater amounts of young beef was
marketed in town then consumed on the plantation, since few cattle aged greater than 50 months
found their way to town. Aged beef was consumed either by the wealthy planter or his slaves.
Further evidence of the fattening of cattle for market is found in both the York County
and Anne Arundel County probate inventory records. As can be seen in the changing proportions
of age groups, as the eighteenth century progressed herds were composed of fewer and fewer
individuals aged greater than 48 months, while younger individuals became increasingly dominant.
Since the assemblages discussed are from sites located in and around Tidewater Virginia, the age
groups recorded in York County here may in fact be a better comparison than those from Anne
Arundel County. On the basis of this historical evidence, it would seem that commercial
production began in earnest after 1750, and increased in intensity after 1775.
In assessing the probate data, it is important to understand that in some cases exact ages
were recorded, but in many cases only general ages were written down. Thus, two figures have
been used, one that gives the proportions of known ages, and another that gives the general
categories of “Young” and “Old.” When each data set is viewed in its own terms, it becomes clear
that they show the same progression. The general grouping identifies the decreasing proportions
of older individuals, while the exact ages targets commercially-produced livestock to be in the 1236 month middle age groups, the same age group identified by the long bone data. Further
research with documentary sources, more detailed analyses of both archaeological age data and
probate inventories may help to refine this evidence.
Sheep
The introduction of increasing numbers of sheep in the Chesapeake during the late seventeenth
and early eighteenth centuries marks an important ecological shift that was similar to the one
Europe experienced from Neolithic times into the Roman occupation.96 As forests were felled and
fields created out of the woodlands, the keep for browsing cattle and pannaging swine was
correspondingly reduced, opening the way for short herbaceous plants that flourished in the
cleared environment to become established. Sheep thrived in this evolving landscape, and
populations flourished as they spread over the open faces of the countryside.97 In Britain where
forests were cleared sheep grew in importance, but where woodlands were maintained herding
remained strong.
Throughout the seventeenth-century Chesapeake, swine, cattle, horses, and (to a small
extent) goats fed with relative freedom in the woodlands, clearing the way for sheep. By 1688,
John Clayton remarked that most wealthy planters had begun to keep flocks of sheep, “so that a
piece of mutton is a finer treat than wither venison, wild goose, or duck.”98 Records are clear that
while the wealthy tended to keep the larger flocks, the poorer did maintain some, and the care
given them apparently was what they did for their cattle. In 1762, John Wiley wrote what was
96
Susan Alling Gregg, Foragers and Farmers: Population Interaction and Agricultural Expansion in
Prehistoric Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
97
Gregg, Foragers and Farmers; Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700, p. 34-36.
98
John Clayton, “A Letter from Mr. John Clayton, Rector of Crofton at Wakefield in Yorkshire, to the
Royal Society, May 12, 1688…,” in Force, Tracts and Other Papers, Vol. III, No. 12, p. 35.
54
probably a biased view: “...there is no dumb Creature taken so little Notice of in Virginia as they;
there being but very few People here that take Care to sow any Thing for Winter Pasturage for
them, or provide or give them any other food than a few dry Blades in the Winter.”99 Landon
Carter, a wealthy planter, in 1770 described the plight of less-well-off planters during times of bad
weather: “…his Creatures without food very little grass and too weak to range the wet woods for
the buds of trees. I have been obliged to give over feeding with Corn…a little to the poor suckling
Ewes …”.100
As the wealthy planters shifted their focus to raising sheep, so too came a shift from open
woodlands husbandry to the mixed species usage of pastures and enclosed fields. Specifically how
planters managed sheep within this system is more difficult to discern since most of the documents
examined record primarily lambing rates and deaths. But those that do exist indicate that they fed
them, like they did cattle, hogs, and horses, Indian corn, and blades and tops as fodder, but unlike
their poorer neighbors they created pens, as seen in the 1711 reference by William Byrd, who
referred to a sheep-pen and associated them with the care of his cattle, “We moved the sheep-pen
with the ox down the walk by the river.”101
Several planters referred to cows, sheep, and horses grazing alongside each other in their
diaries and written accounts of their farming activities.102 Lord Adam Gordon, for example, wrote
in 1765 of Virginia, “…their pastures afford them excellent Beef and Mutton, and their Woods
are Stocked with Venison, Game, and Hogs….”103 Landon Carter also probably practiced mixed
species grazing on pastures, for he wrote in 1770, “…I have seen every patch but the
meadow…But nothing grows and creatures are yet poor. The lambs not filled, the Ewes very
spindly, and the Cows with young calves [are pitifully] thin.”104
By the end of century, George Washington wrote specifically on the close herding
relationship that existed between wheat agriculture and sheep and cattle. “Arable land can yield
wheat only by means of Cattle and sheep. It is not dung that is wanted so much, as a change of
products, and repose under grass, which is the soul of management; all cleaning and tillage to be
given in the year that yields green winter food. In such a system you may produce by means of 40
oxen and 500 sheep, 5000 bushls. of wheat; and if you raise oxen to 60 and the Sheep to 600, you
may have so much more wheat. It is only by increasing Cattle that you can increase wheat
99
John Wily, A Treatise on the Propagation of Sheep, the Manufacture of Wool, and the Cultivation and
Manufacture of FLAX, with Directions for making several Utensils for the Business, p. 5.
100
Landon Carter, The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, Vol. I, pp. 378-379.
101
William Byrd, The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712. Ed. Louis B. Wright and
Marion Tinling (Richmond: Dietz Press, 1941), p. 355.
102
Durand de Dauphine , A Huguenot in Virginia or Voyages of a Frenchman exiled for his Religion with
a description of Virginia and Maryland., p, 119; Byrd, The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712,
p. 255.
103
“Journal of an Officer Who Travelled in America and the West Indies in 1764 and 1765.” Reproduced
in Newton D. Mereness, ed., Travels in the American Colonies (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916), pp.
405-406.
104
Landon Carter, The Diary of Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, Vol. I, p. 401.
55
permanently….”105 Wheat production depended upon cattle and sheep, who grazed upon stubble
fields, leaving their manure to enrich the soil. The agricultural benefit is clear.
The wealthier that left records, however, show that by the early eighteenth century some
were raised on clover and fed oats, while others were allowed into peach orchards along with
hogs, although Joseph Ball remarked in 1744 that they did more harm than the other animals.106
By the 1760s and 1770s planters were consciously incorporating specialized husbandry methods
into raising sheep, just as they were doing for their cattle. Landon Carter provided lambs, along
with yearling cattle, a house and large yard for them to lie in, and fed them hominy beat fine,
fodder, and corn.107 Some were also kept in stalls, along with milch cows, oxen, and beeves.108
Records indicate they, like cattle, were fed food, such as turnips, pea vines, and buck wheat that
were recommended by progressive agriculturalists such as Arthur Young.109 Thomas Jefferson,
for example, sowed turnips on the wheat stubble, then folded his sheep on the field.110
Although evidence is thin, some of these references to sheep and cattle being pastured
together specify cows, a provocative clue that opens the door to understanding the complexities
of plantation husbandry. Quite possibly, cattle tended to be allowed to graze in the woodlands,
while cows, who may have been with calf, were more likely to be kept closer to home where they
could be milked more easily.
Archaeological age data from the rural and urban eighteenth century assemblages provide
a useful measure of the changes that occurred in sheep husbandry (see Figs. 2.15 and 2.16). The
long bone data demonstrates that in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, sheep
were raised for their meat, since these slaughter profiles show a predominance of individuals that
were killed during their second and third year. However, they show as the century progressed the
older individuals increase dramatically in the rural assemblages, indicating sheep were increasingly
were being raised for their wool. Meat had become a secondary product.
Comparing the urban assemblages to the rural of the same time period, it becomes
apparent that the urban assemblages mirror the rural assemblages, but contain at any given period
more younger individuals than the rural assemblages, and the rural assemblages contain
proportionately more older individuals. This is particularly true for the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, a sign that the urban market for sheep had increased.
Comparing this evidence with the tooth wear data, there are in any given time period a
greater proportion of the youngest age group, but by looking at them in their own terms, and
105
“From George Washington,” in John Catanzariti, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. XXVI
(1793) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 28.
106
Hugh Jones, The Present State of Virginia, p. 78; Ball, “Instructions for my Newphew Jos. Chinn in
Virginia to observe abut my affairs there,” pp. 8, 15.
107
Landon Carter, The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, Vol. I, pp. 381-382.
108
Robert Carter, “Memorandum Concerning Building of Stalls for Cows.” (Carter Papers. Day Book and
Letter Book of Robert Carter of Nomini Hall. Vol. XIII, January 1, 1773 to November 9, 1776), p. 152.
109
George Washington, The Diaries of George Washington, Vol. III (1786-1788). Ed. John C.
Fitzpatrick (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925), pp. 230, 255.
110
Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book with Commentary and Relevant Extracts from Other
Writings. Facsimile eition. Ed. Edwin Morris Betts (Princeton: Published for the American Philosophical Society
by Princeton University Press, 1953), p. 80.
56
Rural 1750-1775
N=181
Rural 1700-1740
N=78
Rural 1775-1800
N=249
6-10
4%
6-10
5%
6-10
9%
>42
52%
>42
40%
>42
63%
12-36
21%
12-36
23%
12-36
27%
36-42
32%
36-42
23%
Urban 1775-1800
N=95
Urban 1750-1775
N=250
Urban 1700-1740
N=82
>42
30%
36-42
1%
6-10
13%
12-36
8%
12-36
24%
12-36
30%
36-42
49%
6-10
6%
>42
42%
6-10
8%
>42
53%
36-42
28%
36-42
9%
Figure 2.15. Domestic caprine kill-off patterns based on long bone fusion.
Rural 1700-1740
N=4
Rural 1750-1775
N=26
Rural 1775-1800
N=87
48-120
72-120
8%
12%
36-96
14%
0-12
22%
36-48
48-120
25%
36-96
25%
48-120
26%
36-96
14%
8%
0-12
50%
24-48
12%
Urban 1700-1750
N=48
24-36
12%
12-36
8%
36-48
11%
12-24
4%
Urban 1750-1775
N=15
48-120
15%
48-120
13%
24-36
10%
72-120
13%
36-96
4%
48-120
17%
36-48
13%
36-96
20%
0-12
47%
0-12
56%
24-36
7%
12-24
7%
24-36
24%
12-36
3%
24-48
3%
Urban 1775-1800
N=23
72-120
6%
36-48
13%
0-12
5%
72-120
7%
24-48
4%
72-120
9%
0-12
36%
24-36
13%
12-24
4%
Figure 2.16. Domestic caprine kill-off patterns based on tooth wear.
57
Table 2.5.
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY PROBATE INVENTORIES
SHEEP HERD AGE STRUCTURE
Age Group 1660-1700
Young
Old
1700-1750 1750-1775
0.0%
22.8%
0.0%
77.2%
Total Sheep (General Age
Given)
Source:
Note:
0
732
1775-1800
2.9%
97.1%
1,062
4.0%
96.0%
790
Anne Arundel County Records
Total number of probate records: 1660-1700 (4); 1700-1750 (777); 1750-1775 (542); 1775-1800 (707).
comparing the urban and rural assemblages for any given period, lamb is more prevalent in the
urban than rural assemblages. Alternatively, for the older individuals, as seen in the groups greater
than 48 months, there seems to be no distinction between urban and rural, a sign that aged mutton
was as desirable as younger mutton.
Probate inventory data from Anne Arundel County unfortunately did not record the
specific ages of sheep. General categories of young and old, however, were recorded, and they
can give a general indication of the trend in herd populations. These data, in fact, support the
archaeological evidence, suggesting that beginning at mid-century, sheep herds increased in age.
The combined historical and archaeological evidence demonstrate the close relationship
that existed between the herding environment, which evolved to support the sheep herds. Through
livestock continually feeding in the woodlands, colonists felling forests, and in their place creating
a landscape of fields, pastures, and orchards, the world in which livestock lived slowly changed.
With tobacco farming depleting the soils, and tobacco prices falling in Europe, planters shifted
their commercial energies into their animals, which originally had been raised for subsistence
purposes. As planters shifted their business interests to cattle, hogs, and sheep, they moved
consciously to alter the herding system to a commercial base. The changes went hand-in-hand
with the growing urban markets in the Chesapeake.
This study of archaeological slaughter patterns and animal husbandry has demonstrated
that patterns present in the archaeological record reflect broad economic trends in the regional
market system. Urban households that live in urban communities, therefore, are enmeshed in
economic trade systems and personal choice is limited by the availability of foods.
The closeness that existed between the regional agricultural system and the urban market
is reminiscent of such systems that exist in the modern Third World, where food staples such as
meats, grains, and vegetables are produced locally.111 In these unspecialized markets, residents
often maintain some relationship with rural producers. Some urban dwellers own nearby farms,
some depend upon kin or friends to provide them with food, and others purchase meat from
111
Davis, Social Relations in a Philippine Market; Beals, The Peasant Market System of Oaxaca, Mexico;
Mintz, “Pratik: Haitian Personal Economic Relationships”; Florence Babb, Between Field and Cooking Pot: The
Political Economy of Market Women in Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989).
58
farmers at the local marketplace. The age data that shows such a close similarity, particularly
during the first half of the eighteenth century demonstrates that this was true of Williamsburg.
Studies of these Third World markets have shown that, as urban centers grow and become
more commercially-based, personal relationships give way to impersonal business relationships,
and the flow of rural produce into town increases. Farmers respond to this new opportunity by
intensifying subsistence-oriented forms of husbandry.
Zooarchaeologists have demonstrated how the process of urbanization affects animal
husbandry.112 In small-scale systems, farmers raise a variety of livestock to produce meat and
other products primarily for their own consumption, although they also produce small surpluses
that they sell to urban consumers. The ages of animals found in urban assemblages, therefore,
resemble those found in rural sites. But in large-scale economies, specialized husbandry methods
to raise younger animals specifically for sale are adopted. Through the comparison of rural and
urban assemblages, age profiles from rural assemblages should differ from age profiles from urban
assemblages, and the slaughter patterns should show evidence of specialized forms of animal
husbandry.
Age data derived from the many rural and urban sites located in and around Williamsburg
monitor the growth of commercialized animal husbandry in the Chesapeake. In general, the
closeness between the early eighteenth century rural and urban age profiles show that during the
first half of the eighteenth century, Williamsburg and its residents remained intimately tied to their
rural surroundings. Some commercial activity is evident in the greater proportions of young veal,
younger mutton, lamb, and younger beef that found their way into urban kitchens and into urban
trash heaps, but the striking similarity indicates that a measurable degree of dependence on market
foods came only after 1750, then grew increasingly thereafter.
D. IMPACT OF TOWNS ON RURAL MARKET ORIENTATION AND
SPECIALIZATION
Our project has clearly demonstrated that nearby planters responded positively and creatively to
the markets offered by even very small urban populations. The populations of the towns of
Williamsburg and Annapolis, the urban places on which we have concentrated our study, were
never large by any standard. In the first three quarters of the eighteenth century, the proportion of
the Chesapeake populations living in towns seems to have remained relatively constant. In
Maryland, for example, Annapolitans constituted 6% of the people of surrounding Anne Arundel
County in 1704, 7% in 1755, and still only 6% in 1782-83.113 In Virginia, colonial urban
112
J. Mark Maltby, Faunal Studies on Urban Sites: The Animal Bones from Exeter 1971-1975, Exeter
Archaeological Reports (Exeter: Sheffield University, Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, 1979); Zeder,
Feeding Cities; Gil J. Stein, “Regional Economic Integration in Early State Societies: Third Millennium B. C.
Pastoral Production at Gritille, Southeast Turkey,” Paleorient 13(2):101-111; Kathleen Galvin, “Forms of Finance
and Forms of Production: The Evolution of Specialized Livestock Production in the Ancient near East,” in E.
Brumfiel and T. Earle, eds., Specialization, Exchange, and Complex Societies (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge
University Press, 1987), pp. 119-129.
113
Lorena S. Walsh, “Anne Arundel County Population,” in “Annapolis and Anne Arundel County,
Maryland: A Study of Urban Development in a Tobacco Economy, 1649-1775,” Final Report to the National
Endowment for the Humanities, Grant No. RS-20199-91-1955, 1983.
59
populations were similarly small, and it is likely that their proportion of total local populations
also remained relatively constant. After the Revolution in older tidewater counties the percentage
of town dwellers rose, not because these towns were growing, but because surrounding rural
areas were declining in population. For example in 1790 Williamsburg and Yorktown residents
were 18% of the total population of the two counties (York and James City) surrounding the
towns.114 In the third quarter of the century, only the port of Norfolk surpassed Williamsburg in
population, and its total size prior to the Revolution has probably been exaggerated.115 The size of
the resident town populations, however, to some extent minimizes the full scope of these urban
markets. During meetings of colonial legislatures and provincial courts, the temporary populations
of the capital towns swelled considerably, offering briefly expanded marketing opportunities for
rural suppliers able to respond to increased short term demands. Similarly, marketing
opportunities in the port towns included the periodic provisioning of large numbers of ships
engaged in the tobacco, grain, and West Indian trades, as well as supplying the more predictable
needs of permanent town dwellers. Inland towns such as Winchester, Virginia, and Frederick,
Maryland, also served as regional provisioning markets for streams of migrants passing through to
the south and west, and, especially during the French and Indian War, as centers of distribution
for colonial and imperial armies.
After the American Revolution, the pull of town markets increased dramatically, if
unevenly. Many of Virginia’s towns were severely and adversely affected by the British naval
blockade of the Chesapeake throughout most of the conflict; more isolated Baltimore prospered,
but Norfolk burned, and Yorktown never recovered from the devastation inflicted by occupying
forces. Annapolis, which continued after the war as the Maryland state capital, gained population
up to 1800; then its size stabilized up to 1830 at around 2,200. Once Virginia’s capital moved to
Richmond in 1780, Williamsburg became no more than a sleepy, inconsequential county seat.
Between 1790 and 1830 Williamsburg’s population fluctuated between 1,200 and 1,400, its size
in 1782. But elsewhere in the state, Alexandria, Fredericksburg, Norfolk, Petersburg, Portsmouth,
and Winchester grew into towns of a size similar to or surpassing Williamsburg. And at the same
time a number of other, smaller Virginia towns also reached populations of between 300 and 600,
enough, our study suggests, to have had a demonstrable impact on farmers living in their
immediate hinterlands. 116
During and after the Revolution, Baltimore developed as the region’s first true city,
reaching a population of over 13,000 by 1790. The Baltimore market, not surprisingly, markedly
affected the management strategies of planters and farmers living within the immediate marketing
area. In addition, the pull of this market was so strong that large planters living as far away as the
relatively isolated lower Eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia, as well as in the Maryland and
Virginia Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley, occasionally opted to send crops, the District of
Columbia was established, similar local dynamics of demand and supply began to produce, and
114
Kevin P. Kelly, “The People of York County in the Eighteenth Century,” in “Urbanization in the
Tidewater South, Part II: The Growth and Development of Williamsburg and Yorktown,” Final Report to the
National Endowment for the Humanities, Project No. RO-20869-85, 1989.
115
Michael L. Nicholls, “Aspects of the African American Experience in Eighteenth-Century
Williamsburg and Norfolk,” ms. report, 1990.
116
See, for example, Robert D. Mitchell, Commercialism and Frontier: Perspectives on the Early
Shenandoah Valley (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977), pp. 196-99.
60
Table 2.6.
POPULATION OF SELECTED CHESAPEAKE TOWNS, 1704-1790
Town
Annapolis
Baltimore
Alexandria
Fredericksburg
Norfolk
Petersburg
Portsmouth
Richmond
Williamsburg
Winchester
Yorktown
1704
272
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
1747-8
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
885
——
——
1755
875
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
——
1775
1,299
——
——
——
c.3,000
——
——
——
1,880
——
——
1782
1,152
——
——
——
1,210
——
——
972
1,424
——
——
1790
2,170
13,503
2,748
1,485
2,959
2,828
1,702
3,761
1,344
1,651
661
Sources: Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790 (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1908); Lorena S. Walsh, “Anne Arundel County Population,” in “Annapolis
and Anne Arundel County, Maryland: A Study of Urban Development in a Tobacco Economy, 16491775, Final Report to the National Endowment for the Humanities, Grant No. RS-20199-91-1955, 1983;
Edward C. Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the Era of the American
Revolution, 1763-1805 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), pp. 14-15, 155; Kevin P.
Kelly, “The People of York County in the Eighteenth Century,” in “Urbanization in the Tidewater South,
Part II: The Growth and Development of Williamsburg and Yorktown,” Final Report to the National
Endowment for the Humanities, Project No. RO-20869-85, 1989; Michael L. Nicholls, “Aspects of the
African American Experience in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg and Norfolk,” ms. report, 1990.
livestock there instead of selling to local dealers. Once the new national capital in influence the
production strategies of planters within effective transport range.117
The extent of planters’ responses to these emerging markets has been minimized in the
historical literature because, in part, some of the effects of these markets cannot readily be
distinguished from the effects of rising inter-colonial and trans-Atlantic demands for basic
foodstuffs. In the second three quarters of the eighteenth century, towns were just one of several
growing markets for wheat, corn, and, to a lesser extent, livestock, to which planters responded.
General management strategies and mix of major cash crops were similar on plantations like
Carter’s Grove, that was producing everything but tobacco primarily for town markets, and other
large plantations distant from and uninvolved with urban provisioning. Europe, the West Indies,
and the northern colonies constituted much larger markets that, given trade networks centered on
Britain, were as easy or easier to reach than many urban markets inside the region.
The differential impact of urban demands for grain and livestock becomes clear from
comparison of Table 2.7, which shows Williamsburg’s estimated requirements for meat and grain
in 1775, when its population was at its height for this period, with Table 2.8 which records the
quantities of foodstuffs sold off the adjoining Bray and Burwell plantations. Between 1765 and
1781 (when production records are relatively complete), the Burwell plantations alone produced
enough surplus corn annually to supply the standard adult requirement of three barrels of shelled
117
Lorena S. Walsh, “Chesapeake Planters and the International Market, 1770-1820,” in Lois Green Carr:
The Chesapeake and Beyond—A Celebration (Crownsville, Md.: Maryland Historical & Cultural Publications,
1992); Walsh, “‘To Labour for Profit.’”
61
Table 2.7.
WILLIAMSBURG’S POPULATION AND ESTIMATED FOOD REQUIREMENTS IN 1775
Category
a
Whites
Males 16 and over
Males under 16
b
Females
[16 and over]
[under 16]
Total Whites
Blacks
Males 16 and over
Males under 16
Females
[16 and over]
[under 16]
Total Blacks
Total
Notes:
Meat
Pounds
Corn
Barrels
Wheat
Bushels
327
178
389
[195]
[194]
894
119,355
38,982
981
320
654
214
59,075
42,486
259,898
585
349
2,235
324
233
1,425
263
206
517
[289]
[228]
986
1,880
13,676
5,356
789
309
0
0
15,028
5,928
39,988
299,886
867
324
2,307
4,542
0
0
0
1,425
Number
a
includes free blacks; b Females were not classified in the census by age.
The figures in brackets are estimations. For whites, it was assumed that there were equal numbers
above and below 16, the approximate proportion in a Maryland census of 1755. The number of adult
black females, following Kelly, “The People of York County,” p. 9, was estimated by applying the childadult ratio reported for black males.
Meat consumption was estimated as follows. For adult white males 1 lb. per day, for adult white females
.83 lb. per day, for white children .6 lb. per day. For adult black males and females 1 lb per week; for
black children .5 lb. per week.
Corn consumption was estimated at 3 bbls. per year for all adults and 1.5 bbls. for all children.
Wheat consumption was estimated at 2 bu. per year for adult white men, 1.66 bu. per year for adult
white women, and 1.2 bu. for children.
Table 2.8.
QUANTITIES OF SELECTED FOODS SOLD FROM THE
BURWELL AND BRAY PLANTATIONS, 1736-1789
Year
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
Corn
Barrels
25
27
61
60
15
64
22
330
157
54
8
11
Wheat Cornmeal
Bushels Bushels
29
86
30
45
3
47
92
39
53
Flour
Lbs.
59
46
56
56
98
39
Pork
Lbs.
Beef
Lbs.
Mutton
Lbs.
Butter
Lbs.
1459
2170
2170
2170
2835
1082
140
130
309
49
49
50
1125
1116
1899
748
1641
141
149
143
146
336
107
174
35
137
25
9
9
10
9002
440
13
322
638
2261
7061
62
62
9125
23
69
Table 2.8 (cont’d).
QUANTITIES OF SELECTED FOODS PRODUCED ON THE
BURWELL AND BRAY PLANTATIONS, 1736-1789
Year
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
Corn
Barrels
420
225
7
5
1
14
5
679
465
621
725
487
296
377
471
4
1673
1172
671
56
267
53
107
38
40
58
137
482
63
144
46
13
Wheat Cornmeal
Bushels Bushels
Pork
Lbs.
Beef
Lbs.
1056
403
600
3538
171
9618
3120
390
767
670
2843
2405
87
381
373
456
531
479
102
462
49
758
939
891
285
822
763
202
561
61
52
79
118
1
29
3
1
87
Flour
Lbs.
Mutton
Lbs.
108
888
917
836
946
1366
781
551
349
488
134
180
2
6
1994
89
527
475
37
10
1
715
107
522
44
12
6
4294
47924
23626
12555
78
580
3060
1062
1165
9737
1440
155
683
4511
218
80
29
12444
2001
9650
362
3835
1292
1085
704
1220
193
35
540
704
828
3047
243
381
2828
2460
807
117
239
Butter
Lbs.
49
59
306
500
479
12
1290
1171
32
149
5
Sources: Burwell and Bray Plantation Accounts.
Notes:
Quantities of products sold is understated for the 1750s, 1772-73, and the 1780s, years for which the
plantation records are incomplete. Butter sales were probably reported only in the early 1740s and for
the 1760s. Meat sales are slightly understated since some unspecified quantities could not be included,
no attempt was made to convert some parts of animals sold into pounds where the weight of the piece
was not stated, and sales of a small number of live cattle and sheep were omitted, since some of these
may have been sold for breeding purposes rather than for meat.
63
corn a year for at least 150 non farming adult town residents.118 Ten large plantations producing
at a comparable level could have supplied all of Williamsburg’s needs for corn to feed both the
humans and their urban animals. Great planters of course were not the only area farmers
producing surplus grains, so it is clear that urban needs could be easily met from nearby
plantations.
Williamsburg’s wheat requirements were probably quite modest. A variety of records from
Chesapeake plantations make it clear that corn was the predominant grain consumed in the
countryside; even elite rural families reserved only a few bushels out of a year’s crop for
household use. Urban household accounts, discussed below, make it clear that town dwellers did
consume more wheat bread than countryfolk. Cultural preferences may well have played a role,
especially among European immigrants, as did the ability, seldom present in the countryside, to
purchase ready-baked bread in town. For town dwellers who lacked the time or the domestic staff
to prepare meals that needed long cooking, wheat bread was a decided convenience. Still we are
certain that they ate far less than the pound of wheat bread a day that it is estimated adult laborers
in Philadelphia ate at this time. A pound of bread per week, or about one bushel of wheat per
year, appears much closer to the mark.119 However in this estimate we set consumption for the
white population at 2 bushels per year for adult men and proportional amounts for women and
children. The half of Williamsburg’s population who were enslaved surely consumed little or no
wheat. So when one adds in the even greater amount of wheat flour sold from Burwell’s mill in its
years of maximum production (1776-78), it appears that a single big plantation was capable of
providing between a third and a half of Williamsburg’s likely demand for this grain. Consequently
it becomes immediately clear that production of grains for local urban markets was an option only
for a limited number of planters and farmers in immediately surrounding areas.
Provisioning of livestock, however, was another matter. Over the same period, the
Burwell plantations produced enough surplus pork and beef to feed only 10 town dwellers at the
rate of a pound of meat per day, the customary allotment for soldiers and free male laborers, and
up to 70 at the niggardly provisioning rate of a pound of meat per week then customarily allotted
to adult plantation slaves.120 Urban demands for meat thus appear to have had a much broader
impact on farmers in both surrounding and more distant areas than did demands for grain, a
finding that validates our initial decision to place special emphasis on this subject in our research
design. Large planters in the immediate area could and did increase meat production to some
extent, but, absent a through going commitment to intensive livestock husbandry, they could not
supply town demands for meat on nearly the same scale as they could town demands for grain.
Some rough calculations based on Williamsburg’s census for 1775 illustrate the magnitude of the
difference. If one allots the free male population age 16 and over a pound of meat per day, free
adult females .83 pound, those under 16 years .6 pound, and the adult slaves a pound per week
118
For the standard ration see Carr, Menard, and Walsh, Robert Cole’s World, pp. 36-37.
Smith, The “Lower Sort”, pp. 97-98. Smith estimated that in addition to the pound of bread per day,
Philadelphia workers consumed 45 pounds of corn meal per year. If Chesapeake residents ate corn and wheat in
inverse proportions, this implies consumption of a bushel of wheat per year.
120
Smith, The “Lower Sort”, pp. 98-99; Philip Ludwell Lee Ledger, 1743-1783, Ms, Perkins Library,
Duke University; Walsh, “Work and Resistance in the New Republic: The Case of the Chesapeake, 1770-1820,” in
Mary Turner, ed., From Chattel Slaves to Wage Slaves: The Dynamics of Labour Bargaining in the Americas
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 98-105.
119
64
and the children half a pound per week, then the meat requirements of the total population would
have been about 300,000 pounds a year. Pork and beef sold off Carter’s Grove averaged only
3,600 pounds a year between 1769 and 1778, just over 1% of the estimated need of the resident
population. The pull of urban meat markets thus affected not only some as yet unidentified
combination of large, middling, and small planters in the immediate hinterlands of the town, but of
more distant producers as well.
Although the total populations of Williamsburg and Annapolis were of similar size across
much of the period studied here, it is likely that their total provisioning requirements differed
somewhat. At the outbreak of the Revolution, only half of Williamsburg’s residents were whites
or free blacks, but in Annapolis, free persons were 65% of that town’s population. Evidence from
probate inventories suggests that slaves were proportionately fewer in Annapolis than in
Williamsburg in earlier years as well. The higher proportion of whites in Annapolis likely meant
that Annapolitans’ aggregate demand for meat and wheat was somewhat greater than that of
Williamsburg residents overall. Any additional wheat the larger free population of Annapolis may
have consumed would have been too small to have any impact on surrounding farms. But the
analysis of rural meat production presented here, coupled with the archaeological evidence,
suggests that the protein demands of only a few extra free households were sufficient to affect
livestock management strategies among local farmers.
Moreover, the individual plantation records we analyzed for this project, as do the records
of other Chesapeake farmers, suggest that planters found it much easier to expand outputs of
surplus pork than of beef. Additional hogs could be fattened on inferior corn, the supply of which
increased with expanded corn production, and on bran, a by-product of milling, while the number
of cattle that a planter could maintain remained much more dependent on available and
increasingly stressed woodland and pasture resources. The evidence from the plantation records
shows that in the last half of the eighteenth century, large planters were not producing nearly as
much surplus beef as they were pork. Given the clear archaeological evidence of consumption of
nearly equal proportions of beef and pork, it follows that urban residents regularly drew on more
distant sources for beef than they likely did for pork.
65
66
III. PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD IN
TOWNS
A. OVERVIEW OF SOURCES OF SUPPLY, CONSUMER STRATEGIES,
AND MARKET ORIENTATION
In addition to direct purchase of foodstuffs from large area planters, Chesapeake town dwellers
also turned to other, town based sources to supply some of their dietary wants and needs. This
section addresses these other sources of supply—self-sufficient production, town markets,
intermediate processors, retail stores, mills, taverns, and petty hucksters. As town populations
grew across the eighteenth century, markets and middlemen played an expanded role in town
provisioning, and relations between consumers and producers began to change, shifting to some
extent from ad hoc personal exchanges to the more impersonal relationships characteristic of large
cities like Baltimore. Williamsburg, Annapolis, and even Norfolk and Richmond had not yet
reached this scale, but even in these towns, residents were not totally isolated from the forces of
increasingly integrated national and international markets in the early years of the new republic.
In small-scale regional market systems such as the one that developed in the Chesapeake
early in the eighteenth century, the business of provisioning was conducted largely on the basis of
personal, face-to-face relationships. Some Williamsburg residents kept a cow or two in town, or
they owned a nearby plantation from which they could obtain food, while others depended upon
kin or friends living in the nearby countryside to provide them with food. Families who lacked
these economic and social resources purchased meat and other produce from area planters like the
Burwells and Brays, or at the local marketplace from smaller farmers and from slaves. Middlemen
such as merchants, butchers, and other purveyors of regionally-produced foods initially had a
relatively small role to play in provisioning urban consumers.
As the eighteenth century progressed, Williamsburg’s population increased and the
availability of lands in town where livestock could be kept diminished. As a result of this urban
growth, middlemen increasingly took over the role of urban provisioning, and urban households
came to rely to a greater and greater extent on commercially-produced foods. The extent to which
individuals relied upon these sources varied, depending upon their own inclination as well as their
personal resources. Some continued to grow foods in their gardens, or keep livestock nearby in
pastures and in stalls; some no doubt continued to obtain foods from their personal networks;
others bought varying amounts from merchants, butchers, and the marketplace.
Following accepted practice, townspeople who owned livestock could let them run freely
on nearby lands. But beginning as early as the first decades of the eighteenth century, attempts
were made to restrict the presence of livestock in town. As the numbers of grazing livestock
increased, nearby lands felt the impact of too many animals, and laws were passed to protect the
landowner’s ability to maintain his own herds. In the town of West Point in 1713, those living in
67
town who had no freehold or tenancy in lands were restricted to keeping only two cows and two
horses. 1 No doubt this forced a change on urban husbandry practices.
Probate inventories left by Williamsburg residents indicate that during the first half of the
eighteenth century, only a few urban residents owned large numbers of cattle. James McKindo,
for instance, owned 49 cattle, including cattle, cows, and calves, and Giles Moody owned 34
head, but generally those who left probate records owned at the time of their death one or maybe
two cows and a calf. By the 1760s and 1770s, it appears very few kept large herds, although
William Prentis owned 42 head of cattle when he died in 1765, and Governor Francis Fauquier
owned 22 head in 1772. Generally speaking, large herds had receded to the countryside.
Bones thrown away by urban diners can often help elucidate the relationships that existed
between the regional agricultural system, the urban market, availability of staple foods, and degree
to which urban households depended upon commercial food sources. Zooarchaeologists, who
have worked with bones from ancient civilizations where large-scale market systems evolved,
have developed three means to measure the degree of urban dependency on commerciallyproduced foods: age profiles, dietary diversity, and element distributions.2 In an urban
environment, age profiles from domesticated cattle, pigs, and sheep should show a specialized
form of animal husbandry. The variety and relative importance of different animals should reveal
whether the combination of decreased habitat in urban areas and decreased contact with rural
residents markedly reduced the availability of wild animals for urban consumers. Element
distributions of the major domestic mammals should show the effects of commercial butchery and
marketing. Taken as a whole, these pieces of evidence measure the extent to which a provisioning
system had become specialized.3
In practice, interpreting these changes has been an extremely complex task. The group of
faunal assemblages that has been pulled together for the Chesapeake, however, has provided an
unparalleled opportunity to explore the intricacies of provisioning in complex societies. Rural
assemblages date from the first decades of settlement through the early nineteenth century, and
urban assemblages date from the first years when Williamsburg and Annapolis were established
through the colonial period. Together the rural and urban assemblages have helped to identify in
greater detail that ever before the complexities of urban provisioning as it was played out in a
plantation economy based on slave labor and the commercial production of tobacco.
Age Data
As developed in the previous chapter, slaughter ages reveal the extent to which rural producers
had adopted specialized techniques aimed at raising livestock for sale rather than home
consumption. Summarizing age data obtained for cattle, swine, and sheep, it appears that it was
mid-century when wealthy planters began to intensify their efforts at raising livestock for sale. See
1
Hening, The Statutes at Large, Vol. IV, VIII, pp. 46-47.
2
Pam J. Crabtree, “Zooarchaeology and Complex Societies: Some Uses of Faunal Analysis for the Study of
Trade, Social Status, and Ethnicity,” in Michael B. Schiffer, ed., Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 2
(Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1990), pp. 155-205.
3
Zeder, Feeding Cities.
68
Chapter 2 for a full interpretation of the results obtained from slaughter data, and Appendix 3 for
a discussion of the technical aspects of aging archaeological remains.
Diversity Estimates
The second measure used to establish the extent to which urban residents depend upon
commercial food sources is an assessment of the amount of diversity of domesticated and wild
animals in the diet. It is assumed that in small-scale systems, where urban consumers have direct
ties to food producers, they have access to the same animals as rural consumers, and consequently
the diversity present in rural and urban assemblages is similar. But in large-scale economies,
where urban consumers depend almost completely on market sources for their food, there is a
narrower range of animals from which to choose. As a result of the decreased availability, faunal
assemblages from urban sites tend to show less diversity than assemblages from rural sites.
Most commonly, divergence between the rural and urban diet is viewed in terms of the
number of wildlife species present and the proportion of wild vs. domestic taxa. Archaeologists
working with historic faunal assemblages in North America have hypothesized that the
proportional decrease of wildlife in urban diets is the direct result of diminishing habitat, although
recent work has demonstrated that commercial fishing at times had the opposite effect of
increasing the number of fish available to urban consumers.4 Clearly, the question of the
diminishing presence of wildlife in the urban diet needs further exploration.
Results of dietary analyses for the faunal assemblages gathered for this study are mixed.
They show slightly lower proportions of wildlife in urban sites, a general observation that would
provide mild support to the zooarchaeological claim that urban diets should show an increasing
dependence on domestic food sources. But the percentages for both rural and urban sites are too
small to make any interpretation about whether the small proportion of wildlife is related to
diminished habitat, rural connections, or, particularly in the case of fish, the commercial marketing
of different sources of wildlife. Further work is are needed to identify differences that might be
present.
It appears that, for both rural and urban consumers, wildlife was never a significant factor
in the Chesapeake diet. In the seventeenth century wildlife made up anywhere from 9% to 23% of
the total meat diet. In the eighteenth century the total consumption of wildlife remained a small
and even less significant part of most people’s diets. Despite this, there was a disparity between
the rural and urban diet as early as 1700-1740. Differences are very slight, and useable meat
weight and biomass estimates differ slightly, but each demonstrates that throughout the eighteenth
century urban dwellers consumed less wildlife than their rural neighbors.
In terms of useable meat weights, during the 1700-1740 period the rural diet consisted of
6% wild, while the urban diet consisted of 5% wild; during the 1750-1775 period the rural diet
consisted of 9% wild, while the urban diet consisted of 4% wild; then during the 1775-1800
period the rural diet consisted of 5% wild, while the urban diet consisted of 4% wild (Figs. 3.1
and 3.2). In terms of biomass estimates, during the 1700-1740 period the rural diet consisted of
4
Nan Rothschild, “The Effect of Urbanization on Faunal Diversity: A Comparison between New York City
and St. Augustine, Florida, in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in Robert Leonard and George Jones, eds.
Quantifying Diversity in Archaeology (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989), 92-99.
69
90.0
80.0
Cattle
Caprine
Other Wild
Percent Meat Weight
70.0
Swine
Domestic Fowl
Fish
60.0
54.0
50.0
50.7
48.0
47.1
45.3
40.4
40.0
30.0
17.3
20.0
9.0
10.0
10.8
9.7
3.5
0.5
12.1
9.4
4.3
2.2
16.9
16.7
9.1
7.1
4.2
0.6 1.8 0.7
3.0 1.6
0.2
Rural 1700-1740
(3 sites)
Rural 1750-1775
(2 sites)
2.9
0.1
0.2
2.0
3.5
0.6
0.4
2.7
4.8
0.0
Rural 1620-1660
(4 sites)
Rural 1660-1700
(2 sites)
Rural Early 19th
Century
(2 sites)
Rural 1775-1800
(2 sites)
Figure 3.1. Relative dietary importance in rural Chesapeake,
th
1620-early 19 century. Based on biomass.
90.0
80.0
Cattle
Caprine
Other Wild
Percent Meat Weight
70.0
Swine
Domestic Fowl
Fish
60.3
60.0
53.9
50.1
50.0
40.0
35.9
33.1
29.6
29.4
30.0
20.0
10.0
5.7
4.6
0.6 0.6 0.3
0.3 0.8 0.6
Williamsburg
1750-1775
(5 sites)
9.0
6.8
4.4
0.0
Williamsburg
1700-1740
(3 sites)
16.6
14.1
14.8
14.5
12.8
0.3 0.6 0.6
Williamsburg
1775-1800
(4 sites)
0.9 1.2
1.7
Annapolis
1700-1750
(Early Calvert)
3.6
0.9 0.8 0.8
Annapolis
1750-1775
(Reynold's
Tavern)
12.5
11.2
0.8
3.2 1.6
Annapolis
Mid-Late 18th C.
(Late Calvert)
5.1
0.6
2.7 1.4
Annapolis
Late18-Early 19th C.
(Jonas Green)
Figure 3.2. Relative dietary importance in urban Chesapeake areas,
th
1700-early 19 century. Based on biomass.
3% wild, while the urban diet consisted of 1% wild. During the 1750-1775 period the rural diet
consisted of 7% wild, while the urban diet consisted of 2%; and lastly during the 1775-1800
period, the rural diet consisted of 3% wild, while the urban diet consisted of 2% wild.
While the urban data does differ somewhat from the rural, there is also significant regional
variability between the upper and lower Chesapeake. The diets of Annapolis residents differed
significantly from the diets of Williamsburg residents. Why is this so? Even though historians have
70
shown that from the early years of settlement variability in agricultural production was present in
the Chesapeake, zooarchaeologists have presumed that dietary patterns were largely identical
throughout the region.5 Such a position is based on the implicit assumption that dietary
differences reflect a “Chesapeake culture.” Normally, boundary definitions are defined internally,
i.e., if a region such as the Chesapeake perceives itself, or is perceived by others to be a distinct
and cohesive group, foodways will be perceived in those terms.6 So firm has this assumption been
for the Chesapeake, that debates explaining variability seen in the archaeological record have
focused on excavation recovery methods, analytical techniques, even sometimes the identification
skill of the analyst. Never has intra-regional variability been an issue. It should be.
It appears that intra-regional agricultural variability within the Chesapeake was strong
enough to cause the diets of Williamsburg and Annapolis residents to differ significantly. While
Annapolis and Williamsburg residents consumed the same items, the proportions differed
significantly. In fact, the diets of Williamsburg residents had more distinct similarities with the
diets of their rural counterparts.
These dietary differences could be attributed to distinct cultural differences that evolved in
the northern and southern Chesapeake. Distinct differences now discerned in architectural features
of the surviving houses in Annapolis and Williamsburg support this interpretation, but the
similarity between the faunal assemblages from Williamsburg and the nearby hinterlands,
combined with distinctly different proportions of livestock and wildlife from all the Annapolis
assemblages from all time periods and all households, suggests that variability in agriculture
played a stronger role in defining diet. Cultural differences between the two areas may have been
expressed in how individuals prepared their foods and how they served them. But the consistency
of the diet which crossed over socioeconomic levels and over long time periods of time, leads to
the conclusion that it was agricultural differences between the rural areas surrounding
Williamsburg and Annapolis, including the availability of livestock, that were distinct and different
enough to alter dietary patterns.
Even during the early years of settlement in the area surrounding Jamestown, cattle
became the predominant livestock. Pigs contributed the second largest amount to the diet, and
sheep followed far behind in third place. Similar proportions of cattle, pig, and sheep persisted
from the seventeenth into the early nineteenth century both in rural and urban households. In fact,
the relative percentages of beef, pork, and mutton found in Williamsburg trash pits are similar to
5
Henry M. Miller, “An Archaeological Perspective on the Evolution of Diet in the Colonial Chesapeake, 16201745,” in Lois G. Carr, Philip D. Morgan, and Jean B. Russo, eds. Colonial Chesapeake Society. (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 176-199; Joanne Bowen, “Foodways in the Eighteenth-Century
Chesapeake,” in Theodore R. Reinhart, ed. The Archaeology of Eighteenth-Century Virginia. Archeological Society of
Virginia Special Publication No. 35 (Richmond: Archeological Society of Virginia, 1996), pp. 87-130; Elise ManningSterling, “Great Blue Herons and River Otters: The Changing Perceptions of All Things Wild in the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake” (master’s thesis, The College of William and Mary. 1994); Anne E. Yentsch, A
Chesapeake Family and their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press,
1994).
6
Linda Keller Brown and Kay Mussell, eds., Ethnic and Regional Foodways in the United States: The
Performance of Group Identity (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1984); Mary Douglas, ed., Food in the
Social Order: Studies of Food and Festivities in Three American Communities (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
1984).
71
that found in rural trash pits, suggesting that there existed a direct connection of produce from the
rural hinterlands to nearby towns.
Evidence obtained from probate inventories from York County, Virginia, and Anne
Arundel County, Maryland, support the interpretation that diet reflected the local agriculture. In
general, the percentages of animals listed in the inventories parallel the ranked importance of meat
represented in the assemblages from sites located in those regions, with a much greater
percentage of sheep in the Anne Arundel data and a much larger percentage of cattle in the York
County inventories. The limited number of Annapolis assemblages makes the Maryland data less
convincing, but those assemblages that were available date over the entire century, and are
associated with different types of households (including the elite Calvert family, who could
produce and purchase any food item they desired, and a tavern keeper and printer, both of whom
are more likely to have purchased food from commercial sources). It may be that the extremely
large quantities of mutton in both the early and late Calvert assemblages represent a wealthy
family able to obtain even the rarest foods, but the proportions of mutton represented in the
Reynolds Tavern and Jonas Green assemblages suggest that mutton was in fact important even in
middle-class diets.
Table 3.1.
YORK COUNTY AND ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY PROBATE INVENTORIES
LIVESTOCK, 1620-1800
Livestock
1620-1660
No.
Pct
York County
Cattle
Swine
Sheep
Goats
Horses/Mules
Total
432
231
0
41
26
730
Anne Arundel County
Cattle
Swine
Sheep
Goats
Horses/Mules
Total
59%
32%
0%
6%
6%
1660-1700
No.
Pct
1700-1750
No.
Pct
1750-1775
No.
Pct
3811
1589
624
11
603
6,638
57% 12,121
24% 9,007
9% 4,582
0.2%
0
9% 1,531
27,241
44%
33%
17%
0%
6%
4,514
4,149
2,007
7
575
11,252
74
55
20
0
6
155
48% 15,279
35% 18,663
13% 8,460
0%
2
4% 2,987
45,391
34% 8,740
41% 13,830
19% 7,568
0%
0
7% 2,509
32,647
40%
37%
18%
0%
5%
1775-1800
No.
Pct
3,178
3,395
1,780
0
462
8,815
36%
38%
20%
0%
5%
27% 8,002
42% 12,766
0% 8,294
0%
4
8% 3,289
32,355
25%
39%
26%
0%
10%
An immediate contribution of this dietary evidence is the affirmation of the very local
nature of historic market systems that drew directly from local plantations. Zooarchaeological
evidence from Annapolis is not strong enough to determine either the strength of personal
connections in that area nor the degree of dependence upon commercial foods, since no rural
assemblages from that area were analyzed. But the strong rural and urban components of the
Williamsburg and its hinterlands provide ample evidence that can determine if, and when, rural
and urban diets came to differ from each other.
72
Element Distributions
According to zooarchaeologists, in small urban centers such as the ones that developed in the
Chesapeake during the early eighteenth century, municipal governments do not regulate where the
slaughtering, butchering, selling, and disposal of waste parts take place, and residents maintain
livestock on or near their property, where they slaughter the animals and process the meat near
their homes. Element distributions found in urban assemblages, therefore, should closely resemble
those found in rural assemblages. But in increasingly specialized economies where the array of
foods and middlemen selling rural produce to urban consumers increase, municipal governments
begin to restrict locations where animals can be slaughtered and to regulate what parts of the
animals can be sold. Assemblages from highly urbanized market systems, therefore, show an
irregular distribution of body parts, a disproportionately large percentage of meat bones, and a
low number of bones that are commonly associated with butchering waste.
Element distributions obtained from cattle, calves, swine, and sheep in both rural and
urban sites, particularly when taken as a whole, monitor when the sale and processing of
commercially produced meat began, and they measure the extent to which urban consumers
depended on commercially-produced foods. In this section the overall trends of the market system
will be discussed. In the next section on consumption the extent to which different households
came to depend on commercial sources of food, including the household provisioning strategies
of tradesmen, the elite, and those who had no rural kin, will be presented.
Middlemen and the Sale of Meat in Williamsburg and Other Urban Centers in the
Chesapeake
The analysis of urban assemblages is greatly facilitated by the discovery of the remains of
the middlemen in the marketing system. In 1983 the construction of a restaurant on the old
firehouse lot, directly adjacent to the Historic Area of Colonial Williamsburg, uncovered a dense
midden left by a colonial butcher, Benjamin Hanson. Little is known about Hanson other than that
he was a free black, the son of a mulatto slave and a free woman, and that he kept sheep and
cattle he purchased on pastures on the outskirts of town.7 But the faunal remains uncovered from
this midden are a rich record of butchering waste. Dating to the late 1740s, this assemblage
captures a time when Williamsburg was a young and growing urban community and the supply
system through which rural produce was distributed to urban consumers was evolving to feed a
growing population of residents and the periodic swells of rural people who came to attend court
and periodic Council meetings.
Hanson’s assemblage reflects what is probably waste products from a fairly elaborate
butchering operation. Very high percentages of head and foot elements, compared with the
normal distribution of elements in a complete skeleton suggest that most of the archaeological
remains were the uneaten left-over of the butchering operation, while the meaty portions were
sold off to customers (and thus taken off-site). Thus it is possible to gauge the likely “waste”
remains and to use these to evaluate how urban consumers differed from their rural counterparts.
7
The plantation records show that Hanson purchased a number of cattle at the sale of James Bray III’s estate.
73
Table 3.2.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
FIREHOUSE SITE (BENJAMIN HANSON, BUTCHER)
Normal Distribution—Cattle/Sheep
Firehouse/Cattle
Firehouse/Calf
Firehouse/Sheep
Normal Distribution—Swine
Firehouse/Swine
Head
29.7%
40.4
62.0
91.9
28.2
63.8
Body
42.2%
18.6
10.0
6.2
34.5
21.3
Feet
28.1%
41.0
28.0
1.9
37.3
14.9
N
473
50
890
72
Table 3.3.
KILL-OFF PATTERNS
FIREHOUSE SITE (BENJAMIN HANSON, BUTCHER)
Cattle
a
Age Group % Killed
0-12 Months
0.0%
12-24 Months 13.3
24-36 Months
2.5
36-48 Months 67.5
>48 Months
16.7
a
Swine
a
Age Group
% Killed
0-12 Months
33.3%
12-24 Months
54.2
24-36 Months
12.5
36-42 Months
0.0
> 42 Months
0.0
Caprine
a
b
Age Group % Killed % Killed
0-12 Months
50.0% 58.0%
12-36 Months
0.0
11.0
36-42 Months
0.0
13.0
> 42 Months
50.0
18.0
b
Note: Based on long bone fusion; Based on tooth wear.
Evidence that Benjamin Hanson was purchasing primarily livestock that had been raised
specifically for market is found in the age data for cattle, swine, and sheep. Present in each kill-off
pattern is a large proportion of livestock slaughtered at the most profitable age, an age referred to
in the section on animal husbandry as the “target age.” In the case of swine this was at about two
years, a time during the development of young swine when they had grown to their adult size and
fattened rapidly. In the case of grass-fed cattle, when given supplemental feed such as planters
began to do when they fattened cattle for market, cattle matured to a good market weight when
they reached three years of age. In the case of sheep, the long bone evidence is weak with only 13
ageable specimens, but it shows planters raised lamb for market. The tooth wear evidence has
been included since it demonstrates that Hanson purchased sheep at two and three years, the
typical slaughter age for sheep that had been raised for meat.
Sheep
In rural assemblages, element distributions represent on the whole the complete skeleton,
indicating that throughout the colonial period rural households, including the wealthy planters,
consumed the entire animal. Variability in the proportions of head, body, and foot elements does
exist, but for the most part this variability is related to sample size, and it is clear that body parts,
head, and feet were consumed by everyone.
While the heads of sheep were consumed in rural households, it is clear that in town
during the first three quarters of the eighteenth century they were the least desirable of any cut of
74
Table 3.4.
RELATIVE PROPORTIONS OF CAPRINE BODY PARTS
RURAL-URBAN COMPARISON
Assemblage
Normal Skeleton
Firehouse (Benjamin Hanson)
Rural
1620-1660
1660-1700
1700-1740
1750-1775
1775-1800
Early 19th C
Williamsburg
1700-1740
1735-1757
1750-1775
1775-1800
Annapolis
1700-1750
1750-1775
Mid-Late 18th C
1775-1800
Number Number
of Bones of Sites
Head %
Body %
Feet %
29.7
91.9
42.2
6.2
28.1
1.9
890
33.1
26.3
30.1
43.7
49.8
48.5
37.5
26.4
56.8
40.5
44.1
39.7
29.5
47.2
13.1
15.8
6.1
11.8
275
1246
259
815
1162
68
6
7
4
3
2
2
18.8
10.9
16.2
32.6
75.8
76.2
72.6
55.3
5.4
12.9
11.1
12.1
149
202
647
438
2
2
4
4
28.5
15.0
39.8
15.6
63.4
55.0
38.5
68.8
8.1
30.0
21.3
15.6
123
40
475
77
1
1
1
1
meat. In fact, of all the sheep remains recovered from Benjamin Hanson’s butchering waste, over
90% of the bones were from the head. The fact that mutton was seldom, if ever, salted, meant
that butchers such as Hanson probably slaughtered sheep they had purchased, then while the
mutton was still fresh sold it as individual cuts to urban consumers. Testimony to this marketing
strategy for selling a highly perishable item is the element distributions obtained from all urban
assemblages. With the exception of one assemblage that was associated with the very wealthy
Custis family, all other assemblages dating from 1700 to 1775 show head and foot parts each to
have been less than 20% of the sheep remains. Body parts made up anywhere from 68% to 97%.
Virtually everyone, it appears, depended upon commercial sources of mutton.
The period 1775-1800, however, exhibits a somewhat different pattern, one that still
shows a predominance of body elements, but one that demonstrates that heads began to be
consumed in greater quantities than ever before. Reasons for the increase in heads might be
related to a change in marketing, where the entire animal was made available to urban consumers.
Alternatively, a reason might be that the three assemblages containing a large proportion of heads
include the well-to-do silversmith James Geddy, and occupants of the Anthony Hay and Daniel
Parke Custis sites. Each of these households may well have had their own source of mutton, a fact
that would explain the large proportion of heads.
Looking northward to Annapolis and the element distributions exhibited in the handful of
assemblages from this urban center, it is possible to find further clues on marketing patterns for
sheep. There are four assemblages from Annapolis, of which two are associated with the elite
Calvert family, one that is associated with a tavern, and a fourth that is associated with the
75
household of a printer, Jonas Green. On the basis of the large proportion of heads present in the
Calvert assemblages, and low proportions of heads in the assemblages associated with the tavern
and printer, it would seem reasonable to suggest that only the Calverts supplied themselves with
sheep. Given this pattern, it would seem reasonable to suggest that Williamsburg households of
great wealth also supplied their own households. Other households, such as that of John Draper,
an English immigrant blacksmith who had limited resources, purchased, as indicated by the 76%
body elements, mutton from butchers and other commercial sources.
Swine
The element distributions for swine remains are distinctly different from all others in that the
element distributions represented in urban assemblages closely resemble the complete skeleton.
One possible interpretation of this pattern is that most households either obtained a pig through
their own personal rural connections, or they raised a pig, which they slaughtered and salted in the
fall. But given the clear representation of heads, bodies, and feet, the most likely interpretation is
that pork was not generally available in town as individual cuts of meat. Plantation account books,
fortunately, have identified the pattern for commercially-produced hogs. According to the Burwell
accounts, hogs were brought complete to town and sold to individual purchasers primarily in late
fall and early winter, which the family could salt the meat themselves. Supporting evidence for this
interpretation is found in Hanson’s butcher’s refuse, which contains in relation to cattle, calf, and
sheep remains, proportionately more head and feet remains from hogs. Hanson, it appears, was
more in the business of selling beef, veal, and mutton than selling pork. This is evidenced in an
add Hanson placed in the Virginia Gazette, where he advertised “for good grass mutton or beef
…[at my House] next door to Col. Custis’s.”8
Hogs probably were obtained from all three sources, and preservation factors no doubt
dictated marketing patterns. To varying degrees urban residents raised pigs, brought in pigs that
had been raised on their plantation, or purchased them at the marketplace in early winter, since
pork was the primary preserved meat, and successful salting required cold temperatures. Yet, a
careful comparison of the element distributions from the rural and urban assemblages suggests
that urban residents also purchased individual cuts, possibly hams from storekeepers to
supplement pork they had salted in winter time.9 Present in the element distributions in urban
assemblages is a slightly greater proportion of body parts than in the rural element distributions, a
pattern that would be consistent with the purchase of individual cuts of meat.
8
Virginia Gazette, October 24, 1745.
9
By the end of the century the role of retail stores in distributing preserved meat was surely increasing. In
January 1796, for example, the manager of Providence Forge in New Kent County, Virginia, who regularly sold surplus
live hogs on the market at the end of each year decided that since he could find no “ready money” buyers so late in the
season, he would kill and salt the hogs and make bacon to sell in Richmond “to some of y[ou]r shops that deal largely in
that article.” William Douglas to Francis Jerdone, 4 January 1796, Jerdone Papers, Swem Library, College of William
and Mary.
76
Table 3.5.
RELATIVE PROPORTIONS OF SWINE BODY PARTS
RURAL-URBAN COMPARISON
Assemblage
Normal Skeleton
Firehouse (Benjamin Hanson)
Rural
1620-1660
1660-1700
1700-1740
1750-1775
1775-1800
Early 19th C
Williamsburg
1700-1740
1735-1757
1750-1775
1775-1800
Annapolis
1700-1750
1750-1775
Mid-Late 18th C
1775-1800
Number Number
of Bones of Sites
Head %
Body %
Feet %
28.2
63.8
34.5
21.3
37.3
14.9
72
66.6
56.5
54.9
63.6
58.5
59.6
23.3
22.5
25.5
21.6
30.6
18.8
10.1
20.9
19.6
14.9
10.8
21.6
1271
3537
1941
2151
1848
612
6
7
4
3
2
2
31.3
53.3
46.5
52.0
31.9
33.6
36.4
25.6
36.8
13.1
17.1
22.4
636
381
1857
1956
2
2
4
4
60.1
40.4
52.4
47.5
24.6
26.6
26.8
29.3
15.2
33.0
20.8
23.2
138
109
538
341
1
1
1
1
Cattle
The analysis of cattle element distributions includes only the “adult-sized” cattle remains, which
include all age groups except the very young veal calves. They show that rural households
consumed all parts of the animal. The overall consistency of this pattern in rural assemblages, in
fact, makes it clear that even heads and feet were considered desirable cuts by everyone in
Chesapeake society. But, as with the heads of sheep, it is clear urban residents consumed fewer
heads and feet than their rural neighbors. Particularly tradesmen such as John Brush, James
Geddy, and John Draper, but also well-to-do individuals such as Thomas Everard and Archibald
Blair, purchased beef in individual cuts from commercial sources.
Each of the element distributions from urban assemblages dating from 1700 to 1800
demonstrate that virtually everyone depended to varying degrees on commercial sources of food,
since each assemblage contains a greater than normal proportion of body cuts, a slightly less than
normal proportion of head elements, and a far less than normal proportion of foot elements. The
only clear exceptions to this pattern are the element distributions from the assemblages associated
with elite households such as the Annapolis Calvert family and the Williamsburg Custis family. On
the basis of these element distributions, it is possible to suggest they ate a diet that was very
similar to their rural counterparts. Elite families probably provisioned their urban household with
foods they brought in from their plantations, and they consumed the heads and feet of cattle in
proportions roughly equal to a complete skeleton.
77
Table 3.6.
RELATIVE PROPORTIONS OF CATTLE BODY PARTS
RURAL-URBAN COMPARISON
Assemblage
Normal Skeleton
Firehouse (Benjamin Hanson)
Rural
1620-1660
1660-1700
1700-1740
1750-1775
1775-1800
Early 19th C
Williamsburg
1700-1740
1735-1757
1750-1775
1775-1800
Annapolis
1700-1750
1750-1775
Mid-Late 18th C
1775-1800
Number Number
of Bones of Sites
Head %
Body %
Feet %
29.7
40.4
42.2
18.6
28.1
41.0
473
50.1
27.9
29.4
21.3
54.5
26.2
28.9
41.5
38.3
42.5
31.2
44.3
20.9
30.5
31.6
36.0
14.2
28.6
1867
3440
1632
1659
2712
210
6
7
4
3
2
2
23.6
32.9
20.4
18.1
61.4
53.4
59.6
59.9
15.0
13.7
20.1
22.0
645
519
1679
1475
2
2
4
4
9.4
30.1
32.8
0.0
55.2
29.4
48.9
79.0
35.4
40.5
18.3
21.0
96
153
476
167
1
1
1
1
Preservation factors no doubt played a large role in determining how beef was sold. Since
beef stays fresh longer than pork and it actually improves in flavor with aging, urban residents
probably purchased beef to consume as fresh meat in amounts that reflected their household’s
ability to consume the meat before it spoiled. Particularly in winter, if a household could afford to
do so, it could have purchased sizable portions of the carcass and stored what was not
immediately eaten in a cold protected part of the homestead. Others with more limited means
probably purchased smaller pieces.
An editorial placed in the Virginia Gazette in 1768 provides supportive evidence, for
“Timothy Telltruth” described exactly this situation, where butchers sold both large and small
pieces of meat, but those unable to pay for the more economical larger pieces had to pay extra for
their services.10 Like the poor today, those less-well-off found themselves at a disadvantage.
Thus, given the level of market dependency of those individuals who either lacked rural
connections or had limited incomes, their purchases of individual cuts of beef should be evident in
the faunal assemblages in the form of disproportionate element distributions. Those townspeople
who lacked rural connections, but could afford to purchase large pieces of beef, might have left
faunal assemblages containing relatively complete bones, including at least some heads and feet,
while those who could not afford quarters might have left faunal assemblages containing fewer
heads and feet.
10
Virginia Gazette, Purdie and Dixon, September 7, 1768.
78
Veal
During the early seventeenth century, veal was relatively important, since veal-size calf remains
made up anywhere from 9% to 11% of all cattle remains. By the late seventeenth century,
however, calf remains had dropped to only 1 or 2% of all cattle remains. Exploring whether the
decrease is the result of household variability, preservation factors, or changing husbandry
patterns remains a research project for the future.
Almost from the time Williamsburg was established in 1699, however, rural planters chose
to send veal to market rather than to eat it themselves. Comparing the percentages of “veal-size”
and “adult-size” cattle remains present in the rural and urban assemblages demonstrates that even
during the first half of the eighteenth century urban residents consumed over twice the amount of
veal as their rural counterparts. As the century progressed the disparity became even greater.
During the period 1700-1740, in rural assemblages young calf made up on the average 3% of all
cattle remains, while in town the average was 6%. By 1750-1775, in rural assemblages young calf
made up 2% of all cattle remains, while in Williamsburg it made up an average of 12%. During
the last quarter of the eighteenth century, in rural assemblages young calf dropped to 1% of all
cattle remains, while in town it made up 9% of all cattle remains.
On a very direct level, the percentages of veal in the various assemblages demonstrate that veal
was a very affordable food item, since far greater amounts of veal are found in the assemblages
that are associated with tradesmen and taverns than the assemblages that are associated with the
wealthy. Determining whether veal was purchased through commercial sources, however, was
made difficult by the presence of proportionately large numbers of calf heads. Normally the
presence/absence of head elements is a reliable monitor for commercial purchases as opposed to
the acquisition of meat through personal sources. Unfortunately, calf heads were considered a
highly desirable cut of meat and were prepared in numerous ways. Undoubtedly, they were cheap
enough that many Williamsburg households could afford to buy them. In lieu of this measure, the
proportion of foot elements in the calf data provides some information on the extent to which
urban dwellers depended upon commercial sources of food. These figures show that from the
early 1700s virtually everyone purchased veal as individual cuts of meat. Why they chose to
purchase individual cuts rather than the entire animal is related to preservation factors. Veal in
comparison to beef and mutton spoils very quickly, a fact that determined how much a household
could purchase at one time.
Evidenced by the enormous number of calf foot bones in the Custis assemblage, it is
apparent that only the elite households that supplied themselves with veal. All others contain
anywhere from 14% to 8% foot elements, and by 1775 the proportion of calf foot elements
dropped to less than 7%. By 1775 the small proportion of calf foot elements in these assemblages
suggests that by this time virtually everyone, including the occupants of the Custis home, had
come to depend upon commercial sources of veal.
79
Table 3.7.
RELATIVE PROPORTIONS OF CALF BODY PARTS
RURAL-URBAN COMPARISON
Assemblage
Head % Body %
Normal Skeleton
Firehouse (Benjamin Hanson)
Rural
1620-1660
1660-1700
1700-1740
1750-1775
1775-1800
Early 19th C
Williamsburg
1700-1740
1735-1757
1750-1775
1775-1800
Feet %
N
29.7
62.0
42.2
10.0
28.1
28.0
50
57.1
42.1
22.2
43.8
38.1
44.4
35.0
26.3
55.6
43.8
38.1
22.2
7.9
31.6
22.2
12.5
23.8
33.3
140
76
45
32
21
18
15.0
43.3
42.6
50.3
80.0
46.7
43.0
44.2
5.0
10.0
14.3
5.4
40
60
230
147
Conclusion
Using multiple sources of information, this study has shown how faunal remains recovered from
urban archaeological sites reflect the complex and variable means by which livestock were either
brought to town already slaughtered and processed, or were brought to town live, then were
slaughtered and sold as a whole animal or as individual cuts of meat. The faunal evidence show
what types of meats were sold and whether they were sold as individual cuts. Documentary
sources have identified the many sources of food. Information from probate inventories show that
some raised livestock in town. Correspondence between planters and their overseers on outlying
and sometimes distant plantations demonstrates that some urban residents brought in their own
food. Account books show that pigs raised on plantations were brought to town and sold as
complete carcasses. Household accounts show that beef, veal, mutton, and lamb were sold in
town as individual pieces. Finally, merchant accounts show that some cuts of meat were available
for sale in stores. Each source has provided information on an element in the overall provisioning
scheme, and together with the archaeological data, the analysis has reconstructed a system that
was as complex and multi-varied as were its sources.
Over the years zooarchaeologists have written that as the strength of the urban market
grew, municipal regulations controlled the location of slaughter and waste disposal, and
middlemen increasingly took over the processing of carcasses. But this interdisciplinary study has
shown that even though the presence of commercially-produced meats and middlemen was felt
almost as soon as the town was established in 1699, the market system, and the urban residents
who came to depend upon it, remained in many ways intimately tied to their rural connections
throughout the eighteenth century.11 The archaeological evidence is strong in showing that
11
For a summary of market-related research, see Gregory J. Brown, “Distributing Meat and Fish in EighteenthCentury Virginia: The Documentary Evidence for the Existence of Markets in Early Tidewater Towns.” (report on file,
Foundation Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988); Carl Lounsbury, “The Williamsburg Market House:
80
although rural planters raised livestock for sale in town and many urban consumers came to rely
on commercial foods as their primary or for some their sole source of food, the continuing
presence of older livestock and heads and feet in the faunal assemblages speak to the continued
intricate relationship with rural producers.
Documentary evidence establishing the nature of Williamsburg’s market system confirms
the archaeological evidence. By 1705, a Town Act established the right of each town in Virginia
to hold markets and fairs, but as the eighteenth century progressed other urban centers such as
Norfolk developed markets that apparently were much more organized and the processing and
sale of animal products was more controlled than the market that evolved in Williamsburg. In
Norfolk the common council first approved the building of a market house in 1736, and soon
established price controls and restricted the sale of meat outside the marketplace. There beef,
pork, veal, mutton, lamb, turkeys, ducks, fowl, and seafood were displayed twice-weekly for
urban consumers. But, even though many of Williamsburg’s town records were destroyed during
the Civil War, all indications are that it was never as well organized as were other markets in the
region. Until mid-century, it was only during Publick Times that the rural population descended
upon town with their produce, and the building of the market house followed Norfolk’s by twenty
years.
This interpretation comes into sharp focus when the Williamsburg data is compared to that
which has been gathered for market systems that evolved in Boston, New York, and Annapolis.
Recent archaeological and documentary research, for example, has demonstrated that as
municipal regulations in Boston tightened during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, faunal
assemblages reflected the increased regulations by a sharp decrease in the proportions of heads
and feet in the faunal assemblages left by the poor and well-to-do alike.12 The number of
assemblages from sites located in Boston and Annapolis are extremely limited, but there are
sufficient numbers of them to be secure in the interpretation that the provisioning system in either
town had become far more specialized by this time than had Williamsburg’s, since the number of
sheep and cattle heads and feet are almost non-existent in assemblages from these urban centers.
Evidence found in the 1783 personal property tax lists from Annapolis and Williamsburg
demonstrate that, compared to other urban centers, the scale of the Williamsburg market system
never reached that of Annapolis. The presence of cows in town even in the late eighteenth century
demonstrate that residents of both towns retained at least some ability to provide food for
themselves, but the larger number of cows in Williamsburg demonstrates that its residents
remained far more independent than Annapolis residents. In 1783 in Williamsburg one-half the
residents in town owned one or two cows.13 Of the various occupational groups, 74% of the
Where’s the Beef?” Report for the Educational Planning Group, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.(report on file,
Foundation Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1986).
12
Joanne Bowen, “Analysis of the African Meeting House Faunal Remains,” in Beth Anne Bower, ed., The
African Meeting House, Boston, Massachusetts: Summary Report of Archaeological Excavations 1975-1986. (Boston:
Museum of African American History, 1986); Joanne Bowen, “Faunal Remains and New England Urban Household
Subsistence,” in Anne E. Yentsch and Mary C. Beaudry, eds., The Art and Mystery of Historical Archaeology: Essays in
Honor of James Deetz (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1992), pp. 267-281; Joanne Bowen, “To Market, To Market:
Animal Husbandry in New England,” Historical Archaeology, in press.
13
1783 Personal Property Tax lists for Williamsburg and Annapolis.
81
service people, 67% of the merchants, 64% of the professionals, and 60% of the craftsmen kept
one or two cows. Other groups less able to provide perishable milk and dairy products for their
families included women, laborers, and those of unknown professions. Of these, only 41% of the
women heads of households, and 30% of the laborers and others kept a cow. In direct contrast, in
Annapolis overall there were fewer cows. Only 50% of the professionals, 50% of the merchants,
41% of the service group, 27% of the craftsmen, and 20% of laborers and others kept even one
cow, and no female heads of households kept even one cow. Evident in the Annapolis data is a
much stronger dependence by Annapolis residents on commercially produced foods.
Not surprisingly, the element distributions of livestock remains from both the Reynolds
Tavern and Jonas Green faunal assemblages from Annapolis demonstrate that clearly each
procured mutton and beef commercially, since both reveal proportions of cattle and sheep head
elements that are equal to or less than the lowest proportion of heads found in any assemblage
recovered from Williamsburg.
This study has brought into question one of the fundamental assumptions of
zooarchaeological studies, that the specialized production and distribution of food is driven by the
growth of an urban population unable to produce enough food to feed itself. Assumptions have
been that production and distribution practices remained on a small scale until the urban demand
outdistanced the ability to produce surplus animals with subsistence-oriented husbandry practices.
Evidence produced in this study, however, demonstrates that change occurred almost as soon as
Williamsburg was established, even though the town never became a large urban center like New
York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Yet rural planters responded early on to produce younger
animals for market, and middlemen such as Benjamin Hanson established commercial enterprises
to purchase rural produce, which were then slaughtered and sold to consumers as individual
pieces. On the consumer end of the spectrum, urban dwellers came to increasingly rely upon
market sources, some to greater and lesser degrees, but by the last quarter of the eighteenth
century no one subsisted completely on foods they produced themselves.
B. MARKETS IN THE CHESAPEAKE
The wealthy planter Robert Carter moved from his plantation to Williamsburg in 1761.
Three years later he was forced to purchase a “small settlement” nearby to provision his family.
He explained that “every family here have small Farms; which supply them with Articles to be
bought in good Markets.” He saw the paradox: “such a Custom must inevitably bar every attempt
towards improving Markets.” Without a good market, town residents had to come up with a
system to provision their own households; without demand of these customers, it was difficult to
support a good market. Carter reluctantly followed the example of his neighbors and bought a
nearby farm.14
We do not know what Carter determined to be a “good market” but no doubt implied
good quality food supplied at good price and with predictable supply. The market in eighteenthcentury Virginia was a civic institution, part of an economic system, and part of an urban cultural
14
Robert Carter to James Buchanan and Co. May 10, 1764. Letterbook of Robert Carter III of Nominy Hall for
the Years 1764-68. Manuscript, Special Collections, Colonial Williamsburg.
82
landscape. This section will address the nature of the market, its history in the Chesapeake, and its
larger evolution in producers, consumers, and products.
The Nature of Markets
First, the public market was an important symbol of municipal action. Cities were governed by
councils, councils established rules of the market, clerks of the market collected fees and
monitored activities. (The fees were used to fund civic services from road repair to fire fighting.)
These rules insured that people had access to safe food at an affordable price. Municipal rules of
the marketplace included 1) setting prices that could be charged for certain commodities, 2)
ensuring quality of food, 3) controlling times and places of operation, 4) renting out stalls at the
market house, and 5) levying fines or other punishments for those that transgressed those laws.
The size, number, order, variety and quality of markets were one way that travelers noted and
ranked the quality of urban life.
The public market house thus was a visible reminder of the ways in which government
intervened for the good of the populace. It needed to be a watchdog because the most important
commodities for sale there were perishables sold in measurable units. That meant that meat and
vegetables could be spoiled; weights and measures could be slighted. Entrepreneurs needed to be
monitored or the customer might be cheated.
Second, public markets were the direct urban symbols of local agricultural productivity
and town growth. They were a means to channel food produced in the hinterlands into urban
populations. Control was necessary to ensure that food moved from producer to consumer
without forestalling (selling food outside of the market) or engrossing (charging exorbitant prices
that pushed out the poor). Markets were thus about directing agricultural surplus at set prices and
in set places into the hands and mouths of consumers—from craftsmen to government officials—
who were involved in other economic activities. In the Chesapeake, the relation between
agricultural productivity and town growth was more complex. A critical mass of people was
necessary to make feeding nearby towns as profitable as growing export commodities like
tobacco. Enough people needed to congregate in one place to make a town market successful It is
this continuing diversification of economic activity that led to a modern economy.
Thus, markets in colonial America were about an evolving economy that looked both
forward and backward. They looked backward to tight government controls, from the assize of
bread (controlling prices, qualities and sizes) to mercantilism (controlling the colonists' trading
partners and products). They simultaneously looked toward a more free market (laissez-faire)
system of capitalism that moved by the “invisible hand” of supply and demand suggested by Adam
Smith in 1776. This more capitalist economy was based on cash and the cash equivalent of
commodities in a form of bookkeeping, and included prices based on profit and supply and
demand.
Third, public markets were part of an urban cultural landscape. Like courthouses, stores,
shops, and taverns, the market was frequented by a broad cross-section of urban society. It was a
place usually marked by a particular location in town—often near the courthouse—and a space
usually defined by particular uses and peoples. We might think of three groups of people in this
space: producers, consumers, and passers-through and passers-by. Producers can be divided into
83
two groups, those that were formally attached to the market through the rental of stalls in the
market house and those that vended other forms of produce such as fruits, vegetables, and
poultry. The first group—the butchers—were usually wealthy enough to be able to gain the trust
of the town council and to pay the rent for the stalls. The second group was far more likely to be
the peoples on the margins of society—the enslaved, free blacks, and women (of varying social
ranks based on class and marital status). This reflects the buoyancy of the little known informal
economy that is only now being studied and understood.
The History of Markets in the Chesapeake
Providing a means of supplying food to townspeople was one of the earliest concerns of Virginia
lawmakers, and they followed English custom of ensuring food supply through governmental
control. The ideal market in England centralized the supply of food in one place, controlled
quality, and ensured a just price to the citizens. An important goal was to prevent the action of
middlemen who might buy up local food supply for export or enhanced profit and lead to dearth
and high prices. For instance, the Wiltshire market was regulated in March 1564. Early in the
morning, before the market started, grain sellers had to agree to prices with local officials. At 9
a.m. the bell was tolled twenty times and the market was officially open for transactions. For the
first two hours, only small purchases could be made (less than two bushels), and the grain was
meant to be for the use of the buyer. At 11 a.m. the bell was tolled another twenty times. Grain
could then be bought by wholesalers or those who resold it in some form, such as bakers,
brewers, and badgers as granted by license from a Justice of the Peace. Grain buying was
restricted to market day, and no one was supposed to buy who had sufficient quantities of their
own.15
These regulations clearly demonstrate how the “ideal” market was no longer reality by the
sixteenth century. These measures were to prevent middlemen; they undoubtedly existed or there
would be no attempt to disfranchise them. The supply of bread—here in the form of grain to be
processed by householder—was the paramount concern. Of course, laws are often only the
mirrors by which we see the prevalence of infractions. There is no real sense of how well these
regulations were enforced, but probably only time of dearth prompted strict adherence.
As early as 1649, the privilege was granted to Jamestown to hold a weekly market on
Wednesday and Saturday and a market place was bounded. All “bonds, bills, or other writings
upon any bargains” made between eight a.m. and six p.m. in the market place on market days that
were attested under the clerk of the market were considered legal judgements and had special
protection at law. The governor appointed the clerks who were paid an annual fee and kept
records. In only six years, the markets were considered a failure and all laws were repealed.
Nonetheless, the burgesses recognized the value of a good market and optimistically decreed that
anyone could solve the problem by settling on a place where merchants would “willingly come for
the sale or bring of goods” would be “lookt upon as benefactors to the publique.”16
15
Mark Overton, Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy, 15001850 (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 135-136.
16
Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. I, p. 362, Vol. III, p. 397.
84
This recognition that markets were for public good continued to undergird government
action. A proper town should have a proper market. As Virginia officials mulled the movement of
the capital from Jamestown in May 1699, a group of savvy students at the College of William and
Mary held a celebration attended by the Governor and the Assembly. The speeches pointed out
the many reasons that the capital should be moved to the area of Middle Plantation. One declared
that a market would be of great assistance to the College because with it “the college itself might
be enabled to keep houses, or the neighbours about this place might be better supplyd with all
things necessary for our good lodging & Diet.”17 The act moving the capital from Jamestown to
Williamsburg in 1699 included the right of the governor to grant the liberty and privileges to hold
market and fairs. A 1705 act provided for twice-weekly market days in towns.
Government officials continued to stress the importance of establishing markets, but little
action seemed to follow. Williamsburg’s town layout in 1705 included a place set out in the
middle of town for a market, but no market house was built. The swelling of the population
during public times in the capital made a market seem necessary. Governor Spotswood noted the
need in 1710 to the Council and the Council recommended weekly markets at Williamsburg as a
“great benefit to the said Town, and the Neighouring Inhabitants, and a Conveniency to the
people of the country who have occasion to resort there.”18
Again, no action seemed to be taken. A decade later the town was incorporated and the
charter granted specific privileges to town officials to hold a market twice weekly and charge tolls
on all “Cattle, Goods, Wares and Merchandizes and other Commodities as shall be sold in the said
Markets … as shall be by them thought reasonable.” These taxes were not to exceed “six Pence
on every Beast and three Pence on every hogg and the twentieth part of the Value of any such
Commodity sold therein.” Town residence was encouraged by cutting the toll in half for the
freemen inhabitants.
With the incorporation of Norfolk in 1736, the institutional framework was now in place
in Virginia’s two incorporated towns for regular markets to occur. Incentive through taxing
power was given to city government officials to make it happen. As most of the city bylaws,
ordinances and orders have not survived, little is known of the market’s functioning in
Williamsburg. Numerous ordinances are extant for other towns, particularly after the right to hold
markets was extended to all towns after the Revolution. It is thus possible to piece together more
of the story.
The problems experienced in setting up formal institutions and legally dictated behaviors
of food provisioning help explain why Robert Carter may have been so inconvenienced as to buy a
nearby farm in the middle of the eighteenth century. The major need for a market was at public
times; most inhabitants probably managed to somehow provision themselves. Hugh Jones did not
detail how or why but nonetheless found the town “well stock’d with rich Stores, of all Sorts of
Goods, and well furnished with the best Provisions and Liquors.”19 A market house was finally
completed in 1757, exactly 150 years after the colony’s founding.
17
“Speeches of Students of the College of William and Mary Delivered May 1, 1699,” William and Mary
Quarterly 10, 2nd ser., 1930, p. 329.
18
Executive Journals of the Council, III, p. 251.
19
Hugh Jones, The Present State of Virginia, pp. 30-32.
85
Even after that final action in creating a true marketplace, the market may not have
functioned smoothly to ensure good quality foodstuffs. A blistering critique of market quality and
prices was published in the Virginia Gazette in 1768 by “Timothy Telltruth.” He wrote of “meat
for poverty not fit to eat, and sometimes almost spoiled” hanging in the market for hours.
Vendors charged what they liked, “which is generally exorbitant enough, especially on publick
times, or when little meat is at market.” If a whole side of beef was not desired, the butcher
charged an extra penny a pound to cut it. Bakers sold underweight bread with “unwholesome
ingredients.” The letter writer complained that “the bread they bake daily, and sell to the
inhabitants, justly entitles them to the pillary.” He compared that to the well-functioning market in
Norfolk where the magistrates ensured quality and prices and the butcher could only charge a
farthing to cut meat into smaller portions.20
“Timothy Telltruth’s” complaint, perhaps exaggerated, is one of the few windows we have
on the market in Williamsburg. We might infer that his complaint had some cause from the praise
that one James City County resident heaped on the market in Baltimore. Jamestown resident Mary
Ambler kept a diary of her visit to Baltimore in 1770 to innoculate her children from smallpox.
She found the Baltimore market held twice weekly to be “very fine,” and was “surprised to see
the nubr of People there & the variety of things for Sale.” She marveled that “they say nothing can
be thought of which is not brought in plenty to market.” The townspeople depended on the
market for their foodstuff. Whether cause or effect of the quality market, she was told that there
was not “seven Gardens in the Whole Town.” 21
The ability of townspeople to rely on consistent supply at markets for provisions was
noted in the same year in Philadelphia. The twice-weekly markets brought country people from
surrounding Pennsylvania and New Jersey where “every produce of the season which the country
affords” can be found. On the other days, “they are sought for in vain.” Because of the ready
supply, town residents only bought what was necessary until the next market. In the summer, a
market was held daily to prevent problems with food preservation.22
The problems and issues of establishing a market were also felt in Annapolis. When the
town was laid out in 1693, a square was left open for a market-house. None was built until at
least 1717. In 1716 the corporation decided to outlaw the door to door selling of “flesh or fish,
living or dead, eggs, butter or cheese, (oysters excepted)” and build a market house. Until a
market house building could be constructed, sellers and buyers should meet at a flag staff on the
state house hill. Unlike Williamsburg, however, Annapolis built a market-house before midcentury. This did not turn out to be a convenient location and the market was sold in 1752 and
moved to another location. Destroyed in 1775 in a severe thunderstorm, a new markethouse was
built in 1784 by a group of wealthy Annapolis businessmen. This was a substantial structure
taking seven years to complete and cost over £550.
20
Virginia Gazette, Purdie and Dixon, July 7, 1768.
21
“Diary of M. Ambler, 1770,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography XLV, no. 2 (April 1937), pp.
156, 165-66.
22
Adolph B. Benson, ed., Peter Kalm’s Travels in North America…1770 (New York: Dover Publications,
Inc., 1964), p. 30.
86
The Evolution of Markets: Producers, Consumers, and Products
Public markets continued to evolve to provide a wide range of foodstuffs to urban places. Public
markets were virtual tourist destinations. Travelers recorded their impressions because they were
public institutions to be evaluated to mark the quality of life and the hierarchy of urban amenities.
All markets provided meat and seasonal products of garden, orchard, streams, skies, and woods.
What differed was the number of days and hours they met, the quality of foods provided, and
what part of the population were suppliers. Three components were necessary for a wellfunctioning public market: producers to bring agricultural foodstuffs, consumers to do the buying,
and public monitoring of quality and price for consumer protection. Producers came from multiple
walks of life, both rural and urban. Butchers had to pay stall fees and license fees but seemed
often to be poorer people. Other vendors were farmers and petty entrepreneurs.
Producers: Farmers and Petty Entrepreneurs
We know little about how farmers allocated their resources and organized their time to send
produce to market. Local farmers walked to town. Others had carts with hanging meat, and
smaller suppliers used wheelbarrows. Wealthy planters probably sent slaves with any plantation
surplus. Yet the large needs of supplying meat to towns could not be met locally, and the roads
must have occasionally been filled with livestock. Jacob Engelbrecht of Maryland witnessed a
flock of 400 turkeys passing his door on the way to the Washington market on February 3, 1826.
He estimated they walked eight miles a day.23
By the end of the eighteenth century, truck farming had emerged as a chief means to
supply large urban markets. Richard Parkinson described the farmer’s wagon in the Baltimore
area in the 1790s as something like a “peddlars pack,” carrying butter, eggs, fruits, potatoes,
turnips, cucumbers, poultry, multiple kinds of flour, and chopped straw.24 Anne Ritson’s poetic
description of Norfolk in 1809 helps to at least see how some farmers personally attended market
in the early morning hours:
The market chiefly is supply’d,
By those who from the country ride,
Who wish their produce soon to sell,
Making their bargains quick and well,
And back to their plantations go,
25
To see their negroes dig and hoe.
A number of petty entrepreneurs helped supply the market. These were most often the
fringes of society: slaves, free blacks, impoverished people, and women of varying stations. The
crossing of all ranks of society in the public market should come as no surprise as it was the first
23
William Quinn, ed., The Diary of Jacob Engelbrecht, 1818-1878 (Frederick, Maryland: Historical Society of
Frederick County, 1976), vol. 1, n.p.
24
Barbara Sarudy, “The Gardens and Grounds of an Eighteenth-Century Craftsman” (master’s thesis,
University of Maryland, 1988), pp. 71-72.
25
Anne Ritson, A Poetical Picture of America (London, 1809), p. 39.
87
step into petty capitalism. Because they kept few business records, it is difficult to know these
petty suppliers but by their occasional crossings into public record or private account.
The market was an important forum for surplus household production. For example,
Norfolk women of all ranks sold extra vegetables from their gardens and milk from their town
cows. Personal circumstance could also lead more well-to-do women to produce for the market.
A woman near Wilmington, North Carolina had a garden that supplied the town with vegetables,
melons, and other fruits. She also made baked goods—”minced pies, cheese-cakes, tarts and little
biskets”—which she sent to town once or twice a day, “besides her eggs, poultry, and butter.”
She would not provide credit and kept her prices low enough (halfpence) to be normal pocket
change.26 Nancy Matthews regular rounds of selling cakes in Petersburg made her easy target for
crime: she left her house in Petersburg to vend her goods and was robbed of all her clothes.27
Poorer people also used the market as a way to raise the cash to pay for “necessaries.” The wife
of the impoverished John Juitt in 1734 “used to raise things of several sorts which she disposed of
in town and thereby raised a little money.”28
Slaves were common figures in the market place, running errands, carrying baskets, and
selling commodities—their own produce of their own labor, most often in the form of agricultural
products like poultry and vegetables. West Africans were no strangers to market sales and market
relations; Henry Drewel finds the Yoruba expression “the world is a marketplace” (aye l’oya) a
constructive metaphor for “the dynamics surrounding transactions, the pushes and pulls, the
actions and reactions, the negotiations of living life.”29 But the role of slaves in the constructed
economic market of the New World has only recently been understood. We now know that from
the Caribbean to the lower South, black men and women were the de facto suppliers of foodstuffs
for a broad cross section of the white and black urban population.
That system is not so well documented or understood in Virginia. Market regulations, by
their very quantity in Virginia towns, imply a strong African American presence. As early as 1764
a committee was appointed in Norfolk to examine the problem of “slaves … selling Cakes &c and
small Beer at the market and other public places.” Nine years later, another law prohibited
“Indians, mulattoes or negroes Bound or free from selling any kind of dressed meat, Bread, or
bakes, [sic] or retailing any kind of Beer or spiritous Liquors.” That the law was repealed in 1783,
nonetheless, suggests that slaves and other marginal entrepreneurs were too important in the
supply of food to be prohibited.30 Later eighteenth-century regulations of Virginia towns did not
prohibit slave activity but tried to regulate it, most commonly through the requirement of written
26
[Janet Shaw], The Journal of a Lady of Quality. Ed. Evangelina Walker Andrews (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1939), pp. 178-179.
27
Petersburg Hustings Court, May 6, 1793, p. 77. My thanks to Mick Nichols for this reference.
28
Anne Arundel County Court Judgments 1734: p. 251.
29
Henry John Drewal, “Introduction: Yoruba Art and Life as Journeys,” in The Yoruba Artist: New
Theoretical Perspectives on African Arts, ed. by Rowland, Abiodun, Henry J. Drewal, and John Pemberton III
(Washington: Smithsonian Press, 1994), p. 195.
30
Norfolk Borough Records, 1 August 1764, 29 June 1773, 30 December 1783, reprinted in Brent Tartar, ed.,
The Order Book and Related Papers of the Common Hall of the Borough of Norfolk, Virginia, 1736-1798 (Richmond:
Virginia State Library, 1979), pp.142, 175, 217.
88
permission by owners to prevent the sale of stolen foods.31 In the antebellum period, such
economic activity by slaves may have become even more prevalent. One visitor to the Washington
markets found that “Negroes are the chief sellers.”32
Slaves also frequently sold poultry from their yards and produce from their gardens to
their owners and others. The kitchen at Jefferson’s Monticello was well supplied by plantation
slaves with chickens, eggs, vegetables and fruits. Jane Francis Walker Page in nearby Albemarle
County purchased multiple foodstuffs from slaves. Of the 28 people listed, a third were listed as
“old.” Ninety percent of the sales were of poultry and mostly, though not all, made by women.
That relation between slaves and the exchanging supply of food expanded to Page’s supplying
consumer goods for foodstuffs with several women. 33
Public markets linked plantation and urban systems of exchange in critical ways. Given
permission, slaves traveled freely to carry produce from their owners or to vend their own
foodstuffs and poultry. A former slave recorded her memories of life in Franklin County in
western Virginia. She described how her former mistress gave her slaves Saturday afternoons free
and any of the slaves who chose could go into the town of Lynchburg to sell and purchase:
“Merry parties on foot followed the farm wagon, which was loaded with tobacco, brooms, nails,
baskets of fruit and vegetables in season, and various articles of domestic manufacture contributed
by the women, such as yarn, woolen cloth, sometimes a piece of rag carpeting or a patchwork
quilt. Small pigs in boxes, with baskets of eggs and chickens, completed the outfit.”34
Market days were times to freely travel, sell, buy, see and be seen. The prevalence of
slaves from the country is seen in the new duty of the Alexandria constables appointed in 1810 to
disperse the slaves from the Sunday market at 9 o’clock. Most specifically, their task was to “see
the negroes from Maryland go over the river, to prevent the riotous play of boys of every
description, and of negroes on that day, and if country negroes, to cause them to leave town.”35
But it was not just the physical movement of slaves in and out of towns that provided such
linkages. The knowledge of market prices was probably the most important commodity that
spread far beyond urban bounds. For instance, Spencer Ball’s slave Dick of Prince William
County raised corn and watermelons on his truck patch and kept chickens, ducks, turkeys, and
31
See, for example, Petersburg Common Council Minutes, 16 July 1785, Richmond Common Hall, 2 January
32
Henry Bradshaw Fearon, Sketches of America (New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1969), p. 287.
1793.
33
Anne Cary Randolph Slave Crop Accounts, reprinted in Gerard W. Gawalt, “Jefferson's Slaves: Crop
Accounts at Monticello, 1805-1808,” in Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, vol. 13, nos.
1 and 2, Spring/Fall 1994. Jane Francis Walker Page Commonplace Book, Virginia Historical Society. Amy Rider has
recently completed a sophisticated analysis of this book in “The Castle Hill Commonplace Book and the Plantation
Mistress’ World, 1802-45” (senior history honors thesis, Princeton 1997), p. 61.
34
Orra Langhorne, Southern Sketches from Virginia, 1881-1901. Ed. Charles E. Loynes (Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 1964), p. 117.
35
April 16, 1810. Act published in the Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial and Political. My thanks to Mick
Nichols for this material.
89
geese. He credited the plantation mistress’ largesse for she “always gives me the price of the
Alexander market for my stock.”36
The Williamsburg market was no different; slaves were common sights, vending produce,
fish, and baked goods. Their presence and economic activity were only remarkable when they
overreached their bounds of economic freedom and ran away. Robert Wormley Carter’s 44-yearold slave Pheby had run away in September 1781. In January he advertised that she had been
“seen frequently in Williamsburg, about the market, selling cakes, oysters, &c.” Henry Broadnax
had a more complicated dilemma. He had purchased a man named Harry from the estate of
Nathaniel Crawley at Indianfield in York County at public auction. The slave had escaped and his
new owner suspected that he was concealed by some persons nearby. He had been told by his new
slave that “he dealt very freely in Williamsburg in the oyster and fish way, in their seasons.”
Broadnax was posting a warning to “all that deal in that way with Negroes” to observe his lengthy
description and “detect the villain if possible.”37
Both of these slaves used the relative anonymity of the slave presence at market to escape
notice. Slaves commonly ran errands; many are recorded delivering food to the Governor’s
Palace. The freedom to act as middlemen became even more pronounced in some markets. In
Baltimore where truck farming became an important business by the end of the eighteenth
century, black middle men were the common buyers and sellers in the wee hours of the morning.
Richard Parkinson complained that he could hardly compete within this black system of
provisioning, and thought the black entrepreneurs were able to disengage from the real world of
enslavement until their owners arrived some hours later.38
The location of markets also continued to evolve with the growth of towns. In smaller
towns of the colonial period, markets tended to be placed like their English equivalents: in central
places like the public squares of the courthouse. In larger urban cities of the northeast, markets
were usually found near water transport. For example, the markets of New York spread along the
riverbanks. In 1755, eight markets served an estimated population of 13,000, or about 1600
customers per market. This is similar to Williamsburg’s ratio of customers to its single market in
1770. Nonetheless, by 1810 eight markets served 96,000 people, or 12,000 for each point of
distribution. These were distributed in a more “rational” system like those described in centralplace systems. Market neighborhoods extended from about a quarter-mile to more than a mile. By
the early nineteenth century, these markets were no longer under the government control of the
earlier period, and may express more free market principals of location.39
With the growth of urban markets, the nature of the suppliers themselves had changed. In
large towns of the northeast, more people began to step in as middle men, preparing nightly carts
for an early morning trek or meeting market boats. On the Hudson River, market sloops brought
36
John Davis, Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America (London, 1803), p. 388. Cited
in Pat Gibbs, “Hominy, Ashcakes, and other ‘Belly Timber’: Slave Diet in the Early Chesapeake to 1825” (position
paper in progress, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
37
38
Virginia Gazette, or Weekly Advertiser (Richmond) 19 January 1782; Virginia Gazette, Rind, May 26, 1768.
Sarudy, “The Gardens and Grounds of an Eighteenth-Century Craftsman,” pp. 72-75.
39
Nan A. Rothschild, New York City Neighborhoods: The Eighteenth Century (New York: Academic Press,
1990), pp. 57-66.
90
livestock, butter, eggs and other country produce to market where butchers, grocers, and heads of
household eagerly purchased. One Scotsman in 1821 found hucksters to be “cheeky insolent irish”
carrying baskets with “eatables,” such as citrus fruit and ginger cakes, anxious to “parcel out
bargains.” 40 Slaves were also common suppliers as far north as New York but increased in
frequency down the Atlantic seaboard.
Consumers and the Experience of Marketing
As market exchange evolved from face-to-face business with known tradesmen, local slaves, and
rural neighbors, there may have been a change in how household marketing was carried out. The
economic transformation of the market both witnessed and produced such a change.
Few colonists recorded the day-to-day workings of marketing, so many questions remain.
Who did the marketing? Eighteenth-century published cookbooks were written for women, and
several authors (including Hannah Glasse, the most popular cookbook author in the colonies)
contain explicit instructions for marketing. When Mary Ambler visited Baltimore in 1770, she
found that “Ladys here all go to markt to supply their pantry.”41 In the same year in Montreal, a
traveler recorded that “the daughters of all ranks, without exception, go to market,” buy
vegetables and other food and “carry it home themselves.”42
Eighteenth-century women of all classes were engaging in behavior appropriate to a
female’s place as household manager. Nonetheless, the household labor of shopping may have
shifted to men in some towns during the early nineteenth century. Anne Ritson’s poetical
treatment of the Norfolk market indicates that ladies would never go to market, and men spent
their morning hours buying the needed foodstuffs. The Scotsman visiting the New York markets
in the early 1820s found that “husbands both rich and poor go to market.” He described with
some amusement meeting an esteemed merchant with a “plucked goose and some pidgeons
dangling in one hand and a species of cabbage stocks in the other.” He also recounted the shock
of a fashionable young English linen draper who “commenced housekeeping and to market he
must go.” Not the custom in England for men to do the marketing, he thought to “dangle a basket
with a shoulder of mutton and vegetables home to be indelicate.”43 Male heads of household with
servants mixed with women in Alexandria and Philadelphia markets in the 1820s.44 These men
may have sent home their early morning purchases with servants and continued on their day’s
work.
While this deserves much further study, a reorganization of household labor of this
magnitude is significant. Why would women in some towns stop doing household marketing? One
40
“Narrrative of the Travels of a Scotsman from Glasgow,” 1821-1824 (New York: New York Historical
Society), p. 204.
41
“Diary of M. Ambler, 1770,” p. 156.
42
Benson, Peter Kalm’s Travels in North America…1770, p. 184.
43
“Narrative of the Travels of a Scotsman,” p. 43.
44
For Alexandria, see Anne Royall, Sketches of History, Life, and Manners, in the United States. By a
Traveller (New Haven, 1826, reprinted New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1970), p. 102. For Philadelphia, see “The
Autobiography of S. Dillwyn, Daughter of Dr. Phillip S. Physick and Wife to Commander Conner, UNS, 1826,” Susan
Conner Papers, Library, Independence Seaport Museum, p. 39.
91
explanation may be that larger economic shifts in the social class of producers (a shift from
farmers to middle men, for example) may have made the markets a less savory place. As early as
1763, a New York lady complained of great rudeness and ill manners in our public markets,
particularly in times of scarcity. She described pushing and shoving and concluded that “all that
are weak and peaceable like myself, have been excluded from purchasing in the market, by
rudeness and force.”45 The Scotsman in New York was shocked at the insolent saucy behavior of
the Irish hucksters. Slaves became the major suppliers in many towns in the South. Anne Ritson
pointed out the distinction between women dealing with butchers (“none but of the lowest mein/
are ever with the butchers seen”) and other suppliers of foodstuffs, more likely to be women
themselves.46 On the other hand, other cultural changes may have led to a reorientation of affluent
women’s time to leisure shopping, reading, and other pursuits.
Products and Market Specialization
The final effect of market evolution was its ability to meet consumer demand for a wide variety of
foodstuffs. Greater consumption may have led to an increase in the kinds of foods centralized at
market places. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Baltimore had two market houses,
one for fish and vegetables near water transport and a second for beef. William Wirt described the
market to his daughter Catherine in Washington. The market houses were three to four times as
large as the one in Washington. His description is unusually evocative. He saw hogsheads full of
fowl and a long line or waggons and carts “with their tails turned toward the market houses and
groaning under loads of country productions.” He saw “loads of sweet cakes of all sorts and
fashions and materials that covered the outside tables of the market house everywhere; and the
breakfasts that were cooking every where around the market house for the country people who
come many miles to market.” He explained that “you may conceive the vast quantities of
provisions that must be brought to the market when you are told that sixty thousand people draw
their daily supplies from that market, which is more than twice as many people as there are in
Washington, Georgetown, Alexandria and Richmond all put together.”47
The Baltimore market also caught the attention of Anne Royall. She had visited a number
of markets in her travels from Alabama, describing prices and quality. She reserved her greatest
praise for Baltimore. “Nothing pleased me more than the markets … never had I seen anything
equal to it, either for variety or abundance, and every thing much cheaper than I had expected—
vegetables of all sorts, fruit, meat, and fish, both fresh and salt—in short, every thing that was to
be eaten.” The marketplace had now evolved to include a variety of processed foodstuffs and
baked goods. She described an “old woman sitting with a table spread with nice bread and butter,
veal cutlet, sausages and coffee; there another, with a table bending under the weight of candy,
sweet cakes, oranges and apples; another with choice vegetables; another with fowls, as fat as
45
“The Lady,” New York Gazette, January 10, 1763. Cited in Thomas F. De Voe, The Market Book (New
York, 1862; reprinted Augustus M. Kelley, 1970) p. 139.
46
Ritson, A Poetical Picture of America, p. 71.
47
William Wirt to Catherine Wirt, Washington City, November 4, 1822. Wirt papers, Maryland historical
Society, Microfilm 5. My thanks to Ellen Donald for this reference.
92
corn could make them. These take their stations at each end of the market-houses, and form a
perfect phalanx.”48
Some of the best detailed evidence for markets in the mid-Atlantic can be found in the
purchases of Thomas Jefferson’s French maitre d’hotel Etienne Lemaire at the markets of
Georgetown. These manuscript accounts are written mainly in French, with some English and a
mixture of French/English phonetic spellings. Jefferson was no ordinary market customer; he
entertained frequently at the White House and was probably one of the most ardent admirers of
French cuisine in the country. His food bills ebbed and flowed based on his own presence in
Washington and his scale of entertaining. Nonetheless, these accounts tell us much about market
economics and market choices. With the help of intern Amy Rider, we translated and analyzed
Jefferson’s market purchases for 1806.
Lemaire’s purchases show the extraordinary range of foodstuffs available in Washington
for high-style cooking and dining. In the last two weeks of October 1806, he purchased a range of
specialty meats: a suckling pig, guinea fowls, partridges, squirrels, veal head and liver, guinea
fowl, rabbits, pheasant, a pair of muscovy ducks (live), as well as numerous quantities of beef,
mutton, lamb, and veal. The chef also needed sorrel for preserves, fresh chestnuts, white beans,
and 500 gherkins “for the vinagrette.” While late in the season, he was still able to purchase
tomatoes on November 1.
His records also demonstrate how market prices were linked to both the agricultural
calendar of producers and special seasonal swells of consumers. Like Timothy Telltruth’s
complaint about increased prices in public times in Williamsburg, the prices in the Washington
area swelled when Congress was in session. Jefferson’s purchases affirm what Anne Royall had
observed: market prices at Washington were much lower in the absence of Congress.49
Meat generally decreased in price over the course of a year, although these changes were
not large, usually only 1 to 3 pence difference per pound of meat. Dairy products show an overall
trend of being less expensive in the summer months than in the winter. Dairy prices also exhibit
more fluctuation than meat. Eggs, for example, range from 15 pence to 45 pence per dozen.
Poultry prices vary according to the individual bird type. Chickens, for example, are most
expensive in the winter, ducks in early spring, and turkeys at the end of their season in May.
Individual prices for most fruits and vegetables cannot be determined, with the exception of
oranges and lemons. In a season ranging from January to October, oranges were most expensive
in January and February, and lemons became more expensive as their March to October season
progressed.
Two special factors must be noted in this analysis of market purchases: Jefferson’s
absences and his entertaining. He was absent from Washington from May 6 to June 7, and again
from July 21 to October 4. During these months (roughly May, August, and September) there is a
noticeable drop in the amount of items purchased and also their quantities and total money spent,
even further than the general summer decrease in purchases. This seems logical, as not only is
Jefferson absent during those months, but also any guests he might otherwise have entertained.
48
Royall, Sketches of History, Life, and Manners, in the United States, pp. 136-137.
49
Royall, Sketches of History, Life, and Manners, in the United States, p. 102.
93
However, the variety of items available at the time (summer) continues to be fully represented,
particularly vegetables. Fruits continue to be purchased whether or not he is there, and in fact
Jefferson all but missed the seasons for peaches, pears, and watermelons as they were available,
and purchased, in Washington. There is some change, though, in the type of items purchased in
Jefferson’s absence. Specialty meats, such as heads, livers, and feet, are, with one exception,
absent from the months Jefferson is at Monticello. The number of purchases of cabbage, on the
other hand, remains the same, or climbs higher than normal.
The amount of food purchased naturally rose considerably when Jefferson entertained.
From the lists of Jefferson’s guests, we can see that their number decreases in the summer
months, when many people left the Washington area. In the winter and spring, however, Jefferson
entertained very frequently. One would then expect the amount of food purchased during the
entertaining “season” to be high, whether or not that was also the time of particular abundance for
those foods. Indeed, this is borne out by the data, and can be seen particularly in the huge
quantities of meat bought during this time. The highest price of beef corresponded with his largest
purchase. Food prices rose during the time that government was in session; that naturally
coincided with his highest entertaining.
Lemaire’s accounts show how markets and consumers were linked. Washington area
markets carried a wide range of high-end, perhaps even unusual, foodstuffs for a population that
entertained at a seasonal round. Nonetheless, its prices also rose with high consumer demand.
This highlights a key point. While the market system continued to evolve into a rational linkage of
local and regional products and transportation, in the colonial and early national period it was also
highly local. Travelers never failed to mention price and quality variations at markets.
One final example is illustrative. When Moreau de St. Mery visited Norfolk near the end
of the eighteenth century, he gave the usual catalog of market prices for beef, mutton, fowl, eggs,
and milk. “But what sells for an absurdly low price in Norfolk,” he wrote, “is fish.” After a long
list of available fish, he wrote that “fish are so abundant that the police are frequently obliged to
order unsold fish to be thrown into the sea.”50
Norfolk’s port location made the supply of one commodity exceed its demand. Was that
demand so fluctuating that it could not be predicted? It is unclear. The household of Moses Myers
in Norfolk, nonetheless, took advantage of the low prices and high quality of fish. Moses Myers
was a prominent Jewish merchant in Norfolk. One of the premier townspeople, he entertained
lavishly and lived well. Nonetheless, banking failures rippled him to his ruin. After his own death
and that of his wife, a household expense book for 1824 lists the purchases made by his unmarried
daughter and her household. Their expenditures on fish are so unlike any of the other households
we studied that there had to be some cause. First, Myers purchased no pork, so his foodways
undoubtedly reflect his ethnic heritage. Fish and seafood was regularly purchased for household
use, at rates much higher than the total household population we studied. Fish, and occasionally
crabs, were the major item listed for “kitchen” (for the slaves) compared to “house” (for the
family). Low cost fish may have emerged as the most inexpensive form of food to provision slaves
in Norfolk. Fish was always a relatively low-cost commodity, with no cost to catch it yourself.
50
Moreau de St. Mery’s American Journey [1793-1798], trans. and ed. by Kenneth Roberts and Anna M.
Roberts (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday and Company, 1947), p. 55.
94
But the reliance on fish and crabs in the Myers household is so different from those in other towns
studied in this project that it may well reflect the local market’s overabundance.
The issue of running a well-regulated market that brings rural commodities to urban
people lies at the heart of the study of provisioning. Municipal action was necessary to centralize
and ensure food supply for local citizens and prevent malfeasance on the part of providers. If
Williamsburg failed to meet that standard, city inhabitants could supply themselves or turn to
other providers. Robert Carter acknowledged the conundrum: without a good market, people turn
to other means of household provisioning. One colonist’s letter may provide a final explanation.
James Maury was a schoolteacher in the piedmont. When he received complaints about the price
of his student’s board compared to that of the College of William and Mary, he explained that the
location of Williamsburg with regional access to “the Carolina Drovers” meant beef was
inexpensive. Its location between two rivers with large quantities of grain, led to moderate prices
of bread. This combination—apparently good local supply of grain and regional supply of beef—
may have made it difficult to centralize foodstuffs at the marketplace.51
Butchers
Butchers were some of the most important players in the marketplace. In most cities, they were
licensed and charged fees to rent stalls in the markethouse. Complaints about the licensed
butchers abound; the market regulations in New York in 1782 complained of butchers forestalling
meat and other “criminal abuses.” They particularly complained that butchers would “blow” meat
and stuff and add fat to meat and kidneys to hide poor quality and add weight. The market
butcher in Richmond was put on probation for forestalling meat.
Butchering usually took place at town edges, key distribution points for the delivery of
rural suppliers and where land was inexpensive for grazing. Town regulations were careful to
forbid slaughtering at the market place. Norfolk’s slaughterhouses all lay at the edge of town. A
plantation on the Western Branch about nine miles from Norfolk was advertised as a prime
location for slaughtering. On the main country road from Suffolk to Norfolk and the road from
Carolina, it was convenient “for the Carolina drovers to kill beef and pork at, having fine
pasturage.”52 The town edges were also used in Williamsburg for slaughtering; Benjamin
Hanson’s butchering operation lay near to but west of town.
Less is known of the day-to-day workings of butchering operations. Moreau de St. Mery
described the slaughterhouses on the edge of Norfolk. The process was efficient. He wrote that
“the beeves are killed with a sledge hammer, their throats cut with a knife, and almost before they
have stopped breathing they are skinned.”53 As processors, butchers either had to raise large
numbers of animals or arrange for their purchase. Most apparently did the latter. Thomas Wilkins
advertised that he would be willing to buy “any beef, veal, mutton, lamb, shoat, etc. to dispose of
in Williamsburg.”54 Daniel Wells of Annapolis was imprisoned for debt to another man for calf,
51
James Maury to Colonel John Bolling, December 2, 1767. American Philosophical Society, Miscellaneous
manuscripts. Microfilm, CWF M-1170.
52
Virginia Gazette, Purdie and Dixon, July 4, 1766.
53
Moreau de St. Mery’s American Journey , p. 61
54
York County Biographical files; Virginia Gazette January 30, 1752.
95
deer, and sheep in 1755, perhaps animals purchased but not paid for in his business. The ancillary
processing of animals included fat, tallow, and soap. All were found scattered in butcher’s
inventories.
Butchers were lower-level craftsmen, and we know most about them through their debts,
crimes, and lack of wealth. Of the eight documented butchers in York County, most seemed to
die poor. Thomas Wilkins may have had some problems in his business; his book of debts was
taken over by William Cole in 1758. Benjamin Hanson was a free black mulatto of extremely
humble family. While the archaeological investigation of his butchery site shows an extensive
operation, his estate was so small at his death that the sheriff was ordered to administer. Joseph
Vason bought 6 2/3 acres from John Blair in 1764, but at his death his estate was similarly so
small that no one would administer. Stephen Brown was marginally much better off: he served in
minor country offices, owned two lots, yet his personal estate totaled only £17 in 1737. Richard
Smith in Yorktown is a particularly illustrative case of the marginality of butchers in society. He
owned lots in Yorktown and purchased livestock. He also received twenty-five lashes in 1739 for
stealing a shoat. He was similarly impoverished; his estate was too small to be administered. Just
prior to his death, he was accused of neglecting his children’s education and they were bound out.
What caused that disapprobation is not noted, but it suggests a man without a support network of
friends. Only Patrick Matthews of Yorktown seemed to be a successful entrepreneur. He owned
multiple inexpensive lots and a warehouse near Yorktown in 1752. Perhaps his success in
Yorktown could be partially because he functioned outside of the public market system. There
was no regular market at Yorktown. When the Frenchman Rochefocualt-Liancourt visited
Yorktown at the end of the eighteenth century, he noted that “each person furnishes himself with
meat in the best manner he can; and they are seldom unsupplied with it.”55 Yorktown was also a
bustling port at mid-century and would have needed large supplies of meat to supply taverns and
for export.
Most butchers in Annapolis were similarly from the bottom fringes of society. John
Cummings had to petition for relief at the age of sixty-two because he was too old to work as a
butcher and had no other means of support. William Metcalf was charged with assault. James
Topper was bound to Sarah Graham who paid a debt for him while a freeman.
Butchering skills were valuable commodities sought in both servants and slaves. William
Naylor’s advertisement as a runaway servant paints a good picture: he was a “short thick-set
Man, a butcher by Trade, speaks broad English, and is pretty much freckled.”56 His advertisement
was signed by three men: Alexander Craig, Alexander Finnie, and John Mitchelson. The linking of
their names to the runaway butcher is perhaps revealing. Two of the men needed the products of
animal processing themselves: Craig was a sadler (hides) and Finnie a tavern keeper (meat). Their
linkage in business to owning an indentured servant butcher is unknown. Some slaves were also
skilled butchers. William Pasteur advertised that he would sell a “very valuable negro fellow” who
has been “regularly brought up to the butchering business.”57 Butchering could also be part of a
55
Duke de la “Rochefoucault Liancourt, Travels through the United States of North America. (London: R.
Phillips, 1799), p. 22.
56
Virginia Gazette, May 24, 1751.
57
Virginia Gazette, August 19, 1780.
96
package of food skills. James Hubbard offered to hire out “either in Williamsburg or the Country”
a “likely cook fellow, who is also a good Butcher.”
Oystermen
If butchering clustered on the edge of town, the oyster and fish business lay near the waterways.
The sale of oysters and fish was an important part of supplying Williamsburg’s food. Matthew
Moody Jr. was an active waterman who “lived at the lowest house of Capital Landing.” He kept
“at all Times, fine Queen’s Creek OYSTERS, fresh from the rocks, which will be dressed
agreeable to the Taste of those who may please to favour him with their custom, and with the
greatest Expedition.” He also could offer, tea, coffee, and a “good BOWL OF PUNCH.”58
Williamsburg merchant William Pasteur advertised that he was planned to begin a business as
“oyster merchant” in York County. Customers could purchase oysters open or in shells at his
landing at King’s Creek.59 This business of supplying oysters and fish must have involved
numerous watermen. A runaway slave had “dealt very freely in Williamsburg in the oyster and fish
way.”60
Bakers
The necessity of townspeople to supply themselves with bread was as basic—perhaps more so—
than meat. Nonetheless, it was a need that could be met in many different ways. There were
multiple levels of the processing in which they could participate—or opt out. Corn could be
ground at home into meal. Bread of various forms could be baked on the hearth or in a dutch
oven. Large brick ovens could be built at home or a housewife could take her dough to a
professional for baking. Professionals could be local women or more well-to-do-artisans. Biscuit
could be bought to replace other bread forms. Cakes and confectionaries could be sold at the
same place and time or by different providers. All of these choices make the provisioning of bread
in urban households more complicated to study.
Six bakers were identified in York County records. Like butchers, we know little about
their lives and businesses, but can piece together small biographies. William Sherman was born in
Bruton Parish in 1684 and was active in York County, appointed constable in Williamsburg in
1705. Like the many butchers studied, he owned land but was often in debt. A clear spiral to
insolvency can be seen. His servant sued for unpaid wages in 1707, in 1708 he sold off lots. In the
same year, he was sued for £210 sterling, and by September his estate had been evaluated for debt
and valued at £16. Nonetheless, these were not the household furnishings of an indigent man,
including six cane chairs, a cane couch, and four leather chairs. He fled the county to avoid
payment. Peter Moyer was active in Williamsburg in the middle of the century and achieved rather
marked personal success. He owned five slaves, multiple urban lots, and in 1789, purchased 150
acres of land near Burwell’s mill pond. We can see glimpses of his business: Benjamin Weldon
supplied him with large amounts of wood.
58
Virginia Gazette, Purdie and Dixon, April 21, 1774.
59
Virginia Gazette, November 6, 1779.
60
Virginia Gazette, Rind, May 26, 1768.
97
The most well-documented Williamsburg baker is Cornelius DeForest and it is in his life
that the business of baking begins to emerge in terms of raw materials, equipment and product.
He is first noted as “baker near the capitol” in Williamsburg in 1776. In the same year, Humphrey
Harwood delivered a large load of bricks and built an oven. While we know little of his earlier life,
he was probably a practicing baker elsewhere in Virginia before removing to Williamsburg.
Landon Carter sold him a large quantity of wheat in 1758. Carter remarked in his diary that he
took special care with what he sold him; he cleaned the wheat, removing twenty bushels of lesser
quality. (Carter thought DeForest got a bargain at his price and he ground it for free.)61 Finally,
DeForest was paid £75 by General Nelson for supplying bread for the militia in 1777. He died one
of the wealthier men in town in 1782; he owned ten lots, five slaves and his estate was valued at
£490.
Nicholas Scovemont was another baker in Williamsburg. Born around 1750, he was able
to purchase a lot by May 1773 and added another between 1782 and 1787. His slave Bagley (or
Bailey) ran away in 1777. He evidently was not returned, as Scovement was only taxed for a
young slave in 1783. While the records do not record his total business across time, records of
flour purchase in 1777 from Burwell’s mill allow a tiny window on his business. He purchased
flour regularly from Burwell’s mill in January, February, and March of 1777 and again in August,
September, November and December. Cash payments were made quarterly in March for his
winter and spring purchases and again in September, October, and December (in full). He also
picked up a little business outside baking when possible, advertising in 1779 the recent
importation from Hispaniola of rum and sugar. Interested customers could also have a “few cards
of neat stone sleeve buttons” at his shop.62
Like the other food trades, baking could be a profession of marginal people with good
credit relations and networks. Nonetheless, the growth of commercial mills in the area and the
increasing export of biscuit meant that the need for bakers increased and perhaps their wages and
profits. Robert Carter built a bakehouse in conjunction with his wheat export business. He wrote
to Philadelphia in 1762 that a neighbor wished to hire “a single Man well qualified in ye Bakers
Art” and that one who chose to accept the offer “may expect Civil Treatment and receive Wages
punctually.”63 By 1771, Robert Bolling of Petersburg was also in the market for a baker. His wish
to buy a skilled slave baker was rebuffed when the Norfolk slave “made the matter up to his
master (who is old and infirm and easily prevailed upon)” not to sell him.64 Carter was
disappointed in his schemes in 1771 when he complained that “the price of Bisket & flower for
some time past, have not yielded any profits to the Makers thereof, and I have done very little in
that way.” As a result, he had little used the slave of Colonel Lewis (of Gloucester County) in his
bakehouse.65 Greater profits came to bakers who could increase capitalization and production
61
Jack P. Greene, ed., Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752-1778, 2 vols (Richmond: Virginia
Historical Society, 1987), p. 230.
62
Virginia Gazette, Dixon, 11 December 1779.
63
Robert Carter to Mr. Amos Strettell, Philadelphia, August 16, 1762.
64
Thomas Newton, Jr to Colonel Robert Bolling, December 20, 1771. Bolling Papers, Virginia Historical
Society. Mss2N4882a!.
65
Robert Carter to Col. Warner Lewis, October 16, 1773. Robert Carter Letter Book, Volume II [1774-1775],
pp. 54-55. Letterbook. Special Collections, CWF.
98
during the Revolution in supplying the troops. This explains the high average assessed wealth of
£300 to £500 for bakers after the Revolution in Annapolis. Frederick Grammar had come to the
city in 1777, only two years after emigrating from Germany and spending time in Philadelphia. He
provisioned troops and amassed a considerable fortune.66
In large urban places, specialized baking emerged for different markets. Bakers could
provide baking for households. A bakehouse was advertised in Philadelphia in 1746/7 with two
ovens that had “continual employ, by loaf bread, bisket baking, and for dinner baking.”67 Joseph
Calvert in Charleston made a wide range of “Household bread” and cakes. He also heated his
oven daily “for the convenience of such Families as shall send Meat, Pies, Puddings, to be bak’d
for dinner.”68 An engraving by Charles Wilson Peale entitled “The Accident in Lombard-Street
Philadelphia 1787” depicts a woman who has just dropped a pie on the street on her way home
from the bakehouse. Bakers could also supply dough for baking as recommended in Hannah
Glasse’s cookbook. After her discussion of preparing and cooking dumpling dough in the recipe,
she adds a hint. “As good a way as any to save Trouble, is to send to the Baker’s for half a
quartern of Dough (which will make a great many) and then you have only the trouble of boiling
it.”69
At the other end of specialization were the bakers who solely made biscuit or supplied
ships. Early nineteenth-century Norfolk was home to thirty-eight bakers; three men were
designated specifically as “biscuit baker,” one as “ship bread baker.”70 As the market for bread
continued to specialize, some bakers were careful to note that they carried on all its various
forms. Some combined businesses. Hutton and Colston in Baltimore advertised that they carry on
the “baking business in all its branches.” They provided ship and pilot bread, but also planned to
send a “bread carriage” to the city to supply private families. “Any family, who will send their
directions, as customers, shall be supplied regularly.”
Women were also involved in the provisioning of bread. Robert Lyon, the single wigmaker
in Williamsburg in 1749, had arrangements with several women in town to supply him with bread,
paid on a monthly or sometimes bi-monthly basis. His particular provider varied between several
women over the course of the year. One was the wife of a butcher, another of a tavern keeper.
Other women sold cakes on the streets, both slave and free. Thomas Jefferson bought “cakes from
a woman” on several occasions. Confectioners like Mrs. Stagg in Williamsburg sold fancy baked
goods and cookies. One pastry-cook in Charleston not only provided a number of elaborate baked
goods on demand, but also “collard and potted beef, and many other articles too tedious to
enumerate.”71
66
Edward C. Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the Era of the American Revolution,
1763-1805 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), p. 144.
67
Pennsylvania Gazette, February 3, 1746/47.
68
South-Carolina Gazette, Charleston, 9 September 1745.
69
Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747 edition) (London: Prospect Books, 1983).
70
My thanks to Mary Ferrari for this Norfolk information.
71
The South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, Charles Town, S.C., 21 Feb 1769.
99
C. MILLS
Urban households needed corn (ground to meal) or wheat (processed to various grades of flour)
for multiple provisioning needs Mills were links in the provisioning chain in multiple directions.
Farmers needed mills for their own household use, local processing of wheat and corn, or export.
Mill customers were also both professional and home bakers. The larger shift in the Chesapeake
from tobacco to wheat also led to increased need for mills to process wheat for flour export.
These two factors—urban growth and export—led to a rapid growth in the number of mills in the
Williamsburg area in the eighteenth century (Table 3.8).
Only around mid-century did the region support an increase in the number of mills. Nine
mills served the area between 1740-1769, while that number increased to 14 water/water grist
mills after 1770. The latter time period reflects both increased export of wheat and flour but also a
greater wartime need for provisioning.
Table 3.8.
DOCUMENTED NUMBER OF MILLS: 1700-1784
WILLIAMSBURG ,YORK COUNTY, AND JAMES CITY COUNTY
Years
1700-1719
1720-1739
1740-1769
1770-1784
Water
6
5
9
14
Wind
1
1
0
1
Horse
——
1
——
——
Williamsburg’s tidewater location meant that grist mills could easily be built on the many
streams that crisscrossed York County, James City County, and further north and east to New
Kent and Charles City County. In trying to assess the importance of Williamsburg as a market, we
wanted to know the locations of these mills and whether they suggested an orientation toward
town customers or the export trade (Figs. 3.3-3.6). Only one water-powered mill before 1740 fell
within an area under two miles from Williamsburg. After 1740 the number of mills quadrupled in
the 2-4 mile range from Williamsburg, The growth spurt of mills farther away from the town
center (5 to 10 miles) awaited the later eighteenth century.
The closest town mill was probably Ludwell’s Mill. At least one town resident, St. George
Tucker, had an arrangement with the mill to annually supply “Indian Corn, Indian Meal, and
Hominy” for family use and settle up at the end of the time. A ticket system based on playing
cards was devised as an accounting system so that illiterate people—probably slaves—could carry
out the transactions.
A mill book survives for Carter’s Grove covering the years 1775 through 1778. There Burwell
manufactured much of the corn and wheat his plantations produced into meal and flour, as well as
some grain purchased from area planters. Most was sold to neighbors and to townsfolk and
professional bakers in Williamsburg and Yorktown. His was not a large scale mill geared to
100
Figure 3.3. Mills, 1700-1719.
(Dates are based on documented references.)
Figure 3.4. Mills, 1720-1739.
(Dates are based on documented references.)
101
Figure 3.5. Mills, 1740-1769.
(Dates are based on documented references.)
Figure 3.6. Mills, 1770-1784.
(Dates are based on documented references.)
the export trade, so we were surprised to discover marked seasonality in its operation. Between
January and early August Burwell’s miller ground little but corn, which was sold in the form of
meal and to a lesser extent coarser hominy. Not until early spring were planters certain by how
102
much the previous year’s crop would exceed plantation needs and could be safely marketed, and it
was at this time that they shelled out and sold off their surpluses. Then between mid August and
December the mill produced primarily wheat flour. The first of the wheat from the early July
harvest was threshed and delivered to millers during these months. Town residents could not be
certain of buying corn meal from the mill towards the end of the year, nor of getting flour early in
the season. Consequently we must suppose that they either had to buy ground grains when they
were most available and store reserves of meal and flour to carry them across the short season, or
else to purchase part of the year from storekeepers or other dealers who presumably maintained
more regular stocks.
D. STORES
Beyond the bounds of the marketplace, the most common point of sale for the provisioning of
urban households was the retail store. Merchants were instrumental in supplying towns with
imported goods from around the British Empire. Along with the massive flow of textiles, tools,
and teacups came tea, coffee, spirits and wine. Stores also stocked foodstuffs, like sugar, spices,
relishes, pickles, cooking oils, citrus fruit, cheese, and preserved fish. Any easily transportable
foodstuffs that were grown in one place and shipped to another could also appear on the
merchant’s shelf.
The influx of the so-called new groceries (like tea and spices) from the Far East helped
define new forms of the store trade in England and the colonies. The growth of these commodities
were both fed by and led to new forms of consumption. Because tea drinking and more refined
foodways were new forms of behavior, their choice led to new consumers. Because these items
were used up and needed rapid replacement, they led to an increasing number of store visits. This
combination led to a larger number of outlets. These commodities were sold side-by-side with a
vast range of other manufactured goods in many small stores, but specialized outlets also
developed called grocers.
It was the intersection of this long-distance trade with local suppliers that define colonial
Chesapeake stores, especially those in urban areas. The importance of foodstuffs as a commodity
led to a mixing of the sale of imported groceries and local foods like meat and corn. In England,
these two sectors would more likely be separated into two institutions: village shops vended
groceries and specialized public markets distributed meat and grain. This divergence lies at the
heart of the changed role of merchants in the provisioning of urban places.
The Rise of the Retail Trade in Foodstuffs in Virginia
One of the first goals in establishing the new colony in Virginia was to replicate the old social and
economic institutions left behind. Just like markets, colonial officials thought stores were critical
to success. Indeed, the instructions that accompanied the first settlers from the London Company
included directions for building storehouses, houses for public use, and private dwellings on
streets that formed a square around a market place. Throughout the next century, the Assembly
would try to impel Virginians to live in towns, particularly by controlling where and how trade
could be carried out. The earliest attempts at Jamestown to establish markets included centralizing
trade in all imported goods, not just local foods.
103
The history of the distribution of goods in Virginia differs markedly therefore from that of
England or more Northern colonies. Planters spread out along Virginia's many rivers and ships
could travel far inland to deliver goods more cheaply than overland transport. Hugh Jones, a
resident in the 1720s, thought this access to water meant that it was easier for "any thing to be
delivered to a gentleman there from London, Bristol, etc. than to one living five miles in the
country in England."72 The first retail trade thus was a kind of water-borne peddling where
merchants traveled to countless private landings to buy tobacco and sell goods. Small entrepots
eventually developed on plantations where neighboring planters could bring crops and purchase
goods. The development of larger nodes of distribution were necessary to the development of
stores. The lack of towns and markets hurt the development of trade in another way. As late as
1697, it was reported that a Virginia "Tradesman having no Opportunity of a Market where he
can buy Meat, Milk, Corn, and all other things, must either make Corn, keep Cows, and raise
Stocks himself or must ride about the country" to buy it.73
The history of the retail trade in the Chesapeake was inextricably linked to the tobacco
trade which moved the primary commodity out in exchange for imported goods. It was the
beginning of permanent stores at specified locations that solved the problem of supplying
Virginians with manufactured goods. This permanence was possible because of four factors. The
Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730 in Virginia and 1747 in Maryland enabled the issuance of
tobacco notes that entitled the bearer to a certain amount of tobacco in a warehouse and could
serve as a form of specie. As settlement became denser, a larger population enabled a merchant to
stock a wider variety of goods and offer them at a year-round basis. Without fear of a dearth of
goods, consumers could purchase regularly and even impulsively. As the tobacco trade itself
became more organized and permanent merchants and factors began to set up in the colony,
greater efficiency meant that ships spent less time sitting idle and goods were sent more
frequently. By mid century, that greater efficiency meant that two annual shipments could be
made compared to the previous single voyage, with spring and summer goods shipped in February
and March, and fall and winter goods shipped in late summer and early fall. Finally, a major factor
in the rise of the retail trade was the re-organization of the trade as British firms established
regular merchant houses in Virginia, and sent a person to manage their business in the colony.
At first glance, the tobacco trade seems tangential to the story of retail trades in town.
Unlike their rural counterparts, urban stores were seldom businesses whose sole purpose was to
compete for tobacco in exchange for manufactured goods and cash. Nonetheless, urban stores and
the tobacco trade intersected in many ways. The tobacco trade laid the groundwork for how
urban stores would evolve. First, while Williamsburg merchants began to advertise by the late
1750s that goods were sold for "ready money only," tobacco receipts or notes were considered
ready money. Second, the annual meeting of rural merchants in Williamsburg to set tobacco prices
and arrange supplies placed local merchants in a prime position. Third, the regular movement of
ships dropped prices of transport and established relationships with English suppliers. Finally,
while the kinds of imported foods sold in urban stores might exceed in range those sold in stores
across the countryside, the categories sold were similar. John Mair's classification system for
72
Hugh Jones, The Present State of Virginia, p. 73.
73
Henry Hartwell, James Blair, and Edward Chilton, The Present State of Virginia, and the College. Ed.
Hunter Dickinson Farish, (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1940), pp. 9-10.
104
Virginia stores included two forms of foodstuffs under the categories of "Grocery" and "WestIndia Goods." Grocery items were "sugar, pepper, cinnamon, nutmegs, cloves, saltpetre, raisins,
currants, indigo, Tea, &" West-India Goods were "brown sugar, coffee, chocolate, rum,
molasses." A third category of goods related to food was "kitchen furniture" and included "pots,
frying-pans, pewter dishes, plates, and basons, jugs, spoons, candlesticks, tea-kettles, coffee-pots,
&c."74
Merchants’ Supply of Food and Drink
Ships came coastwise and from around the world to fill the shelves of Chesapeake stores with
foodstuffs. Virginia merchants often bought the most important commodities (the West Indies
goods like rum and sugar) from wholesalers in Norfolk or Portsmouth. Grocery items (tea,
sweetmeats, spices, cooking oils, and the like) came from London, Glasgow, and points in the
north of England. At the same time, livestock and preserved foodstuffs like salted butter flowed
from the piedmont and backcountry to more eastern points.
Williamsburg and Annapolis were important distribution points for all kinds of goods.
Thirty-one merchants operated in Williamsburg in 1770. Twenty-two merchants advertised their
businesses in Annapolis in 1774. The rate of expansion in the decade before the American
Revolution was impressive. The number of merchants in Williamsburg swelled by nearly a quarter
between 1765 and 1770. The merchant community in Annapolis was also in a period of growth.
Of those who advertised in 1774, three-fourths entered the trade in the previous decade.75
Not all of these merchants sold food or alcohol. The sale of these basics was, however,
carried out in multiple types of retail stores or other businesses. Most important was the
specialized grocer. One example will help to understand this type. Joseph Scriviner was a
Williamsburg merchant who sold only grocery type goods. He owned a house and store about a
block from the capital from 1751 until his death in 1772. His advertised stock included a large
range of grocery items: from the standard tea to more high-end delicacies, such as sugar-candies,
olives, capers, or Scotch herrings. He also advertised that he carried rice, barley, anchovies,
tobacco, garden seeds and snuff. The inventory of his store at his death details the kinds and
values of the goods he sold. The largest part of this stock was alcohol which included hogsheads
of rum in three qualities, gin in jugs, bottles of claret, gallons of wine, and five "Juggs and carboys
with dift. Liquors." Bohea tea, coffee, ginger, pepper, sugar, ginger, molasses, vinegar, and soap
were stocked in bulk. Non-food items included snake root (in papers), castille soap, and candles.
Eighteen bags of salt and 116 pounds of bacon were also listed. Dozens of quart bottles were on
hand to sell retail quantities of liquids stored in hogsheads. His store stock amounted to £541 in
Virginia currency. (Missing in this inventory are many of the small delicacies listed in the
advertisements.) While we know little about how his store functioned, his death announcement in
the Virginia Gazette paid tribute to his local popularity. It predicted that his loss would be "often
regretted by the Lovers of a social evening and a Cheerful glass."76
74
John Mair, Book-keeping Methodiz’d, fifth edition, (Edinburgh, 1757), pp. 349-359.
75
Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit , p. 33.
76
Virginia Gazette, Purdie and Dixon, August 20, 1772.
105
Scrivener’s stock was probably typical of an established large urban grocer. He was
probably unusual in his personal success, amassing a personal fortune of over £1200 pounds. But
the countless advertisements and accounts for Virginia merchants demonstrate that specialized
grocers were a small percentage of all the outlets for imported food and drink. Rum, for example,
was considered one of any general merchant’s most important staples and could be sold in
multiple ways. The Williamsburg merchant Daniel Baxter, for instance, advertised in 1774 that he
had two hogsheads of rum for sale in town. If no one would buy the whole hogshead quantity, he
would draw it off in smaller quantities, but none smaller than ten gallons. Many of the stock items
were sold in other kinds of businesses, such as groceries at the apothecary shops of George
Gilmer and Peter Hay. The gardener at the College of William and Mary advertised garden peas,
beans, and other seeds for sale. Christopher Ayscough at the Palace also sold an impressive list of
imported seeds.
It seems foodstuffs (like many manufactured goods) were vended whenever and however
a profit could be made. Henry Fleming was sent from Whitehaven to Norfolk to enter the saddlary
business. (Norfolk was chosen because of its prime location in the meatpacking business.) Despite
their specialty business, Fleming and his partners continually tried out new items that might make
a profit. Fleming sent his partners “cow horns” for a try; his partners sent hogsheads of potatoes.
They arrived in April 1773. Fleming reported the test was a rousing success: "Potatoes so good as
these cou'd not have come at a better season being much wanted for planting as well as for
eating.” They were so popular that he could not “serve one half that apply'd, nor so quickly as
demanded” though he “kept a boy constantly measuring till all were gone.”77
We know much less about the vending of local produce. The Williamsburg merchant John
Carter advertised local produce for sale. He was no marginal storekeeper; he was the son of the
keeper of the Public Goal in Williamsburg and, along with his brothers, an important member of
local society. He was one of several appointed to direct the building of the new courthouse. The
Common Council elected him to be chamberlain. Both of these actions imply a well-connected
man of good social standing. With his brother he built a double brick house in 1765; one side
housed his store, the other side his brother’s apothecary shop. Carter advertised in 1767 that he
had in his store “chicken and eggs, melons and fish” to be sold amidst his long list of
manufactured store items.78 Others accepted “country produce” as payment. John Lewis relocated
to Williamsburg from New Kent County in 1770 and announced he was open for business. He
accepted payment in “tobacco, wheat, corn, oats, or any of the country produce.”79 The tavern
keeper Anne Pattison bought butter at William Holt’s store.
Overall Analysis of Account Books
The overall story of urban provisioning through stores can also be told through the intensive study
of merchants’ account books. We analyzed accounts from seven merchants to uncover how their
businesses supplied foods to their towns. The sheer scale of the analysis of multiple store account
77
Henry Fleming to Fischer and Bragg, April 13, 1773. Letterbook, 1772-1775. Cumbria County Council
Archives Department. Microfilm, CWF.
78
Virginia Gazette, Purdie and Dixon, June 25, 1767.
79
Virginia Gazette, Purdie and Dixon, February 15, 1770.
106
books is daunting. A few conventions of our study should be explained. We recorded all food,
drink, fuel and fodder and related food services, including transportation and some various
accounting conventions. Since we did not record all cash payments, our view of the overall
workings of these stores is limited to their foodstuffs, not their overall businesses. This section
will try to take the vantage point of the seller to stores; the next chapter, that of the buyer.
Nonetheless, the two will overlap. Stores supplied customers with commodities, customers used
commodities to pay. This circularity defines these businesses: merchants were the conduits of
multiple forms of exchange.
The total volume of foodstuffs and alcohol that were sold to customers (debits) and
accepted as payment (credits) in these stores totaled over £16,000. Some of the accounts
recorded large scale commodity brokering in sugar and rum, particularly as forms of credit, so
caution is needed in this overall analysis. Nonetheless, our study reflects the flexibility and range
of the provisioning system in the eighteenth-century Chesapeake.
The most important item purchased and used in payment was alcohol (Tables 3.9 and
3.10). Francis Jerdone claimed that the “best of the trade depended on salt, rum, and sugar.”
Without those items, he could attract little tobacco.80 Over half of the credit values and one-third
of the debits were for Virginia’s favorite drink. The large-scale brokering of several of these
merchants was demonstrated by the fact that the amount of alcohol on credit was greater than the
amount of alcohol being sold. A second way this is shown is through the average cost of
transactions. The average purchase of rum was nearly a seventh in size to the average credit
transaction.
Surprisingly, meat was the second most important commodity in the urban merchant’s role
of provisioning towns. A quarter of the sales were meat, with 16% of credits. If we think of our
overall patterns as a hypothetical account book to look at flow, the purchase of meat by
merchants and their sale to customers was not a closed accounting system: meat credits totaled
£1200, meat debits totaled £2155. The value of meat sold nearly doubled that brought in on credit
accounts. Merchants were not simply circulating the commodity, but had other sources of supply
that were not documented in the same way. The average cash value of each credit transaction for
meat was £10. The value of each purchase was much smaller, only averaging £2.44. A final way
to examine this system is simply by looking at the pounds of meat sold. These merchants sold
43,764 pounds of beef and took 10,056 pounds in credit. They sold 177, 541 pounds of pork, and
accepted 39,252 pounds in credit. Four times the volume of beef and pork left these stores as had
arrived (were accepted as payment.) In summary, bulk quantities of meat were accepted as credit.
Smaller (perhaps a range of household sized) quantities were sold. Despite the smaller quantities,
80
Francis Jerdone to Neill Buchanan, May 20, 1741. Jerdone Letterbook, 1736-1744. Swem Library, College
of William and Mary.
107
Table 3.9.
ALL STORES
PURCHASES ONLY
Category
Count
ALCOHOL
MEAT
FOOD GRAINS
SWEETENERS
TEA/COFFEE
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
DAIRY
FOODSTUFFS
POULTRY
FRUITS/NUTS
LEGUMES
BAKERY/BREAD
VEGETABLES
FISH
SEAFOOD
WILD ANIMAL
1232
550
251
1123
410
228
191
119
59
96
50
97
46
29
33
2
Percent
Total Value
27.28%
12.18
5.56
24.87
9.08
5.05
4.23
2.64
1.31
2.13
1.11
2.15
1.02
0.64
0.73
0.04
£3014.86
2155.17
1456.01
1044.17
169.62
159.42
131.07
38.59
25.78
21.23
10.92
10.52
6.97
5.12
4.00
0.03
Percent
36.53%
26.11
17.64
12.65
2.06
1.93
1.59
0.47
0.31
0.26
0.13
0.13
0.08
0.06
0.05
0.00
Table 3.10.
ALL STORES
CREDITS ONLY
Category
ALCOHOL
MEAT
FOOD GRAINS
SWEETENERS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
DAIRY
TEA/COFFEE
POULTRY
FOODSTUFFS
FISHING EQUIPMENT
FISH
FRUITS/NUTS
LEGUMES
WILD BIRD
BAKERY/BREAD
BEVERAGES
VEGETABLES
Count
181
121
90
72
23
27
10
67
7
6
7
6
2
16
2
1
4
Percent
Total Value
28.19%
18.85
14.02
11.21
3.58
4.21
1.56
10.44
1.09
0.93
1.09
0.93
0.31
2.49
0.31
0.16
0.62
108
£4281.40
1257.91
1048.39
631.16
183.71
168.38
54.25
26.70
23.82
17.02
5.27
3.63
2.35
2.10
0.65
0.50
0.46
Percent
55.55%
16.32
13.60
8.19
2.38
2.18
0.70
0.35
0.31
0.22
0.07
0.05
0.03
0.03
<0.01
<0.01
<0.01
merchants sold four times as much meat as they accepted in payment. They were not merely
serving as a kind of wholesale breakpoint that can be tracked through their account books.
The third category of both accounts was food grains. This was more closely balanced on
both sides of our imaginary combined ledger. Food grain sales totaled £1456 and credits summed
£1048. Sweeteners (mostly sugar) were the next most important commodity with sales exceeding
credits (£1000 to £600). The ranked order of importance for the rest of the categories were
surprisingly similar, even though numbers of transactions reflected the retail trade’s sale of small
quantities. For example, 410 purchases of tea and coffee were made with only ten credit amounts.
Local foodstuffs played a small but important part in the businesses of these stores. It is
difficult to know precise quantities. For example, an entry might list poultry, not a number of
birds. But the number and value of these transactions give some indication. Dairy items (mostly
butter and cheese) were purchased 191 times, nearly as many as spices. Sixty-seven credits were
given for poultry; 59 debits were recorded. While the amount of value these birds represented was
small, they still were 10% of all credit transactions. Wild birds were 2.5% of the credits. Fish and
vegetables were each less than 1 % of the transactions, but demonstrate that “country produce”
could certainly be accepted. Moreover, while their overall part of the business was small, their
range was large. Urban merchants in the Chesapeake accepted a number of agricultural products
for payment: local fruit (apples and cranberries), vegetables (greens, potatoes, onions, peas,
turnips), butchered parts (beef heart, tripe, tongue), fish (herring, sturgeon), livestock (lamb, calf,
cattle, gelding, pig, sheep, shoat), poultry (ducks, geese, turkeys), and processed agricultural byproducts (calf skin, beeswax, feathers, tallow, cotton).
If the accounts of the storekeeper for the Glassford chain in Colchester and the John
Davidson store in Annapolis are reflective of overall patterns, some of these local products may
have ended on the merchant’s own dinner table. The Glassford storekeeper accepted a number of
traditional market commodities as payment in trade. They were not given cash values, but were
traded directly for store goods: i.e. poultry for textiles. Names were occasionally given to identify
the seller, but most were unlisted which suggests that slaves may have been the sellers. John
Davidson’s bookkeeping of household expenses may partially be explained by his own purchase of
poultry, fish, and other foods.
The exact mechanism for the flow of commodities from country to town and from
producer to consumer is not always obvious in the account books. James Brice's account, for
example, details transactions of enormous amounts of meat, but the purchases of meat made by
store customers do not seem to correspond to the amounts that are credited to the store. Still,
Brice clearly used his three outlying plantations to produce meat that must eventually have been
sold in Annapolis and elsewhere.
The meat transactions in William Lightfoot’s account book provide a much clearer picture
of the relationship between urban storekeepers and outlying plantation suppliers. Lightfoot
supplied meat to the urban areas of York County, Yorktown and Williamsburg, and to customers
in Gloucester County. Gloucester residents purchased nearly 20% of the meat that Lightfoot sold.
Williamsburg residents purchased 13.6% of the total meat sold, and residents of Yorktown
purchased 6.5%. People in the surrounding counties purchased 27.3%.
109
Table 3.11.
MAJOR SUPPLIERS OF BEEF TO WILLIAM LIGHTFOOT’S STORE
1752-1761
Name
Years
Amounts
William Allen
1755-57, 1759-61
William Acrill
John Edloe
1755-58
1753-55, 1757, 1760
Benjamin Harrison
John Minge
Sir William Skipwith
Teddington Estate
1752-5
1755
1756, 1758-59
1760
668 lbs. of Beef
2 quarters of Beef
336 lbs. of Beef
210 lbs. of Beef
2 quarters of Beef
Unspec. amount of Pork
708 pound of Beef
940 lbs. of Beef
1378 lbs. of Beef
9072 lbs. of Beef
Unspec. amount of Pork
Location
Surry County
Charles City County
Charles City County
Charles City County
Charles City County
Lunenburg County
Charles City County
While more than half his customer base was located in Williamsburg, Yorktown, and the
surrounding counties, Lightfoot received his supply of meat from further away. Of his seven
largest suppliers, four were located in Charles City County. Another, William Allen, sent meat
from his Surry county plantation. Sir William Skipwith, who provided Lightfoot with more than
1300 pounds of meat between 1756 to 1759, owned a plantation in Lunenberg County. By far the
largest supply of beef was Lightfoot's own outlying plantation, Teddington, located in Charles
City County. In 1760, he recorded 9072 pounds of beef credited to his store accounts from the
Teddington plantation.
Summary
In summary, the supply of foods and alcohol in urban stores linked the world to the kitchens of
urban residents. The basic need for imported staples such as rum and sugar drove one sector.
Rum was the backbone of sales and required linkages between merchants and other wholesalers.
Meat was a surprising second in the overall picture which clearly distinguishes Chesapeake towns.
The picture is clearest for Williamsburg. The sale of beef and pork was not centered solely
through butchers at the market but came from large planters to the immediate west of the region.
In some cases, this was from a merchant’s own plantation operations. We did not see the local
York County merchants reaching to the flow of meat north from North Carolina for export
through Norfolk. This availability may, however, have kept prices lower. This set up another
sector for the flow of goods: between planters and urban merchants
The trade in imported groceries was important but small compared to the sale of the
commodities of alcohol, meat, and grains. Tea and coffee were always for sale; their quantities
and value was simply overwhelmed by the large volumes of the other commodities. By the time of
the American Revolution, the equipment for making and drinking tea was found in the homes of a
broad cross-section of Chesapeake residents. Yet, despite tea’s popularity in urban households
and large cultural shifts promoting its drinking, the drink of choice for most Chesapeake residents
was rum. The plethora of advertisements for imported groceries by Williamsburg merchants in the
110
Virginia Gazette probably overemphasizes their importance. Merchants placed these
advertisements around the time of the General Court or General Assembly to attract a customer
base for groceries whose own local stores might have more mundane stock. Their detailed listing
of more specialized groceries could also be a way to indicate some unusual periods of availability.
Unfortunately, our only Williamsburg store evidence falls after the removal of the capital so it is
difficult to judge that importance.
E. TAVERNS
The role of taverns in provisioning colonial towns is nowhere more evident than in colonial
capitals as centers of government and trade. The swelling of the town’s population when courts or
assemblies met does much to complicate the problem of the supply of food to both humans and
horses. How Williamsburg and Annapolis tavern keepers met that demand vividly demonstrates
the flexibility of the system that relied on local planters, stores, butchers, owners of grazing land,
sellers of wood, and exchange of tavern keepers themselves.
Taverns in Williamsburg and Annapolis provided a wide variety of food. Tavern fare and
prices were regulated by law with the main concern being price. Most meals were simple and
based on readily obtained and more inexpensive supplies, such as poultry, bacon, eggs, and bread.
The tavern keeper had to be ready for whoever came and perhaps could not always predict
business. The regular large business in Williamsburg and Annapolis, however, led to a clear
hierarchy of eating establishments known and frequented by wealthier officials and business
people. Better fare was available. William Byrd often recorded his meals. At Wetherburn’s tavern,
he chose a wide range of meats from the common chicken and bacon to veal, venison, mutton,
and beef. Special dinners were also often held to celebrate political events. The range of foods and
the quantity of people served meant that tavern keepers had to arrange a large and regular supply
of multiple foodstuffs.
The tavern keeper Jane Vobe relied on Anderson and Low’s store for numerous tavern
supplies. She made 86 purchases that could be related to her tavern business between December
1784 and October 1785 totaling £35. She made a payment of £14 toward her bill in August. All
fell in the traditional grocery line of retail stores. About half of the purchases were loaf and brown
sugar, summing a bit more than 60 % of her food expenditures. She relied on the store for 220
dozen lemons and 25 dozen limes. She obviously obtained her alcohol from another source but
stopped by the store for bottles of ale and beer, purchased in half dozen quantities. She needed a
bottle of shrub at the end of May. She never purchased tea but may have run out of her supply of
coffee, purchasing 4 pounds on each of four occasions in June. Two pounds of chocolate was
needed on October 7 and October 14; a bottle of lime juice on May 20 and another on May 23.
Six cheese purchases were made in March and April.
She also purchased a number of objects for cooking and serving food. Six dozen knives
and forks were added to her stock in April, a week later she needed a ladle. A mug must have
broken; she bought one in April as well. On May 18 she bought a skillet and two bowls. She even
needed a blank book to keep accounts. A half dozen cups and saucers, a wash hand basin, six
yards of sheeting and an empty hogshead were all probably needed at the tavern.
111
She spent a large sum of money in this casual, probably as-needed basis. While we do not
know the sum of her business, only lemons and sugar were purchased in large enough quantities
to imply a regular supply and they were marketed so seasonally that they may have merely been as
she was awaiting shipment from somewhere else. What is clear is that her needs were quite
seasonal; she spent 60% of her money at the Anderson and Low store between May and the end
of August when she also made her only payment.
Tavern keepers also relied on local merchants for local agricultural commodities. William
Lightfoot kept a store in Yorktown, but had a number of Williamsburg customers for meat and
livestock. The tavern keeper with the largest account with Lightfoot was Alexander Finnie, a
wigmaker by trade who owned the Raleigh Tavern and twenty acres for stabling and pasturing
livestock. He had sold the tavern in 1752 but still ran the business. (Washington dined at Finnie’s
in the fall of 1754.) In April 1754 and January 1755, he purchased £31 pounds of beef, mutton,
veal, and pork. His payment included corn and exchange of debts; credit was given for Lightfoot’s
bill at the tavern and a sum of money owned him by William Byrd.
Other tavern keepers relied on Lightfoot’s store. John Duncastle also purchased a large
quantity of pork, beef, and mutton but made no payment. Christiana Campbell, Anthony Hay, and
Henry Wetherburn also bought small quantities of meat.
A full picture of the provisioning system of Williamsburg tavernkeepers is beginning to
unfold in the study of the Anne Pattison account book. This is currently being analyzed by
Heather Wainwright, who is writing a master’s thesis on the topic. Much of the following brief
analysis is based on her work.81
Anne Pattison was a recent emigrant from England who married Thomas Pattison in 1738.
He was operating a tavern at his death in 1742. Recently widowed, with no children, or other
local family, Anne Pattison made the choice of many town women: to enter the food and drink
trade. An account book of that business is extant from January 1744 to April 1749. The inventory
at her husband’s death shows that this was a well-furnished tavern; her list of customers illustrates
that it was a favorite one. Her customers ranged from the most elite to middling tradesmen.82
Pattison relied on a large number of local rural and urban people to run her business.
James Bray supplied wood and cider and (on her husband’s account) mutton, veal, and corn.
Henry Taylor supplied a quarter of beef; Daniel Matthews sold her six hens and a shoat. Fellow
tavern keeper Alexander Finnie supplied her with a few bottles of wine and claret, and sold her
(for cash) 20 fowls. The supply of butter was a particularly large network. She purchased firkins
of butter from Thomas Brewer, Mr. Hutchins the Taylor, and at William Holt’s store. She also
sold butter to a number of town residents, usually just several pounds. Mr. Dangerfield purchased
a pound of butter three times in two days, one pound “at night sent to you.” Bread came from the
tavernkeeper Joseph Gillam. This was probably made by his wife, who also supplied bread weekly
81
Heather R. Wainwright, “Inns and Outs: Anne Pattison’s Williamsburg Tavern,” (master’s thesis, Armstrong
Atlantic University, forthcoming).
82
Betty Leviner discovered this newly acquired account book at the Virginia Historical Society in 1991. A
discussion of Anne Pattison is published by her in “Patrons and Rituals in an Eighteenth-Century Tavern,” in David
Harvey and Gregory Brown, ed., Common People and the Material World: Free Men and Women in the Chesapeake,
1700-1830 (Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Research Publications, 1995)
112
to Robert Lyon, a local wigmaker. Other women were part of her provisioning system: Sarah
Jones supplied her with ducks and Mrs. Lewis with oysters.
Despite intense local competition for trade, tavern keepers apparently engaged in a
network of exchange among themselves. Matthew Moody supplied pasturage for her and her
customers; John Taylor gave her fifty lemons in return for four gallons of wine. Joseph Gillam
supplied a small quantity of bread.
Tavern keepers continue to confirm our story of provisioning Williamsburg. They
purchased beef, pork, corn, and mutton from large local planters like James Bray. Others may
have turned to their most frequent customers from out of town. John Page of Caroline County
paid part of his large bill with James Southall with 345 pounds of beef.83 They purchased from
local merchants, who combined the retail trade with large-scale purchase and sale of agricultural
commodities. Retail merchants who solely concentrated on traditional imported groceries, such as
sugar, citrus fruit, alcohol, and cheese were other suppliers. Tavern keepers often shopped and
traded on an ad-hoc basis; when their supplies ran out or there were unexpected increases in
customers, they went to the store. Many probably had their own kitchen garden and poultry might
occasionally settle a debt. What is missing still is the overall supply of alcohol and their market
purchases.
F. MISCELLEANEOUS ENTREPRENEURS
Not all suppliers of foodstuffs to the towns were full-time merchants and retailers. Many suppliers
were part-time entrepreneurs, taking advantage of rural connections to funnel meat, grains, and
other foodstuffs into the towns, while turning a nice profit in the process. One such enterprising
moonlighter was Humphrey Harwood, a Williamsburg brick maker and building contractor who
supplied his Williamsburg neighbors with agricultural products in the 1780s. His sales of meat,
corn, and meal as well as fuel and fodder appeared to be a profitable sideline to his building
activities. His account book, kept between 1774 and 1790, details the business transactions
related to constructing and repairing buildings and shows clearly how Harwood augmented his
income by selling agricultural goods to his clients.
Humphrey Harwood was born some time before 1743. He married twice and had six
children before his death in 1788. Williamsburg was his home his entire adult life. From the mid1760s until his death, he was active in civic affairs, serving on petit and grand juries almost
continuously. During the Revolutionary war he became a member of the local militia. Virginia
Gazette ads advertising his need for journeymen brick makers indicate that both his business and
his main residence were located in town.84 Harwood purchased his Williamsburg lots from
Frances and William Digges in 1769, and he added another half lot to his town holdings by 1785.
Harwood also owned a plantation in James City County. According to James City County
personal property tax lists, Harwood’s rural property was very profitable. In 1782 he owned five
slaves and 17 cattle. Just five years later, the tax assessor recorded eight slaves and 42 cattle.
83
Page’s administrators vs. Southall, B-65-79. Fredericksburg District Court Papers. Microfilm, CWF.
84
Virginia Gazette, Purdie and Dixon, June 3, 1771, June 6, 1773.
113
Table 3.12.
DEBTOR TRANSACTIONS
HUMPHREY HARWOOD ACCOUNT BOOK
Category
Count
FOOD GRAINS
300
LIVESTOCK
4
MEAT
74
FUEL
23
FODDER
50
TRANSPORTATION
7
MISC. SERVICES
10
VEGETABLES
4
AGRICULTURAL SERVICE
2
ALCOHOL
25
BY-PRODUCT
20
BARTER
1
CASH
1
FOOD FURNITURE
1
ANIMAL
1
BUILDING MATERIAL1
0.18
FOOD PREPARATION
2
BOOKKEEPING ADJUST
1
ANIMAL PRODUCT
1
SWEETENERS
1
FOOD SERVING
1
GRAINS
2
BAKERY/BREAD
1
FISH
2
ACCOUNT RECEIVABLE
1
DRINKING
1
Transaction
Percent
55.45%
0.74
13.68
4.25
9.24
1.29
1.85
0.74
0.37
4.62
3.70
0.18
0.18
0.18
0.18
1.38
0.37
0.18
0.18
0.18
0.18
0.37
0.18
0.37
0.18
0.18
Value
£549.44
356.35
277.57
236.10
61.50
35.03
28.65
15.75
8.10
7.83
5.61
3.75
3.00
1.83
1.50
0.09
0.75
0.69
0.44
0.38
0.35
0.31
0.30
0.23
0.00
0.00
Percent
34.19%
22.17
17.27
14.69
3.83
2.18
1.78
0.64
0.50
0.49
0.35
0.23
0.19
0.11
0.09
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.02
0.02
0.02
0.01
0.00
0.00
Brick making and building contracting were Harwood’s main business. Most of his clients
were his Williamsburg neighbors. George Wythe, Margaret Hunter, Joseph Hornsby, and Dr.
Philip Barraud were among the town residents who hired Harwood to repair and construct
buildings. The College of William and Mary and the Public Hospital also retained Harwood’s
services for building work. A few of his customers came from further away. Mr. John Ambler
from Jamestown hired Harwood as did Dr. Hall from Petersburg and Thomas Brend from
Richmond.
The Humphrey Harwood ledger was kept between 1774 and 1790. Harwood died in 1788
and the account book entries continue in a different hand, presumably that of his son, William, or
one of his executors, until 1790. The account book has 133 pages and lists 197 customer
accounts. Harwood made no effort to keep his various enterprises separate. The food and grain
sales appear mixed in with the building accounts. Indeed, many of his customers purchased both
food items and building services from Harwood.
The ledger contains the accounts of 197 customers. Almost seventy of these accounts
included some food purchases. Forty-one of the customer accounts included smaller amounts of
114
Table 3.13.
CREDITOR TRANSACTIONS
HUMPHREY HARWOOD ACCOUNT BOOK
Category
Count
ALCOHOL
FOOD GRAINS
GRAINS
MEAT
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
TRANSPORTATION
LIVESTOCK
ANIMAL
FOOD PREPARATION
SWEETENERS
ANIMAL PRODUCT
FODDER
TEA/COFFEE
BY-PRODUCT
ACCOUNT RECEIVABLE
MONEY
AGRICULTURAL SERVICE
HIRED LABOR
FUEL
SEAFOOD
VEGETABLES
MISC. SERVICES
LEGUMES
BAKERY/BREAD
POULTRY
18
24
4
59
3
2
13
2
1
7
9
3
4
12
1
3
1
4
5
5
2
1
1
1
2
Transaction
Value
Percent
9.63%
12.83
2.14
31.55
1.60
1.07
6.95
1.07
0.53
3.74
4.81
1.60
2.14
6.42
0.53
1.60
0.53
2.14
2.67
2.67
1.07
0.53
0.53
0.53
1.07
£444.63
285.36
57.71
35.47
24.63
12.00
10.02
9.00
9.00
8.94
8.14
7.16
5.53
4.48
4.42
2.47
1.78
1.58
1.33
0.89
0.65
0.19
0.15
0.13
0.13
Percent
47.52%
30.50
6.17
3.79
2.63
1.28
1.07
0.96
0.96
0.96
0.87
0.77
0.59
0.48
0.47
0.26
0.19
0.17
0.14
0.10
0.07
0.02
0.02
0.01
0.01
foodstuffs along with larger expenditures for building services. Twenty-five customers purchased
predominantly foodstuffs such as veal, corn, wheat, and beef. On the payment side of the ledger,
food also appears frequently. Thirty-six customers paid Harwood either partially or totally with
foodstuffs. The sale of grains make up more than 30% of the total value of sale transactions in the
Harwood account book. He also sold fodder, livestock, and meat. While meat made up a smaller
proportion of the total value of sales, it was the second most common food-related transaction in
the account book. Of all the food and fuel sales recorded in the book, 13.68% were meat
purchases.
James Galt from Williamsburg purchased meat from Harwood most frequently—a total of
nine transactions. Harwood’s largest meat customer in total volume was Mr. John Farqueharson
whose one transaction amounted to £163.5. Hubard Watkins purchased grains from Harwood 26
times, the most of anyone in Harwood’s account. Many of Harwood’s customers paid their debts
in grain and meat. Nathaniel Burwell’s three credit transactions for grains amounted to £212.4.
George Chaplin supplied meat to Harwood on 35 separate occasions, totaling almost £8.
Probably a good proportion of Harwood’s sales of agricultural goods came from his own
James City County plantation. Yet some evidence in the account book suggests that Harwood
115
was operating as a middleman in addition to a direct supplier. One of Harwood’s more interesting
economic relationships was with Major Peyton Randolph of Henrico County. Randolph’s 1782
account lists debts to Harwood for agricultural work, pasturage of animals, and land taxes in
York and James City County. Randolph’s payment for these expenses included livestock, cash
and more than 13,000 pounds of barley. Harwood does not seem to have sold this barley to his
customers in Williamsburg. Rather the grain was delivered to a Mr. Price. The relationship with
Peyton Randolph suggests that Harwood may have been operating as a middleman for the
exchange of agricultural goods. Harwood probably sold the livestock he received from Randolph
as butchered meat some time after 1782.
Humphrey Harwood was a local entrepreneur taking advantage of his ties to the
countryside and to planters like Nathaniel Burwell and Peyton Randolph to supply Williamsburg
residents with meat and other agricultural goods. He was a direct supplier, but seemed at times to
act as a middleman. The periodic nature of his business suggests that his agricultural supply
business was only a sideline to his main occupation, offering him occasional opportunities for
making profits through the sale of food. Humphrey Harwood provides one direct example of a
supplier of meat and grains to Williamsburg.
G. CONCLUSION
The supply of foodstuffs to urban residents in the Chesapeake flowed through multiple
institutional channels and passed through the hands of many people. Public markets were the
place for the vending of local, usually more perishable products. Some suppliers were
institutional. Market butchers paid licenses and fees. Local town councils regulated the size and
quality of bread. Many suppliers to public markets, however, were petty entrepreneurs from the
fringes of society, such as poor whites, free blacks, and slaves. The sale of foods also spilled out
of market bounds onto the streets. Despite these overarching principals, markets in various towns
had different features based on local products and markets. Some, like the market in
Williamsburg, did not seem to succeed in its goal of centralizing the supply of safe and sufficient
foods and residents turned to the local agricultural economy in alternative channels. The more
wealthy used their own farms to provision their households. Others relied on local stores that
channeled the flow of meat and grains from plantations outside of the local area.
Larger businesses also grew to meet the provisioning needs of the Chesapeake. Changing
agricultural production for export and increasing population led to more mills. Taverns, large and
small, had to provision themselves before they could cater to the flood of visitors to colonial
capitals during public times. They traded with merchants, planters, local residents, and amongst
themselves. Stores sold the vast quantities of alcohol that Chesapeake residents craved, as well as
the sugar, tea, coffee, and spices that reflect changing cultural behaviors. They also vended meat,
grains and smaller quantities of perishables. It is that intersection of international and local that
summarized the special qualities of Chesapeake, especially Virginia, urban merchants.
In ways large and small, changes in provisioning foodstuffs through the early nineteenth
century redefined how Chesapeake people obtained their food. Zooarchaeological evidence
demonstrates the evolution of animal husbandry. Livestock was increasingly raised for butchering
for premium market efficiency. Large-scale hog operations developed to produce mass quantities
116
of pork. Large planters switched to wheat. Merchants bought their staples from wholesalers on
the coast. All of these behaviors, and more, demonstrate the move toward capitalism as
agricultural systems and their chain of distribution supplied even small Chesapeake towns.
117
118
IV. FOOD AND FUEL CONSUMPTION PATTERNS IN
TOWNS
A. OVERVIEW OF DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS
Food, fuel, and fodder distribution networks involved much more than simple, impersonal
economic exchanges of produce for cash. Social as well as economic relationships influenced the
choice of trading partners, and helped to determine whom sellers would grant credit and whom
they would sell to only for ready cash. The plantation records suggest that kin and clientage
relationships remained important in the countryside, but were of somewhat less importance in
towns like Williamsburg. Large planters like the Burwells chose to deal primarily with
townspeople of established reputation and some economic standing, including the doctors,
lawyers, government officials, and merchants with whom they interacted in their public roles as
justices of the peace, burgesses, and parish vestrymen, and with whom they had other business
dealings, and also with craftspeople and tavern keepers whom they and their families patronized.
The planters’ connections to town residents at the lower end of the economic scale were sparser,
and more often limited to irregular sales of small quantities of goods, usually grain or fuel, for
cash in hand. For the urban poor, storekeepers, commercial processors, and other middlemen
must have been the main source of supply, a circumstance that surely resulted in their paying
higher prices for what they bought.
The 1782 Williamsburg census (which lists heads of household by name and total numbers
of whites and blacks in each household) is probably fairly complete, covering more individuals
than appear on subsequent tax lists and including persons who do not appear in other local
records. Materials in the York County biographical files do suggest the census taker missed seven
additional households whose heads were present in the town in 1781 and again in 1783, so
presumably in 1782 as well. The figures for Williamsburg in 1783 include the 131 residents heads
of household assessed for personal property (non residents were eliminated), plus 20 lot holders
shown to be resident on the basis of the prosopographical files, plus 10 individuals listed on the
1782 census who were assessed for taxable personal property in 1784 and presumed to be
resident in 1783. The 1782 census also includes 47 individuals who are not known to have moved
or died, but who could not be traced either to subsequent tax lists or other biographical files, but
who may have continued to live in town. None of these individuals owned town lots and most did
not own slaves; half were women. These 47 are one quarter of all heads of household, a
proportion that we must assume may be missing from most compilations based solely on property
tax lists.
Table 4.1 shows the occupational composition of Williamsburg and Annapolis households
in 1782-83, and Table 4.2 shows household size for the occupational groups. From Table 4.2 it is
clear that professionals, merchants, artisans, and tavern keepers were larger customers not just
because of their greater wealth, but also because of their greater needs for food and fuel.
119
Table 4.1.
DISTRIBUTION OF OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS AND THEIR PROPERTY
WILLIAMSBURG AND ANNAPOLIS, 1782 AND 1783
Pct with
Number of
Pct of
Pct with
Pct with Lots and
Occupational Group HouseholdsHouseholds Lot Only Slaves Only Slaves
Pct with
Neither
Williamsburg, 1782
Professionals/
Public servants
Merchants
Craftspersons
Service Trades
Laborer/Unknown
Widow/Spinster
Total
22
14
37
21
43
45
182
12
8
20
12
24
25
101
0
0
3
5
5
4
36
14
29
14
44
36
59
79
61
67
7
27
5
7
8
14
44
33
Williamsburg, 1783
Professionals/
Public servants
Merchants
Craftspersons
Service Trades
Laborer/Unknown
Widow/Spinster
Total
33
15
42
19
38
22
161
20
9
26
12
19
14
100
3
0
10
5
10
18
30
20
29
16
30
23
58
80
55
68
20
59
9
0
7
11
40
0
Annapolis, 1783
Professionals/
Public servants
Merchants
Craftspersons
Service Trades
Laborer/Unknown
Widow/Spinster
Total
42
30
44
49
30
19
214
20
14
21
23
14
9
101
7
10
14
20
3
15
29
23
20
37
10
15
40
57
25
22
0
20
24
10
41
20
87
50
Sources: Williamsburg: 1782 Census of Households, 1782 Real Property Tax List, 1783 Real and Personal
Property Tax Lists. Annapolis: 1783 Tax List.
Notes:
Occupations for Williamsburg residents were obtained from the York County Project Biographical Files
and for Annapolis from Edward C. Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit: The Annapolis Merchants in the Era of
the American Revolution, 1763-1805 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), pp. 250-56.
120
Table 4.2.
HOUSEHOLD SIZE BY OCCUPATIONAL GROUP
WILLIAMSBURG AND ANNAPOLIS
Mean
Total
Size
Williamsburg, 1782 and 1783
Professionals/
Public servants
10.3
Merchants
10.8
Service trades
10.7
Craftspersons
9.3
Laborer/Unknown
4.4
Widow/Spinster
6.2
Annapolis, 1788
Professionals/
Public servants
Merchants
Service Trades
Craftspersons
Laborer/Unknown
Widow/Spinster
7.9
6.4
6.1
5.8
3.2
4.2
Mean Mean
Median
Adult Adult
Total
Mean
Male Female
Size Whites Slaves Slaves
Mean Mean Mean
Child Old
All
Slaves Slaves Slaves
12.5
10.0
8.6
8.5
4.0
4.0
3.9
4.6
5.0
5.4
3.1
3.3
1.2
1.2
1.2
0.8
0.3
0.5
2.0
2.1
1.3
1.5
0.3
0.8
2.4
3.7
2.6
1.6
0.7
1.0
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a.
n.a
6.0
7.1
5.5
3.7
1.7
3.6
7.0
6.0
5.0
5.0
3.0
3.0
4.0
3.5
4.1
4.7
3.1
2.9
0.9
0.5
0.3
0.2
0.0
0.1
0.9
0.7
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.2
1.8
1.2
1.0
0.5
0.1
1.0
0.3
0.4
0.2
0.2
0.0
0.2
4.0
2.8
2.0
0.1
0.1
1.4
Households among these groups were usually larger than among laborers and other marginal
sorts, and included both more free whites and more slaves.
B. CUSTOMERS OF LARGE PLANTERS AND COMPOSITION OF THEIR
PURCHASES
The plantation accounts suggest that transactions between big planters and rural buyers were
often heavily influenced by kin, friendship, and clientage relations. The Carter’s Grove Burwells
on occasion accommodated their planting kinsfolk living on nearby plantations with exchanges of
grain, food for livestock, and meat to balance out seasonal shortfalls on one or other of the
plantations. They sometimes sold provisions, exceeding the customary allowance, to their quarter
overseers and farm managers, as well as to free rural artisans and laborers who worked,
periodically, on their plantations. Occasionally they accommodated important town customers
such as royal governors, by arranging the purchase and resale of fodder and grain from smaller
planters living nearby. Neighboring planters sometimes brought their grain to be ground at the
Burwell and Bray mills in exchange for the customary miller’s toll (one sixteenth of each barrel of
corn brought for grinding into hominy and one eighth of each barrel of corn or bushel of wheat
brought for grinding into flour). Sometimes they also purchased small amounts of corn meal,
wheat flour, and, during and after the Revolution, whiskey, directly from the miller. Nathaniel
Burwell II also supplied by-weekly provisions for two rural Yorkhampton parish paupers, and
supplied some food to workers on the farm of an orphan whose estate he administered. Many of
121
the rural transactions, then, reflect the tight-knit networks of kin, friends, and neighbors, and
personalized, face-to-face relationships with a strong social content that many historians have
described as characteristic of rural communities.
Exchanges of this sort were, however, not the primary ones in which the big planters
engaged. Rural customers were less numerous than urban ones, and most of them did not buy
frequently or in large quantities. Overall, the Burwells and Bray sold produce primarily to
Williamsburg professionals, artisans, merchants, tavern keepers and other service providers
including bakers and butchers, and institutional customers. The College of William and Mary was
among the Burwells’ largest buyers in terms of the value of their purchases, and during the
Revolutionary War Nathaniel Burwell II supplied the Virginia government with immense
quantities of firewood. The royal governors, Fauquier and Botetourt, depended almost exclusively
on rural suppliers like the Burwells for the large quantities of meat, grain, and fodder their
establishments required. Otherwise, the town gentry appear to have provisioned themselves
primarily from their own plantations. With the exception of Thomas Bray, who obtained many of
his needs from his son James’s Littletown plantation, and members of the Nelson family, who
provisioned their Yorktown households to a large extent from Carter’s Grove during William
Nelson’s tenure as executor, other elite families were apparently purchasing little and infrequently
from area planters.
Williamsburg doctors, lawyers, ministers, teachers, and government officers on the other
hand, were among the big planters’ most frequent and largest customers. This group, along with
the artisans, included a goodly proportion of immigrants who were accustomed to obtaining
provisions through the market. In addition, a number of the Virginia-born professionals did not
yet own operating plantations and hence were also largely dependent on nearby planters.
Providers of services like tavern keepers, bakers, and butchers, turned to big planters, as well as
to merchants and other middlemen, for the not always predictable supplies of meat, grain, and fuel
their businesses required. Town merchants purchased heavily from surrounding big planters, for
provisioning their own households, for stocks of goods to be resold locally, and for grain intended
for export in inter-regional and inter-national markets. More affluent widows and independent
single women living in town also supplied their households extensively with produce from
surrounding large plantations.
Different distribution networks for meat and grain are evident even in the records of these four
producers—Bray, Nelson, and Carter and Nathaniel Burwell. Nearly 250 urban and rural
customers bought grain from these planters, but only 150 obtained some or all of their meat from
this source. Table 4.3 documents the number of purchasers and number of purchases of meats
from these two nearby plantations. Frequency of purchase is one of the measures we are
employing to study customer behavior. Quantities purchased and total value of purchases are two
others. Each measure has strengths and weaknesses. Intensity of exchange is not always captured
by measures of value or of quantity. Values are usually available even when quantity is indefinite.
Total quantities purchased may give a better sense of the scope of the exchange than number of
transactions. And so on. We have further work to do in sorting out the different insights that these
three measures can supply. At this point it is clear that professionals and governmental officials
were the most frequent buyers of various meats. They were followed in terms of frequency of
122
Table 4.3.
BUYERS OF MEAT FROM WILLIAMSBURG AREA PLANTATIONS
1736-1807
Number of
Customers
Pct of
Customers
Number of
Sales
Pct of
Sales
URBAN
Professional
Craftsperson
Tavern Keeper
Merchant
Gentry
Widow/spinster
Service/Laborer
Occupation unknown
Institution
31
19
15
14
9
5
4
5
1
30
18
15
14
9
5
4
5
1
164
97
89
43
68
30
17
13
39
29
17
16
8
12
5
3
2
7
RURAL
Planter
Overseer
Craftsperson
Tavern Keeper
Laborer
Professional
16
9
5
2
2
1
46
26
14
2
2
1
52
62
18
40
3
1
30
35
10
23
2
1
Location
LOCATION/OCCUPATION
UNKNOWN
TOTALS
Urban
Rural
Unknown
Total
13
103
35
13
151
29
68
23
9
100
560
176
29
765
73
23
4
100
purchases by artisans, tavern keepers, and merchants. In terms of the value of goods exchanged,
merchants and the College of William and Mary led.
Large planters supplied their urban customers with pork, usually in the form of freshly
killed whole animals, during the late fall/early winter slaughter time prevailing in the countryside
and almost certainly by prior arrangement. They also supplied beef, veal, mutton, and lamb in their
appropriate seasons, likely also by prior arrangement. These meats were sold in fairly large units,
usually whole animals in the case of lambs and sometimes of muttons. The larger beasts were also
often sold by the side or the quarter. The planters clearly sought to keep down processing and
distribution costs, and probably pilfering as well, by selling mature sheep, calves, and sometimes
old cattle as well in minimally butchered units. Not surprisingly then it was householders and
businesspeople who could use and afford to pay for meat in quantity who bought from the large
planters.
On the other hand, the big planters supplied grains to a much wider range of urban and
rural customers. Although it is clear, especially from the account book for the mill, that Carter’s
Grove slaves (and in the mid 1770s also a professional white wagoner) regularly carted grain into
123
town for frequent buyers (and probably also for some chance customers), others who purchased
grain likely took care of the transportation themselves. People who bought small quantities at the
mill or directly from the plantation would have carried the grain away on horseback or in their
own carts, and merchants often arranged for the transport of large volume purchases.
The Burwells clearly trusted their general manager, quarter overseers, and millers to
conduct grain sales and to collect the proceeds. Very possibly Burwell had instituted a ticket
system similar to that described by an area miller owner in 1800 “for more easy keeping, adjusting
and settling Accounts between the parties.” The customer paid a sum in advance guaranteeing a
supply of corn, meal, and hominy from the mill. When the customer needed grain, he was to “send
a [pre-issued] Ticket in writing . . . specifying the Quantity of Indian Corn which may require, and
whether the same shall be delivered without grinding, or shall be ground into meal, or
homony....the Tickets so sent shall annually, or oftener, if desired be returned, and thereupon a
receipt expressing the full amount thereof shall be given..., and the said Tickets and receipts shall
be deemed the only and necessary and sufficient Vouchers between the parties.” The tickets were
fashioned by cutting up decks of playing cards; in this example red spades signified hominy and
black aces, meal, orders that could be readily understood by either unlettered free workers or
illiterate slaves.1
C. CUSTOMERS OF STORES AND COMPOSITION OF THEIR
PURCHASES
As discussed in the previous chapter, stores were conduits for multiple systems of exchange.
Alcohol and sugar linked merchants to Norfolk and the West Indies trade. Many imported
groceries were purchased from London, Glasgow and the northern ports. Meat, corn, and other
agricultural commodities flowed from many plantations, some outside of the immediate local
region. Merchants were not major suppliers of bread nor of local perishables, although they
accepted some in credit at their stores.
The mercantile activity of customers in seven store accounts in the towns of Williamsburg,
Yorktown, and Annapolis form the data for this study. Each purchase of food and alcohol was
coded, individual items were grouped into larger categories, and residence and occupation were
assigned. While all these stores were urban, their customers were not. Sixty percent of the 346
customers were rural. These customers made about 3000 purchases summing to £6000 local
currency. Rural people spent about 70% of that total.
Rural and urban people had different spending patterns at these stores. Nearly half of the
rural people bought sweeteners, while only 38% of the urban ones did so. Similar patterns were
found in the sale of alcohol. Half of the rural residents but only 36% of the urban residents chose
alcohol. A third of the urban people bought tea and coffee, but only a quarter of rural ones did.
Food grains were more similar between the two groups: 15% of urban customers bought grains,
18% of rural customers made that choice. The biggest difference lay in the purchase of meat.
1
Agreement between St. George Tucker and Henry Skipwith, 27 Dec. 1800, Accounts, Receipts, and Bills,
1796-1800, Tucker Coleman Papers, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.
124
Almost a third of urban residents but only 20% of the rural ones relied on the store for at least
some part of their meat supply.
The staples of merchants’ businesses were clearly the West Indies products; alcohol
(mostly rum) and sugar (mostly loaf sugar) were over half of these purchases. They were
consumed (quite literally, used up) often and formed the bulk of customer expenditures.
Nonetheless, stores were major suppliers of meat for both rural and urban people; more than 10%
of their purchase costs were for meat. Tea and coffee were slight indicators of urban living: while
the proportion of money spent was similar, tea and coffee were purchased twice as frequently by
urban people than rural ones. This probably suggests the more frequent purchases of smaller
amounts.
These stores catered to a broad cross-section of the urban and nearby rural population. Of
those we could identify, the most common customers at these stores were planters (31.3%),
followed by other merchants (17.7%) and tavern keepers (11.8%). Professionals also used these
stores in large numbers (7.7%). Carpenters and others in the building trades were equaled by the
number of overseers (4.4% each). Retail craftspeople formed the last significant group; they were
another 4% of the purchasers. The rest followed miscellaneous occupations.
These were overwhelmingly the purchases of households headed by men. While women
were always important customers in urban stores (particularly in the purchase of textiles and
household items), they are most often hidden behind a husband or father’s name in accounting
practices. Despite these constraints, women account holders made up eight percent of the
purchases in these accounts.2 Seven percent of the purchases were made by a number of
institutions, including the College of William and Mary, parishes, poor houses, “the Colony,” “the
Commonwealth,” etc.
To fully explain the patterns of customer expenditures, it is necessary to look at individual
suppliers. Each of these merchants had different strategies to supply their stores and each had
customers that differed in time or place and could express different behavior. The following are
brief snapshots of the current analysis of seven businesses. Each will briefly introduce the business
and the merchant, describe the account book, then summarize some basic patterns of
consumption. The circular nature of this business means that supply and consumption are
integrally linked and will both be discussed. We know more about some of these businesses than
others, so the brief accounts are not always parallel in their depth. Virginia stores will be
discussed first, followed by Maryland businesses.
Anderson and Low (Williamsburg, 1784-85)
Matthew Anderson and David Low opened a store in Williamsburg in 1784. Born in 1745,
Anderson was an established businessman who had operated a store in King William County. He
was also involved in the shoe and harness making business, serving as superintendent of
shoemaking in wartime Virginia from 1779 to 1781. He advertised for a partner to join Matthew
Anderson and Company in June of 1784. David Low must have answered that call. Born in 1742,
2
For example, see the expense accounts of the Annapolis merchant John Davidson. His mother-in-law,
wife, and daughter made frequent purchases of tea and textiles. These are discussed in Chapter V.
125
Low was nearly the same age as his partner. He worked in the Williamsburg store of William
Russell for the two years before he entered the partnership with Anderson. The Anderson and
Low store thus entered into a postwar Williamsburg business after the removal of the capital to
Richmond. While many longtime merchants stayed in town, others moved to Richmond or
returned to England. Anderson and Low rented William Carter’s half of the Brick House tavern.
Carter moved to Richmond while his brother John stayed behind in the retail trade. Anderson and
Low thus moved into a prime location, even if their new business stood side-by-side to a longestablished merchant.3 We tracked their business from November 1784 to November 1785.
The Anderson and Low store should have functioned as an urban retail model would
predict: vending only imported wares only for cash. Anderson and Low matched one part of this
ideal. They granted no credit for local foodstuffs with the exception of 79¼ pounds butter from
John Pelham “by M. Anderson,” perhaps for personal use. Nonetheless, while Williamsburg
merchants often advertised that business was for ready money only, our analysis shows that was
not the case. The sales recorded here were generally made on credit. At the end of their first year
of business, Anderson and Low’s outstanding debts were staggering. Their debts totaled almost
£3000, nearly half of their sales that year. This reliance on credit fits the general rural pattern of
extending long credit. They also performed other mercantile functions; on several occasions they
took hogsheads of tobacco and sold them to Scottish merchants.
Jeanne Whitney’s analysis of the store in the same year enables us to put these food
purchases in greater perspective. (We chose our year for that purpose.) Anderson and Low’s
establishment was a typical general store selling a vast range of household goods and extending
cash loans. Like all such stores, textiles were the most common item sold. One hundred and fifty
patrons (40%) bought sewing supplies and 140 (37%) bought linen, the most common type of
textile sold. Sugar was bought only by 76 (one-fifth) of their customers, averaging sixteen pounds
each. Fifty-six customers bought tea (14.7%). The same number bought alcohol.
Almost half of the food-related purchases made at their store were for particular West
Indies goods: alcohol (33.04) and sugar (16.7%). (Table 4.4). The value of those sales was 70%
of their business. Tea and coffee sales at their store were more significant than in any of the others
we studied, about one in five sales were for that grocery item. One in ten purchases were for
spices or condiments, although each purchase was small. Their sale of meat was a large
percentage and is puzzling. There were large quantities of cash paid for beef and pork by Matthew
Anderson that were listed as store debits but could be traced in no other way.
Most alcohol purchases were local: Williamsburg (25%), York County (35%) and James
City County (2%) The same pattern was true for sugar (83%). Other customers were from
surrounding (Surry and Elizabeth City County) and farther distant (Henrico and King William)
rural areas, but their proportion of the overall business was small. Anderson and Low’s customers
included some of the largest planters in town (George Wythe) and county (Thomas Nelson).
Planters made up over 40% of their customers, at a rate matched by the other Virginia merchants.
Tavern keepers were also important customers. They included Jane Vobe, Christiana Campbell,
3
Jeanne Ellen Whitney, “Clues to a Community: Transactions at the Anderson-Low Store, 1784-1785”
(master’s thesis, College of William and Mary, 1983), pp. 2, 11-12.
126
Table 4.4.
SALES AT THE ANDERSON AND LOW STORE
WILLIAMSBURG, 1784-1785
Category
SWEETENERS
ALCOHOL
TEA/COFFEE
MEAT
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
DAIRY
FRUITS/NUTS
FOOD GRAINS
LEGUMES
FOODSTUFFS
BAKERY/BREAD
VEGETABLES
Count
298
153
187
7
85
22
58
27
42
15
7
1
Percent
Total Value
33.04%
16.96
20.73
0.78
9.42
2.44
6.43
2.99
4.66
1.66
0.78
0.11
£170.43
131.78
83.82
44.04
24.13
12.11
11.58
11.25
8.21
3.23
1.18
0.04
Percent
33.97%
26.26
16.71
8.78
4.81
2.41
2.31
2.24
1.64
0.64
0.24
0.01
and James Southall. Large-scale merchants who made purchases at the store included Samuel
Beale, William Prentis and William Holt. The largest customers were Robert Gilbert (a little
known probable tavern keeper), Adam Byrd, James Southall, Gabriel Galt, Jane Vobe, William
Carter, and Walker Murray. All spent over £30. Anderson and Low served two diverse sets of
customers.
Alcohol was by far the most important item in the store’s business in terms of its volume.
While only a few customers purchased rum, it was bought in large quantities averaging almost £3.
It was the most important item for the merchant. That same pattern of large purchases defined the
sale of sugar; the average purchase was over £2.10. Nonetheless, Anderson and Low stocked a
large variety of objects and commodities for the needs of their customers that had low values and
were sold less frequently.
William Lightfoot (Yorktown, 1747-1764)
William Lightfoot was the son of Philip Lightfoot, a well-to-do Yorktown merchant who was
active in county affairs. At his father’s death in 1747, he inherited unspecified York County lands
and four lots, including the “lot where he now lives.” Philip Lightfoot was one of the two major
players in the Yorktown market until his death; his wealth and connections discouraged new
businesses. His son William did not receive the same advantage. For example, Francis Jerdone
(see below) moved into town and became an active competitor.
The account book details Lightfoot’s business in Yorktown and his connected business to
his plantations in Charles City County. (Lightfoot was sheriff in York County from 1746 to 1748,
but later served as burgess from Charles City County, 1756-58.) His business was carried out with
men from all parts of the colony and several leading British merchants.
Like several other account books we studied, Lightfoot’s business centered on the sale of
grains, meat and alcohol. (Table 4.5) Unlike the other accounts, Lightfoot had a high
concentration of business in food grains. A third of his business volume was the sale of grains and
127
Table 4.5.
SALES AT THE WILLIAM LIGHTFOOT STORE
YORKTOWN, 1747-1764
Category
FOOD GRAINS
MEAT
ALCOHOL
SWEETENERS
FOODSTUFFS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
DAIRY
FRUITS/NUTS
LEGUMES
TEA/COFFEE
SEAFOOD
Count
61
133
316
132
9
22
13
5
2
3
2
Percent
Total Value
8.74%
19.05
45.27
18.91
1.29
3.15
1.86
0.72
0.29
0.43
0.29
£479.10
458.50
308.17
152.89
9.91
8.65
6.54
3.79
1.38
0.75
0.10
Percent
33.51%
32.07
21.55
10.69
0.69
0.61
0.46
0.27
0.10
0.05
0.01
this was matched closely with his acceptance of grains in payment. His other products do not
show this parallel. One-third of his credits were sugar compared to one-third of his sales of meat.
While the value of his sales of alcohol was only about one-fifth of his business, one out of every
two purchases was alcohol. His customers were rum drinkers, not tea-sippers: tea was purchased
only three times.
His credit accounts for meat were much smaller; only a third of the value of outgoing meat
was represented by meat credits. Alcohol credits exceeded alcohol purchases, expressing the
movement of alcohol in a different flow. Poultry was a surprising 20 % of his credit transactions,
although representing a miniscule value. No customers purchased poultry from Lightfoot, so they
may have been for his own use. Other items accepted for credit were wild birds and dairy.
Like Anderson and Low and Francis Jerdone (below), William Lightfoot served both the
rural community and the urban residents of Williamsburg and Yorktown. Forty percent of the
customers we could identify were planters. Another 12% were some form of tavern keeper; 10%
were merchants or storekeepers. His clientele was notable for the number of overseers (9.0%)
Francis Jerdone (Yorktown,1751-1753)
Francis Jerdone was born in Scotland in 1730 and came to Virginia by at least 1746 as a part
owner of a cargo of goods and factor for the merchants Buchanan and Hamilton of London. He
first arrived in Hampton in 1746 with his cargo of goods. After a few months, he went to
Yorktown with an eye to establishing business there. The town’s trade was firmly in the hands of
two strong rivals: Philip Lightfoot and Thomas Nelson. He at first sought advice and received
strong discouragement from his potential rivals. Their actions only made Jerdone more
determined: “their endeavor to remove me farther from them made me more anxious to settle
among them.” He settled there and began business, but his opportunity was fully opened at Philip
Lightfoot’s death in 1747. He explained that Lightfoot’s “great riches while he continued in health
deterred everybody from settling here, none being able to vie with him but Mr. Nelson who
128
always had an equal share of trade with him.” By June of 1748 he had a large storehouse and a
store at the waterside.
His location in Yorktown did not assure his success: Buchanan and Hamilton went
bankrupt in 1751. It is unclear exactly how he carried on business for the next few years, but it
seems he was selling goods in the hopes of settling the company’s affairs, offering “Sundry
Parcels of Sortable European and Indian Goods.” Within three years, he had also become
involved with David Anderson in a store in Hanover and made good profits. This success may
have pulled his attention to purchasing land and further opening business westward. Another
factor may have been his recent marriage to Sarah Macon of New Kent County which brought
with it wealth and connections through her father. A letter to Samual Richards in August 1753
records his disgust with the current business. He complained that “tricking, evading & shuffling
methods [are] practiced by almost everybody who have any dealings at all.” He announced that he
was “now retreating into the woods, where I am building a small hutt to live quietly with my little
family.” He was careful to assure a colleague that he was not giving up his business life: he had
some thought of “carrying on a small peddling business.” The next day he noted that he had been
gone from York for about a month, living at “the Widow’s” (probably Lightfoot) and Colonel
Macon’s (perhaps his father-in-law) in Hanover. He wrote that he hoped to be in Louisa County
by the following May.4 His business interests expanded in one final direction: with Williamsburg
merchant and mill owner William Holt he purchased the important forge and mills at Providence
in New Kent County of Rev. Charles Jeffery Smith He died in Hanover in 1771.
The Francis Jerdone account book we studied was kept between 1751 and 1753 that
records his actions as an import/export merchant operating out of Yorktown. Like John Davidson
in Annapolis, Jerdone was firmly tied into the larger Atlantic economy. He records transactions
with ship captains moving rum between the West Indies and Virginia and also keeps track of
shipments of tobacco to England. Despite the larger context of his business, Francis Jerdone was
also engaged in the local economy. Moreover, his account book sheds light on the flow of
commodities in Virginia. Jerdone had property in Hanover County and for nearly every type of
commodity, Jerdone’s largest customer base was in Hanover County. He drew together his
business and former residence in Yorktown and his new home in the piedmont.
The majority of Jerdone’s accounts relate to transactions and profit and loss calculations
of his import/export business (Table 4.6) Large quantities of West Indies products like rum,
sugar, and molasses are recorded in this book. Jerdone also sold typical eighteenth-century store
goods. Meat was the third most common commodity purchased from Jerdone. He also sold
substantial amounts of food grains and some dairy products.
Customers from Hanover County purchased much of the alcohol, food grains, dairy
products, foodstuffs, and import store goods. They purchased nearly 30% of the alcohol and dairy
products. More than half the spices and condiments (56.16%) and almost 20% of the sugar and
molasses (18.18%) flowed between Yorktown and Hanover. Meat was the one commodity that
did not follow this pattern. Jerdone sold his meat locally, most of it in Yorktown (31.25%). Meat
4
“Letter Book of Francis Jerdone,” extracts in William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine
14 (January 1906): 141-145.
129
Table 4.6.
SALES AT THE FRANCIS JERDONE STORE
YORKTOWN, 1751-1753
Category
ALCOHOL
SWEETENERS
MEAT
FOOD GRAINS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
DAIRY
FOODSTUFFS
TEA/COFFEE
BAKERY/BREAD
Count
66
46
23
7
10
13
4
10
1
Percent
Total Value
36.67%
25.56
12.78
3.89
5.56
7.22
2.22
5.56
0.56
£ 1749.16
506.97
310.38
220.95
104.77
42.21
12.78
10.77
2.50
Percent
59.08%
17.13
10.48
7.46
3.54
1.43
0.43
0.36
0.08
also flowed into Jerdone’s business. Almost 18% of credit transactions involved meat. Jerdone’s
meat creditors are harder to identify. Jerdone purchased large quantities of barreled meat, often
from ship captains, and on a few occasions he paid freight charges on it. He probably imported at
least some of the meat he sold.
Like the other Virginia merchants, planters were Jerdone’s most important customers
(40%). Another 12% were tavern keepers. His cargo business involved a number of ship’s
captains and seafarers (7.50%). His participation in the cargo trade is seen in the number of ship’s
captains and seafarers. Jerdone exchanged goods with a number of ship captains in the 1750s, and
he recorded frequent purchases of rum, sugar, molasses, and spices in his account book. During
the years he operated his mercantile business from Yorktown, he was an active member of the
cargo trade between the mainland colonies, the sugar islands, and England.
William Coffing (Annapolis 1770-1771)
William Coffing kept a dry goods store that supplied a broad cross-section of Annapolis residents
and those from the surrounding rural area. An account book is extant from 1770 to 1771. Very
little is known about the merchant himself. The previous analysis by Edward Papenfuse, however,
helps tell the larger story of his trade. About half of his customers were Annapolis residents, and
most made their living in some way supplying wealthy town dwellers. These included the high end
professions (doctors, lawyers, and merchants) as well as those who built their houses. (We found
brickmakers and plasterers to be active consumers). Over forty percent of the rural customers
were planters; most of the rest had similar professions to the townspeople, suggesting they made
their livelihood at some times in town.5
Coffing’s account book reveals the typical sales of commodities in eighteenth-century
retail stores (Table 4.7). Of food and drink, almost half of his sales were for alcohol, both in terms
of number of transactions and amount sold. Sweeteners (mostly sugar) were the next most
common item purchased. About a third of the purchases made were for sugar, although they
formed only one-fourth of the value of business. A few meat transactions were also listed. Most
5
Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit, p. 27-28.
130
Table 4.7.
SALES AT THE WILLIAM COFFING STORE
ANNAPOLIS, 1770-1771
Category
ALCOHOL
SWEETENERS
MEAT
TEA/COFFEE
FOOD GRAINS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
FOODSTUFFS
BAKERY/BREAD
FISH
DAIRY
LEGUMES
FRUITS/NUTS
Count
Percent
Total Value
Percent
508
377
24
143
12
54
64
2
1
2
1
2
42.69
31.68
2.02
12.02
1.01
4.54
5.38
0.17
0.08
0.17
0.08
0.17
£ 243.13
126.21
73.34
50.75
19.08
9.30
7.60
2.98
2.00
1.35
0.36
0.29
45.33
23.53
13.67
9.46
3.56
1.73
1.42
0.56
0.37
0.25
0.07
0.05
were barrels of pork. Other listed transactions might be merely bookkeeping forms, a record of
exchange between two people appearing as credit or debit on one person’s account. For example,
he records “cash paid for mutton and veal” when Joseph Gale was sick. Another records “paid for
meat for Nance for broth.” Small amounts of meat were entered on what might be described as his
expense account: “4 pounds pork.” Tea and coffee sales totaled about 10% of his sales.
Coffing’s business is closer to the urban model of people involved in urban occupations
and selling mostly for cash. Nineteen percent of his customers were in the retail trades. An equal
number were tavern keepers. The building boom in Annapolis in this period meant high wages and
good employment for those in the building trades. This is further reflected in the number of
purchases of those so employed. Only 11% of his customers were identified as planters.
John Davidson (Annapolis, 1780-87)
John Davidson was born in Scotland about 1737 and arrived in Annapolis some time before 1766.
He became a partner in the mercantile firm of Wallace, Davidson & Johnson in 1771. The firm
was involved in the Atlantic trade, but Davidson stayed in Annapolis to keep the store and
maintain the running accounts. When the firm dissolved in 1777, he went into partnership with
Charles Wallace and Matthew Ridley of Baltimore. Davidson held a number of civic offices in the
1780s. His household expenses and more biographical detail can be found in the next chapter.
Similar to Francis Jerdone’s Yorktown business, Davidson’s store sold a large quantity of
alcohol (Table 4.8). While only one out of four purchases were alcohol, its sale made up over
90% of the value of his business. Unlike some of the other merchants studied, however, his sales
were not mainly of rum, but of finer spirits and beer. Bottles of madieria and claret were sold.
Barrels of beer made up the bulk of his other alcohol sales. He even sold sacrament wine to St.
Anne’s Parish. He was not, however, purely a specialist in alcohol. The huge expense of those
sales merely masked his other store business. For instance, the number of sales of alcohol were
131
Table 4.8.
SALES AT THE JOHN DAVIDSON STORE
ANNAPOLIS, 1780-1787
Category
ALCOHOL
TEA/COFFEE
FOOD GRAINS
DAIRY
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
MEAT
SWEETENERS
FOODSTUFFS
BAKERY/BREAD
FRUITS/NUTS
Count
19
15
1
6
20
1
5
1
2
1
Percent
Total Value
26.76%
21.13
1.41
8.45
28.17
1.41
7.04
1.41
2.82
1.41
£506.66
14.73
6.67
6.33
4.66
2.74
2.60
0.21
0.20
0.17
Percent
92.97%
2.70
1.22
1.16
0.86
0.50
0.48
0.04
0.04
0.03
exceeded by the number of sales of spices and condiments. The first was valued at over £500, the
latter at less than £5. Still nearly 30% of the individual sales transactions were spices. While meat
made up only a very small amount of sales, it made up nearly 20% of the creditor lines. The bulk
of this comes from one transaction in November of 1780. Otherwise, Davidson dealt with meat
only occasionally and in small quantities. Nearly all his meat customers lived in Annapolis.
James Brice (Annapolis, 1746-1801)
James Brice was born in Annapolis in 1746, the son of Sarah Frisby and John Brice, a prominent
government official. He was a prominent lawyer and a planter. While he owned a substantial
townhouse in Annapolis, he was chiefly a country gentleman, with substantial plantations in Cecil
and Kent counties. In 1771, he purchased another large plantation in Anne Arundel County on the
banks of the Severn. Brice served in many county and parish offices in the latter quarter of the
eighteenth-century.
Brice’s store accounts cover the period between 1767 to 1801. He was primarily involved
in the retail trade in Annapolis, but his accounts reveal the relationship between his town
enterprises and his outlying plantations. Plantation receipts make up a good portion of the account
book entries.
Brice’s business mainly brought rural products to town to sell to urban people. He particularly
specialized in the sale of meat (Table 4.9). Nearly 40% of the sales in his account were pork
purchases. Corn, beef, wheat, flour, and butter along with pork accounted for nearly 75% of the
whole. Of the twenty-four customers in Brice’s accounts, four were planters and three were either
farmers or planters. The rest were largely an urban clientele including tavern keepers, blacksmiths,
a mariner, a stonemason, a carpenter, and a bricklayer. Even though other businesses in Virginia
we studied similarly harnessed the flow of meat and corn into urban areas, Brice was unusual in
his reliance on his own massive plantations.
132
Table 4.9.
SALES AT THE JAMES BRICE STORE
ANNAPOLIS, 1767-1800
Category
MEAT
FOOD GRAINS
DAIRY
ALCOHOL
POULTRY
FISH
FRUITS/NUTS
FOODSTUFFS
VEGETABLES
SWEETENERS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
FISH
TEA/COFFEE
LEGUMES
Count
101
47
21
25
11
2
8
7
2
7
3
5
1
1
Percent
Total Value
41.91%
19.50
8.71
10.37
4.56
0.83
3.32
2.90
0.83
2.90
1.24
2.07
0.41
0.41
£1134.54
615.20
48.27
20.40
17.30
7.04
3.06
2.55
2.11
1.90
1.83
1.33
0.78
0.67
Percent
61.10%
33.13
2.60
1.10
0.93
0.38
0.17
0.14
0.11
0.10
0.10
0.07
0.04
0.04
William Farris (Annapolis, 1795-1800)
William Farris opened a store in Annapolis about 1759. He was born in London in 1728 and
arrived in Philadelphia with his mother while still an infant. His father was a clockmaker who died
shortly after the family’s arrival in the colonies. Farris became a watch and clockmaker by the time
he set up his mercantile business. By 1764 he had expanded his enterprises into tavern keeping,
silversmithing, and furniture making. He was also an avid gardener, both ornamental and practical.
He sold seeds and surplus vegetables. He also traded seeds with multiple townspeople. Farris died
in 1804 with an estate valued at £804. The period of his store account covers the period 1795 to
1800.
Like James Brice, Farris moved quantities of rural foodstuffs into Annapolis. (Table 4.10).
More than 30% of the total purchases made at Farris’ store were for meat. Food grains
constituted nearly 24% of the value of his sales, while sugar accounted for nearly 20%. Alcohol
was a small percentage of his business, summing only 13%. This pattern does not match any of
the other merchants whose businesses were defined by large quantities of alcohol sale.
Farris did not list customers for all transactions making it difficult to characterize his
business. The six customers listed are a blacksmith, carter, slave, storekeeper, a milk maid, and an
itinerant peddler.
133
Table 4.10.
SALES AT THE WILLIAM FARRIS STORE
ANNAPOLIS, 1795-1800
Category
MEAT
FOOD GRAINS
SWEETENERS
ALCOHOL
DAIRY
POULTRY
TEA/COFFEE
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
VEGETABLES
SEAFOOD
BAKERY/BREAD
FRUITS/NUTS
FOODSTUFFS
FISH
LEGUMES
WILD ANIMAL
Count
261
96
258
145
114
48
51
34
43
31
85
22
19
23
4
2
Percent
Total Value
21.12%
7.77
20.87
11.73
9.22
3.88
4.13
2.75
3.48
2.51
6.88
1.78
1.54
1.86
0.32
0.16
£131.65
103.76
83.19
55.57
14.27
8.48
8.02
6.08
4.83
3.90
3.67
2.35
2.32
1.79
0.32
0.03
Percent
30.60%
24.12
19.34
12.92
3.32
1.97
1.87
1.41
1.12
0.91
0.85
0.55
0.54
0.42
0.07
0.01
D. PROVISIONING FUEL AND FODDER
Fuel for cooking and heating was an essential need for all town residents. Given high transport
costs, the supply had to come from the local area unless the towns were accessible to water
transport. Much of our information on urban fuel supplies comes from land locked Williamsburg
where the sole source was the immediately surrounding countryside. (Scattered plantation records
for the hinterlands of Annapolis, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., demonstrate that after the
Revolutionary War landowners who could harvest and transport firewood to these markets by
water were quick to take advantage. By the early 1800s such planters used their own slaves or
else employed free blacks to cut down pine cordwood and to harvest wood from swamps during
the winter in order to provision town markets.) Town residents who owned nearby farms likely
supplied their heating and cooking needs from off these lands. Those who did not own adjoining
rural land had to rely on neighboring planters like Bray and the Burwells, who earned extra
income by having their slaves cut firewood during the winter and cart it into town, or on more
transient suppliers who have left no trace of their activities in surviving records. At the lower end
of the economic scale, it is possible that some households in towns like Williamsburg still supplied
themselves at least in part by scavenging fallen wood in surrounding woodlands.
At this point it is impossible to estimate with any degree of accuracy the requirements of
Chesapeake town dwellers for heating and cooking. Presumably their requirements for warmth
were somewhat less than those estimated for more northerly towns like Philadelphia. On the other
hand, the greater propensity of Chesapeake townsfolk to relegate cooking to separate
outbuildings would have increased total household requirements for the combined purposes of
heating and cooking. Assuming from the basis of Williamsburg’s 1782 census of a total of 182
134
households, and apportioning an estimated 48 affluent households at a high consumption estimate
of 25 cord per year, 59 households at a middling estimate of 12.5 cords per year, and 75
households at the minimal estimate of 5 cords a year, the resident householders would have
required at least 2,300 cords of firewood per annum. Clearly many suppliers were involved in
meeting such urban requirements.6
The total output of the plantations we analyzed is problematic in that, until 1776, they
recorded production only in cartloads of undefined volume. Between 1742 and 1744 Bray was
supplying Williamsburg residents with an average of 250 loads per year. Production at Carter’s
Grove in 1767-68 was about 300 loads a year. Apparently governmental agencies, even those in
the throes of a civil war, required more precise accounting. In 1776 Nathaniel Burwell started the
year valuing a cartload of firewood at 6s, but in November he began selling by the cord at 7s.
Possibly the standard “load” was always a cord, and Burwell simply took advantage of the going
price paid by the government to raise the price he charged private customers. In 1776 Burwell
delivered into Williamsburg just over 2,000 cartloads plus 319 cords of wood, a level of
exploitation his plantations clearly could not sustain for long. The next year Burwell’s sales
amounted to 461 cords, and thereafter dwindled to 25 to 50 a year, although it is not certain that
all later wood sales were recorded. Reported prices for a single wood delivery rose after the war,
so we have to assume that fuel prices were increasing, as they clearly were in larger cities like
Philadelphia, although the ambiguity as to possible changes in the size of the unit normally
delivered prevents close measurement.
It appears that before the Revolution Bray and the Burwells may have been managing their
relatively abundant woodlands with an eye to marketing small, sustainable harvests of firewood
over the long run. This changed during and after the war when the chance to make windfall profits
by cutting down and selling off most marketable timber and firewood not required for plantation
building, fencing, and fuel apparently proved irresistible. Increased wood sales are also consistent
with a shift away from tobacco in favor of grain which required more cleared acres for corn and
wheat, and more pastures and improved meadows for livestock. Comments about marked
reductions in woodlands in the immediate hinterlands of towns, in the Chesapeake and elsewhere,
frequently appear in early national period sources. This inevitably raised the price of fuel, as
townspeople had to turn to increasingly distant sources of supply. 7
As a rule these large planters delivered firewood primarily to regular customers, often
during the winter on a prearranged schedule, either weekly or biweekly during colder weather. In
the early 1740s Bray usually charged either 5s 6d or 6s for a load of wood. (Bray had made
arrangements with one William Bryan to supply wood at the 5s 6d rate, while he charged 6s for
wood his own slaves delivered. The two prices may reflect the use of carts of different capacity,
or else Bryan was willing to provide wood at a slightly lower price than Bray.) However Bray
also offered a discount of 1s per load to large customers who agreed to purchase their entire
season’s supply from him. Between May and November 1743, for example, Williamsburg tavern
6
Household firewood consumption estimates are taken from Smith, The “Lower Sort”, pp. 102, 104-105.
These are perhaps too low. In 1787 Annapolis lawyer Alexander Hanson estimated annual firewood consumption
for an affluent Annapolis family consisting of ten persons at 50 cords per year (see Table 5.8).
7
Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside, pp. 132-134. For Philadelphia, see Smith, The “Lower
Sort”, pp. 102, 104-105.
135
keeper Ann Pattison paid 5s instead of 6s each for 51 loads of wood “because you are a large
customer”. Bray offered John Burdett, another Williamsburg tavern keeper, the same option. He
could buy individual loads at “5/6 unless you are a Customer for the Year, if You are, then @ 5/.”
Burdett, it seems, opted to buy from several suppliers, since he paid 5s6d for the 29 loads he
purchased that year from Bray.
After the Revolution, Nathaniel Burwell II often marketed firewood in town on a ticket
system similar to that described above for grain. Customers who had previously paid for a supply
of firewood presented the requisite tickets to the slaves or free wagoner who made the deliveries.
Anyone who bought more tickets than he or she needed could sell them to others. This system
was definitely not a recent innovation, for the Bray accounts include a mention of wood tickets in
the 1740s. The fuel delivery system was thus a relatively sophisticated one through which planters
often received payment in advance and one that minimized the need for workers who made the
deliveries to handle cash. Negotiation of yearly contracts or purchase of tickets assured customers
of a certain and regular supply of fuel. Such acquisitions allowed them to plan in advance the
amounts of firewood they would cut and market in any given year.
Table 4.11 tabulates the Williamsburg residents who bought firewood from Bray and the
Burwells. Town professionals, artisans, tavern keepers and other service providers predominated.
Clearly one or two large area plantations were insufficient to meet the town’s needs. Presumably
gentry households supplied themselves from their own farms, and poorer folk bought small
quantities of firewood (presumably at higher prices) from other suppliers on the open market.
The evidence from the plantation accounts regarding purchases of fodder and straw for
provisioning urban livestock is considerably clearer. The primary purchasers of corn fodder and
wheat straw were the royal governors, a few town-dwelling gentry families, and town
professionals. These supplemental livestock foods must then have been used almost exclusively to
feed the carriage horses of elite town residents or gentry visitors during the winter and early
spring when grass was in short supply or else to enable doctors and lawyers to keep their horses
in high condition so that they could travel at will. Otherwise Williamsburg townsfolk must have
fed their milk cows and riding horses with whatever pasturage was available in the immediate
area, or else with supplemental grain rather than with purchased fodder. Even tavern keepers,
who had to accommodate the equine needs of a variety of travelers, made only a few minor
purchases of fodder. Apparently, then, most townspeople managed to provision their livestock
from immediate local resources, except only for those who opted for the comfort and status
symbol of traveling by carriage.
136
Table 4.11.
FUEL CUSTOMERS IN WILLIAMSBURG
1740-1807
Occupation
Number of
Customers
Pct of
Customers
Number of
Purchases
Pct of
Purchases
Craftpersons
Service
Professionals
Tavern Keepers
Merchants
Gentry
Widows
Institutions
Laborers
Urban, Occupation Unknown
Rural, Planters
Location and Occupation Unknown
16
16
10
8
7
4
4
2
1
5
2
11
19
19
12
9
8
5
5
2
1
6
2
13
54
72
27
127
23
54
39
135
9
44
15
31
9
11
4
20
4
9
6
21
1
7
2
5
Total
86
101
630
99
E. ECONOMICS OF ACQUISITION
In order to determine how different sorts of customers paid for their purchases of foods and fuel,
we systematically recorded information on methods of payment from the various account books.
At this point we need to do additional work to refine the analysis of means of payment, especially
for those who paid for their purchases by more than one means, and to differentiate between long
term and short term extensions of credit. However preliminary results show that most buyers of
food and fuel paid their big planter suppliers with some combination of cash and of goods or
services.
In an economy like that of the colonial and early national Chesapeake where hard money
was in short supply, it was a major convenience and sometimes a necessity to conduct as many
transactions as possible by bookkeeping offsets that required no actual physical transfers of scarce
coin. A preliminary count of methods of payment reveals that 201 customers of Bray and the
Burwells paid for food and fuel with cash, 215 paid in goods and services, and just 76 bought on
credit. There was considerable overlap between the three groups. Most of those who paid cash
not surprisingly were residents of Williamsburg and Yorktown. Some cash payments, especially
for small amounts, were made at the time of purchase. More substantial cash payments were made
within a few months or at most within a year. Planters and other rural folk were much more likely
than townspeople to pay wholly or at least in part with goods and services. But town
professionals, merchants, artisans, and service providers also frequently satisfied a portion of their
food and fuel bills with offsetting accounts for medical care, legal and other services, and durable
goods supplied the planters. How often accounts were balanced and outstanding shortfalls settled
by an actual transfer of money depended both on the volume and frequency of transactions
between buyer and seller, and upon whether or not exchanges remained relatively equal or became
137
decidedly unbalanced in favor of one of the parties. Payments were made sooner on the
unbalanced accounts than on the relatively balanced ones.
Our preliminary analysis suggests that the large planters were decidedly conservative
about selling substantial amounts of perishable foods on credit. Only 30 of the 76 credit
transactions involved amounts of more then £10, and these purchasers were almost exclusively
merchants, professionals, institutional buyers like the state government and the College of William
and Mary, and well-established tavern keepers and artisans. Large planters, it appears, engaged in
urban provisioning as a disciplined business, and took sensible precautions for avoiding much risk.
Although some of their customers did not pay as promptly as the planters might have wished, the
planters eventually received almost all sums due. Unlike country storekeepers, whose books were
frequently overburdened with a numerous bad debts and long-outstanding balances, in the
plantation accounts very few debts were eventually written off as uncollectable, and these were
generally for small sums advanced to marginal individuals. Town customers were apparently
sufficiently numerous that the big planters could restrict their dealings to solvent and responsible
buyers.
138
V. CONSUMPTION PATTERNS IN INDIVIDUAL
HOUSEHOLDS
A. HOUSEHOLD DIET THROUGH HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS
Nine lists or account books of urban household expenses from Virginia and Maryland were
analyzed to understand the kinds of foods purchased, the sources for those items, and the relative
dietary expenses of various categories of foodstuffs. These accounts varied widely based on the
personal needs of each household or keeper of the accounts; some recorded all foodstuffs,
including grocery items and alcohol, and others only regular market purchases. At least one
recorded costs of supporting a number of slaves in an industrial setting; others recorded expenses
for household slaves. Several were mere jotted notes, others more elaborate bookkeeping forms.
Since the number of people represented by these expenses was seldom documented, relative
frequencies were often used within households.
Despite our wish to understand all sectors of society, these accounts over-whelmingly
represent the elite, the group most likely to document their activities. At one extreme were the
records of the managers of kitchens or chefs for a governor of Virginia (Governor Botetourt) and
president of the United States (President Jefferson). Most others were merchants or storekeepers.
Only one account represented the actions of a lower middling craftsperson. Other forms of
evidence can be utilized to examine the diet of the poorer sorts through institutional records for
poor relief, and provisioning slaves and hired servants.
Urban residents may have attained more direct self-sufficiency by keeping livestock and
growing vegetables in local gardens. Such choices, however, had direct costs. Large kitchen
gardens were not common on small urban lots. Livestock needed space, and labor was necessary
for butchering and preservation. Cows could be kept for a supply of milk, butter and cheese, but
only about half of Williamsburg residents in 1783 made the choice to keep even one animal. In the
same way, urban residents were not always reliant on urban systems or urban peoples. These lists
of expenses, therefore, can by omission demonstrate a greater degree of self-sufficiency,
alternative arrangements not recorded in daily records, or foodstuffs grown on nearby farms. The
delicate balance is deciding whether what is not paid for is not part of the diet or is merely not
recorded in this accounting system.
Overall Household Patterns
The data studied were nine accounts of household provisioning dating from 1721 to 1827. These
included the records of the wealthy planter Charles Carroll of Annapolis (1721-1739); the socalled Williamsburg Wigmaker (probably Robert Lyon) in 1749; the Colchester, Virginia
storekeeper for the Glassford chain (1766-1768); the Governor’s Palace in Virginia (1769-1770);
the Annapolis merchant John Davidson (1780-1787); and the household of the Norfolk merchant
Moses Myers (1824-1827). The prodigious record keeping of Thomas Jefferson enabled us to
analyze his expenses in several small series of accounts: a combined list of all his food expenses in
Williamsburg (1768-1784); in Annapolis, while residing with James Madison while Congress was
139
meeting in Annapolis (1783-1784); and at Washington as President (1806). See Appendix 2 for
more details.
These records were combined to create a database of about 6000 purchases and credits for
food, drink, and fuel spanning a century. We first looked at them as a group.Three methods are
intrinsic in this quantified data to study food provisioning and diet. One measure of analysis is the
number of purchase transactions. Each time a purchase was made for a particular item, it can be
noted as a choice made and ranked with other choices. Another was the amount of money spent,
simply summing up investment in particular categories. A third is to count the total quantity of a
given category. That measure is least consistently recorded and hence the most complicated. For
instance, some keepers of accounts lumped prices of several items for a day; others may have
simply recorded an unknown unit, such as “some fish,” “butter” or “a bunch of herbs.” Some
recorded quantities but no prices; others prices, but no quantities. Other units were simply
difficult to compare; one chicken, for instance, represented a very different consumption expense
than one quarter of beef. One purchase could be a barrel of rum, another a quart of rum. Further
refining of the data overcame some of these difficulties in terms of price and quantity by ultimately
converting units to their lowest common denominator. A chicken and a beef were made
comparable, for example, by a distillation into pounds of useable meat.
The broadest category of analysis of expenses totaled almost £ 4000, and included costs
for fuel, fodder, and some quantities of grain that could have been for either human or livestock
consumption (Table 5.1). The most frequently purchased item was poultry (19.3%), followed by
beef, pork, mutton, and veal (18.0%). Vegetables (15.4%), fruits and nuts (8.4%), dairy products
(8.1%), and fish (7.0%) fell next in ranking. Oysters and crabs were a small but notable part of the
diet.
Nonetheless, the relative cost of each of these items in the household diet was quite
different. About a third of the food expenses were for meat. Poultry were the most common item
purchased, but were relatively inexpensive at about 8% of the cost. The difference between the
frequency of vegetable purchases and their cost was even more striking. They accounted for
15.4% of the purchases, but only 3% of the cost. On the other hand, food grains were also
relatively infrequently purchased but made up 15% of the budgetary cost. Alcohol was not
included in all account books, so is underrepresented here. Even so, it totaled ten percent of
overall dietary expenses.
For complete comparability, it is necessary to remove various categories of goods that
were not uniformly recorded in each account book. These will be discussed in appropriate
individual household sections below. For instance, excluding the categories of alcohol, grocery
items, and food grains allows the overall analysis of locally produced foodstuffs as part of the diet.
These items were recorded in each individual account book.
As Table 5.2 demonstrates, over half the cost of provisioning a household from local
agricultural products was for pork, beef, and mutton (54.1%). When poultry (12.8%), fish
(3.0%), seafood, (1.6%), wild animal such as rabbit, (.7%), wild bird (.7%), and wild meat such
as venison (.6%) are added, nearly three-fourths of a household’s direct local food costs were for
various sources of meat.
140
Table 5.1.
FOOD AND DRINK EXPENSES
FOR ALL HOUSEHOLDS
Category
Count
Meat
Food Grains
Dairy
Alcohol
Poultry
Bakery/Bread
Vegetables
Fruits/Nuts
Fish
Spices/Condiments
Sweeteners
Tea/Coffee
Seafood
Foodstuffs
Wild Animal
Wild Bird
Wild Meat
Fuel
Legumes
Livestock
Herbs
Storage
Dairying
Beverages
By-Product
Unknown
Drinking
Grains
1048
251
477
156
1125
128
893
488
95
114
50
195
23
31
91
14
101
9
99
3
1
1
1
4
1
4
Percentage of
Transactions
18.01%
4.31
8.20
2.68
19.33
2.20
15.35
8.39
411
1.63
1.96
0.86
3.35
0.40
0.53
1.56
0.24
5
1.74
0.15
1.70
0.05
0.02
0.02
0.02
0.07
0.02
0.07
Total
Expense
£1277.38
564.93
389.42
337.04
302.10
238.89
115.58
102.40
7.06
46.11
44.00
42.12
38.82
21.08
16.86
16.71
14.58
0.09
13.75
4.65
1.89
0.34
0.15
0.14
0.06
0.03
0.00
0.00
Percentage of
Value
34.78%
15.38
10.60
9.18
8.22
6.50
3.15
2.79
70.09
1.26
1.20
1.15
1.06
0.57
0.46
0.46
0.40
14.13
0.37
0.13
0.05
0.10
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
1.91
0.39
Table 5.2.
LOCAL FOODSTUFF PURCHASES FOR ALL HOUSEHOLDS
Category
Count
Meat
Dairy
Poultry
Vegetables
Fruits/Nuts
Fish
Seafood
Wild Animal
Wild Bird
Wild Meat
Legumes
Herbs
1048
477
1125
893
488
195
31
91
14
101
99
Percentage of
Transactions
21.07%
9.59
22.62
17.96
9.81
411
3.92
0.62
1.83
0.28
2.03
1.99
141
Total
Expense
£1277.38
389.42
302.10
115.58
102.40
8.26
38.82
16.86
16.71
14.58
13.75
1.89
Percentage
of Value
54.14%
16.50
12.80
4.90
4.34
70.09
1.65
0.71
0.71
0.62
0.58
0.08
2.97
Other parts of the diet reflected the inability of these urban residents to completely
provision themselves without resorting to markets. Keeping a cow for butter, milk, and cheese
was one of the easier ways to cut cash costs to supply a household’s food. But the cost and space
needed to keep a cow may have mitigated against this choice. Butter and milk added another
16.5% to the cost of feeding these households. Vegetables could have been procured from home
gardens, but remained a large 18% of the transactions and 4.9% of the cost. Fruits and nuts were
similarly important; 9.8% of the purchases were for fruits. Finally, legumes and herbs were
insignificant costs but were common purchases, about 2% each of all transactions.
The relative importance of beef, pork, and poultry is even clearer when converting from
animals or part of animals to pounds of useable meat (Table 5.3). Beef remained the most
important (41.6%), followed by pork (32.3%), poultry (10.7%), fish (6.4%), mutton (5.2%) and
seafood (2.4%).
Table 5.3.
POUNDS OF USEABLE MEAT PURCHASED
Meat Type
Pounds of
Useable Meat
Beef
Fish
Mutton
Pork
Poultry
Seafood
Venison
Wild Animal
Wild Bird
24926.29
3850.03
3125.25
19365.61
6412.00
1443.24
208.50
373.50
254.60
Grand Total
59959.02
Percentage
of Meat
41.57%
6.42
5.21
32.30
10.69
2.41
0.35
0.62
0.42
Caveats continue. The supply of large quantities of beef or pork were sometimes
purchased through other arrangements (through merchants or relatives, for example) and perhaps
were not always recorded here. Nonetheless, the general patterns here mesh with the
zooarchaeological data, which shows a greater reliance on beef than pork. It is worth questioning
previous historical assumptions about Virginians’ dietary reliance on pork.
These documents may even overestimate the amount of pork in white diets. They record
total purchases for households, and would include any slaves who lived there. The diet of slaves in
urban households is currently under investigation by Patricia Gibbs and is a complex problem.
Most rural slave diet was based on portions of corn meal cooked into pots of hominy.1 When
rations were allotted to slaves on plantations, pork was the preferred meat. Urban slaves were
probably more likely to share the kitchens and food supplies of their owners than rural ones, even
if it took the form of less desired leftovers. (The diet of many white households included regular
reliance on hashed meat from previous meals. Leftovers may be a bit of an anachronism.)
1
Patricia Gibbs, “Food Position Paper” (ms. on file, Department of Historical Research, Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation, April 1997).
142
Whatever the case, the pork purchased may reflect in an unmeasurable way the slave presence in
these households.
What is equally significant is the absence of wild meat. Less than 2% of the meat
purchased was venison, rabbit, and wild birds. This is a key marker of the difference between rural
and urban diet. Zooarchaeological evidence shows a much greater reliance on wild animals in
rural places than urban ones. This urban reliance was about 4 to 5% of all the useable meat. The
zooarchaeological record and the documentary record dovetail nicely here.
How the meat was purchased is also significant. Beef and pork were most often purchased
by the pound. If large quantities were purchased, it was often listed as parts of the animal—a side,
a quarter, a piece, for example. However, the number of pounds were the unit of cost. This
suggests, of course, that the animal was already slaughtered. Poultry, on the other hand, was by
the unit and was probably purchased live or freshly killed. Other cuts like head, feet, and pluck
were also purchased, but these were limited to the most elite households like Jefferson’s and
Botetourt’s, clearly eating the elite dishes described in contemporary cookbooks. By 1824, the
Myers household purchased beef in brisket and side, mutton in legs, and veal in breast, loin, and
filet. This may represent a dramatic final shift in commercial butchering.
As the story of meat consumption illustrates, individual accounts can help in understanding
these larger patterns and provide proverbial flesh on the bones of these numbers. Three accounts
were chosen to represent different parts of the social hierarchy, as well as their ability to answer
distinctive questions. Purchases for Virginia governor Lord Botetourt detail provisioning for the
most elite Virginia cuisine at the time of the American Revolution. A Williamsburg craftsperson at
mid-century demonstrates how much of the total expenses were devoted to food in a lower
middling craftsperson’s life. Finally, an Annapolis family just after the Revolution shows how
provisioning systems were complex and varied.
The Governor’s Palace of Virginia
The supply of food to Governor Botetourt’s palace is well documented. William Sparrow arrived
from England around the first of July 1769 to serve as a cook for Lord Botetourt. He began a
book for his cash expenses on July 3, 1769, recording purchases of necessary items daily until he
left to return to England in February. The book was then kept by Mrs. Wilson, who served as
cook until Lord Botetourt’s death in 1770. After Botetourt’s departure, the book continued to be
kept, albeit less completely, until July 24, 1771.2 Each day the recorder entered purchases of
necessary items to run the Governor’s kitchen, occasionally noting from whom they were
obtained. Local agricultural foodstuffs were the major items noted. Other foodstuffs were
obviously ordered directly or arranged from other suppliers. No alcohol was recorded, nor were
sweeteners or spices purchased more than occasionally. A second book “Dayly Acct. of Expenses
1768 June 24-October 14,1770” had some occasional overlapping of food details, but they were
sporadic. Our analysis concluded at the annual audit in June 1770.3
2
William Marshman, “An Account of Cash Paid by William Sparrow for his Excellency Lord Botetourt,”
ALS. Orig: Duke of Beaufort and Gloucestershire Record Office, Botetourt Manuscripts from Badminton, ffr 297329. Microfilm, CWF.
3
“Daily Account of Expenses June 14, 1768-October 14, 1770.” Botetourt Ms. F. 155-190.
143
The account book recorded the major items of daily food provisioning for the palace
household and staff (Table 5.4). Meat (beef, pork, and mutton) remained the most important item
purchased (39.4%), with poultry and dairy slightly higher than the whole household sample. But
unlike most customers in the overall sample, Sparrow did purchase the special parts of animals for
elite cuisine. Heads and feet of calves were purchased, as well as a pig’s head.
Table 5.4.
LOCAL FOODSTUFF PURCHASES AT THE VIRGINIA GOVERNOR’S PALACE
Category
Meat
Poultry
Dairy
Fruits/Nuts
Bakery/Bread
Spices/Condiments
Fish
Wild Animal
Foodstuffs
Wild Meat
Seafood
Wild Bird
Vegetables
Food Grains
Legumes
Sweeteners
Beverages
Count
137
250
163
150
22
10
65
10
15
6
53
27
34
13
5
1
1
Percentage of
Transactions
14.24%
25.99
16.94
15.59
2.29
1.04
6.76
1.04
1.56
0.62
5.51
2.81
3.53
1.35
0.52
0.10
0.10
Total
Expense
£123.84
61.24
55.27
28.56
25.63
19.89
13.97
13.65
9.97
7.50
3.45
3.04
2.86
1.71
0.58
0.50
0.14
Percentage
of Value
33.31%
16.47
14.87
7.69
6.89
5.35
3.76
3.67
2.68
2.02
0.93
0.82
0.77
0.46
0.16
0.13
0.04
Dairy products were also frequent purchases. Butter was about 80% of the dairy cost,
purchased several times weekly, or sometimes daily. The amount purchased was as small as a
pound, but on two occasions in the fall of 1769, more than three hundred pounds were acquired.
Milk was procured for cash either daily or three to four times a week, usually in small quantities
of one or two quarts. Bread was also purchased for cash. While quantities of bread were not
given, price information suggests a single unit. If the average price of a pound of bread is used as
a denominator, these basic units were a little over a pound, ranging up to about eight pounds of
bread. The account book demonstrates, however, how the supply of bread varied. The purchases
ranged from daily to weekly, with five months totally missing. The accounts include two large
payments for “bill for bread,” one in December 1769 and another in February 1770, the latter
equivalent to about 60 pounds of basic bread. It is possible that the bills for bread were for the
special and more refined breads for special events, and the daily bread purchases for the kitchen
staff. This assumption is born out by the accounts after the death of Lord Botetourt; bread
continues to be an expense along with basic provisioning, like butter, poultry, and beef. It is
unclear how these small purchases, larger relations with bakers, and palace ovens combined to
produce enough bread for household, guests, and servants.
The purchase of fruits and nuts was another way that the Governor’s position was unique:
he had to entertain a number of guests with food and drink in formal settings. A course of fruits
and nuts was an important part in the orchestrated set of prescribed dining courses printed in
144
cookery manuals and documented in the homes of the elite. The relative cost of fruits and nuts in
the Governor’s household was twice that of the overall the household sample. Oranges were the
most costly item in the supplying of fruits to the Governor’s household, making up about 10
percent of all the fruit expenditures. They were purchased infrequently and in large quantities,
such as one hundred china oranges from Norfolk on October 24, 1769, only a few weeks after
purchasing a dozen from Mr. Jackson. This suggests high usage but also the vagary of supply of
citrus from the West Indies. Nonetheless, these accounts actually under represent the cost of
citrus to the Governor’s household. The “Dayly Account of Expenses” also includes expenditures
for 500 limes (September 1769), two barrels of limes (October and November 1769), and four
dozen Seville oranges (January 1770). These citrus were used in punches and other alcoholic
drinks as well as served and used in cookery.
Local produce was far less expensive but no less eagerly consumed. Apples were
purchased regularly from July to January and were about three percent of the fruit cost. The range
of other fruits was astonishing, and included pears, peaches, damsons, plums, figs, and
watermelons. Berries, such as cherries, cranberries, gooseberries, huckleberries, mulberries, and
strawberries, were important. Nuts included walnuts and chestnuts.
Fish was also significant (nearly four times the percentage of the overall sample). Most
important was rockfish, nearly half of the total of fish and seafood expense. They were purchased
in quantities as large as sixteen fish, as small as one, and in strings. Rockfish were large creatures
and together equaled over 288 pounds of useable meat. Wild animals and fish summed 4% of the
Palace expenses as compared to less than 1 percent for the household sample. The Palace cook
purchased partridges often; at least 55 in the eleven months studied, often grouped by ten or more
birds. Other wild birds included shell drakes and blue wings. Finally, large amounts of turtle meat
were purchased on two occasions. One weighing 50 pounds was purchased in September 1769;
six turtles weighing almost 200 pounds made a feast on October 7, 1769, a date that fell between
a Council meeting and General court session. Turtle meat came at a premium price; at one shilling
per pound it cost more than three and a half times that of a pound of beef. Further diversity was
accomplished through dining on hares and venison.
The Governor’s purchases reflect the diversity of diet in the homes of the most elite. The
addition of wild birds and animals, fish, and seafood (oysters and crabs) demonstrate a large
provisioning system that traversed the countryside and crossed economic and racial boundaries.
The town’s most important political leaders, such as the Speaker of the House or the President of
the Council curried favor by sending special foods, usually carried by their slaves. These slaves
were tipped well for their services. The generosity of the Governor meant that the value of the
tips in some cases equaled the value of the foods themselves. This regular movement of cash into
the slave economy ensured that the power of the governor to command attention rested at the top
and bottom of the Williamsburg hierarchy. The provisioning of the colony’s most important
political leader took on special significance. One group gained or buttressed political patronage,
the other added to pocket change.
Supplying the governor spread far past the town limits. His position brought the seasonal
bounty of the countryside to his door. Pamunkey Indians were noted in the “Daily Expense Book”
as providing wild fowl and were paid over £1 in November 1770. A month later Colonel Moore’s
servant was given two shillings, six pence for wild birds. Fruits and vegetables were also added,
often acquired from servants or slaves. For example, Anthony Hay’s servant brought king crabs,
145
Philip Ludwell’s servant brought peaches, Thomas Nelson’s yams. And it was not just the kind of
commodity but when it appeared that carried cachet. The earliest strawberries of the season, a
coveted commodity, were carefully carried to the governor’s gate.
This ability to reach in multiple directions for supply of a large variety of specialty foods to
fit the special cuisine of Virginia’s governor is a large metaphor. The governor hosted large
entertainments, dispensing food and drink to curry favor. Townspeople reciprocated with small
treats of special luxuries, a tasty wild bird, a few luscious berries. If food greased the machine of
the town, the governor was a master mechanic.
“The Williamsburg Wigmaker”
The wealth and power of the governor allowed a bountiful table. But what of the town’s less
wealthy citizens? An unknown individual kept a diary of expenses in The Virginia Almanack in
1749.4 Based on occasional uses of the French language and a note about supplying wig making
services in the book, he has become identified by the shorthand “The Williamsburg Wigmaker.”
(George Washington’s accounts also refers to a visit to the French Wigmaker in Williamsburg.)
He was probably Robert Lyon, who was in town by at least mid 1749 when he appeared in court.
He began his career as a barber and maker and seller of wigs and locks. His business did not
flourish; he advertised in February 1750 that he labored “under several Inconveniences at present,
by reason of having a great many outstanding Debts, and some of them of a long Standing.”5 He
did not have the capital to invest in slave labor, but instead chose imported servants from Ireland,
at least one of whom was a convict. One ran away in 1752, another in 1755. Robert Lyon
frequently appeared to be indebted during his days as a wigmaker. In 1755, he announced that he
now kept Tavern at “the Sign of the Edinburgh-Castle near the Capitol.” 6 He later went on to
become a merchant.
Wigmakers catered to the elite, but their personal advancement was limited. Barbers in
Annapolis after the war ranked low in the hierarchy of wealth, generally between £100 and £l200
with widows, spinsters, clerks, shoemakers, tanners, coach makers, and ship carpenters, but above
other service jobs and laborers.7
The account begins with a brief entry detailing a January payment for the “last three loads
of wood,” then notes the next ten months of expenses. January and December are in essence
missing. This is a brief diary. The author often includes multiple lines of expenses in one row with
a sum expense. Nonetheless, the range of things that he records is quite broad: fuel, making
clothing, an “old Negro who wash’d for me,” cleaning, candles, even the expenses of entertaining
“Compaigne from Charles City.” The amount of money spent and recorded in this ledger for
various purchases and services is significant: £27 for the ten months listed. If the wigmaker’s
4
Anonymous, “Diary,” in The Virginia Almanack for the year of Our Lord 1749 ( [Printed] and sold by
William Parkes), CWF Special Collections.
5
Virginia Gazette, February 14, 1750.
For runaway advertisement, see Virginia Gazette, November 10, 1752, and April 4, 1755.; change in
business, Virginia Gazette, July 30, 1755.
7
Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit, p. 140.
6
146
annual expenses were estimated based on the ten months detailed here, it would exceed £32. The
Williamsburg craftsman spent a great deal for living in the colonial capital.8
We do not know the cost of this wigmaker’s housing or who shared his household. He
includes no details of expenses that might suggest a resident female. Because few colonial men
would engage in domestic behavior assigned to the female gender, he pays women to sew, clean,
and cook. These multiple arrangements may not have been satisfactory for he was ready to hire
live-in help by the fall of the year. On October 24, he notes that “Nanny a Mullato Girl came to
stay with me and try whether we could agree.” In June he changed residence, paying a carter to
move his belongings and for two days worth of labor setting up his furniture. He also paid
numerous slaves to perform labor and other tasks, implying no slave labor at his own discretion.
He had a garden and paid Charles to work in it in August. He thus owned furniture, but probably
no slaves or livestock. It is likely that he was a single man renting housing of more than one room.
The basic costs for anyone were housing, clothing, and food. This analysis will attempt to
establish how much a part of the cost of living was spent on food out of the larger categories of
housing, clothing, heating and lighting (Table 5.5).
Lyon does not record his expenses for housing, so a proxy is necessary. Rent in
Williamsburg in the 1750s averaged £16, but this average included a number of more wealthy
residents. The cabinetmaker Peter Scott rented a house and shop for £10 on the Duke of
Gloucester Street in the 1750s, and may better represent craftsmen housing.9 He did record
clothing, which we included in this account’s analysis. Lyon recorded £1.14 in costs for clothing,
including the purchase of textiles, sewing and tailoring. Clothing was thus his second largest
expense after food, five percent of his costs in his account book. The wigmaker outfitted himself
with four new shirts in the summer of 1749 made by Betty and Mrs. Foesi. Another four were
purchased in November from Mrs. Johnson. The textile costs were recorded for one shirt and two
caps. He also had breeches made. His new clothing—shirts, shirts, a pair of breeches, and a new
pair of garters—was not lavish and must have only been replacements for the most used and
visible part of his wardrobe. We can guess Robert Lyon’s clothing by that described for his
runaway Irish servants. Each left in standard coats and waistcoats (one wearing a wig) but their
breeches betrayed their status as working men. Their breeches were leather and “ticken.” But
even the most basic clothing was not inexpensive. The cost of clothing an inmate at a Philadelphia
workhouse in the 1760s was over £3 Pennsylvania currency.10
Lyon purchased fuel for heating and cooking. Four purchases of wood summed £1.8.0 and
about 4 percent of his costs. Candles were purchased six times in the eleven months recorded
here. The cost of lighting through the purchase of candles comprised another 2%.
Feeding himself was the largest portion of his budget. Fully 43% of his roughly assigned
cost of living were for the provision of food and drink. One hundred and fifty five purchases of
8
Determining the costs of living for those below the elite is always complicated, but a few benchmarks are
possible. For example, Billy Smith has estimated the income of the Philadelphia mariner John Shenton to be
approximately £32 for 1751. Smith, The “Lower Sort” , p. 93.
9
Emma L. Powers, “Landlords, Tenants, and Rental Property in Williamsburg and Yorktown, 17301780” (master’s thesis, College of William and Mary, 1990), p.40.
10
Smith, The “Lower Sort” , p. 106.
147
Table 5.5.
OVERALL HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES OF A
WILLIAMSBURG CRAFTSMAN: ROBERT LYON, 1749
Category
Rent
Alcohol
Dairy
Money
Sweetners
Bakery/Bread
Clothing
Fuel
Foodstuffs
By-Product
Poultry
Lighting
Tea/Coffee
Hired Labor
Misc. Financial
Storage
Spices/Condiments
Transportation
Textile/Linen
Legumes
Personal
Meat
Fruits/Nuts
Hygiene
Retail Craft
Seafood
Fish
Laundry
Cleaning
Medicine
Tavern
Agricultural Equip
Building Material
Food Grains
Food Preparation
Loan
Misc. Services
Sewing
Vegetables
Count
1
53
19
4
15
18
6
4
6
4
18
6
2
5
4
3
5
4
1
2
1
2
4
4
3
3
1
3
1
3
1
1
1
4
1
1
3
1
8
Percentage of
Transactions
0.44%
23.45
8.41
1.77
6.64
7.96
2.65
1.77
2.65
1.77
7.96
2.65
0.88
2.21
1.77
1.33
2.21
1.77
0.44
0.88
0.44
0.88
1.77
1.77
1.33
1.33
0.44
1.33
0.44
1.33
0.44
0.44
0.44
1.77
0.44
0.44
1.33
0.44
3.54
148
Total
Expense
£10.00
5.54
3.40
3.06
2.69
1.92
1.48
1.48
1.16
1.10
0.82
0.72
0.50
0.29
0.29
0.28
0.25
0.23
0.23
0.22
0.19
0.14
0.12
0.11
0.11
0.07
0.06
0.06
0.05
0.05
0.03
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Percentage
of Value
27.26%
15.11
9.28
8.34
7.33
5.22
4.03
4.02
3.15
3.00
2.23
2.12
1.36
0.80
0.77
0.75
0.69
0.63
0.61
0.61
0.51
0.38
0.32
0.31
0.31
0.18
0.17
0.17
0.14
0.14
0.08
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
food and drink totaled £16 for the year, (about 60% of the expenses recorded in his account
book) (Table 5.6). Over a third of the cost and more than a third of the transactions involving
food and drink were for alcohol. The wigmaker purchased rum frequently and avidly. Small
quantities of rum were purchased several times a week. Not all quantities were given, and rum
was often lumped in with other items. Nonetheless, he consumed at least 48 quarts in the 48
weeks detailed. The dog days of summer may even have necessitated the consumption of two
gallons between August 1 and August 12 alone. He occasionally paid for labor with rum, such as
to the man who cut wood or for “the people who carried my things.” A pint of madiera was
necessary for medicinal purposes, “to take the bark” in October.
Table 5.6.
FOOD AND DRINK EXPENSES:
ROBERT LYON, WILLIAMSBURG, 1749
Category
Alcohol
Dairy
Sweetners
Bakery/Bread
Poultry
Tea/Coffee
Spices/Condiments
Legumes
Foodstuffs
Meat
Fruits/Nuts
Seafood
Fish
Food Grains
Vegetables
Count
53
19
15
18
18
2
5
2
1
2
4
3
1
4
8
Percentage of
Transactions
34.19%
12.26
9.68
11.61
11.61
1.29
3.23
1.29
0.65
1.29
2.58
1.94
0.65
2.58
5.16
Total
Expense
£5.54
3.40
2.69
1.92
0.82
0.50
0.25
0.22
0.19
0.14
0.12
0.07
0.06
0.00
0.00
Percentage
of Value
34.82%
21.39
16.89
12.03
5.15
3.14
1.60
1.40
1.18
0.87
0.71
0.42
0.40
0.00
0.00
If his alcohol consumption remained constant, his diet varied. Dairy items were the second
most common expense; eighteen purchases of butter were made throughout the year. A cheese on
June 28 was a large expense, costing eight shillings. Eggs were the second important category.
His purchases of eggs were frequent, three or four times a week in February, March, and April.
Nonetheless his meat acquisitions were infrequent, only twice in the eleven months listed. On July
12 he purchased a quarter of lamb for three shillings and six pence, as well as rum, salt, butter and
milk. On August 22 he may have dined on a breast of veal costing one shilling and three pence.
Fish and seafood were occasional purchases; fish on June 20, crabs on July 4, oysters in October
and November. He had a garden at his disposal, although little is known of its size or what was
grown. Vegetables were thus infrequent purchases that varied seasonally: peas (in July and
November), cucumbers (July), turnips (February), onions (July and August), and English potatoes
(August, October, and twice in November). A muskmelon was a treat in August, pears in July,
and dried apples in August.
The backbone of his diet was bread. The wigmaker had arrangements with several women
in town to supply him, paid on a monthly or sometimes bi-monthly basis. Mrs. Goosley was his
149
supplier in March. Mrs. Lane was his choice for bread paid monthly from April to July, and she
reappeared in August, September, and November. Mrs. Gillem supplied his bread in July (perhaps
for two weeks), October, and, again, in November. These women were adding to their family
incomes by becoming providers in the food and drink trades, one of the few opportunities for
women in the urban economy. Martha Goosley of Yorktown was the wife of Ephraim, a
blacksmith, but had relatives in Williamsburg. In 1749, she would have been a young wife and
mother of a two-year old son. Rebecca Gillem was the wife of Joseph, who owned a boarding
house in town. Mrs. Lane may have been Susannah, wife of John Lane, sergeant of Williamsburg.
The monthly fee to Mrs. Lane was a constant two shillings and six pence, which may have
equaled five pounds of bread. Mrs. Gillem was usually paid one shilling or one shilling and three
pence. February’s supply may have been more ad hoc. In that month he specified its purchase on
February 7, a loaf a week later, and more bread on February 18. On February 6, he purchased two
persimmon pones, probably of corn meal for one shilling and three pence. Meal was also
purchased in February, the only amount noted. Flour was purchased in March, May, and June
(from Mrs. Lane).
Finally, grocery items were infrequent but necessary items. Sugar was an important part of
his expenditures, the third most important relative expense, following alcohol and dairy items.
Seventeen percent of his expenses was for a variety of sweeteners. Their analysis is made difficult
by the wigmaker’s imprecision in recording amounts and prices (sugar was often lumped with
other items in single lines). Brown sugar was bought six times, peaking in August with three
purchases; loaf sugar was designated twice, and undistinguished sugar on seven occasions. One of
the loaves of sugar was from a Mr. Penman (perhaps Thomas Penman the carpenter) costing fully
thirteen shillings and nine pence. His largest sugar expense was for twenty five pounds of
muscovy sugar totaling over £1 on April 10. The linkage of sugar with his rum purchases is clear.
Sugar was often purchased with rum on a given day and peaked in August, his greatest month of
rum purchase.
He probably also used sugar to sweeten his rare purchases of tea, although the small
amounts of tea consumed and their infrequent purchase do not suggest common usage. The one
pound of bohea tea purchased in February may have lasted until his quarter pound purchased in
November. Finally, allspice, sugar, pepper, and cooking oil were small expenses. The purchase of
an “Indian pan” suggests that someone in the household was involved in food preparation.
The Williamsburg wigmaker’s world of food was a world away from the Governor’s
Palace. His most significant choice was the common and consistent purchase of rum. Rum
provided calories, eased work, paid for labor, and measured sociability. When company came
(from Charles City in October) he purchased a loaf of bread and a quart of rum. When a “great
Compagnie” came “from the other side of the River” in late November he had to treat them well.
When he moved to new lodging in June, he not only had to pay the people who worked for two
days to carry his furniture and set up his closets and beds, but needed rum, sugar, and “victuals”
to supply and treat them. His choice of rum also necessitated large quantities of sweetener—
another expensive commodity. Nonetheless, the prevalence of drinking as entertainment crossed
up and down all social ranks. After all, the barrels of limes and hundreds of oranges purchased for
the Governor’s Palace demonstrates the ubiquitous presence of rum punch.
150
Governor Botetourt and Robert Lyon shared other similarities. They both had continual
supplies of bread, arranged and billed by the commercial bakers in town or townswomen. They
both had seasonal additions of seafood, vegetables, and fruits, although the wigmaker’s were rare
and not of a wide variety. They both had gardens. Butter and imported groceries were a part of
their diet.
Nonetheless, the most significant difference was the absence of meats from the
wigmaker’s diet. His accounts record two purchases of meat, veal and lamb. He could have made
a large meat purchase in December or January, two months of extensive fresh meat processing,
which do not appear in his accounts. He may have had alternative arrangements for meat that he
did not record in this book, perhaps not billed during this time period. That he received services
during the year that were not paid that same year can be found in his account at Anne Pattison’s
tavern in 1749, where Mr. Lyon (“The Barber”) stopped in for punch on March 6, 9, and 24. He
may have taken away a pint of wine on March 24, as well. The tavernkeeper recorded no
payments for Mr. Lyon.11
Did Lyon obtain meat from other sources? Small quantities of meat were routinely
supplied to poorhouses, slaves and servants, and was considered a normal part of the Chesapeake
diet. Yet, it could also be true that meat was simply a minimal part of his diet. The common
strategy of the poor was to rely on grains (bread or porridge) with other sources of protein, such
as eggs and cheese. The working man with no female household help had little time for
preparation of long-cooking stews or other inexpensive meats. Bread, sweets, and tea were the
common diet of the early nineteenth-century England laboring poor.
The bill of fare supplied to the young female orphans at the Boston Female Academy in
1803 is a good example of the kind of diet that relied on small amounts of meat (Table 5.7).
Sundays were special days with “chocolate or shells with bread” for breakfast, “roast beef and
pudding” for dinner, and milk porridge, thickened with flour or Indian meal with a slice of bread
and butter for supper. Other days, supper and breakfast were “hasty-puddings, boiled thick with
molasses, or milk, or milk-porridge, as the season will admit.” Meat was served at dinner, but was
stretched through the use of soups and leftovers for stock.12
The wigmaker’s choices were certainly constrained by finances—the cost of foods, their
cooking, storage, and preservation. But like the Governor, the wigmaker drew upon a wide
variety of townspeople for the supply of foods, fuel, and performing of services. Charles worked
his garden, “an old negro woman” washed for him, “Negro John” sold him “dry’d appples and
other things.” “The Quaker” supplied him with tallow and several married women sewed his shirts
and made his bread. He stored some foodstuffs in an “Indian pan.”
Robert Lyon made many choices in how he spent his limited resources. One final
comparison is telling (Table 5.8) Alexander Hanson, an Annapolis lawyer, published a list of
estimated annual household expenses in the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser on April
6, 1787.13 This estimate was for a household of ten people, half of whom were servants.
11
Anne Pattison Account Book. Virginia Historical Society. Thanks to Heather Wainwright.
Susan Porter, “The Benevolent Asylum—Image and Reality: The Care and Training of Female Orphans
in Boston, 1800-1840” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University 1994), p. 133.
13
Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit , p. 138.
12
151
Table 5.7.
DINNERS FOR ORPHAN GIRLS IN BOSTON 1803:
STRETCHING MEAT IN THE DIET
Sunday:
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday
Friday:
Saturday:
Source:
Roast Beef and Pudding
Soup
Boiled meat and pudding, or vegetables
Soup
Bean or Peas, with Pork
Broth made of Mutton or Lamb
Fish
An Account of the Rise, Progress, and Present State, of the Boston Female Asylum (Boston, 1803), p.
19. Cited in Porter, 1994.
Table 5.8.
“AN ESTIMATE OF THE ANNUAL EXPENSES OF A FAMILY IN ANNAPOLIS,
CONSISTING OF TEN PERSONS (HALF OF WHOM ARE SERVANTS)
KEEPING TWO HORSES AND ONE MILCH COW”
House rent
Pork, 1600 lb @37/6
Beef & other butcher meat, 1200 lb @6d
Poultry, fish, fruit, vegetables
Tea, coffee, salt, spice, etc.
Loaf sugar, 180 lb @1/2
Brown sugar, 150 lb @8d
Superfine flour, 10 bbls @40/Indian corn, 20 bbls @15/Oats, 180 bus @3/Hay, 2 tons @£6
Firewood, 50 cords @20/including carting, cording, etc.
Candles, 140 lb @15d
Spirits to represent table liquors, every kind,
30 gallons @6/8
Wine of every kind, 50 gallons @12/Butter, 150 lb @15d
Hire and cloathing of 5 servants
Medicines, physicians, etc.
Cloathing of family, 5 persons to appear decently, no less than
Expence of attending twice a year on the Eastern Shore
No allowance for casualties or for what is called Pocket Money
Total
Source:
Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, April 6, 1787.
152
£ 75.00.0
30.00.0
30.00.0
30.00.0
25.00.0
10.10.0
5.00.0
20.00.0
15.00.0
27.00.0
12.00.0
50.00.0
8.15.0
10.00.0
30.00.0
9.07.6
60.00.0
15.00.0
120.00.0
37.07.6
c. 80.00.0
£700.00.0
The contrast with Robert Lyon’s life is interesting. Both households spent a similar percentage on
lighting: Lyon about 1%, Hanson 2%. Lyon spent about half as much for fuel and rent. His
clothing costs were minuscule compared to the lawyer’s. Even Hanson’s minimal estimate for “5
persons to appear decently” was 17% compared to Lyon’s 5%. Lyon’s alcohol consumption was
14% of his budget; the lawyer’s less than half of that at 6%. But it was the cost of food that was
less elastic. Hanson’s food totals made up 29% of his costs; Lyon’s 45%. Even if the quantity,
quality, and range of foodstuffs were minimal for the less wealthy, food remained the most
significant cost and one that could not be escaped.
John Davidson of Annapolis
Merchants were especially fond of keeping records. John Davidson was a careful bookkeeper. His
partner in a mercantile venture once wished that he would do less bookkeeping and more bill
collecting. Fortunately, his passion for numbers extended to his household for he carefully noted
“house expenses” in several ledgers.
Davidson was born in Scotland around 1737. It is unknown when he arrived in Annapolis,
but he had a successful career. He was deputy collector and deputy comptroller of the Annapolis
subdistrict of the Patuxent customs district and had several profitable partnerships in the store
trade. He was registrar of the Free School in 1766. He was made a partner in the mercantile firm
of Wallace, Davidson, and Johnson in 1771. While his partners traveled abroad to secure good
markets for tobacco and better-selected and -priced imports of goods, Davidson stayed in
Maryland to keep the books. When the firm dissolved in 1787, he went on in partnership with
Wallace and Matthew Ridley, moving into the wheat trade. By 1786 he was city councilman.14
Like so many merchants, we know more about his business doings than his home life. The
1783 tax list lists ten slaves, five white females and three males, and one more white male in the
16 to 50 age group. He owned one horse valued at £12 and a cow. He lived in a large 40 x 40
brick home (with smokehouse) on a one acre lot in Annapolis and held another lot for Joseph
Johnson. After his death in 1794, his wife Eleanor was listed on the 1798 direct tax list owning
two houses. One was 28 x 14 foot brick house with smokehouse and stable. Another was a frame
28 x 16 house with an 18 x 16 foot kitchen. In the year that his household expenses began, his
landed wealth was assessed at over £1000, ranking him fifteenth in the city.15
The white members of his household can be partially reconstructed based on letters from
Davidson’s partner who occasionally passed on familial regards and made special purchases in
England. The account book also lists Mrs. (Eleanor) Davidson, Peggy, Nelly (Little Nell), Billy or
Will, and Mrs. Strachan, Mrs. Davidson’s mother. Other small children were in the household:
Joshua Johnson sends a hat to Master Will in 1772 and mentions birth of a son to Mrs.
Davidson.16 Possible slaves in the account book who performed marketing services included Cloe,
Hannah, Jack, and Tom.
14
Jacob M. Price, ed., Joshua Johnson’s Letterbook: Letters from a Merchant in London to his Partners in
Maryland (London: London Record Society, 1979), p. x. Also biographical report by Larry Peskin drawn from
Maryland Hall of Records files.
15
Papenfuse, In Pursuit of Profit , p. 263.
16
Price, Joshua Johnson’s Letterbook, p. 31a. Mrs. Strachan is mentioned in several letters to Davidson as
is a Miss Peggy Strachan whose marriage is congratulated in 1772. See, for example, pp. 3b and 22.
153
Account books for his business with Wallace and Ridley are extant, and Davidson’s
household expenses are listed carefully from December 23, 1783 to April 28, 1787 in this large
ledger. They are cross-posted in a second account book, grouped under the title household
expenses from December 1784 to January 1786.17 What is important about these cross-postings is
that they included different kinds of information. The second book often listed in more detail who
in his family did the shopping or from whom items were purchased. This enables us to open the lid
of the black box of household consumption—ever so slightly—and see who made purchases.
His bookkeeping is also a window to changing consumption strategies. For only one
month did he detail local market purchases amidst a number of groceries, alcohol, and imported
foodstuffs. For the remainder of 1785, he posted “cash for marketing” nearly weekly and gave a
simple £3 expense. Perhaps he found this blank check for marketing unsatisfactory, for beginning
in 1786 different amounts for marketing were entered irregularly.
That first month’s list of expenditures is worth careful examination. In January he noted
each expense under a generic month’s heading, with ten dated items for groceries, corn, and
alcohol. The Davidson household spent over £50 in January on food-related expenses. The largest
purchases were 14 barrels of corn purchased from Governor Paca for £14 and a hamper of porter
(3 dozen bottles) for £3. Tea and coffee were summed at £9. Sugar cost nearly £3; bread over £2.
Local market purchases summed almost £14. The largest expense was for dairy items (50%),
mostly for butter in several small amounts and a large payment for 83 ¾ pounds. Poultry was
more frequently purchased; over half of the purchase items were ducks, turkeys, “fowl” (i.e.
chickens), a goose, and eggs. Apples, lemons, and oranges were his third expense. Thirty-two and
a half pounds of pork was the only meat purchased, for a small 6% of the total cost. Four bushels
of oysters varied their diet, and cabbages were the only vegetables purchased.
January is not an average month of household provisioning. Nonetheless, it is the only
month available to examine particular kinds of purchases. He purchased no specialty meats that
month, relying on pork, poultry, and oysters for his diet. His imported groceries—tea and sugar—
nearly equaled that of local foodstuffs. Bread was a large expense as well. Summing bread with
local market purchases demonstrates that £15 of local products were consumed by one family.
This one month also begins to show the multiple forms of the provisioning system. The
Governor supplied a large quantity of corn; Mr. Boardley’s slave Jacob sold them three cakes for
five shillings. The wine merchant Joseph Eastman sold the wine. The store supplied a number of
grocery items, like sugar, tea, and mustard. Davidson also accepted the payments of various store
customers in the forms of food listed as “household expenses.”
All of Davidson’s expenses for 1785 can also be analyzed in comparison to the larger
household sample (Table 5.9). This does not include the five payments for approximately £3 cash
given to Mrs. Davidson, Peggy, Tom, and to an unknown Joseph Mogg for marketing nor the
meat purchased in the previous December. Nonetheless, some major differences are clear. Of the
£315 spent on food that year, a full 10% was for tea and coffee compared to 1% for the larger
sample. Alcohol was another third of the expenses, compared to 15% in the overall sample. Meat
17
John Davidson Account Book, 1780-83. Ledger, 1780-94. Microfilm, Maryland State Archives, M1171-1172.
154
Table 5.9.
ALL FOOD AND DRINK EXPENSES:
JOHN DAVIDSON, ANNAPOLIS, 1785
Category
Alcohol
Meat
Tea/Coffee
Dairy
Food Grains
Sweeteners
Seafood
Spices/Condiments
Poultry
Fruits/Nuts
Bakery/Bread
Fish
Dairying
Vegetables
Count
87
13
34
16
9
33
14
7
20
16
22
4
2
2
Percentage
of Transactions
31.18%
4.66
12.19
5.73
3.23
11.83
5.02
2.51
7.17
5.73
7.89
1.43
0.72
0.72
Total
Expense
£104.04
84.50
30.41
27.28
24.70
22.27
5.97
4.68
4.68
3.63
2.43
1.19
0.15
0.07
Percentage
of Value
32.92%
26.74
9.62
8.63
7.82
7.05
1.89
1.48
1.48
1.15
0.77
0.38
0.05
0.02
fell to a quarter of the expenses (compared to a third of the overall sample). Food grains were 8%
compared to 15%. Dairy items were about the same.
Davidson’s purchases show that overall provisioning of the household was a regular
weekly occurrence and a job that required the labor of many household members. The
provisioning of meat was special. The preservation needs of meat meant that large purchases of
beef and pork were made in the cold season. In January 1784, the Davidson household bought
101 pounds of beef from Ephram Duvall, and ten days later a whole beef, including a fifth quarter
weighing 640 pounds. He purchased another 32 ½ pounds of beef in January 1785. By March the
household’s earlier supply must have been diminished. His son Billy Davidson bought 303
pounds, with another 200 pounds purchased a week later. Beef was not purchased again until
October. Six purchases of 400 pounds were made averaging 66 pounds each in the next two
months. Pork, on the other hand, was purchased only in January, February and December.
January and February summed 901 pounds. December’s totals were 1653 pounds. Mrs. Davidson
purchased seventeen and a half pounds of veal in March.
It is the quantity of money spent on food and the importance of the store items that help
define the consumption of elite merchants like John Davidson. In the large store ledger, he
recorded household expenses for three years and four months, or 172 weeks (December 21, 1783
to the end of April 1787). This gives one more lens to examine the complex accounting of his
household consumption (Table 5.10). The ledger included 169 payments for marketing totaling
£264, or only about £1.5 pounds a week. We assume that those were expenses for market
purchases such as vegetables, poultry, fish, bread, wild animals and dairy. Nonetheless, we must
add in another £56 that was added up separately for dairy, as well as small quantities of all those
other market commodities listed individually. Why these purchases were not included in the
generic sums for marketing is unclear, but perhaps represent an alternative provisioning system—
his store, his customers, and perhaps even his own purchases.
155
Table 5.10.
FOOD AND DRINK EXPENSES:
JOHN DAVIDSON, ANNAPOLIS, 1783-87
Category
Meat
Alcohol
Cash for Marketing
Food Grains
Sweeteners
Tea/Coffee
Dairy
Seafood
Poultry
Fruits/Nuts
Fish
Spices/Condiments
Bakery/Bread
Vegetables
Wild Bird
Foodstuffs
Legumes
Count
60
122
169
29
60
72
39
42
53
33
33
18
20
27
2
6
1
Percentage
of Transactions
7.63%
15.52
21.50
3.69
7.63
9.16
4.96
5.34
6.74
4.20
4.20
2.29
2.54
3.44
0.25
0.76
0.13
Total
Expense
£619.02
306.81
264.10
110.53
69.27
56.44
53.71
15.53
13.67
10.59
8.49
6.76
3.77
3.37
1.32
1.09
0.25
Percentage
of Value
40.07%
19.86
17.10
7.16
4.48
3.65
3.48
1.01
0.89
0.69
0.55
0.44
0.24
0.22
0.09
0.07
0.01
His largest expenses were for meat, about 40% of all his total consumption of food and
drink. Alcohol was also significant, about 20% of his cost. Food grains followed (7.2%), then
sweeteners (4.5%), and tea (3.6%).
Because of the generic listings for marketing, the total detailed diet that these expenses
produced cannot be determined. Nonetheless, several markers of elite foodways and consumption
are found. His tea and sugar expenses were large, making up almost ten percent of his purchases.
Eight pineapples costing seven shillings, sixpence made a special treat along with four
watermelons on July 31, 1783. Asparagus, spouts, and greens were listed. Four pounds of
currants were purchased the week before Christmas in 1784 from Baker Johnson, perhaps for
special baking. He purchased play tickets, punch and cake on one occasion.
All of these are clues to the diet of well-to-do urban residents who entertained and lived
well. Nonetheless, they may not have been living extravagantly for the size of their household.
Nine whites and ten slaves filled his house. Andrew Hanson’s letter to the newspaper in 1787 is
once again illustrative. He estimated expenses for a family in Annapolis, “consisting of ten persons
(half of whom are servants) keeping two horses and one milch cow.” Davidson’s household was
twice the size of his neighboring lawyer, but he managed to spend less in 1785 (Table 5.11). The
greater price of dairy products may have meant that the Davidsons kept no cow for milk. The
greater price of alcohol may merely reflect preference or easier access through his store.
Nonetheless, £200 a year spent on food seems to be a fair estimate for the expenses of elite urban
residents.
156
Table 5.11.
FOOD PURCHASES IN POST-REVOLUTIONARY ANNAPOLIS
MONEY SPENT
Products
Pork and beef
Poultry, vegetables, etc.
Tea, coffee, salt, spices
Loaf and brown sugar
Flour, meal, bread
Wine & spirits
Butter
Total food/drink expenses
Hanson
£60.0
30.0
25.0
15.1
35.0
40.0
9.8
Davidson 1785
£55.0
28.0
26.0
16.0
24.4
52.0
18.0
£204.0
£193.0
John Davidson’s provisioning system stretched from Governor Paca to slaves. He bought
14 barrels of corn from Paca. Fellow merchant James McCubbin supplied flour, butter, and spirits.
Beef was supplied by several people, none of which were known butchers. Davidson bought a
whole beef from Phillip Key, a well-to-do lawyer and merchant who owned over 2000 acres of
land. He probably resided in St. Mary’s County, but traveled often to Annapolis for legislative
sessions. Ephraim Duvall also sold him beef. Less is known of him, except that he lived in Broad
Neck Hundred with a small family. He was only taxed for a horse. Thomas Harwood was a fellow
merchant who owned four slaves; Mrs. Harwood provided butter. Whitehall Will purchased fabric
at the store and traded apples and greens, perhaps gathered from the fields.
Agricultural commodities like beef and pork and corn flowed in channels among people of
wealth and standing. Market purchases took place within the nameless world of the market place
where we know petty entrepreneurs were more common. It is in the town and market that the
women in Davidson’s family moved. His wife Eleanor purchased veal from a town doctor, not at
the market from a butcher. She traded cabbage and peace bean seeds with William Farris, the
middling craftsperson.18 She shopped regularly at retail stores (perhaps her husband’s) for fabric,
clothing, sugar and tea. Little Nelly came home with a peck of apples on one occasion but she too
mainly shopped at retail stores. Davidson’s mother-in-law Mrs. Strathan purchased tea once. John
and Eleanor Davidson’s daughter Peggy was a young woman. Her father paid for her schooling,
and like her mother and sister, she frequented retail stores. But she also took part in the
household’s marketing. She was often paid cash for marketing (her mother only was named once).
She bought oysters, spirits, sugar, and a watermelon and arranged for wood and carting. Her
brother Billy was also still in school, but he too paid for spirits and wood and arranged at least
one delivery of beef. Other members of the household cannot yet be put on the family tree, and
were probably slaves. Hannah was once given cash for marketing; Chloe paid cash for rum. Jack
also was once paid for marketing and the purchase of a half gallon of spirits.
Davidson does not list who does the lion’s share of the marketing. “To cash for
marketing” remains an impenetrable phrase. But the lid has at least been cracked on the way
different family members may have participated in the provisioning of their food. Mrs. Davidson
worked the garden. Their children occasionally seemed to be at the market or on the streets.
18
Sarudy, “The Gardens and Grounds of an Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Craftsman.”
157
Davidson’s life placed him well between the world of the Williamsburg craftsman and the
Governor of Virginia. But their similarities remain. Like all the households in this sample—
storekeepers, merchants, visiting statesmen—obtaining food in an urban environment was a labor
intensive business. All purchased for cash and entered credit relations with multiple provisioners;
all had to find a way to eat. The Davidsons and the Governor purchased food daily or twice
weekly; Robert Lyon regularly purchased rum. Each followed the season of the agricultural
calendar and no doubt welcomed the fresh vegetables and fruits that arrived in due season. The
provisioning of staple meats was the major expense and it was marketed differently than other
foodstuffs; it clustered in winter when it could be more easily preserved. Fish and fowl were
common parts of the diet for rich and poor alike. (Davidson even belonged to a “fish club.”)
Finally, all of these dry numbers were choices that were ultimately converted into meals on the
table that sustained life and evoked pleasure.
B. Household Diet Through Zooarchaeology
The study of subsistence systems is one of the foundations of archaeological interpretations of the
past. Since pottery, lithics, glass, bones, seeds, and shells (the last three known in the
archaeological world as “ecofacts”) are all related to the procurement, distribution, preparation,
and consumption of food, archaeologists have reconstructed subsistence systems, which they
define as the organized means through which humans obtain nourishment from the landscape.
Typically because archaeologists working in North America have studied prehistoric cultures,
studies have focused on identifying the “subsistence strategies” used to procure food. Borrowing
from this term that has become synonymous with hunting and gathering, an important goal of our
research has come to focus on the “provisioning strategies” of urban residents. The approach is to
determine, as well as the available documentation will allow, the overall provisioning system,
including the agriculture, animal husbandry, and economic and social foundations of the
distribution system that carried rural produce to urban market systems, and how individual urban
households drew upon their own social and economic resources to obtain nourishment. Faunal
evidence (in the form of diversity estimates, slaughter data, and element distributions) works
hand-in-hand with documentary sources on every level, helping to identify what different
households relied upon. With all these resources marshaled together, a fuller and more complete
picture of foodways in colonial America becomes possible. The section that follows is a beginning
effort to differentiate how different households worked within their social and economic means to
provide nourishment for themselves and their families.
Age Data
Zooarchaeologists have tended to assume slaughter ages found in domestic faunal assemblages
reflect the type of husbandry being practiced on a regional basis and not specific household
provisioning. This project, however, has analyzed sufficient numbers of domestic faunal
assemblages from the same region that is has become possible to suggest that age data also
reflects individual household provisioning strategies.
Age data from households who provisioned themselves with livestock they produced on
plantations show a more subsistence-oriented kill-off pattern, while age data from those
households who provisioned themselves almost completely with commercial meats show kill-off
158
patterns with proportionately larger amounts of livestock that had been slaughtered at younger
ages. But there is an intriguing variability in the majority of assemblages. Some assemblages,
which one would believe would reflect subsistence-oriented husbandry, show greater proportions
of the age group that was the target age for commercial fattening, while others show a more even
spread. This seems to be true for all economic and occupational groups.
One reason for the inexplicable variability might be problems with the weaving together of
the archaeological and documentary record—the assemblages may be associated with the wrong
household, or it may not be possible to determine who actually lived at the site and deposited the
food remains. Other biases might include sample size, preservation, or even analytical technique.
However, if one considers the strength of the known assemblages, and compares the patterns
obtained from these assemblages with the others, it is possible to suggest that in a general way
age data reflect individual provisioning strategies rather than regional trends.
The Hanson butcher data obtained from the Firehouse site provides important evidence on
commercial patterns for a time when Williamsburg’s provisioning system was still largely based on
direct urban-rural connections and relatively few planters had begun to fatten livestock for
commercial purposes. The age data seen in his assemblage reflect this transitional mix of
husbandry orientations. Nonetheless, it provides an important anchor from which it is possible to
obtain clues on the provisioning strategies of individual households. By comparing the Hanson
data with the late eighteenth-century Jonas Green assemblage from Annapolis, a household that
probably provisioned itself exclusively with commercial produce, further evidence on the
commercial focus of animal husbandry in the Chesapeake is obtained. Since the region
surrounding Annapolis appears to have developed a specialized provisioning economy much
sooner than in the lower Chesapeake, the age data from this assemblage anticipates the trajectory
of husbandry in the lower Chesapeake region.
If age data from both these assemblages are compared with the age data from the
domestic Williamsburg assemblages, then both the variability and consistent patterning in the
Williamsburg assemblages become clear. The variability is the result of a husbandry and
provisioning system that was still quite diffuse. In this sense, the individual site kill-off patterns
reflect the variability in husbandry that existed in the region, and the fact that many households
continued to keep some livestock in town throughout the century. As evidenced in the 1783
Williamsburg personal property tax, half the households listed owned one or two cows, which
they could have taken to the butcher to have slaughtered for credit towards future purchases.
Others obtained a certain amount from the countryside from kin, friends, or acquaintances.
The Annapolis data, however, reflects a far more specialized economy that had developed
in this region, where many more planters had begun to engage in fattening livestock for sale and
fewer households in town kept any livestock themselves. Individuals like the Greens who
depended on market sources found the meat available there to have come from animals
slaughtered at younger ages than was the meat eaten by those who obtained livestock from their
own plantations. Present in the Green assemblage are clear and extremely well-defined target age
groups, a sign that Annapolis’ provisioning system had become specialized, while the data from
the wealthy Calvert family home, also in Annapolis, exhibits the same diffuse pattern that is
exhibited in the Williamsburg household data. Within this context the Calvert data is fascinating,
for even though this very wealthy family lived within a highly developed market system, they
chose to supply themselves through their own resources.
159
Table 5.12.
KILL-OFF PATTERNS BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
CATTLE, WEALTHY/ELITE HOUSEHOLDS
0-12
12-24
24-36
36-48
>48
Months Months Months Months Months
Assemblage
1700-1750
Butcher Benjamin Hanson
Archibald Blair
Charles Calvert
0.0
0.0
0.0
13.3
0.0
33.3
2.5
0.0
28.2
67.5
50.0
0.0
16.7
50.0
38.5
1750-1775
Custis (Dandridge)
Thomas Everard
20.0
3.9
0.0
25.3
7.0
8.5
0.6
42.9
72.4
19.4
Mid-Late 18th Century
Benedict Calvert
9.1
9.7
0.0
32.9
48.4
Table 5.13.
KILL-OFF PATTERNS BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
CATTLE, CRAFTSMEN
0-12
12-24
24-36
36-48
>48
Months Months Months Months Months
Assemblage
1700-1750
Butcher Benjamin Hanson
John Brush
1750-1775
Anne Geddy and sons
Anthony Hay
1775-1800
Widow Elizabeth Hay
John Draper
Frederick & Samuel Green
0.0
21.2
13.3
15.5
2.5
0.0
67.5
43.6
16.7
19.7
7.7
8.3
19.6
0.0
14.4
15.2
24.4
33.6
33.9
42.9
0.0
12.5
0.0
4.0
0.0
0.0
10.8
5.7
0.0
36.0
34.4
90.0
49.2
47.4
10.0
Table 5.14.
KILL-OFF PATTERNS BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
SWINE, WEALTHY/ELITE HOUSEHOLDS
Assemblage
0-12
12-24
24-36
36-42
>42
Months Months Months Months Months
1700-1750
Butcher Benjamin Hanson
Archibald Blair
Charles Calvert
33.3
50.0
14.3
54.2
50.0
85.7
12.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
1750-1775
Custis (Dandridge)
Thomas Everard
27.6
13.5
37.6
74.6
25.7
0.0
0.0
1.1
9.1
10.8
Mid-Late 18th Century
Benedict Calvert
34.3
12.4
31.1
0.0
22.2
160
Table 5.15.
KILL-OFF PATTERNS BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
SWINE, CRAFTSMEN
0-12
12-24
24-36
36-42
>42
Months Months Months Months Months
Assemblage
1700-1750
Butcher Benjamin Hanson
John Brush
1750-1775
Anne Geddy & sons
Anthony Hay
1775-1800
Widow Elizabeth Hay
John Draper
Frederick & Samuel Green
33.3
7.45
54.2
39.2
12.5
22.2
0.0
26.0
0.0
5.21
0.0
0.0
75.0
50.0
17.3
4.5
0.0
45.5
7.7
0.0
0.0
30.0
18.2
42.9
36.7
81.8
17.1
16.7
0.0
23.3
7.6
0.0
16.7
9.1
0.0
Table 5.16.
KILL-OFF PATTERNS BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
SHEEP, WEALTHY/ELITE HOUSEHOLDS
Assemblage
0-12
12-36
36-42
>42
Months Months Months Months
1700-1750
Butcher Benjamin Hanson (Tooth Wear) 58.0
Butcher Benjamin Hanson (Long Bone) 50.0
Archibald Blair
0.0
Charles Calvert
9.1
11.0
0.0
22.2
49.7
13.0
0.0
65.3
0.0
18.0
50.0
12.5
41.2
1750-1775
Custis (Dandridge)
Thomas Everard
0.0
5.4
18.8
35.1
6.3
22.0
75.0
37.5
Mid-Late 18th Century
Benedict Calvert
17.9
29.1
8.6
44.4
161
Table 5.17.
KILL-OFF PATTERNS BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
SHEEP, CRAFTSMEN
Assemblage
0-12
12-36
36-42
>42
Months Months Months Months
1700-1750
Butcher Benjamin Hanson (Tooth Wear) 50.0
Butcher Benjamin Hanson (Long Bone) 58.0
John Brush
17.0
0.0
11.0
8.0
0.0
13.0
12.5
50.0
18.0
62.5
1750-1775
Anne Geddy & sons
Anthony Hay
12.5
7.7
44.6
31.4
0.0
7.0
42.9
7.0
1775-1800
Widow Elizabeth Hay
John Draper
Frederick & Samuel Green
14.3
0.0
7.7
16.5
36.4
28.7
35.9
13.6
0.0
33.3
50.0
63.6
Element Distributions
Of the measures used to indicate the development of specialized economies, the most useful is
element distribution. Through monitoring the presence of waste portions of the carcass in
household assemblages, it is possible to determine the extent to which different households
supplied themselves or relied upon commercial sources of meat. Provisioning strategies employed
by various households, including the wealthy, craftsmen, professionals, and tavern keepers, will be
described for the individuals who are associated with the analyzed faunal assemblages. Resources
of the individuals will be briefly summarized, followed by an assessment of the extent to which
households were self-sufficient and how this degree of self-sufficiency might have changed over
the course of the century as markets became increasingly specialized.
Craftsmen
Throughout the century craftsmen as a group had some ability to provide foods for themselves
and their households. Many owned or rented town lots and therefore could have kept a kitchen
garden, and the 1783 personal property tax demonstrates that 67% of the craftsmen owned a cow
or two. More specific estimates of the degree of self-sufficiency and the extent to which they
depended upon the various commercial sources of meats will be possible once the household and
merchant account book data is fully integrated with the zooarchaeological data. For now all
indications are that most craftsmen did not own substantial amounts of real property, their
livestock holdings were limited, and that generally they must have depended heavily upon
commercial sources of food. Evidence from the faunal assemblages suggests the extent to which
this dependency developed as the century progressed.
There are five households headed by craftsmen that are represented in the analyzed faunal
assemblages. Among them are two individuals who immigrated from England to work for the
governor. One was John Brush, a gunsmith, brought over by Governor Spotswood in the 1710s,
and the second was John Draper, a blacksmith brought over by Governor Botetourt in the 1760s.
162
Two others, the James Geddy and Anthony Hay families, are craftsmen from local, wellestablished families who operated businesses in Williamsburg for many decades. Since both
individuals had broad-based connections to the countryside, the data from their assemblages
provide an important look at what happened to rural ties as the commercial world came to
dominate the urban scene. Lastly, one assemblage from Annapolis is associated with printers
Frederick and Samuel Green. This provides a look at the provisioning strategies of craftsmen
households who lived in a more fully developed urban economy.
JOHN BRUSH
19
John Brush was trained in England and admitted into the Gunmakers Company Guild in 1699.
Documents hint that Governor Spotswood brought Brush to Williamsburg, but after a short
period of time he became keeper of the arms at the Magazine and established a gunsmithing
operation on the lot he purchased near the Palace Green. When he purchased this property in
1717, Brush was around forty and a widower with four children. There is no record that he
owned any slaves, and the value of his probate inventory placed him squarely in the middling
ranks of York County society, but he stood out among his social peers, for his probate listed such
unusual items as a tea table, corner cupboard, silver watch, and clock. Archaeological remains
showed that he owned ceramics which are normally thought of as high status items. Interestingly,
faunal analysis revealed that he also owned an African monkey called a guenon (Circopithecus
aethiops).
As a man of solid middling rank, Brush’s ability to provision his family was probably
limited. He may have kept a kitchen garden on his property, but according to his probate
inventory he owned no livestock. As an immigrant, his family resources were limited to those of
his wife and her kin. With these resources, he must have been relatively dependent on commercial
sources of food.
JOHN DRAPER
In 1768 John Draper came from Portsmouth, England, to assume the duties of blacksmith and
farrier in Governor Botetourt’s household.20 About a year later he left the Governor’s service to
live and begin his own business on the former Shields Tavern property. Here he rented a tenement
consisting of two rooms, a kitchen, a shed, two rooms above the stairs, a blacksmith shop, and the
use of one half of the garden and part of the stable, where he might have kept the 4 cattle and 6
horses that were listed in the 1783 personal property tax. He had arrived single in the colonies,
but by 1779 he was married to a woman named Molly, who may have maintained ties she had
with friends and relatives living in the nearby countryside. Together they had at least three
children, and in addition his household included at various times, a servant known as “his Man
Jack,” an apprentice by the name of Francis Moss, a destitute orphan named John Marten, a slave
named Emmanuel, a slave woman, and at one time four titheables. As a blacksmith he had done
well enough that by 1782, after the capital was moved to Richmond and when land was more
affordable, he was able to purchase a parcel and move two blocks east of his former residence.
19
Patricia Samford, “The Brush-Everard Archaeological Site Excavations” (draft report on file,
Department of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, n.d.).
20
Gregory J. Brown, “The Faunal Remains from the John Draper Well: An Investigation in HistoricPeriod Zooarchaeology” (master’s thesis, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, 1989).
163
Some blacksmiths (such as James Anderson) were far better off than Draper, yet he was
better off than most craftsmen. According to the 1783 personal property tax, he owned 4 cattle.
Only 60% of the craftsmen in town owned even one or two cows. But, as an immigrant his
connections with rural planters and farmers were probably weak in comparison to craftsmen who
had been born in Virginia, and therefore his ability to provide food through this avenue was only
through his wife’s connections. With four cattle listed in the 1783 tax list, it is clear Draper was
able to provide milk and possibly beef for his family. He may perhaps have kept pigs and/or fowl,
or possibly he may have been paid in kind for his blacksmith and farrier-related business.
JAMES GEDDY AND SONS
The first James Geddy was a gunsmith and brass founder who died in 1744, leaving most of his
estate to his widow, Anne. The earlier pre-1762 assemblage is associated with this household,
which included Anne and her sons, David, James, William, and John, all of whom lived on this
property. David and William went into partnership to continue their father’s business until 1760,
when Anne deeded one lot to her son James Geddy, Jr.
Available documentation shows James Geddy, Sr., owned a plantation in Dinwiddie
County, and that his son James Geddy, Jr. owned 16 slaves, 6 horses, and 24 cattle. Whether he
kept some of his livestock in town, or not, certainly he could have provided his family with
provisions if he chose to do so. What resources his widow Anne and her sons had to provision
themselves is not known.
By 1778, James Geddy, Jr. deeded the lot to Robert Jackson, a merchant, who soon died. His
widow married again to Capt. Robert Martin, and the home was rented until the property was
sold in 1803.21 Additional research is needed to identify the household associated with the later
assemblage; thus this assemblage has been excluded from the analysis of household provisioning
strategies.
ANTHONY HAY SITE22
Anthony Hay and his family is clearly associated with the earlier pre-1770 faunal
assemblage. The later assemblage dating to post-1770 is probably associated with his widow
Elizabeth and her children, since she renounced her right to the property to her children in 1779
but bought the lots in 1782 and owned them until 1788. After this time, carpenters and
cabinetmakers Benjamin Bucktrout and Edmund Dickinson ran the shop.
Anthony Hay married twice, had five children, and he owned more than one slave. A
carpenter by trade, it is not known how wealthy he was, although the fact that his son, George
Hay married Antoinette Monroe, President James Monroe’s daughter, might indicate he had some
social status. Assessing the resources of the Hay household will require further work. For now
21
Ivor Noël Hume. James Geddy and Sons Colonial Craftsmen, Colonial Williamsburg Archaeological
Series No. 5 (Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1970).
22
Ivor Noël Hume. Williamsburg Cabinetmakers: The Archaeological Evidence, Colonial Williamsburg
Archaeological Series No. 6 (Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1971).
164
Table 5.18.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
CATTLE AND CALF, CRAFTSMEN
Assemblage
Head %
Cattle
Body %
Feet %
Calf
Head % Body % Feet %
1700-1750
Benjamin Hanson
John Brush
40.4
19.5
18.6
65.1
41.0
15.4
62.0
17.5
10.0
77.5
28.0
5.0
1750-1775
Anne Geddy & sons
Anthony Hay
21.2
21.3
62.3
66.9
16.5
11.8
45.3
33.3
42.2
52.4
12.5
14.3
1775-1800
Widow Elizabeth Hay
John Draper
Fred & Samuel Green
10.8
12.5
0.0
73.4
68.5
79.0
15.9
19.0
21.0
31.3
50.0
—
62.5
43.1
—
6.3
6.9
—
Table 5.19.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
SWINE AND SHEEP, CRAFTSMEN
Assemblage
Head %
Swine
Body %
Feet %
Sheep
Head % Body % Feet %
1700-1750
Benjamin Hanson
John Brush
63.8
37.9
21.3
32.3
14.9
29.8
91.9
19.6
6.2
70.3
1.9
10.1
1750-1775
Anne Geddy & sons
Anthony Hay
50.3
46.5
37.2
38.7
12.5
14.9
10.3
10.7
71.1
86.4
18.6
2.9
1775-1800
Widow Elizabeth Hay
John Draper
Fred & Samuel Green
62.8
60.8
47.5
31.9
24.3
29.3
5.2
14.9
23.2
29.6
6.3
15.6
62.0
76.0
68.8
8.5
17.7
15.6
one can only generalize that, like other craftsmen, Anthony Hay’s household probably kept a
garden on the property they owned, and they may have kept one or two cows, as did 60% of
craftsmen living in Williamsburg in 1783.
165
FREDERICK AND SAMUEL GREEN23
Sons of New England immigrant Jonas Green, Frederick and Samuel Green are probably
associated with the analyzed faunal assemblage from the Jonas Green site. Their grandfather
Deacon Timothy Green was a printer, as was their father Jonas, who came to Annapolis in 1738
after he married a woman of Dutch descent, Anne Catherine Hoof. Here Jonas Green established
a government-supported print shop and published the Maryland Gazette. Soon he established a
monopoly on printing in town, and by 1756 he printed and stamped Maryland bills of credit. Over
the years he become a well-respected businessman, and served on many community administrative
positions, including senior member and alderman of the Annapolis Common Council, and
vestryman and registrar of the St. Anne’s Church.
After Jonas’ death in 1767, his wife and son William inherited the business, but William
soon died and his mother soon afterwards in 1775. At this time Frederick and his brother Samuel
became partners in the shop, where they printed the Gazette until their deaths in 1811. Like his
father, Frederick served in public positions, including councilman and church vestryman. In
addition to his public roles, he succeeded in amassing sufficient wealth to place him in the top fifth
of those listed in the 1783 tax assessment.24 How well they able to provide provisions for their
family is not known. In the 1783 personal property tax for Annapolis, the mean number of
cows/household was 0.5, and only 27% of craftsmen such as Green owned even one cow. There
should be little doubt that the Greens depended primarily on commercial sources for staple foods.
ANALYSIS
By looking at the element distributions present in all the Williamsburg assemblages, including
those associated with John Brush, Anthony Hay and his widow, Anne Geddy and her sons, John
Draper, and Frederick and Samuel Green, it becomes apparent that these individuals and their
families consumed all parts of the animal. Generally speaking, however, the proportions of cattle
heads decrease as the century progressed, from approximately 19% to 21% during the first three
quarters of the 18th century, to 11% and 12% during the last quarter. In Annapolis the proportion
drops to 0%.
Generally speaking, zooarchaeologists read the decreased presence of heads and feet as a
direct measure of increased regulations on where butchering could take place and the disposal of
slaughter waste. However, this assessment presumes the modern-day consideration of heads and
feet as virtually taboo to be a very old value. A brief consultation with cookbooks from the
period, however, demonstrates that all portions of the animal were considered valuable, and many,
including ox cheeks, ox palates, calf’s heads, etc., were highly valued. Nonetheless, as historians
Stephen Mennell and Keith Thomas have pointed out so elegantly, the aversion to life-like parts is
more related to changing attitudes resulting from urban populations that found themselves
23
C. Jane Cox and John J. Buckler. “A Summary of Archaeological Excavations from 1983-1986 at the
Green Family Print Shop, 18AP29, Annapolis, Maryland” (Annapolis: University of Maryland at College Park and
the Historic Annapolis Foundation, 1995), pp. 17-19; Justin Lev-Tov, “The Faunal Analysis of Jonas Green’s
Printshop Cellar in Annapolis, Maryland” (anthropology honors thesis, University of Maryland, College Park,
1990).
24
Lev-Tov, “The Faunal Analysis of Jonas Green’s Printshop Cellar in Annapolis, Maryland.”
166
becoming increasingly distant from their rural roots.25 As a result, heads and feet came to be
considered waste, and as cities grew during the 18th century, slaughtering operations were banned
to the outskirts of town, and increasingly heads and feet were disposed of into rubbish heaps,
given to poor houses, or recycled into fertilizer or pig food. Thus, the decreased presence of cattle
heads reflects changing attitudes as much as they reflect market dependency.
Possibly a more accurate measure of market dependency can be found in the proportions
of body elements that include the part of the legs above the carpals and tarsals, plus the ribs,
chops, and loins. A brief assessment of the proportions of body elements demonstrates through a
strikingly high proportion of these elements that craftsmen obtained individual cuts of beef, veal,
and mutton from as early as the 1720s.
Elite Families
The elite in the Chesapeake were a truly privileged group. Founded on a plantation economy
focused on tobacco production, the wealth of this group gave them provisioning options that
were not available to the less privileged. They owned large plantations, and since tobacco
agriculture rapidly depleted soils, they purchased western lands to continue the production of
tobacco. Given these resources, they could as a group supply their families, relatives, and friends
who lived in town with whatever produce they chose.
THOMAS EVERARD26
An orphaned immigrant from England, Thomas Everard arrived in Williamsburg to become an
apprentice to a merchant, Matthew Kempe. Later he became the Clerk of York County, an office
he served in for thirty-six years, and eventually he served twice as mayor of Williamsburg.
Arriving in Virginia as an apprentice, over his lifetime he gradually accumulated wealth, slaves, a
plantation of 600 acres in James City County, and another 1136-acre plantation in Brunswick
County (possibly from his father-in-law), and last but not least a home in Williamsburg and several
offices. Married with at least two children and owner of slaves, Everard was more than able to
provide an ample subsistence for them. He may well have kept a kitchen garden, and according to
the Virginia Gazette, Everard owned several cattle and horses, which he kept in town on a
pasture near a pond.27
THE JOHN CUSTIS SITE
In 1749 Daniel Parke Custis inherited the Custis property near the western edge of town from his
father John Custis. Until 1757, when he died, he used it as a town house. A legend claims that
after Daniel Parke Custis died, Martha Dandridge Custis Washington lived there with her new
husband George until 1759. In 1760, however, she rented the house first to her brother
25
Stephen Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages
to the Present (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985); Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes
in England, 1500-1800 (London: Allen Lane, 1983); Bowen, “Faunal Remains and New England Urban
Household Subsistence”.
26
Samford, “The Brush-Everard Archaeological Site Excavations.”
27
Virginia Gazette, August 16, 1770, September 27, 1776, November 23, 1776.
167
Table 5.20.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
CATTLE AND CALF, WEALTHY HOUSEHOLDS
Cattle
Body %
Feet %
1700-1750
Butcher Benjamin Hanson 40.4
Charles Calvert
9.4
18.6
55.2
41.0
35.4
62.0
—
10.0
—
28.0
—
1750-1775
Custis (Dandridge & Byrd) 31.3
Thomas Everard
8.7
33.1
77.0
35.6
14.3
35.5
44.3
32.3
47.5
32.3
8.2
Mid-Late 18th Century
Benedict Calvert
48.9
18.3
—
—
—
Assemblage
Head %
32.8
Calf
Head % Body % Feet %
Table 5.21.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
SWINE AND SHEEP, WEALTHY HOUSEHOLDS
Assemblage
1700-1750
Butcher B. Hanson
Charles Calvert
1750-1775
Custis (Dandridge &
Byrd
Thomas Everard
Mid-Late 18th Century
Benedict Calvert
Swine
Body %
Feet %
63.8
60.1
21.3
24.6
14.9
15.2
91.9
28.5
6.2
63.4
1.9
8.1
51.1
31.3
17.6
30.1
54.4
15.5
41.2
39.4
19.4
15.9
72.1
12.0
52.4
26.8
20.8
39.8
38.5
21.3
Head %
Sheep
Head % Body % Feet %
Bartholomew Dandridge, then William Byrd III, followed by Reverend Michael Smith. Beginning
in 1770, a group of tradesmen became the tenants. Joseph Kidd, an upholsterer who was brought
over from England to work for Governor Botetourt, rented the home until 1773, when P. Hardy,
a coachmaker, became the tenant. In 1778, Martha Custis Washington sold the home to Dr. James
McClurg, who rented it to others until 1815.
Given the multiple numbers of families who lived in this home, associating the assemblages
with any specific household seems a difficult and ill-advised task. For now, since the earlier
assemblage dates to the time when the house was occupied by Custis, Washington, Dandridge,
and Byrd families (all members of the gentry ), the preliminary assumption is that this assemblage
is associated with an elite household, and therefore an attempt will be made to interpret the
provisioning strategy of the elite. Since the later assemblage dates to the time when tradesmen,
professionals, and numerous unknown individuals rented the property, the later assemblage will
not be analyzed in this way.
168
THE CALVERT SITE
Faunal assemblages recovered from the Calvert House represent the best documented and most
clearly-associated urban elite household in this study.28 As heads of exceptionally wealthy and
powerful families, both Charles Calvert and his son Benedict were more than capable of
provisioning their households with anything they wished.
ANALYSIS
All families owning substantial resources outside of town were grouped together into a
wealthy/elite category. Thomas Everard owned a 600-acre plantation outside of Williamsburg, in
addition to another 1136-acre plantation he inherited from his father-in-law, but even this
resource was small in comparison to the many thousands of acres owned by the others. Did this
make a difference in how the Everard family provisioned themselves in town? If the relative
proportion of body elements, which may represent the meaty cuts sold individually by butchers
and merchants, is any indication, then one could claim that the Everards purchased more meat in
individual cuts than either the Calvert or Custis (and related) families. In the element distributions
for cattle, swine, sheep, and calf remains, body parts are proportionately greatest in the Everard
assemblage. The cattle and sheep element distributions, with small proportions of heads and large
proportions of body parts, in particular, point to a heavy dependency on commercial sources of
meat.
Alternatively, the assemblages associated with the elite families, including the Custis,
Dandridge, Byrd, and Calvert households, show a more complex provisioning strategy, one that
demonstrates they did not depend upon commercial sources of meat in the same way that their
less wealthy neighbors did. With the notable exception of the Charles Calvert assemblage, where
the element distributions for cattle show an enigmatically high proportion of feet and low
proportion of heads, the element distributions of the elite assemblages closely resemble the
element distributions of the rural households. Clearly, they were provisioning themselves through
their own resources, and they had no aversion to either heads or feet.
Professionals
Professionals represented in the faunal assemblages include Dr. Archibald Blair, who lived on
Nicolson Street, and Dr. George Gilmer, who purchased property and established an apothecary
shop near what is now the Brush-Everard House. Both Archibald Blair and George Gilmer were
immigrants who became respected members of the community.
ARCHIBALD BLAIR
A Scottish physician and partner in one of Williamsburg’s leading mercantile businesses, the
Prentis Store, Dr. Archibald Blair lived on what is now known as the Grissell Hay property from
1716 to 1733 with his second wife Sara Howlen Blair and four children. Though he was an
immigrant, he became a community member of some standing, since during his lifetime he served
as a member of the House of Burgessess for Jamestown, and held the office of Justice for
28
Anne E. Yentsch, A Chesapeake Family and their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology (Boca
Raton: CRC Press, 1994), pp. 53-71.
169
Jamestown and James City County. The number of slaves he owned is not known, but he is
reported to have owned two female slaves in the late 1720s, and he held a deed to port land at
Williamsburg.29
GEORGE GILMER
An apothecary and surgeon, Gilmer was born in Edinburgh and educated at the University of
Edinburgh. Following the death of his first wife, Gilmer immigrated to Williamsburg in 1731, and
purchased the house near what is now the Brush-Everard property in 1735. In addition to his
professional occupation, he also was Justice of the Peace from 1738 to 1756, Sheriff of York
County, and Mayor of Williamsburg. Towards the end of his life, he purchased, along with a
partner John Chiswell, the Raleigh Tavern, which he kept until his death in 1757.
It does not appear that either of these men owned plantations from which they could have
provisioned their families. There can be little doubt that most professionals could have maintained
a garden and kept a cow or two to provide milk, since the 1783 personal property tax lists 64% of
all professionals as owning one or two cows. Given their immigrant status they probably had
fewer personal ties to the countryside than most residents who had been born in Virginia, and they
therefore were relatively dependent upon commercial sources of food.
Looking over the element distributions for the two professionals represented in the faunal
assemblages, it is readily apparent that both depended upon commercial sources of food. In every
instance, the cattle, calf, and sheep distributions show large proportions of the meaty cuts and
much less than normal proportions of heads and feet. In fact, no sheep heads were found in Dr.
Gilmer’s rubbish, and even the swine element distributions show fewer foot elements than almost
any other assemblage that is associated with the craftsmen or wealthy.
Taverns
There are two taverns that are represented in the faunal assemblages, one from Williamsburg
(Shields Tavern) and another from Annapolis (Reynolds Tavern). Although the two are from
different urban centers, they fortunately date to approximately the same time period.
SHIELDS TAVERN
During the second quarter of the 18th century, the tavern was run by John Taylor from 17381742, then afterwards by James Shields, II, and his wife, Anne Marot Ingles Shields, daughter of
the former innkeepers, Jean Marot and Anne Marot Sullivant.30 The household kept by James and
Anne Shields was a relatively large one, including five children by their former marriages, and
possibly three or more slaves.
29
Patricia Samford, “The Grissell Hay Site Archaeological Excavations” (draft report on file, Department
of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, n.d.).
30
A history summarizing the Shields Tavern household, in eds. Gregory J. Brown, et al., “Archaeological
Investigations of the Shields Tavern Site, Williamsburg, Virginia” (Williamsburg: Department of Archaeological
Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1990). pp. 91-97.
170
Table 5.22.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
CATTLE AND CALF, PROFESSIONAL HOUSEHOLDS
Assemblage
Head %
Cattle
Body %
Feet %
Calf
Head % Body % Feet %
1700-1750
Butcher B. Hanson
Dr. Archibald Blair
40.4
23.7
18.6
62.7
41.0
13.6
62.0
—
10.0
—
28.0
—
1735-1757
Dr. George Gilmer
29.8
57.0
13.2
38.1
52.4
9.5
Table 5.23.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
SWINE AND SHEEP, PROFESSIONAL HOUSEHOLDS
Assemblage
Head %
Swine
Body %
Feet %
Sheep
Head % Body % Feet %
1700-1750
Butcher B. Hanson
Dr. Archibald Blair
63.8
24.4
21.3
48.7
14.9
18.1
91.9
14.3
6.2
85.7
1.9
0.0
1735-1757
Dr. George Gilmer
57.4
34.3
8.3
0.0
96.6
3.4
While the tavern was operated by the Marots, it attracted an elite clientele. But when Jean Marot
died in 1717, and particularly after Anne Marot Sullivant retired in 1738, the more aggressive
tavern keepers of the neighboring Raleigh and Wetherburn establishments had begun to
successfully woo away the elite. From 1738 to 1742 John Taylor leased the tavern, when Jean and
Anne Marot’s daughter and her new husband, James Shields, took over the lease. During the time
that Taylor and Shields kept the tavern, typical patrons were more from ranks of lesser gentry and
middling sorts. When Shields died 1750, Anne Shields closed the establishment, married Henry
Wetherburn, and relinquished her legal rights to the facility. Soon the establishment was reopened
under the management of Daniel Fisher, who operated an ordinary and boardinghouse for only
four months, when he opened a store. Afterwards the house became a tenement.
James Shields had the ability to provide provision or at least supplement foods with staples
produced on one of his two plantations, either the one at Mill Swamp or the second at Skimino.
He could also have obtained provisions from relatives, and account books document his purchases
of meat from plantations located just outside town. Carter Burwell’s 1736-1756 account records
him as purchasing beef in 60 to over 100 pound pieces, and the James Bray account records John
Taylor as purchasing mutton, lamb, beef, and veal.31
31
Brown, et al., “Archaeological Investigations of the Shields Tavern Site, Williamsburg, Virginia,” pp.
221-226.
171
Table 5.24.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
TAVERNS
Cattle
Body %
Feet %
1735-1757
Butcher Benjamin Hanson 40.4
Shields Tavern
42.1
18.6
42.9
41.0
15.0
62.0
46.2
10.0
43.6
28.0
10.3
1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
29.4
40.5
--
--
--
Assemblage
Head %
30.1
Calf
Head % Body % Feet %
Table 5.25.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTIONS
TAVERNS
Swine
Body %
Feet %
1735-1757
Butcher Benjamin Hanson 63.8
Shields Tavern
48.6
21.3
32.8
14.9
18.6
91.9
15.3
6.2
68.1
1.9
16.7
1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
26.6
33.0
15.0
55.0
30.0
Assemblage
Head %
40.4
Sheep
Head % Body % Feet %
REYNOLDS TAVERN
William Reynolds was owner of this establishment, which he operated as both a tavern and hat
business from 1755 to 1768. Little is known about the site, except that the faunal remains
analyzed came from trashpits associated with the Reynolds occupation.
ANALYSIS
How tavern keepers provisioned their families and eating establishments no doubt varied
considerably. Depending upon their own personal resources, and what was available
commercially, tavern keepers aimed their selections towards the clientele’s economic means and
expectations. Choices of meats may have reflected the fact that, as today, colonists dining out may
have chosen to eat foods that were not their usual fare.
It is not known what resources William Reynolds could draw upon, but some
documentary evidence is available to determine that James Shields may very well have supplied
his establishment with meats produced on one of his two plantations. The plantation accounts of
Carter Burwell demonstrates he and his predecessor, John Taylor, purchased meat directly from
nearby planters.
Based on the element distributions obtained from the two tavern-related assemblages, one
gets a sense that Shields’, Taylor’s, and Reynolds’ sources were varied. If the zooarchaeological
assumption is correct that the relative lack of heads and feet indicate commercial sources, then
element distributions for cattle indicates that at least Shields and Taylor obtained on occasion the
172
entire animal, since in comparison to the professionals and craftsmen who clearly relied upon
commercial sources, the Shields assemblages contains only 43% body parts, while the Dr.
Archibald Blair assemblage contains 63% body parts and the Dr. George Gilmer assemblage
contains 57% body parts. In comparison to the cattle data, the sheep element distributions, with
68% present in the Shields assemblage and 55% present in the Reynolds assemblage, indicate they
purchased individual cuts of mutton, possibly more often than they purchased relatively small
pieces of beef.
Provisioning Strategies, Urbanizing Economies, and Element Distributions
The faunal study has shown that the element distributions are one of the surest means of
establishing market dependency. They show through the complex patterns of presence/absence of
heads and feet that markets in the Chesapeake were emerging from their rural origins. The many
feet and heads found in everyone’s faunal assemblage, particularly the elite’s, remind us that urban
dwellers still brought in some produce and consumed a diet that was very similar to what their
rural kinsmen consumed. But the smaller proportions of feet and heads that are found in varying
proportions in every other assemblage signal the small-scale character of Williamsburg’s market
system. The larger proportions of body parts found in the well-to-do individuals such as Thomas
Everard, the professionals such as Archibald Blair and George Gilmer, and the many tradesmen
who are represented in the faunal assemblages, all signal the purchase of individual cuts of meat.
How dependent each was can be seen in the strength of the proportions of body parts found in the
faunal assemblages. Unfortunately, the strength is camouflaged by the small-scale nature of the
provisioning system, where townspeople kept cows and pigs until laws restricted the practice.
Despite the small-scale nature that is evident in the faunal assemblages, it is apparent that
from the early years Williamsburg residents depended on commercial foods. Evidence of the
degree to which professionals such as Archibald Blair and George Gilmer depended on
commercial foods is revealed in the numbers of body parts found in the cattle, veal, and mutton
element distributions. So too in this data is the degree to which taverns and craftsmen depended
on commercial sources of food evident. With the documentation supporting it, the faunal data has
presented a complex and varied provisioning system that reaffirms element distributions as one
being of the basic measurements of urbanizing economies.
173
174
VI. URBAN CONSUMPTION, CULTURE, AND WELFARE
A. THE CULTURE OF FOOD PREPARATION AND CONSUMPTION
Dietary Patterns as Viewed from Below: Provisioning Strategies and Beyond
Archaeology has provided history with a unique view of past dietary patterns. From the early
years of settlement, colonists ate a basic diet that persisted throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
For almost everyone, their diet consisted of maize prepared in a variety of ways and of varying
proportions of beef, pork, mutton, veal, domestic fowl, supplemented by fish, wild mammals,
birds, and reptiles. For the upper class whites, this diet consisted predominantly of beef, followed
by pork, mutton, and smaller amounts of domestic fowl, wild fowl, fish, wild mammals, and
turtles. Less than a handful of assemblages associated with middling white households have been
analyzed, but they indicate that this social and economic group consumed the same meats, but
they consumed proportionately more pork and wildlife. A handful of slave-related assemblages
that have been analyzed show that the slaves consumed proportionately greater amounts of fish
and wildlife than either the wealthy or middling white households.
Why the same animals appear in all the faunal assemblages relates to the local environment
and agricultural economy. Planters produced their own domestic animals, hunted in the nearby
forests, and fished in nearby waterways; hence their diets tended to be composed of very similar
animals. Since urban provisioning systems drew directly from the nearby countryside, and towns
remained very small in relation to the northern cities, the urban diet retained distinct similarities
with the diets of their rural counterparts. Walsh’s research is showing that the pigs that found
their way to Williamsburg were raised in nearby plantations, while cattle were raised at somewhat
further distances. However great a distance that was, it is clear from the biomass data that the
urban centers of Williamsburg and Annapolis were agriculturally distinct and separate from each
other. Each urban market system drew in produce from nearby plantations.
Generally the proportions found in both the Shields and Reynolds assemblages are in line
with the proportions present in assemblages from nearby sites; a sign that local availability played
a strong role in determining what was served in a tavern. In the Reynolds assemblage the
proportions are in line with the proportions present in the Green assemblage, and the only major
difference with the Calvert assemblages is that the latter contain extremely large proportions of
mutton. Given the status of the Calverts in relation to everyone else, the large quantity of mutton,
which was the most expensive meat available, should not be a surprise.
Testimony to the strength of the local economy are the many Williamsburg assemblages
that illustrate the sameness of diet that existed for the elites, craftsmen, and professionals. In only
one instance do we find significant variability. Looking at the biomass estimates for the faunal
assemblages in the Williamsburg sample, the one distinctive assemblage comes from Shields
Tavern. While the proportions of fish, wild life, and domestic fowl appear in about the same
proportions, mutton, veal, and pork appear in greater quantities than any other assemblage from
the lower Chesapeake. Why the tavern diet differed from household diets in some ways may be
related to the fact that colonists chose to eat foods that were not their usual fare. Beef was
175
Table 6.1.
RELATIVE DIETARY IMPORTANCE
PERCENT TOTAL BIOMASS
Williamsburg 1700-1750
John Brush
Dr. Archibald Blair
Shields Tavern
Dr. George Gilmer
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Martha Custis
(Dandridge & Byrd)
Anne Geddy & sons
Anthony Hay
Thomas Everard
(Custis) Dr. J. McClurg
& tenants
John Draper
(Geddy) Rob’ts Jackson
& Martin
Widow Elizabeth Hay
Mutton
Veal
Beef &
Veal
Pork
Dom
Fowl
Wild
Fish
3.4
16.5
20.1
3.7
3.4
2.1
9.1
2.4
62.5
28.3
49.2
61.5
13.3
13.6
28.9
13.2
0.3
0.1
0.6
0.1
0.5
1.7
0.3
1.4
0.2
0.8
0.0
0.2
4.1
3.5
49.9
12.3
0.3
1.2
0.7
5.1
5.3
7.0
6.3
5.4
2.3
12.5
3.5
59.6
48.9
49.8
44.5
14.7
11.5
18.1
18.8
0.2
0.1
0.6
0.7
0.3
0.6
0.9
1.3
0.3
0.2
0.6
1.1
5.0
3.9
8.1
2.4
53.1
58.8
16.7
14.2
0.6
0.2
0.9
0.6
1.8
0.3
3.2
2.1
55.8
11.7
0.1
0.2
0.0
Annapolis 1700-1750
Charles Calvert
14.1
--
29.4
16.6
0.9
1.2
1.7
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
3.6
--
33.1
6.8
0.9
0.8
0.8
Annapolis, Mid-Late 18th Century
Benedict Calvert
11.2
--
29.6
9.0
0.8
3.2
1.6
Annapolis, 1775-1811
Fred & Samuel Green
--
35.9
12.5
0.6
2.7
1.4
5.1
common fare in the lower Chesapeake, while mutton was expensive and not commonly consumed
by most people, and veal was a seasonal treat that was available primarily during the spring and
early summer.1
But explanations other than the distinctive demands and tastes of the clientele who ate at
Shields need to be explored. One possible explanation why mutton and veal were consumed in
greater proportions in the Shields Tavern than in nearby urban and rural homes is that these meats
were seldom preserved, and diners might have chosen the fresh over the preserved. A possible
explanation for the large proportion of pork might relate to the clientele, who were from the ranks
of the middling and lesser gentry who frequented this establishment. The proportions of meats
represented in this assemblage may well relate to the types of foods these individuals consumed.
Taking this interpretation further will require evidence from other faunal assemblages from
taverns, as well as more faunal assemblages from archaeological sites that were occupied by
1
Joanne Bowen, “The Social Importance of Pork” (paper presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology
meetings, Richmond, 1990).
176
households from the middling and lower ranks of Chesapeake society. Unfortunately the sites
occupied by those less well off are few and far between, but one assemblage from Site 44JC298
that has been analyzed is located on the Chickahominy River in James City County.2 In this
assemblage the relatively high proportion of pork indicates this middling farmer and his household
consumed more pork than the elite, but more work is needed before there can be any
interpretation of class-related variability in household diets.3
The meats available for the urban residents were for the most part a given, and the meat
diets of urban craftsmen, professionals, and elites in our study demonstrate the relative sameness
of their diets. But, that does not mean everyone shared the same meals. Given an individuals’
wealth, occupation, and ethnic background each carved out a distinctive cuisine for themselves
and their families. Both elites, professionals, craftsmen, and slaves consumed the heads and feet of
cattle, calves, sheep, and pigs. But the elite prepared them in elegant dishes using receipts that are
found in contemporary printed and manuscript cookbooks, while the slaves and poor whites used
them to flavor hominy, stews, and soups.
Variability in cuisine can also be observed in the manner in which the bones were
butchered. Zooarchaeological evidence that has been gathered separately from this provisioning
study has shown that bones from known slave sites are highly fragmented, but that the bones from
white sites tend to be larger and more intact.4 This is a future topic well worth exploring, but
these butchering patterns no doubt represent separate cuisines; the wealthy whites tended to
prepare large cuts, often roasting them, while slaves tended to chop the meat into small pieces, no
doubt to use in stews and other one pot meals that could be left on hearth while they worked. It’s
how individuals prepared the cut of meat and served the dish that created distinctive differences
reflecting their cultural, social, and economic background.
The continued integration of the varied resources this project has marshaled together will
help to spell out the fine details that distinguished the cuisine of the different cultural groups living
in the region. Faunal assemblages, particularly those associated with slaves and several sites of
middling whites that are currently under excavation, will help identify variability that existed in the
diets of each group. Butchery studies of each assemblage will spell out certain elements of the
cuisine, i.e., whether meats were chopped and prepared in one pot meals, or they were prepared
as larger cuts in various ways.
Manuscript cookbooks contain information on how the elite and professionals prepared
the cuts of meat faunal assemblages tell us they consumed, and store accounts contain information
on who purchased what spices and sweeteners. Store and household accounts, as well as probate
inventories, contain information on who purchased and used different types of food preparation
equipment and tableware to prepare and consume foods. Diaries, traveler’s accounts, and
2
Barbara Davis, “Faunal Analysis at Governor’s Land: Two Rural Eighteenth Century Sites in James City
County, Virginia” (master’s thesis in Anthropology, Hunter College, The City University of New York, 1986).
3
Joanne Bowen, “Eighteenth-Century Foodways in the Chesapeake.”
4
John Otto, Cannon’s Point Plantation, 1794-1860: Living Conditions and Status Patterns in the Old South.
(New York: Academic Press, 1984); Stephen C. Atkins, “An Archaeological Perspective on the African-American
Slave Diet at Mount Vernon’s House for Families” (master’s thesis, The College of William and Mary, 1994); Joanne
Bowen, “Slavery at Mount Vernon: A Dietary Analysis” (paper presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology
meetings, 1995).
177
personal letters contain information on the specific dishes that were prepared by the rich and poor,
and they provide essential information on the cultural and social context of eating. And last, but
certainly not the least, the archaeological remains of this material culture contain valuable
information on who actually owned what. From the detailed analysis of the cooking equipment
and types of tableware found in sites that were occupied by the elite, craftsmen, professional, poor
white, and slave, it should be possible to explore in great detail the variability that we know surely
existed in the foodways of these different cultural, social, and economic groups who lived
together in the Chesapeake.
B. SEASONALITY OF CONSUMPTION
In an era preceding means of refrigeration, everyone’s diet changed markedly from season to
season. On the surface much of this seems patently obvious and thus unremarkable. On one level,
the data we have collected can be viewed simply as a tool for refining what we think we already
know about seasonal variability in diet in historic periods. And, of course, it will be employed
within the museum at Colonial Williamsburg to reproduce seasonally varying period meals more
accurately. However we think our data bases promise much more. Seasonal variations are a topic
that we have been able to explore only in a preliminary way during the period of the grant. Since
we have linked purchasing patterns to individual biographies, we plan to explore further how
marked seasonal variations in the supply of different kinds of foods affected households of
differing wealth and status. Sections of this report have already shown that urban elites were
willing to devote both resources and energy to minimizing seasonal dearths of highly desired
foods. What we must do next is to determine the extent to which seasonal variations in the supply
of different kinds of foods varied between different sorts of households below the level of the
elite. This, too, is not just a matter of antiquarian curiosity. Seasonal variations in the availability
of different components of the diet surely had a major impact on the quality of nutrients
consumed, if not always on the gross caloric sufficiency of the diet.5 The urban poor were
especially affected. In towns, the deleterious effects of typically nutrient-poor winter fare were
further exacerbated by the need to purchase stocks of expensive firewood in order to keep warm
at the very time when seasonal under or unemployment was at its height.
We are currently investigating seasonality as revealed in historical documents using three
different measures: 1) the number of transactions made in a given month, 2) the monthly totals of
quantities of various foods sold or purchased, and 3) the total value of the different commodities
by season. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses which we are now in the process of
sorting out. We are also in the process of looking for changes over time by further subdividing the
data sets into discrete time periods.
At this point we can advance only a few general observations. In a grain surplus
producing region, stocks of the essential cereal portion of the diet were available year round. Only
in a few years of extremely unfavorable weather when area planters were forced to reserve all the
corn they grew for plantation use were town dwellers likely to be affected by escalating prices and
5
See, for example, Sarah F. McMahon, “A Comfortable Subsistence: The Changing Composition of Diet in
Rural New England, 1620-1840,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 42 (1985)” 26-65; McMahon, “‘All Things in
Their Proper Season’: Seasonal Rhythms of Diet in Nineteenth-Century New England,” Agricultural History 63 (1989):
130-51.
178
short supply. Region-wide dearth almost never occurred, but high transport costs, coupled with
trading networks centered primarily on international rather than interregional trade usually
precluded a quick response to localized regional deficits. Temporary shortages of ground corn
meal in late summer or early fall, when droughts sometimes shut down tidewater mills for several
weeks, were more common. Then families were decidedly inconvenienced for a short period, but
so long as grain was in good supply, they did not suffer in the long run in their pocketbooks. As
preceding sections on town markets and household buying patterns have amply demonstrated,
supplies of fruits, vegetables, sea foods, dairy products and game were seasonal indeed. A
preliminary comparison of monthly store and market transactions with sales of selected products
from individual plantations suggests that the inter mediation of markets and middlemen served to
mitigate, to some extent, pronounced variations in the supply of meats and dairy products
available in towns. General seasonal patterns reflecting local agricultural cycles were readily
apparent in all the data, but less pronounced than those derived only from the records of an
individual large plantation.
One major finding that we highlight here is firm confirmation of sophisticated strategies
for ensuring a supply of some kinds of meats throughout the year. Bowen initially documented
such strategies for colonial Connecticut, and we find them reproduced in the colonial and early
national Chesapeake. Larger Chesapeake planters ensured themselves of a continuous supply of
meat, predominantly fresh, by closely coordinating the varying optimal slaughter times of different
kinds of domestic livestock as shown in Figure 6.1. Hogs were fattened, often with recently
harvested inferior corn, in the fall and early winter, and slaughtered between November and
January. Some of the fresh pork was consumed immediately, but the bulk was salted down, and
the best parts later smoked for consumption throughout the winter, spring, and early summer.
Most adult cattle were slaughtered between late fall and the end of the winter when these larger
amounts of meat would keep the longest. Those fattened on grass only were most often killed in
October when they had reached their optimal weights for the season. Others were further fattened
on corn and marketed between January and March, the coldest months. As temperatures climbed,
farmers turned for their supply of fresh meat to smaller animals. Lambs were killed and marketed
primarily in spring and early summer (March through June). Then farmers harvested older sheep
(muttons) in July and August. There was a second surge of mutton in December and January as
farmers culled their flocks of inferior animals unlikely to survive the winter. These strategies
ensured a supply of some kind of fresh meat throughout the year.
The account books we examined demonstrate that planters who sold surplus livestock to
urban consumers followed this seasonally balanced slaughtering schedule which was also
practiced on self-sufficient small farms and on large plantations across the region. Seasonal
supplies of domestic meats were also to a small extent supplemented by periodic seasonal
surpluses of wild protein resources. Shad, herring, oysters, crabs, and wild ducks and geese were
harvested in season. Big planters bothered to market only the periodically plentiful anadromous
fish which they harvested with nets. Slaves, free blacks, and marginal whites brought a wide
variety of wild foods to urban consumers. By the time Chesapeake towns became firmly
established, then, rural meat procurement strategies that assured a reasonably regular supply
throughout the year were already in place. These strategies satisfied town dwellers' needs for
continual supplies of fresh meat equally well.
179
Figure 6.1. Seasonality of meat sales.
C. MAJOR TRENDS IN FOOD PRICES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR
WELFARE
We assembled a data base of prices for all foodstuffs, fodder, and fuel mentioned in plantation,
store, and household accounts for which a unit value could be obtained. The data was first
examined separately for each of the individual accounts books, and problematic entries corrected
in each series. Then we combined the plantation, store, and household accounts into three
aggregated sets for each colony, and examined differences in price levels collected from the three
different sources. Next we aggregated the data into separate files for Virginia and for Maryland in
order to ascertain whether or not price levels and trends in the two colonies were consistent.
Having satisfied ourselves that they were, we then aggregated all the price data into one
comprehensive series, making adjustments for differences in exchange rates against British sterling
in the two colonies, and converting later prices stated in U.S. dollars back into colonial currency
equivalents.6 The results are displayed in Appendix 5. This is the most comprehensive collection
of prices so far assembled for food and fuel in urban areas in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
century Chesapeake. It will provide scholars of the region with more representative data than do
6
Prices are expressed in fractions of a pound Virginia currency. In order to create a consistent series, prices are
expressed in pounds local currency, with pieces of eight valued at 6s 8p, the value established in Virginia across the
colonial period. In eighteenth century Maryland the piece of eight was rated at 6s, so we multiplied prices in Maryland
paper currency by 1.111 to adjust for the difference in the exchange rate against British sterling. From 1765 Maryland
hard currency passed at 7s 6d, so we divided Maryland prices after this year by 1.125. From 1780 on Virginia currency
was valued at 6s. These we multiplied by 1.111 to make them comparable to the prewar value of the piece of eight.
Prices expressed in dollars and cents were reduced by 3.3333. Items valued in inflated Revolutionary War paper
currency between 1777 and 1781 are omitted from this series; only valuations expressed in hard currency are included.
180
Bezanson’s frequently used Pennsylvania price series, which was almost the only source available
prior to 1990, when Billy G. Smith published additional data on food, fuel, and other prices for
the city of Philadelphia.7 It also extends backwards in time and complements the work of Donald
Adams on price trends in Maryland between 1750 and 1850.8
This series reflects a very rough average of the prices that town consumers would have
paid when purchasing foods from a combination of local planters, storekeepers, and petty
hucksters--a scenario borne out in the analysis of individual households discussed above. Separate
analysis of plantation and store prices revealed, not surprisingly, that local foods bought from
merchants were usually somewhat more costly than those bought directly from area planters. This
reflected the expenses the storekeepers encountered for storing food products, as well as the
profit they exacted for distribution. We made no attempt to weight the relative contributions of
direct plantation, store, and urban market purchases. As the preceding sections have
demonstrated, the food procurement strategies of individual urban households depended a great
deal on the peculiar and multiple resources available to particular individuals and families. In
addition, the number of price observations that can be gathered for all but the most common of
foods remains decidedly sparse, even in a data base as large as ours that includes most of the
universe of surviving high-quality sources. For less widely accounted foods, especially perishable
vegetables and fruits, often small numbers simply obviate further refinement.
Among the variables one should keep in mind in evaluating such an aggregated series are
seasonal variations in prices, a family’s ability to preserve and store foods, discounts for high
volume purchases, the presence or absence of aggressive competitors, and reciprocal and
sometimes non-economic relationships. Those who bought meats in quantity and in season and
preserved some for later use paid less, pound for pound, than did those who had to buy in smaller
quantities and sometimes out of season. Individuals who could not afford to buy a whole hog in
late fall and salt it down for later consumption had to choose between going without such meat or
paying a higher price for smaller quantities. Fruits and vegetables bought early in the year
commanded a premium for those willing to pay for an early treat. Storekeepers sometimes offered
discounts for high volume purchases—they sold beef by the hundredweight, for example, at
considerably lower unit prices than those charged for beef by the pound. Intense competition
between town merchants tended to drive down the prices of imported groceries for town
dwellers. But especially in the first half of the eighteenth century, big planters who purchased
sugar in quantity from visiting ship captains for family use often resold some of it to neighbors and
dependant laborers at cost, and so offered a better deal to those connected to them than did local
storekeepers. Petty hucksters might choose to eat surplus chickens themselves rather than to sell
at less than the prevailing market rate, but they may well have accepted something under the
7
Anne Bezanson, Robert D. Gray, and Miriam Hussey, Prices in Colonial Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1935);
Anne Bezanson, assisted by Blanch Daley, Marjoie C. Denison, and Miriam Hussey, Prices and Inflation during the
American Revolution: Pennsylvania, 1770-1790 (Industrial Research Department, Wharton School of Finance and
Commerce, University of Pennsylvania, Research Studies, 35; Philadelphia, 1951); Smith, The “Lower Sort”. See also
Billy G. Smith, “‘The Best Poor Man’s Country’: Living Standards of the ‘Lower Sort’ in Late Eighteenth-Century
Philadelphia,” in Regional Economic History Research Center, Working Papers, 2, no. 4 (1979):1-70.
8
Donald R. Adams, Jr., “One Hundred Years of Prices and Wages: Maryland, 1750-1850,” Regional
Economic History Research Center, Working Papers, 5 (1982): 90-129; Adams, “Prices and Wages in Maryland, 17501850,” Journal of Economic History 46 (1984): 625-45.
181
going rate towards the end of the market day in order to dispose of highly perishable stocks of
vegetables, fruits, or fish.
Transportation costs were also involved, but are not always detectable in stated prices.
High volume purchasers may have benefited not only from lower nominal prices, but also from
hidden discounts in the form of free deliveries provided by the suppliers. Carter’s Grove slaves,
for example, routinely delivered flour and meal, free of charge, to the Burwells’ regular town
customers, but small and irregular buyers had to fetch their grain from the mill themselves. The
price paid per bushel of meal or flour was the same. But in the first case a family member or
household slave spent no more than a few minutes helping to unload the cart and stow away the
delivery. In the second case, the buyer likely invested half a day of her or her own time in making
this single purchase. Anyone who owned or could easily borrow the use of a horse or horse and
cart from a neighbor was likewise in a position to take advantage of chance opportunities offered
by sellers outside of convenient walking distance. Those lacking either horse or connections had
either to pay stiff carting fees or else forego volume purchases. Householders who had to walk to
market, and who had often to make a choice between working and going to market, had fewer
options than did those who could delegate most food procurement chores to older children, slaves
or servants. Their options were further limited by the weight of the purchases that the buyer could
conveniently carry home from market, on foot, in a sack or basket.
Crude price series, we are convinced, are considerably better measures than
undocumented wild guesses, but we continue to emphasize that at the level of individual
households, these aggregate measures constitute exceedingly crude indicators of particular
circumstance.
Nevertheless, a few generalizations immediately stand out. Overall, basic food prices were
relatively unchanged from the 1730s until the Seven Year’s War, when they began gradually to
rise. Although by mid century some Chesapeake planters were producing substantial surpluses of
corn and wheat, growing international demand for grain raised farm gate prices for these basic
foodstuffs throughout the region. As a result, Chesapeake town dwellers had to pay more. And
when the price of corn rose, so, in tandem, did the price of meat, reflecting the increased costs
farmers encountered in fattening livestock for market.
The situation during the Revolution was more complex. Normal trading networks were
disrupted throughout the war by the British naval blockade and periodically by warfare within the
region. Farm gate prices for grains expressed in hard currency did not rise for the region overall,
but there were marked regional variations. In areas where normal outlets were disrupted, but
which were isolated from any fighting, prices fell. In areas like the lower York and James Basins
which experienced prolonged campaigns, occupying armies, and pitched battles, food prices rose.9
Most book exchanges were recorded throughout the war in hard currency. This was true, for
example, of the grain bought, sold, and ground at Burwell’s mill between 1775 and 1778.
Transactions valued in the account books in paper currency, which depreciated rapidly between
1777 and 1781, show enormous rises. This does not mean that the cost of living rose several
hundred or thousand fold, but rather that whenever possible, people paid in bad money rather than
in good. However, day-to-day uncertainties about a ready supply of essential foods, coupled with
longer term uncertainties about the eventual outcome of the war, made basic food procurement a
9
Walsh, “Chesapeake Planters and the International Market.”
182
more troublesome problem for town dwellers dependent on urban markets than for families who
could in the worst case manage to provision themselves off their own land.
At the close of the war, prices for locally produced foods were considerably higher than in
prewar years. There was some decline in the late 1780s, but from the early 1790s through the
early 1800s food prices rose substantially. By 1800-07 grain and meat prices reached double the
level of the late 1760s. Growing urban populations in the Chesapeake were clearly putting
increasing pressure on regional supplies. Rising prices were the rule for all foods produced in the
region, and not just for grain and meat. Similar increases occurred in the prices town dwellers
paid for dairy products, seafood, and poultry, and doubtless for vegetables and fruits as well.
On the other hand, most imported foods became relatively less expensive after the
Revolution. Commodities like salt, sugar, tea, and coffee were available to town dwellers at the
same prices prevailing in the colonial period. Such groceries were also increasingly available in a
wider range of grades and prices. More affluent consumers could choose to buy finer sorts of
sugar and tea at elevated prices, but the less discriminating could buy lower grades at the pre war
price. Only imported rum passed at a higher price than before the war. However, in
compensation, domestically-produced whiskey became increasingly available after the Revolution
at low prices comparable to that of rum, the traditional common peoples’ drink, before the war.
These relative changes in food prices go a long way towards explaining changes in diet
among the urban poor at the turn of the century. Social emulation and changing tastes were
certainly one factor, but declining relative costs of sweeteners, caffeinated beverages, and alcohol,
in comparison to grains, meats, and dairy products, almost certainly affected, adversely, the
customary diets of the urban poor. Wheat bread similarly remained more expensive than grain
porridges, but purchased bread could be consumed without further preparation, while the
preparation of porridge and stews necessitated a supply of firewood. In a situation where food
and fuel prices were rapidly increasing, town dwellers living at the margin were surely constrained
to make increasingly problematic tradeoffs between price, basic nutrition, and convenience.
Our meat price series proved sufficiently robust to identify further interactions between
changing tastes and available supply. Across the colonial years mutton remained a luxury meat, its
cost consistently double the price of pork or beef (Figure 6.2) Not surprisingly then it was
consumed primarily in elite households, as the faunal remains have amply demonstrated. After the
Revolution its price relative to other meats declined; by the 1790s prices for mutton and beef
reached parity. This surely reflected in part an increase in supply. Much of the region was shifting
from tobacco to wheat as the main export crop, and grain farmers were much more likely than
tobacco planters to incorporate sheep raising into their agricultural schemes. As the price fell
relative to other meats, mutton was likely eaten more regularly by a wider spectrum of
households, and its value as a status meat surely fell.
In the first half of the eighteenth century, on the other hand, pork and beef were equal in
price. This is surely one good reason why, as archaeology has consistently demonstrated, these
meats were eaten in equal proportions. By the 1760s the price of beef became consistently higher
than that of pork. As urban populations grew and grain fields replaced open woodlands, beef
production per capita was likely falling throughout much of the tidewater, driving up price.
Higher prices also reflected changes in quality. Cattle were increasingly fattened on grain prior to
slaughter. The net slaughter weights of Chesapeake cattle rose from the scrawny colonial average
183
Figure 6.2. Chesapeake beef, pork, and mutton prices.
of 350 pounds per beast to over 500 pounds between 1790 and 1820.10 While beef raised solely
on grass could usually be rendered palatable only by long cooking, cuts from fatter animals lent
themselves to a wider range of preparation techniques, thus enhancing the desirability of this
meat.
The various meat price series also demonstrate that different sources of supply were not
equal. Pork bought from area planters was consistently cheaper than that purchased from
storekeepers. Plantation pork was usually delivered in the form of whole hogs on which minimal
butchery had been performed. Many people had little choice or else were willing to pay more for
the convenience of buying smaller, further cut up meat. The scenario was the same with mutton.
On the other hand, throughout the eighteenth century at least, plantation beef turned out to be
consistently more expensive than store beef. Perhaps the quality of the cattle sold off large
plantations was higher than those sold to storekeepers or perhaps town dwellers were willing to
pay a premium for fresher meat.
Figure 6.3 shows an index of urban Chesapeake meat and grain prices standardized to
base years 1767-1770.11 Table 6.2 compares this index with a food index for Philadelphia
composed of a wider base of 19 items standardized to the year 1762. In both, the substantial rise
in urban food prices after the Revolution is pronounced. A more comprehensive Chesapeake food
price index, which we plan to construct in the future, will further identify fine price shifts. At the
10
Walsh, “Consumer Behavior, Diet, and the Standard of Living,” pp. 248-49.
11
In the composite index meat and grains were weighted equally. The meat index weights beef and pork
equally. The grain index measures the price of a barrel of corn plus a bushel of wheat, thus weighting corn at 5 to 1 over
wheat.
184
moment this basic meat and grain index is adequate for assessing major trends. Had we included
other foods, especially imported groceries, in our index the numbers would have been lower, but
only slightly so, since most families devoted the majority of their food expenditures to locally
produced foods. The price rise was steeper in the Chesapeake than in Philadelphia in part because
in the former the populations of individual towns had reached no more than 2,000 to 3,000 before
the war. Few farmers outside the limited hinterlands of these places had much experience with
producing food for urban consumers. After the war the needs of burgeoning urban populations
outstripped the ability or willingness of staple export oriented farmers to respond.
The implications for urban standards of living are equally clear. Chesapeake town
residents who derived some of their income from rural plantations or from trade likely
experienced rising standards of affluence, despite rising costs of town living. Those at the lower
end of the economic scale who depended largely or entirely on wage labor almost certainly
experienced declines. In this project we did not attempt to measure the levels of urban wages.
However other studies, for the Chesapeake and elsewhere, consistently depict a picture of
relatively stagnant wage levels and of consistently rising prices for basic necessities.12
Examinations of the situation of urban free blacks present an even bleaker picture.13 The situation
of town dwelling slaves surely varied with the varying circumstances of their respective owners.
Figure 6.3. Index of urban meat and grain prices.
12
Smith, The “Lower Sort”, chap. 4; Adams, “Prices and Wages in Maryland.”
13
Susan E. Klepp, “Seasoning and Society: Racial Differences in Mortality in Eighteenth-Century
Philadelphia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., 51 (1994): 473-506; Howard Bodenhorn, “‘A Most Wretched
Class: Heights, Health, and Nutrition of Free Blacks in Antebellum Virginia” (paper presented at the annual meeting of
the Economic History Association, September, 1997).
185
Table 6.2.
FOOD PRICE INDICES FOR CHESAPEAKE TOWNS AND PHILADELPHIA
1733-1807
Year
Meat
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
74
74
99
66
70
70
74
54
49
66
70
74
70
70
62
58
78
87
95
78
78
62
74
76
107
89
101
80
82
82
82
82
82
85
82
107
95
115
146
130
132
120
107
99
101
101
Chesapeake Towns
Grain
Meat & Grain
65
95
72
85
78
79
76
78
85
87
90
86
68
68
70
79
81
84
87
89
82
77
87
87
79
79
89
89
91
92
94
104
105
119
114
100
95
91
110
119
129
127
100
98
122
122
186
70
85
86
76
74
75
75
66
67
77
80
80
69
69
66
69
80
86
91
84
80
70
81
82
93
84
85
85
87
87
88
93
94
102
98
104
95
103
128
125
131
124
104
99
112
112
Philadelphia
19 Items
94
89
99
98
80
89
95
86
100
115
101
91
90
94
86
81
90
96
99
90
100
89
97
Table 6.2 (cont’d).
FOOD PRICE INDICES FOR CHESAPEAKE TOWNS AND PHILADELPHIA
1733-1807
Year
Meat
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
101
101
120
165
144
165
181
169
161
136
146
130
122
151
161
161
165
173
181
144
157
165
202
202
202
221
239
334
334
Chesapeake Towns
Grain
Meat & Grain
122
122
131
148
180
215
171
181
171
159
137
166
136
143
151
151
154
151
151
151
100
172
244
182
188
217
195
123
113
112
112
126
157
162
190
176
175
166
148
142
148
125
147
156
156
160
162
166
148
129
169
223
192
195
208
217
229
224
Philadelphia
19 Items
154
147
123
124
119
99
107
134
130
131
143
161
207
227
192
183
188
201
Sources: For Chesapeake towns the plantation, store, and household account books listed in the bibliography. For
Philadelphia, Smith, The “Lower Sort”, pp. 100-101.
Notes:
For Chesapeake towns base years=1767-1770. For Philadelphia the base year is 1762.
The meat index=(1 lb. beef + 1 lb. Pork) ÷ 2. The grain index=(1 bu. corn X 5 + 1 bu. Wheat) ÷ 6. The meat
and grain index=meat + grain ÷ 2. For the calculation of the Philadelphia index see Smith, The “Lower Sort”,
pp. 100-101.
In the countryside, established local custom precluded reduction of already minimal
rations. Whether these customs afforded similar protections to slaves living in urban places is
entirely unclear. Any allowed to work for wages but expected to provision themselves would have
been hard pressed to maintain even the minimal dietary standards prevailing among those
depending on owner-supplied rations.
187
D. CONCLUSION
This multidisciplinary study of eighteenth and early nineteenth century urban food provisioning
systems has made substantial progress in explaining how town dwellers of differing status and
wealth procured this most basic essential to life. Our aim was to synthesize the results of earlier
documentary studies and already processed archaeological collections, as well as to analyze and
explore additional unprocessed artifact collections and here to fore little-used historical resources.
The project team approached each of these disparate sources as independent sources of evidence
that had first to be dealt with according to the standards of our respective disciplines--economic
history, zooarchaeology, and material culture studies. We began with the understanding that none
of us would confine her or his efforts exclusively to the sources and issues peculiar to our
individual disciplines. We believe our collaborative effort has achieved a great deal more than any
of us could have managed working individually in isolation, and we are particularly grateful to the
Endowment for providing funding that made such a collaborate effort possible.
The recent work of historical archaeologists has made some major contributions to the
field of urban studies, but often the answers they have supplied to the question, "What did it mean
to live in a modern, urban-based, market economy?", have been so narrowly focused as to appear
irrelevant to most social and economic historians. Economic historians have so concentrated on
narrow issues of prices, wages, aggregate outputs and incomes, and profit maximization so as to
alienate many social historians interested primarily in cultural constructions and perceptions. The
relatively new field of anthropometric history has also influenced our project. Studies of average
heights among various economic and social groups are posing questions about the overall quality
of life in urban and rural America in the mid nineteenth century that confound the generally
optimistic picture painted by most economic historians, and which clearly cannot be answered
with conventional historical sources and approaches. Many museum interpreters find the concerns
and findings that preoccupy scholars in all of these areas all too abstracted from life experiences of
real past people in specific places and specific times. We have tried to benefit from the insights
and approaches of all.
In this report we have chosen to emphasize findings about individual people, households,
archeological sites, and towns. We are convinced that sound and lasting broader generalizations
can be reached only by first developing a detailed understanding of individual experience. Our
results demonstrate that there is no simple answer to the question "How did townspeople in
Virginia and Maryland supply themselves with food in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries?" We believe we have made substantial progress, not only in putting flesh on individual
bones, but also in showing how these individual pieces were articulated into a complex and interrelated whole. We still have much work remaining, both in further fleshing out those individual
bones and in more fully understanding the workings of provisioning systems as a whole. The
materials we have drawn together in the course of this project constitute a resource that will
enable both researchers at Colonial Williamsburg and the wider community of scholars to
continue to pursue these and related questions.
188
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APPENDIX 1.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSEMBLAGES ANALYZED
INTRODUCTION
This section describes the analysis of some 53 animal bone assemblages undertaken during the
N.E.H.-supported Provisioning Early American Towns project. These assemblages were carefully
selected to reflect a range of site types and temporal periods, and consist both of previouslyanalyzed data which has been somewhat re-worked and of completely new research funded in part
by the grant.
The bones were analyzed by a team of zooarchaeologists at Colonial Williamsburg, under
the direction of Dr. Joanne Bowen. Primary members of the team included Stephen Atkins,
Gwenyth Duncan, and Jeremiah Dandoy; others, including students from Dr. Bowen’s
zooarchaeology courses, assisted on occasion. Data was entered into a custom-built software
program written for the Microsoft FoxPro database management system, which has been used to
generate both the data given in the main text and the tables shown in the following sections.
Each assemblage analyzed is described briefly below, with the analyst(s), a short
description of the site, a breakdown of the assemblage, the household or households involved, and
supporting documentation. It should be noted that the degree of documentation varies by site, and
often attribution to a particular household is difficult at best. In virtually all cases the description
and household affiliation was obtained from conversations with the archaeologist involved in
excavating the site, or explicitly from the report. In cases where the information is ambiguous,
that has been spelled out in the text.
For the sake of analysis, the assemblages were divided into seventeen groups (Table 1),
representing both rural and urban assemblages dating to various periods. Each assemblage was
assigned an arbitrary designation in the computer system (e.g., “72BS-A”), but will be generally
referred to by a common name (e.g., “Jordan’s Journey (Site 44PG300)”). The recovery method,
also shown here, provides some means of evaluating the completeness of the sample; hand picked
material, it is generally believed, is somewhat biased toward the recovery of larger animals, and
small elements such as fish bones are somewhat underrepresented. Material screened through
quarter-inch mesh is more likely to contain a greater diversity of elements, while material that is
both screen through quarter-inch mesh and partially floated (“Screen +” in the table) is most likely
to represent a more complete and representative sample.
Each assemblage description is accompanied by a table of faunal distribution, providing a
general breakdown of the major categories in terms of NISP, MNI, usable meat weight, and
biomass. On several sites, biomass estimates could not be calculated, as individual bone weights
were not obtained (mostly, it should be added, because this particular technique is of relatively
recent vintage). On a few others, MNI figures were not obtained, and thus both the MNI and
usable meat weight columns are blank (since usable meat weight is determined from the MNI
figures). It is important to note that the absence of either usable meat weight or biomass for a
219
particular assemblage does not by any means make that assemblage less useful for certain types of
analysis.
For the purposes of these tables, taxa are broken down into nine categories: cattle, swine,
caprines (sheep and goats), fish, turtles, wild birds (which are defined to include turkey, a wild
bird that was gradually somewhat domesticated), wild mammals, domestic birds (largely chicken,
domestic duck, and domestic goose), and commensals (including dogs, cats, horses, and rats).
Commensals, as they were rarely if ever eaten, are not included in usable meat weight
calculations.
Where two numbers separated by a slash are given in the MNI column, it indicates that
this particular group is composed of both adult and skeletally-immature animals. Thus, a figure of
“10/3” indicates an MNI of 10 adults and 3 immatures. Corresponding meat weight estimates are
calculated using separate factors for both adults and immatures. Where only one number is given,
it represents the number of adult animals.
A number of assemblages were re-analyzed through the generosity of the original analysts,
Henry Miller of the St. Mary’s City Commission and Elizabeth Reitz of the University of Georgia.
In these cases the data was transcribed from their notes into the computer program. In a few cases
(e.g., Utopia and Pettus), only the identifiable bone was available, and thus the percentage of
identifiable bone is of course greatly inflated.
For several sites analyzed specifically for this project (Kingsmill Slave Quarter, the Boothe
site, Gloucester Point, the Custis site, the Geddy Kitchen, and the Anthony Hay site), full faunal
reports have not been completed. All of the data, however, is available for study in the
Zooarchaeology Lab in the Colonial Williamsburg Department of Archaeological Research.
220
Table A1.1.
SITES ANALYZED AS PART OF THE PROJECT
State
Site No.
Computer
County/City Designation Dug by
Recovery
Method
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
Kingsmill Tenement
44HT55
44PG302
44PG300
44PG307
44YO68
44JC39
Hampton
Prince George
Prince George
Prince George
York
James City
55AA
72BI
72BS-A
72BT-A
72CE-B
72CF
CWF
VCU
VCU
VCU
VDHR
VDHR
Screen +
Screen
Screen
Screen
Hand
Hand
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Jenkins Neck
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
Utopia
Pettus
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
Drummond Site
44WB52
44GL320
44WN33
44JC32
44JC33
44YO68
44JC43
James City
Gloucester
Westmoreland
James City
James City
York
James City
68AC
72AY
72BU-001
72BV
72BY
72CE-A
72CG-001
CWF
Screen +
WMCARScreen
RELMA Screen
VDHR Hand
VDHR Hand
VDHR Hand
VDHR Hand
44JC500
44HT39
44PG151
James City
Hampton
Prince George
70AD
72AB-001
72BR-B
CWF
Screen
WMCARScreen
VCU
Screen
44WN33
Westmoreland
72BU-002
RELMA Screen
Rural 1750-1775
Rich Neck Slave Quarter
Curles Neck
Mount Vernon
Kingsmill Plantation
44WB52
44HE388
44FX762
44JC37
James City
Henrico
Fairfax
James City
68AL-B
72AM
72BN
72BX
CWF
VCU
MVLA
VDHR
Screen +
Screen +
Screen
Hand
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
44VB138
44JC39
Virginia Beach
James City
65AA-001
72BM-001
CWF
VDHR
Screen
Hand
44GL357,
44GL177
44IW111
44GL197
44PG381
Gloucester
72BC-A
WMCARScreen
Isle of Wight
Gloucester
Prince George
72BH
72BK
72BQ-A
ASV
Screen
VDHR Hand
WMCARScreen
Rural Late 18th - Early 19th Centuries
Settlers Landing Road
44HT68
Hampton
Thomas Brown Site
44FX1965 Fairfax
72AI
72CC-004
VDOT Screen
WMCARScreen
Rural Early 19th Century
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
72AC
72BF
WMCARScreen
CWM Screen
Assemblage
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland
Plantation)
Clifts Plantation (Phases III
and IV)
Rural Mid-Late 18th Centuries
Gloucester (44GL357,44GL177)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
44JC240
44MX28
James City
Middlesex
221
Table A1.1 (cont’d).
SITES ANALYZED AS PART OF THE PROJECT
Assemblage
State
Site No.
Computer
County/City Designation Dug by
Recovery
Method
Frontier 1750's
Fort Chiswell
44WY19
Wythe
72BA
VDHR
Hand
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
04CA
15CA
28G-001
29CA-003
29F-001
CWF
CWF
CWF
CWF
CWF
Hand
Screen +
Screen
Screen
Screen +
Williamsburg
29G-002
CWF
Screen
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
44WB30
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit) 44WB30
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
09L-B
29G-009
CWF
CWF
Screen
Screen
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
44WB30
44WB30
44WB30
44WB30
44WB30
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
04BA-C
19BB-002
28DZ-B
29F-A
29F-005
CWF
CWF
CWF
CWF
CWF
Hand
Hand
Hand
Screen +
Screen +
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
44WB30
44WB30
44WB30
44WB30
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
Williamsburg
04BA-001
09L-C
19BB-001
28DZ-A
CWF
CWF
CWF
CWF
Hand
Screen
Hand
Hand
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
18AP28
Annapolis
72CH-A
HA
Screen +
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
18AP23
Annapolis
72CI
HA
Screen
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th Century
Calvert House (Late Period)
18AP28
Annapolis
72CH-B
HA
Screen +
Annapolis Late 18th - Early 19th Centuries
Jonas Green
18AP29
Annapolis
72BZ-001
HA
Screen +
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Public Hospital
44WB30
Firehouse
44WB30
Peyton Randolph (Planting Beds) 44WB30
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
44WB30
Brush-Everard (John Brush
44WB30
Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy) 44WB30
Note:
Screen + =Flotation/wet screen
ASV = Archaeological Society of Virginia, CWM = College of William and Mary, CWF = Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation, HA = Historic Annapolis, MVLA = Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, RELMA
= Robert E. Lee Memorial Association, VCU = Virginia Commonwealth University, VDHR = Virginia
Department of Historic Resources, WMCAR = William and Mary Center of Archaeological Research
222
Hampton University
44HT55
Rural Sites, 1620-1660
Analyzed by:
Gregory J. Brown, 1989, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Christopher Windmill (1628-1632); Joseph Hatfield (1632-1642?); Henry
Poole (1642?-1655); Richard Hull (1655-16??). All were apparently middling
planters.
Faunal Rpt:
Hampton University Archaeological Report: A Report on the Findings, by
Andrew C. Edwards, William E. Pittman, Gregory J. Brown, Mary Ellen N.
Hodges, Marley R. Brown III, and Eric E. Voigt. Department of
Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg.
Description:
Early 17th-century site, with five buildings, storage pits, a ditch, slot fences,
and a well. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by
Andrew C. Edwards, October 1987-March 1988.
Excavation Rpt:
Hampton University Archaeological Report: A Report on the Findings, by
Andrew C. Edwards, William E. Pittman, Gregory J. Brown, Mary Ellen N.
Hodges, Marley R. Brown III, and Eric E. Voigt. Department of
Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg.
No. of Bones:
13,885 (3585 identifiable, 10,300 unidentifiable). 25.8% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
1250
650
95
1444
32
43
123
260
18
9.0%
4.7
0.7
10.4
0.2
0.3
0.9
1.9
0.1
10/3
17/4
5/1
20
5
14
12
11/5
5
10.2%
16.4
4.7
15.6
3.9
10.9
9.4
12.5
3.9
4150.0
1900.0
190.0
304.5
5.0
51.0
552.8
46.0
0.0
54.6%
25.0
2.5
4.0
0.1
0.7
7.3
0.6
0.0
100.0% 115/13
100.0%
7599.3
100.0%
Totals
13885
223
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
227.68
50.51
14.87
7.78
0.71
0.65
13.91
3.37
0.32
57.2%
12.7
3.7
2.0
0.2
0.2
3.5
0.8
0.1
397.72 100.0%
Jordan’s Journey (Site 44PG302)
44PG302
Rural Sites, 1620-1660
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, 1996, for Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
Household:
Samuel and Cicely Jordan (ca. 1620-1623); William Farrar and Cicely Jordan
(1623-1635). Planters.
Faunal Rpt:
Beef, Venison, and Imported Haddock in Colonial Virginia: A Report on the
Analysis of Faunal Remains from Jordan’s Journey, by Joanne Bowen.
Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Richmond. May 1996.
Description:
Early 17th-century fortified manor house complex containing at least 11
buildings. Excavated by Virginia Commonwealth University Archaeological
Research Center, directed by Dan Mouer and Douglas McLearen, 1900-1992.
Excavation Rpt:
Jordan’s Journey: A Preliminary Report on the Archaeology of 44Pg302,
Prince George County, Virginia, 1990-1991, by L. Daniel Mouer, Douglas C.
McLearen, R. Taft Kiser, Christopher P. Egghart, Beverly J. Binns, and Dane
T. Magoon. Prepared for Virginia Division of Historic Resources and the
National Geographic Society by Virginia Commonwealth University
Archaeological Research Center. June 1992.
No. of Bones:
11,742 (1833 identifiable, 9909 unidentifiable). 15.6% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
NISP
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
143
176
28
2156
228
262
240
28
6
1.2%
1.5
0.2
18.4
1.9
2.2
2.0
0.2
0.1
5/2
5/1
5
75
4
47
16
4
3
4.1%
3.5
2.9
44.1
2.4
27.6
9.4
2.4
1.8
2100.0
550.0
175.0
389.2
16.3
127.9
859.0
13.5
0.0
45.3%
11.9
3.8
8.4
0.4
2.8
18.5
0.3
0.0
11742
100.0%
167/3
100.0%
4630.9
100.0%
Totals
MNI
224
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
69.30
9.36
4.21
7.64
2.68
3.30
26.98
0.27
0.18
36.1%
4.9
2.2
4.0
1.4
1.7
14.1
0.1
0.1
191.74 100.0%
Jordan’s Journey (Site 44PG300)
44PG300
Rural Sites, 1620-1660
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, 1996, for Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
Household:
Nathaniel and Thomasine Cawsey (ca. 1620-1635). Planters and tenants.
Faunal Rpt:
Beef, Venison, and Imported Haddock in Colonial Virginia: A Report on the
Analysis of Faunal Remains from Jordan’s Journey, by Joanne Bowen.
Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Richmond. May 1996.
Description:
Early 17th-century dwelling complex consisting of one dwelling and two
possible outbuildings, 11 burials, and five major refuse pits. Buildings include
Str. XXII, a three-bay building with a 29 x 19 foot core; Str. XXI, a shed or
agricultural barn measuring 18 x 23 feet; and Str. XXIII, a building identified
from only three postholes. Excavated by Virginia Department of Historic
Resources, directed by Jay Harrison and David Hazzard, February-October
1989.
Excavation Rpt:
Preliminary Report on Archaeological Excavation at Jordan’s Point: Sites
44PG151, 44PG300, 44PG302, 44PG303, 44PG315, 44PG333, by Tim
Morgan, Nicholas M. Luccketti, and Beverly Straube. Prepared for the
Virginia Division of Historic Resources by Christopher Newport University
and the Virginia Company Foundation. May 1995.
No. of Bones:
3036 (263 identifiable, 2773 unidentifiable). 8.7% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
44
31
0
184
25
43
62
11
5
1.4%
1.0
0.0
6.1
0.8
1.4
2.0
0.4
0.2
2
1
0
4
2
15
11
2
1
5.3%
2.6
0.0
10.5
5.3
39.5
28.9
5.3
2.6
800.0
100.0
0.0
10.0
0.6
77.9
265.0
5.0
0.0
63.6%
7.9
0.0
0.8
0.0
6.2
21.1
0.4
0.0
3036
100.0%
38
100.0%
1258.5
100.0%
225
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
10.68
0.89
0.00
0.77
0.46
1.89
4.33
0.11
0.17
21.9%
1.8
0.0
1.6
0.9
3.9
8.9
0.2
0.3
48.84 100.0%
Jordan’s Journey (Site 44PG307)
44PG307
Rural Sites, 1620-1660
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, 1996, for Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
Household:
Fisher household (Thomas and Joane Fisher, daughter Priscilla, and servant
Richard English) or Palmer household (Robert and Katherine Palmer,
daughter Sisly, and servant Idye Halliers). Thomas Fisher was an “ancient
planter,” possibly a carpenter. Palmer was also a planter. Both appear in
Muster of 1624/25; it is not clear which household is represented by this site.
Faunal Rpt:
Beef, Venison, and Imported Haddock in Colonial Virginia: A Report on the
Analysis of Faunal Remains from Jordan’s Journey, by Joanne Bowen.
Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Richmond. May 1996.
Description:
Part of fortified plantation village, including Str. 10 and 11, large earthfast
houses; Str. 12, smaller earthfast building of unknown function; Str. 3 and 16,
enigmatic building fragments; one deep and three shallow trash pits; and
palisade fence. Excavated by Virginia Department of Historic Resources,
directed by David Hazzard, 1991, and by Virginia Commonwealth University
Archaeological Research Center, directed by Dan Mouer and Douglas
McLearen, 1992-1993.
Excavation Rpt:
Jordan’s Journey III: A Preliminary Report on the 1992-93 Excavations at
Archaeological Site 44PG307, by Douglas C. McLearen and L. Daniel
Mouer. Prepared for the Virginia Division of Historic Resources by Virginia
Commonwealth University Archaeological Research Center. 1994.
No. of Bones:
1997 (443 identifiable, 1554 unidentifiable). 22.2% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
160
81
0
28
23
14
118
6
1
8.0%
4.1
0.0
1.4
1.2
0.7
5.9
0.3
0.1
5/2
5/3
0
4
1
6
17/1
2/1
1
14.6%
16.7
0.0
8.3
2.1
12.5
37.5
6.3
2.1
2100.0
650.0
0.0
12.5
3.0
28.9
1375.0
9.5
0.0
50.3%
15.6
0.0
0.3
0.1
0.7
32.9
0.2
0.0
1997
100.0%
41/7
100.0%
4178.9
100.0%
226
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
44.14
7.58
0.00
0.26
0.48
0.58
17.75
0.07
0.01
36.8%
6.3
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.5
14.8
0.1
0.0
119.93 100.0%
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
44YO68
Rural Sites, 1620-1660
Analyzed by:
Henry Miller, early 1980s, for Virginia Research Center for Archaeology.
Household:
Humphrey Tompkins (1644?-1673). Middling planter.
Faunal Rpt:
Colonization and Subsistence Change on the 17th Century Chesapeake
Frontier, by Henry M. Miller. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University,
Lansing. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. 1984. Appendix I.
Description:
On small inlet of Chesapeake Bay near mouth of York River. Faunal remains
from five large pits and several smaller features. One large, multi-layered pit
was dated circa 1646-1660; other dated to 1670-1700. Excavated by Virginia
Research Center for Archaeology, directed by Nick Luccketti, 1977-78.
Excavation Rpt:
17th-Century Planters in “New Pocosin”: Excavations at Bennett Farm and
River Creek, by Nicholas Luccketti. Notes on Virginia 23:26-29.
No. of Bones:
1190 (1164 identifiable, 26 unidentifiable). 97.8% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
107
99
0
918
5
0
34
2
0
9.0%
8.3
0.0
77.1
0.4
0.0
2.9
0.2
0.0
4
7
0
92
1
0
5
1
0
3.6%
6.3
0.0
82.1
0.9
0.0
4.5
0.9
0.0
1600.0
700.0
0.0
966.5
0.3
0.0
223.0
2.5
0.0
45.7%
20.0
0.0
27.6
0.0
0.0
6.4
0.1
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1190
100.0%
112
100.0%
3501.3
100.0%
—
—
227
Kingsmill Tenement
44JC39
Rural Sites, 1620-1660
Analyzed by:
Henry Miller, early 1980s, for Virginia Research Center for Archaeology.
Household:
Tenants leasing from Richard Kingsmill of Jamestown. Probably middling
class, based on artifacts.
Faunal Rpt:
Colonization and Subsistence Change on the 17th Century Chesapeake
Frontier. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, Lansing. University
Microfilms, Ann Arbor. 1984. Appendix I.
Description:
Dated to second quarter of 17th century. Faunal remains from five large trashfilled pits and several smaller features. Excavated by Virginia Research Center
for Archaeology, directed by William M. Kelso,1972-74.
Excavation Rpt:
Kingsmill Plantation, 1619-1800: Archaeology of Country Life in Colonial
Virginia, by William M. Kelso. Academic Press, San Diego. 1984.
Historical Archaeology at Kingsmill: The 1974 Season, Interim Report, by
William M. Kelso. March 1976.
No. of Bones:
2958 (1837 identifiable, 1121 unidentifiable). 62.1% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
MNI
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
NISP
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
284
234
42
1121
62
27
107
12
0
9.6%
7.9
1.4
37.9
2.1
0.9
3.6
0.4
0.0
8
22
1
7
11
7
17
3
0
10.4%
28.6
1.3
9.1
14.3
9.1
22.1
3.9
0.0
3200.0
2200.0
35.0
144.5
111.8
20.0
577.0
7.5
0.0
50.8%
34.9
0.6
2.3
1.8
0.3
9.2
0.1
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
Totals
2958
100.0%
77
100.0%
6297.3
100.0%
—
—
228
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
Rich Neck Plantation
44WB52
Rural Sites, 1660-1700
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins, 1994, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Richard Kemp (1640-1653), Thomas Ludwell (1660-1678). Government
officials.
Faunal Rpt:
The Zooarchaeological Remains from a Rich Neck Plantation Site, by Susan
T. Andrews, Stephen C. Atkins, Joanne Bowen, and Jeremiah R. Dandoy.
Paper presented at 1997 annual meeting of the Society for Historical
Archaeology, Corpus Christi.
Description:
Plantation complex one mile west of Williamsburg. Faunal remains from
boundary ditch and clay quarry pit. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation, directed by David F. Muraca, 1993-1997.
Excavation Rpt:
The Archaeology of Rich Neck Plantation, by Leslie McFaden with David
Muraca and Jennifer Jones. Prepared for McCale Development Corporation
by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. April 1994.
No. of Bones:
4174 (1116 identifiable, 3058 unidentifiable). 26.7% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
487
204
105
115
47
7
134
13
2
11.7%
4.9
2.5
2.8
1.1
0.2
3.2
0.3
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
145.50
17.22
12.27
1.46
1.44
0.15
23.19
0.16
0.10
4174
100.0%
—
—
—
—
271.99 100.0%
229
53.5%
6.3
4.5
0.5
0.5
0.1
8.5
0.1
0.0
Jenkin’s Neck
44GL320
Rural Sites, 1660-1700
Analyzed by:
Gregory J. Brown, 1994, for William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research.
Household:
William Warren II. Probably planter. Original patent to William Warren I
(1642->1653), assigned to Christopher Allen and Rice Maddox. Maddox
assigned his share to Nathaniel Warren (son of William Warren I?), who
passed his share to son William Warren II. Allen assigned his share to
daughter Fra. Allen, who married William Warren II.
Faunal Rpt:
Faunal Analysis of the Jenkins Neck Site (44GL320), Gloucester County,
Virginia, by Gregory J. Brown. William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research, College of William and Mary. March 1994.
Description:
Late seventeenth-century site on north shore of York River. Faunal remains
come from large pit features salvaged in early 1990s. Excavated by William
and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, intermittently 1991-1997.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Salvage Excavations at Site 44GL320: A Middle
Woodland/Early Colonial Site in Gloucester County, Virginia, by David A.
Brown and Thane H. Harpole. Prepared for the Virginia Department of
Historic Resources by William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research.
June 1997.
Archaeological Investigations at Site 44GL320: A Late Woodland/Early
Colonial Site in Gloucester County, Virginia, by Ronald Fuchs. William and
Mary Center for Archaeological Research. 1994.
No. of Bones:
1694 (468 identifiable, 1226 unidentifiable). 27.6% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
43
166
5
627
0
2
41
2
2
2.5%
9.8
0.3
37.0
0.0
0.1
2.4
0.1
0.1
1/1
6/2
3
26/1
0
1
6/1
1
1
3.6%
14.3
5.4
48.2
0.0
1.8
12.5
1.8
1.8
450.0
700.0
105.0
422.5
0.0
7.5
381.0
2.5
0.0
21.3%
33.2
5.0
20.0
0.0
0.4
18.1
0.1
0.0
1694
100.0%
51/5
100.0%
2110.5
100.0%
230
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
13.26
19.53
0.54
8.37
0.00
0.07
7.02
0.06
0.10
19.7%
29.1
0.8
12.5
0.0
0.1
10.4
0.1
0.2
67.15 100.0%
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
44WN33
Rural Sites, 1660-1700
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, 1977, for Robert E. Lee Memorial Association.
Household:
Middling tenants on land owned by wealthy planters Thomas and Nathaniel
Pope.
Faunal Rpt:
The Analysis of Faunal Remains from Clifts Plantation, by Joanne Bowen.
Prepared by American Indian Archaeological Institute. September 1979.
Description:
Several cellars, borrow pits, a privy, possible storage pits. Phase I dated by
artifacts to ca. 1670-1685; Phase II to ca. 1685-1705. Excavated by Robert E.
Lee Memorial Association, directed by Fraser D. Neiman, 1976-1978.
Excavation Rpt:
An Archaeological Survey of Stratford Plantation, Westmoreland County,
Virginia, by Fraser D. Neiman.
No. of Bones:
6332 (654 identifiable, 5678 unidentifiable). 10.3% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
MNI
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
NISP
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
165
203
0
1778
4
3
13
13
5
2.6%
3.2
0.0
28.1
0.1
0.0
0.2
0.2
0.1
4
8
0
15
1
2
3
2
10.8%
21.6
0.0
40.5
2.7
5.4
8.1
5.4
1600.0
800.0
0.0
123.5
0.3
7.5
215.0
5.0
50.7%
25.3
0.0
3.9
0.0
0.2
6.8
0.2
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
Totals
6332
100.0%
37
100.0%
3158.3
100.0%
—
—
231
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
Utopia
44JC32
Rural Sites, 1660-1700
Analyzed by:
Henry Miller, early 1980s, for Virginia Research Center for Archaeology.
Household:
Middling tenants leasing from Thomas Pettus.
Faunal Rpt:
Colonization and Subsistence Change on the 17th Century Chesapeake
Frontier. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, Lansing. University
Microfilms, Ann Arbor. 1984. Appendix I.
Description:
On land owned by Thomas Pettus. Occupied by tenants, based on artifacts.
Faunal remains from a cellar under the house and a well. Excavated by
Virginia Research Center for Archaeology, directed by William M. Kelso,
1974. Miller (1984) states that assemblage is biased toward medium to large
mammals.
Excavation Rpt:
Kingsmill Plantation, 1619-1800: Archaeology of Country Life in Colonial
Virginia, by William M. Kelso. Academic Press, San Diego. 1984.
Historical Archaeology at Kingsmill: The 1972 Season, Interim Report, by
William M. Kelso. April 1973.
No. of Bones:
1003 (1003 identifiable, 0 unidentifiable). 100.0% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
599
231
44
26
6
9
37
8
42
59.7%
23.0
4.4
2.6
0.6
0.9
3.7
0.8
4.2
16
22
6
7
4
2
7
2
3
22.9%
31.4
8.6
10.0
5.7
2.9
10.0
2.9
4.3
6400.0
2200.0
210.0
178.5
4.2
9.5
338.8
5.0
0.0
68.4%
23.5
2.2
1.9
0.0
0.1
3.6
0.1
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1003
100.0%
70
100.0%
9353.0
100.0%
—
—
232
Pettus
44JC33
Rural Sites, 1660-1700
Analyzed by:
Henry Miller, early 1980s, for Virginia Research Center for Archaeology.
Household:
Colonel Thomas Pettus (1640-1700). Major landowner and member of
Governor’s Council.
Faunal Rpt:
Colonization and Subsistence Change on the 17th Century Chesapeake
Frontier. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, Lansing. University
Microfilms, Ann Arbor. 1984. Appendix I.
Description:
Built in 1640s by Colonel Thomas Pettus, burned around 1700. Faunal
remains from a well, a cellar, and several pits. Excavated by Virginia Research
Center for Archaeology, directed by William M. Kelso, 1972-73. Miller
(1984) states that assemblage is biased toward medium to large mammals.
Excavation Rpt:
Kingsmill Plantation, 1619-1800: Archaeology of Country Life in Colonial
Virginia, by William M. Kelso. Academic Press, San Diego. 1984.
Historical Archaeology at Kingsmill: The 1972 Season, Interim Report, by
William M. Kelso. April 1973. Historical Archaeology at Kingsmill: The
1973 Season, Interim Report, by William M. Kelso. 1974.
No. of Bones:
5420 (5419 identifiable, 1 unidentifiable). 99.9% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
MNI
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
NISP
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
658
1966
899
1
7
34
1514
113
211
12.1%
36.3
16.6
0.0
0.1
0.6
27.9
2.1
3.9
13
32
18
1
3
5
54
7
10
8.9%
21.9
12.3
0.7
2.1
3.4
37.0
4.8
6.8
5200.0
3200.0
630.0
2.0
13.0
29.5
431.0
17.5
0.0
52.4%
32.2
6.3
0.0
0.1
0.3
4.3
0.2
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
Totals
5420
100.0%
146
100.0%
9930.0
100.0%
—
—
233
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
44YO68
Rural Sites, 1660-1700
Analyzed by:
Henry Miller, early 1980s, for Virginia Research Center for Archaeology.
Household:
Samuel Tompkins (1673-1702). Low-middling planter.
Faunal Rpt:
Colonization and Subsistence Change on the 17th Century Chesapeake
Frontier. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, Lansing. University
Microfilms, Ann Arbor. 1984. Appendix I.
Description:
On small inlet of Chesapeake Bay near mouth of York River. Faunal remains
from five large pits and several smaller features. One large, multi-layered pit
was dated circa 1646-1660; other dated to 1670-1700. Excavated by Virginia
Research Center for Archaeology, directed by Nick Luccketti, 1977-78.
Excavation Rpt:
17th-Century Planters in “New Pocosin”: Excavations at Bennett Farm and
River Creek, by Nicholas Luccketti. Notes on Virginia 23:26-29.
No. of Bones:
1689 identifiable; unknown unidentifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
713
340
48
516
10
7
32
15
6
42.3%
20.2
2.8
30.6
0.6
0.4
1.9
0.9
0.4
13
19
5
42
4
2
6
4
2
13.4%
19.6
5.2
43.3
4.1
2.1
6.2
4.1
2.1
4950.0
1750.0
155.0
559.5
83.9
9.5
238.8
14.5
0.0
63.8%
22.5
2.0
7.2
1.1
0.1
3.1
0.2
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1687
100.0%
97
100.0%
0.0
100.0%
—
—
234
Drummond Site
44JC43
Rural Sites, 1660-1700
Analyzed by:
Henry Miller, early 1980s, for Virginia Research Center for Archaeology.
Household:
William and Sarah Drummond (ca. 1650-1710). Major planter and one-time
governor of North Carolina.
Faunal Rpt:
Colonization and Subsistence Change on the 17th Century Chesapeake
Frontier. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, Lansing. University
Microfilms, Ann Arbor. 1984. Appendix I.
Description:
Major plantation founded by William Drummond circa 1650; tenants probably
began to live there circa 1710. Three phases noted: Phase I, circa 1650-1680;
Phase II, circa 1680-1710; Phase III, circa 1720-1740. Faunal remains from
two cellars, four wells, and several trash pits. Excavated by Virginia Research
Center for Archaeology, directed by Alain Outlaw,1977-81.
Excavation Rpt:
The 1975 Survey of the Governor’s Land Archaeological District, James City
County, by Alain Outlaw. Virginia Research Center for Archaeology.
September 1975.
No. of Bones:
5169 (4977 identifiable, 192 unidentifiable). 96.3% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
1376
710
156
1965
116
102
98
236
39
26.6%
13.7
3.0
38.0
2.2
2.0
1.9
4.6
0.8
23
24
9
128
7
13
9
14
4
9.8%
10.3
3.8
54.7
3.0
5.6
3.8
6.0
1.7
Totals
5169
100.0%
234
235
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
9200.0
2400.0
315.0
404.0
27.2
31.5
321.8
42.0
0.0
67.9%
17.7
2.3
3.0
0.2
0.2
2.4
0.3
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
100.0% 13541.5
100.0%
—
—
Hornsby Site
44JC500
Rural Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Gregory J. Brown, 1990, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Richard Brewster (1632-1646); later owners unclear. Major planter.
Faunal Rpt:
Faunal Analysis of Site 44JC500, by Gregory J. Brown. Department of
Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 1990.
Description:
Several features of early eighteenth-century site, including main structure,
associated root cellar, trash pit, and miscellaneous test units. Excavated by
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by David F. Muraca, AugustOctober 1989.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Excavations at Site 44JC500, by David F. Muraca. Report on
file, Department of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation. 1989.
No. of Bones:
2044 (655 identifiable, 1389 unidentifiable). 32.0% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
250
185
41
13
106
1
35
12
2
12.2%
9.1
2.0
0.6
5.2
0.0
1.7
0.6
0.1
6/1
6/1
3/1
2
4
1
7
1
1
19.4%
19.4
11.1
5.6
11.1
2.8
19.4
2.8
2.8
2450.0
650.0
120.0
6.0
23.3
2.0
64.0
2.5
0.0
65.8%
17.5
3.2
0.2
0.6
0.1
1.7
0.1
0.0
2044
100.0%
33/3
100.0%
3724.8
100.0%
236
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
77.62
20.72
4.64
0.13
2.38
0.01
1.35
0.29
0.07
56.1%
15.0
3.4
0.1
1.7
0.0
1.0
0.2
0.0
138.40 100.0%
Hampton Carousel
44HT39
Rural Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Gregory J. Brown, 1990, for William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research
Household:
Tenants on land probably owned by planter (?) William Brough (1720->1735).
Faunal Rpt:
Faunal Analysis of Site 44HT39, Hampton, Virginia, by Gregory J. Brown.
William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, College of William
and Mary. November 1990.
Description:
Five structures, including Str. 17 (early eighteenth century), Str. 13 (early
eighteenth century), Str. 1 (late eighteenth/early nineteenth century), Str. 16
(mid to late eighteenth century), and Str. 14 (mid nineteenth century). Only
Str. 17 and Str. 13 were included in study. Str. 17 was a 26 x 37 foot building
with two cellars, probably destroyed by 1740. Str. 13 was a 20 x 20 foot cellar
filled about 1725. Excavated by William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research, directed by Thomas F. Higgins III, 1989.
Excavation Rpt:
The Evolution of a Tidewater Town: Phase III Data Recovery at Sites
44HT38 and 44HT39, City of Hampton, Virginia, by Thomas F. Higgins III,
Charles M. Downing, J. Michael Bradshaw, Karl J. Reinhard, Gregory J.
Brown, Deborah Davenport, and Irwin Rovner. Prepared for The City of
Hampton by William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research. July
1993.
No. of Bones:
3453 (1216 identifiable, 2237 unidentifiable). 35.2% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
367
343
157
199
1
20
5
119
17
10.6%
9.9
4.5
5.8
0.0
0.6
0.1
3.4
0.5
6/3
11/2
7/1
9
1
5
1
7
3
15.5%
22.4
13.8
15.5
1.7
8.6
1.7
12.1
5.2
2550.0
1200.0
260.0
85.5
1.0
21.6
100.0
21.0
0.0
50.6%
23.8
5.2
1.7
0.0
0.4
2.0
0.4
0.0
3453
100.0%
52/6
100.0%
5039.1
100.0%
237
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
159.13
39.93
18.03
2.38
0.01
0.63
1.18
2.16
2.24
54.8%
13.7
6.2
0.8
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.7
0.8
290.56 100.0%
Jordan’s Journey, Site 44PG151,
Bland Plantation Period
44PG151
Rural Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, 1996, for Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
Household:
Richard Bland I and II (ca. 1680-1740). Planters.
Faunal Rpt:
Beef, Venison, and Imported Haddock in Colonial Virginia: A Report on the
Analysis of Faunal Remains from Jordan’s Journey, by Joanne Bowen.
Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Richmond. May 1996.
Description:
Str. II, embellished earthfast dwelling, and large garden on landward side of
house. Excavated by James River Institute for Archaeology, Inc., directed by
Nicholas M. Luccketti and David Hazzard, summer-fall 1987.
Excavation Rpt:
Preliminary Report on Archaeological Excavation at Jordan’s Point: Sites
44PG151, 44PG300, 44PG302, 44PG303, 44PG315, 44PG333, by Tim
Morgan, Nicholas M. Luccketti, and Beverly Straube. Prepared for the
Virginia Division of Historic Resources by Christopher Newport University
and the Virginia Company Foundation. May 1995.
No. of Bones:
5181 (1303 identifiable, 3878 unidentifiable). 25.1% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
MNI
NISP
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
146
622
17
1217
26
70
59
87
53
2.8%
12.0
0.3
23.5
0.5
1.4
1.1
1.7
1.0
4
8/4
3
19
3
18
9
7/4
7/1
4.4%
13.3
3.3
21.1
3.3
20.0
10.0
12.2
8.9
1600.0
1000.0
105.0
133.2
13.6
71.8
145.0
21.5
0.0
41.1%
25.7
2.7
3.4
0.3
1.8
3.7
0.6
0.0
Totals
5181
100.0%
81/9
100.0%
3890.1
100.0%
238
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
92.86
51.69
4.30
1.91
0.92
1.67
3.71
1.63
0.36
42.0%
23.4
1.9
0.9
0.4
0.8
1.7
0.7
0.2
221.08 100.0%
Clifts Plantation (Phases III and IV)
44WN33
Rural Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, 1977, for Robert E. Lee Memorial Association.
Household:
Middling tenants on land owned by wealthy planter Thomas Pope.
Faunal Rpt:
The Analysis of Faunal Remains from Clifts Plantation, by Joanne Bowen.
Prepared by American Indian Archaeological Institute. September 1979.
Description:
Several cellars, borrow pits, a privy, possible storage pits. Phase III dated by
artifacts to ca. 1705-1720; Phase IV to ca. 1720-1730. Excavated by Robert
E. Lee Memorial Association, directed by Fraser D. Neiman, 1976-1978.
Excavation Rpt:
An Archaeological Survey of Stratford Plantation, Westmoreland County,
Virginia, by Fraser D. Neiman.
No. of Bones:
14,559 (2156 identifiable, 12,403 unidentifiable). 14.8% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
914
791
37
495
1
26
119
36
25
6.3%
5.4
0.3
3.4
0.0
0.2
0.8
0.2
0.2
17
25
4
9
1
10
9
4
2
14559
100.0%
85
239
Pct.
20.0%
29.4
4.7
10.6
1.2
11.8
10.6
4.7
2.4
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
6800.0
2500.0
140.0
155.5
0.3
26.6
340.8
10.0
0.0
63.0%
23.2
1.3
1.4
0.0
0.2
3.2
0.1
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
100.0% 10787.2
100.0%
—
—
Rich Neck Slave Quarter
44WB52
Rural Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins, 1995, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Slaves belonging to Philip Ludwell III (1716-1767).
Faunal Rpt:
The Zooarchaeological Remains from a Rich Neck Plantation Site, by Susan
T. Andrews, Stephen C. Atkins, Joanne Bowen, and Jeremiah R. Dandoy.
Paper presented at 1997 annual meeting of the Society for Historical
Archaeology, Corpus Christi.
Description:
Slave quarter on plantation complex, consisting of one duplex containing
several root cellars on each side of the dwelling. Excavated by Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation, directed by Maria Franklin, 1994.
Excavation Rpt:
Rich Neck Slave Quarter Report, by Maria Franklin. Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation, Department of Archaeological Research. 1997.
“Out of Site, Out of Mind”: The Archaeology of an Early Black Virginian
Household, by Maria Franklin. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California,
Berkeley, 1997.
No. of Bones:
24,959 (3573 identifiable, 21,386 unidentifiable). 14.3% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
4.96
5.99
1.21
4.55
0.77
0.18
1.09
0.18
0.07
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
35
184
29
20686
49
6
101
18
50
0.1%
0.7
0.1
82.9
0.2
0.0
0.4
0.1
0.2
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
Totals
24959
100.0%
—
—
—
—
240
14.8%
17.8
3.6
13.6
2.3
0.5
3.2
0.5
0.2
33.58 100.0%
Curles Neck
44HE388
Rural Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Susan Trevarthen [Andrews], 1993, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
and Virginia Commonwealth University.
Household:
Richard Randolph II (died 1786). Wealthy planter.
Faunal Rpt:
Who Went to Market?: An Urban and Rural Late Eighteenth-Century
Perspective Based on Faunal Assemblages from Curles Neck Plantation and
the Everard Site, by Susan Trevarthen. M.A. thesis, Department of
Anthropology, College of William and Mary. 1993.
Description:
Structure excavated in 1988, from which the analyzed bones were taken, is
believed to have been constructed around 1700 and to have been converted
into a kitchen between 1720 and 1740. Bones were taken from two deposits, a
well and what was either an ice house or a meat house. Both were filled in the
third to fourth quarter of the eighteenth century. Excavated by Virginia
Commonwealth University Archaeological Research Center, directed by Dan
Mouer, 1984-1990s.
Excavation Rpt:
An Ancient Seat Called “Curles,” The Archaeology of a James River
Plantation: 1984-1989, by Dan Mouer. Paper presented at 1989 meeting of
Society for Historical Archaeology, Tucson.
No. of Bones:
2244 (925 identifiable, 1319 unidentifiable). 41.2% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
330
398
46
61
10
16
26
8
3
14.7%
17.7
2.0
2.7
0.4
0.7
1.2
0.4
0.1
9/1
9/3
5/1
3
3
8
4
3
2
17.9%
21.4
10.7
5.4
5.4
14.3
7.1
5.4
3.6
3650.0
1050.0
190.0
107.0
10.3
35.6
117.0
11.0
0.0
65.5%
18.8
3.4
1.9
0.2
0.6
2.1
0.2
0.0
2244
100.0%
51/5
100.0%
5575.0
100.0%
241
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
134.42
36.21
7.54
1.88
0.95
0.50
6.66
0.12
0.07
54.1%
14.6
3.0
0.8
0.4
0.2
2.7
0.0
0.0
248.56 100.0%
Mount Vernon
44FX762
Rural Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins and Gregory Brown, 1995, for Mount Vernon Ladies
Association.
Household:
George Washington, wife Martha Washington, children Martha Parke Custis
and John Parke Custis; possibly African American slaves working in mansion
and a small number living above the kitchen.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Kitchen midden associated with 18th-century plantation house owned by
George Washington. Midden dates circa 1760-1775. Excavated by Mount
Vernon Ladies Association, directed by Dennis J. Pogue, 1990-1994.
Excavation Rpt:
None.
No. of Bones:
33,691 (5778 identifiable, 27,913 unidentifiable). 17.2% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
659
1447
549
8850
122
53
90
254
16
2.0%
4.3
1.6
26.3
0.4
0.2
0.3
0.8
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
175.51
92.26
44.34
10.52
2.99
1.12
10.48
1.73
1.28
33691
100.0%
—
—
—
—
518.65 100.0%
242
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
NISP
Totals
MNI
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
33.8%
17.8
8.5
2.0
0.6
0.2
2.0
0.3
0.2
Kingsmill Plantation
44JC37
Rural Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Henry Miller, early 1980s, for Virginia Research Center for Archaeology.
Household:
Colonel Lewis Burwell IV (1744-1775); Lewis Burwell V (1775-1781).
Wealthy planters.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Mansion complex 61 x 40 feet, office, kitchen, storehouse, dairy, garden, well.
Excavated by Virginia Research Center for Archaeology, directed by William
M. Kelso, 1975.
Excavation Rpt:
Kingsmill Plantation, 1619-1800: Archaeology of Country Life in Colonial
Virginia, by William M. Kelso. Academic Press, San Diego. 1984.
Historical Archaeology at Kingsmill: The 1975 Season, Interim Report, by
William M. Kelso, with contributions by Fraser D. Neiman, A. Camille Wells,
and Merry Abbitt Outlaw. 1976.
No. of Bones:
1447 (1447 identifiable, 0 unidentifiable). 100.0% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
702
306
183
110
19
24
21
37
37
48.5%
21.1
12.6
7.6
1.3
1.7
1.5
2.6
2.6
15
18
17
9
4
7
12
4
8
16.0%
19.1
18.1
9.6
4.3
7.4
12.8
4.3
8.5
6000.0
1800.0
595.0
135.5
13.3
34.5
666.0
10.0
0.0
64.8%
19.5
6.4
1.5
0.1
0.4
7.2
0.1
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1447
100.0%
94
100.0%
9254.3
100.0%
—
—
243
Ferry Farm
44VB138
Rural Sites, 1775-1800
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins, Gwenyth Duncan, and Jeremiah Dandoy, 1996, for Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Anthony Walke (1728-1776); William Walke (1776-). Planters.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
17 x 23 foot cellar. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed
by Robert Hunter, 1987.
Excavation Rpt:
Analysis of Ceramics Recovered from Ferry Farm, Site 44VB138, Virginia
Beach, Virginia, by Susan E. Pharr. William and Mary Center for
Archaeological Research, Williamsburg. June 1992.
No. of Bones:
7062 (2191 identifiable, 4871 unidentifiable). 31.0% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
320
674
85
1002
233
39
99
112
36
4.5%
9.5
1.2
14.2
3.3
0.6
1.4
1.6
0.5
7/1
9/7
3/2
33
5
4/1
12/1
5/6
8
7.1%
14.3
4.5
29.5
4.5
4.5
11.6
9.8
7.1
2850.0
1250.0
135.0
252.8
43.0
23.0
83.0
18.5
0.0
56.1%
24.6
2.7
5.0
0.8
0.5
1.6
0.4
0.0
Totals
7062
100.0%
94/18
100.0%
5082.3
100.0%
244
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
98.24
38.44
7.78
2.47
2.75
1.25
2.51
1.20
0.43
47.0%
18.4
3.7
1.2
1.3
0.6
1.2
0.6
0.2
209.09 100.0%
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
44JC39
Rural Sites, 1775-1800
Analyzed by:
Larry McKee, early 1980s, for Virginia Research Center for Archaeology;
Stephen Atkins, Gwenyth Duncan, and Jeremiah Dandoy, 1995, for Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
African American slaves.
Faunal Rpt:
Delineating Ethnicity from the Garbage of Early Virginians: Faunal
Remains from the Kingsmill Plantation Slave Quarter, by Larry W. McKee.
American Archaeology 6(1):31-39. 1987.
The Kingsmill Quarter: A Discussion of Cultural Patterns and Criteria in the
Zooarchaeological Record, by Rebecca J. Ferrell. Research paper on file,
Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary. April 1996.
Description:
18th-century slave quarter, kitchen, outbuilding, and associated trash pit.
Excavated by Virginia Research Center for Archaeology, directed by William
M. Kelso, 1974.
Excavation Rpt:
Historical Archaeology at Kingsmill: The 1974 Season, Interim Report, by
William M. Kelso. March 1976.
No. of Bones:
14324 (5611 identifiable, 8713 unidentifiable). 39.2% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
2409
1174
995
168
243
27
211
43
43
16.8%
8.2
6.9
1.2
1.7
0.2
1.5
0.3
0.3
34/2
28/7
26/3
5
7
3
31
5
5/2
22.1% 13700.0
21.5
3150.0
17.8
955.0
3.1
134.0
4.3
36.3
1.8
22.5
19.0
552.0
3.1
12.5
4.3
0.0
100.0% 149/15
100.0% 18963.5
Totals
14324
245
72.2%
16.6
5.0
0.7
0.2
0.1
2.9
0.1
0.0
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
561.78
109.92
98.40
2.87
4.26
0.84
13.02
0.95
1.34
55.4%
10.8
9.7
0.3
0.4
0.1
1.3
0.1
0.1
100.0% 1014.33 100.0%
Gloucester (VIMS III)
44GL357, 44GL177
Rural Sites, Mid- to Late 18th Century
Analyzed by:
Gregory J. Brown, 1995, for William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research.
Household:
GL 357: Captain Thomas Whiting Sr and Thomas Whiting Jr (ca. 1751-ca.
1796). Captain Whiting was a merchant and mariner. GL177: Unknown until
Edward P. Dobson acquired it in 1844, possibly from the Thruston family.
Faunal Rpt:
Faunal Analysis of Sites 44GL357 and 44GL177, Gloucester County,
Virginia, by Gregory J. Brown. William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research, College of William and Mary. January 1995.
Description:
HRSD Sewer Connection—VIMS Campus Project. Most of bones were from
Feature 53 on 44GL357, a mid to late eighteenth-century cellar. Feature 68 on
44GL177 is an early nineteenth-century warehouse cellar. Excavated by
William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, directed by Thomas F.
Higgins III, March-April 1993.
Excavation Rpt:
Reclaiming a Tidewater Town: Archaeological Survey, Evaluation, and Data
Recovery at Sites on the Campus of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science,
Gloucester Point, Virginia, by Kenneth E. Stuck, Thomas F. Higgins III,
Charles M. Downing, Don W. Linebaugh, Martha McCartney, Gregory J.
Brown, and Susannah Dean. William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research. August 1996.
No. of Bones:
7587 (1392 identifiable, 6195 unidentifiable). 18.3% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
565
537
126
55
6
12
8
33
58
7.4%
7.1
1.7
0.7
0.1
0.2
0.1
0.4
0.8
11/1
11/2
6/1
4
2
3
3
5/1
2
22.6%
24.5
13.2
7.5
3.8
5.7
5.7
11.3
3.8
4450.0
1200.0
225.0
150.5
3.0
10.0
202.0
20.5
0.0
66.8%
18.0
3.4
2.3
0.0
0.2
3.0
0.3
0.0
7587
100.0%
48/5
100.0%
6661.0
100.0%
246
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
182.66
34.49
13.62
1.07
0.16
0.28
2.68
0.45
3.00
49.1%
9.3
3.7
0.3
0.0
0.1
0.7
0.1
0.8
372.11 100.0%
Boothe Site
44IW111
Rural Sites, Mid- to Late 18th Century
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins, Gwenyth Duncan, and Jeremiah Dandoy, 1995, for Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Edward Goodrich (1746-1759); Lewis Hatton and Elizabeth Goodrich Hatton
(1759-ca. 1777); Joseph Cutchin (1777-1778); Matthew Cutchin (17781792). All were apparently planters. Goodrich was a fairly well-off planter
with 22 slaves, Hatton was once description as a “captain” (probably of the
militia), J. Cutchin was member of Isle of Wight Committee of Safety in 1775.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Mid-18th century large 16 by 30 foot post structure with two small brick
outbuildings. Excavated by Kicotan Chapter of the Archaeological Society of
Virginia, 1989-1992.
Excavation Rpt:
None.
No. of Bones:
7784 (3318 identifiable, 4466 unidentifiable). 42.6% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
1059
1518
168
521
29
7
46
121
6
13.6%
19.5
2.2
6.7
0.4
0.1
0.6
1.6
0.1
20/1
29/2
13/4
17
3
3
10
10/6
3
16.5%
24.4
13.4
13.4
2.4
2.4
7.9
12.6
2.4
Totals
7784
100.0% 114/13
247
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
8050.0
3000.0
515.0
200.9
10.3
16.0
138.0
31.0
0.0
65.1%
24.3
4.2
1.6
0.1
0.1
1.1
0.3
0.0
100.0% 12370.2
100.0%
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
278.48
87.80
16.21
6.41
0.42
0.24
2.12
1.06
0.09
57.0%
18.0
3.3
1.3
0.1
0.0
0.4
0.2
0.0
488.36 100.0%
Gloucester Point
44GL197
Rural Sites, Mid- to Late 18th Century
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins, Gwenyth Duncan, and Jeremiah Dandoy, 1996, for Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Merchant James Terry owned land circa 1707-1734; no record of later
owners.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Building XIV, a 30 x 20 foot foundation dated to circa 1760. Excavated by
Virginia Department of Historic Resources, directed by David K. Hazzard,
1982.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Survey and Data Recovery at the College of William and
Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester Point, Virginia, by
David K. Hazzard and Martha W. McCartney. Virginia Department of
Historic Resources, Richmond. 1993.
No. of Bones:
13,356 (3057 identifiable, 10299 unidentifiable). 22.9% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
NISP
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
957
1076
218
1128
55
38
8
87
126
13356
Totals
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
7.2%
8.1
1.6
8.4
0.4
0.3
0.1
0.7
0.9
13/4
17/4
10/5
24
3
4/2
0
9/2
5/4
15.6%
19.3
13.8
22.0
2.8
5.5
0.0
10.1
8.3
5400.0
1900.0
425.0
301.5
6.6
45.0
0.0
24.5
0.0
63.5%
22.3
5.0
3.5
0.1
0.5
0.0
0.3
0.0
100.0%
88/21
100.0%
8502.6
100.0%
248
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
328.43
73.32
18.90
6.23
1.60
1.20
0.10
1.71
11.30
50.8%
11.3
2.9
1.0
0.2
0.2
0.0
0.3
1.7
646.08 100.0%
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
44PG381
Rural Sites, Mid- to Late 18th Century
Analyzed by:
Gregory J. Brown and Susan Andrews, 1996, for William and Mary Center
for Archaeological Research.
Household:
Theodorick Bland Sr (early 1760s-1782); Theodorick Bland Jr and Martha
Bland (1785-1798). Planters.
Faunal Rpt:
Faunal Analysis of 44PG381, Hopewell, Virginia, by Gregory J. Brown and
Susan Andrews. William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research,
College of William and Mary. May 1996.
Description:
Bones were from Feature 104, a mid to late eighteenth-century trash-filled
ravine. Full analysis was undertaken of Section 7, the northwestern quadrant
of the feature, while all the other bones were sorted and analyzed for aging
information. Excavated by William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research, directed by Kenneth Stuck, July-December 1995.
Excavation Rpt:
Five Thousand Years on the Appomattox: Archaeological Data Recovery at
Site 44PG381 Associated with the Route 10 Bridge Widening, Prince George
County, Virginia, by Kenneth E. Stuck, Dennis B. Blanton, Charles M.
Downing, Veronica L. Deitrick, Gregory J. Brown, Susan T. Andrews, and
Joanne Bowen. Prepared for Virginia Department of Transportation by
William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research. December 1996.
No. of Bones:
Over 10,000 total; 3934 fully analyzed (1695 identifiable, 2239 unidentifiable).
43.1 % identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
314
789
56
260
165
18
6
19
0
8.0%
20.1
1.4
6.6
4.2
0.5
0.2
0.5
0.0
6/3
18/6
4
3
6
7/4
3/1
3/1
0
13.4%
35.8
6.0
4.5
9.0
16.4
6.0
6.0
0.0
2550.0
2100.0
140.0
107.0
22.3
34.5
105.0
8.5
0.0
50.2%
41.3
2.8
2.1
0.4
0.7
2.1
0.2
0.0
3934
100.0%
52/15
100.0%
5081.3
100.0%
249
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
110.38
61.30
8.85
4.10
1.99
0.57
0.81
0.29
0.00
41.3%
22.9
3.3
1.5
0.7
0.2
0.3
0.1
0.0
267.15 100.0%
Settlers Landing Road
44HT68
Rural Sites, Late 18th to Early 19th C.
Analyzed by:
Gregory J. Brown, 1987, for Virginia Department of Transportation.
Household:
Unknown.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Late eighteenth-century site consisting of one major dwelling. Fish bones
identified by Elizabeth J. Reitz. Excavated by Virginia Department of
Transportation, directed by Lyle Browning, mid-1980s.
Excavation Rpt:
None.
No. of Bones:
2148 (1058 identifiable, 1090 unidentifiable). 49.3% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
268
383
43
172
23
42
2
51
20
12.5%
17.8
2.0
8.0
1.1
2.0
0.1
2.4
0.9
5/2
8/2
4
15
1
9
2
9
4
10.9%
15.6
6.3
23.4
1.6
14.1
3.1
14.1
6.3
2100.0
900.0
140.0
152.5
1.0
18.5
101.0
33.0
0.0
54.6%
23.4
3.6
4.0
0.0
0.5
2.6
0.9
0.0
2148
100.0%
60/4
100.0%
3846.2
100.0%
250
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
88.16
37.33
5.10
3.17
0.79
1.93
0.23
2.51
1.09
48.1%
20.4
2.8
1.7
0.4
1.1
0.1
1.4
0.6
183.26 100.0%
Thomas Brown Site
44FX1965
Rural Sites, Late 18th to Early 19th C.
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, Gregory J. Brown, and Susan Andrews, 1996, for William and
Mary Center for Archaeological Research.
Household:
James Hardage Lane and Mary Lane (1778-1810). Planter.
Faunal Rpt:
Faunal Analysis of 44FX1965, Fairfax County, Virginia, by Joanne Bowen,
Gregory J. Brown, and Susan Andrews. William and Mary Center for
Archaeological Research, College of William and Mary. October 1996.
Description:
Mid to late eighteenth-century farmstead consisting of a kitchen, several trash
pits, root cellars, and midden deposits. The east side of the site is the location
of possible slave quarters. Earlier analysis done for a prior investigation of the
site is in Faunal Analysis of Site 44FX1965, by Gregory J. Brown, William
and Mary Center for Archaeological Research (November 1993). Excavated
by William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, directed by Thomas
F. Higgins III and Kenneth Stuck, May-July 1996.
Excavation Rpt:
A Post-Revolutionary Farmstead in Northern Virginia: Archaeological Data
Recovery at Site 44FX1965 Associated with the Proposed Interstate 66
Widening and Route 28 Interchange Project, Fairfax and Prince William
Counties, Virginia, by Thomas F. Higgins III, Charles M. Downing, Kenneth
E. Stuck, Deborah L. Davenport, Joanne Bowen, Gregory J. Brown, and
Susan T. Andrews. Prepared for Dewberry & Davis by William and Mary
Center for Archaeological Research. February 1997.
No. of Bones:
2380 (823 identifiable, 1557 unidentifiable). 34.6% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
135
334
33
92
7
33
23
86
25
5.7%
14.0
1.4
3.9
0.3
1.4
1.0
3.6
1.1
4/1
6/3
4/1
9
3
10
6
10
5/1
7.4%
13.2
7.4
13.2
4.4
14.7
8.8
14.7
8.8
1650.0
750.0
155.0
23.5
3.9
36.5
113.0
35.5
0.0
52.0%
23.6
4.9
0.7
0.1
1.2
3.6
1.1
0.0
2380
100.0%
60/8
100.0%
3173.4
100.0%
251
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
40.54
22.67
5.00
0.86
0.26
1.37
0.93
1.98
0.30
30.1%
16.8
3.7
0.6
0.2
1.0
0.7
1.5
0.2
134.86 100.0%
Massie Farm
44JC240
Rural Sites, Early 19th Century
Analyzed by:
Gregory J. Brown, 1990, for William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research.
Household:
Allen Marston (1805-1832); John Marston (1832-1866). High-status planters
owning 430 acres of land.
Faunal Rpt:
Faunal Analysis of Site 44JC240, Lightfoot, Virginia, by Gregory J. Brown.
William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, College of William
and Mary. December 1990.
Description:
Early nineteenth-century plantation complex, including slave quarter, two
possible kitchen/laundries, enclosed livestock area, several outbuildings with
cellars (including remains of an icehouse and dairy). Excavated by William and
Mary Center for Archaeological Research, directed by Joe B. Jones, October
1990.
Excavation Rpt:
Phase III Data Recovery at Site 44JC240, Massie Farm Property, James City
County, Virginia, by Joe B. Jones and Charles M. Downing. Prepared for
Crown American Corporation by William and Mary Center for Archaeological
Research. WMCAR Technical Report Series No. 4. June 1991.
No. of Bones:
3384 (950 identifiable, 2434 unidentifiable). 28.1% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
122
347
29
212
10
30
105
41
11
3.6%
10.3
0.9
6.3
0.3
0.9
3.1
1.2
0.3
3/1
5/1
2
15
3
8
10
4
3
6.9%
10.3
3.4
25.9
5.2
13.8
17.2
6.9
5.2
1250.0
550.0
70.0
177.5
13.3
22.0
125.0
10.0
0.0
56.2%
24.7
3.1
8.0
0.6
1.0
5.6
0.4
0.0
3384
100.0%
56/2
100.0%
2225.0
100.0%
252
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
23.48
15.06
1.94
3.03
0.52
0.73
1.64
0.51
0.13
35.4%
22.7
2.9
4.6
0.8
1.1
2.5
0.8
0.2
66.40 100.0%
Hewick Plantation
44MX28
Rural Sites, Early 19th Century
Analyzed by:
Elaine S. Davis, 1995, for College of William and Mary.
Household:
William and Elizabeth Robinson Steptoe (1782-1804); Elizabeth Robinson
Steptoe (1804-1832). Planters.
Faunal Rpt:
A Faunal Analysis of Site 44MX28, Hewick Plantation, Middlesex County,
Virginia, by Elaine S. Davis. Senior B.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology,
College of William and Mary. May 1995.
Description:
Analysis of Layer 2 of early nineteenth-century cellar fill on site. Layer dates
to the refurbishment of the house circa 1811. Excavated by the College of
William and Mary, directed by Theodore Reinhart, 1989-1990s.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeology of a Female Landowner 1768-1832, by Marie Blake. M.A.
thesis, Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary. 1994.
No. of Bones:
2731 (786 identifiable, 1945 unidentifiable). 28.8% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
103
265
36
890
39
10
3
56
11
3.8%
9.7
1.3
32.6
1.4
0.4
0.1
2.1
0.4
6/1
5/4
2/1
22
6
5
2
5/2
3
10.8%
13.8
4.6
33.8
9.2
7.7
3.1
10.8
4.6
2450.0
700.0
85.0
320.0
17.1
13.5
115.0
14.5
0.0
65.8%
18.8
2.3
8.6
0.5
0.4
3.1
0.4
0.0
2731
100.0%
57/8
100.0%
3722.1
100.0%
253
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
46.63
11.38
3.29
4.49
0.87
0.24
0.27
0.43
0.20
51.9%
12.7
3.7
5.0
1.0
0.3
0.3
0.5
0.2
89.89 100.0%
Fort Chiswell
44WY19
Frontier Sites, 1750s
Analyzed by:
Jeffrey Watts-Roy, 1995, for Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
Household:
Alexander Sayers, Scots-Irish immigrant planter (ca. 1754-1758). Middling,
captain in local militia.
Faunal Rpt:
The Frontier, Food Remains, and Archaeological Meaning, by Jeffrey WattsRoy. M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary.
1995.
Description:
Site is in Wythe County, west of Blue Ridge. Analysis of bones from
occupation of Alexander Sayers, Scots-Irish immigrant, in 1750s. Excavated
by Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 1970s.
Excavation Rpt:
Excavations at Fort Chiswell: An Archaeological Perspective of Virginia’s
Western Frontier, by Thomas C. Funk, with contributions by Michael A.
Hoffman, Ann Marie Holup, John Reuwer, and Candace M.P. Smith.
University of Virginia Laboratory of Archaeology. June 1976.
No. of Bones:
5144 (1310 identifiable, 3434 unidentifiable). 25.5% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
398
122
40
3
2
102
503
4
0
7.7%
2.4
0.8
0.1
0.0
2.0
9.8
0.1
0.0
4/1
3/1
2
1
2
7
25/4
2
0
8.8%
7.0
3.5
1.8
3.5
12.3
50.9
3.5
0.0
1650.0
350.0
70.0
2.0
10.3
45.5
2095.0
5.0
0.0
38.9%
8.2
1.6
0.0
0.2
1.1
49.3
0.1
0.0
5144
100.0%
51/6
100.0%
4245.8
100.0%
254
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
102.48
11.92
6.75
0.10
0.09
4.11
86.52
0.10
0.00
28.4%
3.3
1.9
0.0
0.0
1.1
24.0
0.0
0.0
360.75 100.0%
Public Hospital
Block 4, Area C
Williamsburg Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, 1984, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Francis Nicholson (1699-1706). Governor.
Faunal Rpt:
Faunal Analysis of the Jones and Nicholson Cellar, the Public Hospital Site,
by Stanley J. Olsen.
Description:
Wood-lined pit associated with Nicholson cellar (ca. 1675-1725). Excavated
by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by Ivor Noël Hume, 1973.
Excavation Rpt:
None.
No. of Bones:
697 (290 identifiable, 407 unidentifiable). 41.6% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
122
72
22
42
1
4
2
32
0
17.5%
10.3
3.2
6.0
0.1
0.6
0.3
4.6
0.0
7
7
5
3
1
2
2
6
0
20.0%
20.0
14.3
8.6
2.9
5.7
5.7
17.1
0.0
2800.0
700.0
175.0
7.8
3.0
7.5
101.0
18.5
0.0
73.4%
18.3
4.6
0.2
0.1
0.2
2.6
0.5
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
Totals
697
100.0%
35
100.0%
3814.8
100.0%
—
—
255
Firehouse
Block 15, Area C
Williamsburg Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, 1984, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Probably Benjamin Hanson (1710-1754). Butcher and glazier.
Faunal Rpt:
Salvage Excavations at the Old Firehouse Site, Block 15, Area C, by Patricia
Samford with contributions by Joanne Bowen. Department of Archaeological
Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. June 1990.
Description:
Features, including possible privy pit, found during construction of buildings
on Merchant Square and salvaged. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation, directed by Patricia M. Samford, April 1983.
Excavation Rpt:
Salvage Excavations at the Old Firehouse Site, Block 15, Area C, by Patricia
Samford with contributions by Joanne Bowen. Department of Archaeological
Research, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. June 1990.
No. of Bones:
4486 (1929 identifiable, 2657 unidentifiable). 42.1% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
523
376
880
61
2
9
3
9
2
11.4%
8.2
19.2
1.3
0.0
0.2
0.1
0.2
0.0
17
8
46
5
1
4
2
7
1
18.3%
8.6
49.5
5.4
1.1
4.3
2.2
7.5
1.1
6800.0
800.0
1610.0
114.5
3.0
21.5
115.0
24.5
0.0
71.6%
8.4
17.0
1.2
0.0
0.2
1.2
0.3
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
4586
100.0%
93
100.0%
9492.5
100.0%
—
—
256
Peyton Randolph (Planting Beds)
Block 28, Area G
Williamsburg Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Joanne Bowen, 1984-1986, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Sir John Randolph (1724-1737). Wealthy planter. Had plantation and land
adjoining town.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Four large planting beds, ranging in size from 8 x 20 feet to 12 x 32 feet, lined
with a variety of material, including oyster shell, wine bottle glass, and animal
bone. The beds appear to have been in use between 1718 and circa 1740.
Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by Andrew
Edwards, 1982-1985.
Excavation Rpt:
A View from the Top: Archaeological Investigations of Peyton Randolph’s
Urban Plantation, by Andrew C. Edwards, Linda K. Derry, and Roy A.
Jackson. Department of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation. February 1988.
No. of Bones:
1845 (1260 identifiable; 585 unidentifiable). 68.3% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
690
408
26
7
0
0
0
2
0
37.4%
22.1
1.4
0.4
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1845
100.0%
—
—
—
—
—
—
257
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Block 29, Area C
Williamsburg Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins, 1995, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Dr. Archibald Blair (1716-1733); John Blair (1733-1740s). A. Blair was a
immigrant from Scotland, a physician, tradesman, apothecary, and planter.
Son John Blair was member of gentry. A. Blair’s brother Reverend James
Blair was Commissary of the Bishop of London and rector of Bruton Parish
Church.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Root cellar, 5 x 5 feet, under kitchen. Bottle seal reading “John Blair 1731”
was found in the fill. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation,
directed by Meredith M. Poole, 1992.
Excavation Rpt:
None.
No. of Bones:
1547 (527 identifiable, 1020 unidentifiable). 34.1% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
64
78
58
105
8
30
1
103
12
4.1%
5.0
3.7
6.8
0.5
1.9
0.1
6.7
0.8
2/1
3
4
7
1
5/1
1
5/5
4/1
6.3%
6.3
8.3
14.6
2.1
12.5
2.1
20.8
10.4
850.0
300.0
140.0
131.5
1.0
32.0
0.0
17.5
0.0
56.6%
20.0
9.3
8.7
0.1
2.1
0.0
1.2
0.0
1547
100.0%
40/8
100.0%
1503.0
100.0%
258
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
13.66
6.55
7.58
0.40
0.12
0.68
0.01
0.96
0.14
28.3%
13.6
15.7
0.8
0.2
1.4
0.0
2.0
0.3
48.27 100.0%
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Block 29, Area F
Williamsburg Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins, Susan T. Andrews, and Elise Manning-Sterling, 1990-1992,
for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
John Brush (1717-1727). Gunsmith. Born in England, brought to Virginia by
Governor Spotswood.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Ravine filled in first quarter of 18th century with household refuse of gunsmith
John Brush. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by
Patricia M. Samford, 1987-1989.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Investigations at the Brush-Everard Site, by Patricia M.
Samford. Department of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation. October 1997.
No. of Bones:
1555 (420 identifiable; 1135 unidentifiable). 27.0% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
187
134
29
3
6
1
4
31
8
12.0%
8.6
1.9
0.2
0.4
0.1
0.3
2.0
0.5
5/3
7
4
1
1
1
2
2/2
1
25.8%
22.6
12.9
3.2
3.2
3.2
6.5
12.9
3.2
2150.0
700.0
140.0
18.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
7.0
0.0
62.7%
20.4
4.1
0.5
0.1
0.1
0.0
0.2
0.0
1555
100.0%
26/5
100.0%
3428.0
100.0%
259
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
61.70
16.70
5.22
0.20
0.49
0.02
0.18
0.46
0.39
55.4%
15.0
4.7
0.2
0.4
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.4
111.28 100.0%
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
Block 29, Area G
Williamsburg Sites, 1700-1740
Analyzed by:
Stephen C. Atkins, 1990, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
John Brush (1717-1727). Gunsmith. Born in England, brought to Virginia by
Governor Spotswood.
Faunal Rpt:
Archaeological Investigations at the Brush-Everard Site, by Patricia M.
Samford. Department of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation. October 1997.
Description:
Privy containing household refuse of gunsmith John Brush. Composed of two
levels of fill (Macro-Features 002 and 020). Excavated by Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation, directed by Patricia M. Samford, 1987-1989.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Investigations at the Brush-Everard Site, by Patricia M.
Samford. Department of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation. October 1997.
No. of Bones:
2337 (863 identifiable, 1474 unidentifiable). 36.9% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
312
352
25
40
1
4
6
38
61
13.4%
15.1
1.1
1.7
0.0
0.2
0.3
1.6
2.6
8/1
8/3
3/1
6
1
2
3
7/3
2/1
17.0%
20.8
7.5
11.3
1.9
3.8
5.7
18.9
5.7
3250.0
950.0
120.0
156.5
3.0
9.5
103.0
24.0
0.0
64.7%
18.9
2.4
3.1
0.1
0.2
2.0
0.5
0.0
2337
100.0%
44/9
100.0%
5025.0
100.0%
260
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
155.29
25.82
3.65
0.41
0.11
0.15
0.71
0.71
1.39
69.6%
11.6
1.6
0.2
0.0
0.1
0.3
0.3
0.6
223.06 100.0%
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Block 9, Area L
Williamsburg Sites, 1735-1757
Analyzed by:
Roni H. Polk, 1989, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
James and Anne Shields (1745-1751). Middling tavernkeepers. Owned
plantations at Skimino and Mill Swamp.
Faunal Rpt:
Archaeological Investigations of the Shields Tavern Site, Williamsburg,
Virginia, by Gregory J. Brown, Thomas F. Higgins III, David F. Muraca, S.
Kathleen Pepper, and Roni H. Polk. Department of Archaeological Research,
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. April 1990.
Description:
Faunal remains came from several sheet refuse layers and a number of
features, including an outbuilding, walkway, and brick paving. Excavated by
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by Thomas F. Higgins III and
David F. Muraca, August 1985-July 1986.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Investigations of the Shields Tavern Site, Williamsburg,
Virginia, by Gregory J. Brown, Thomas F. Higgins III, David F. Muraca, S.
Kathleen Pepper, and Roni H. Polk. Department of Archaeological Research,
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. April 1990.
No. of Bones:
677 (677 identifiable, 0 unidentifiable). 100.0% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
171
177
124
41
0
21
11
44
8
25.3%
26.1
18.3
6.1
0.0
3.1
1.6
6.5
1.2
5/1
8/2
10/1
15
0
12
3
11/2
3
7.9%
13.2
14.5
19.7
0.0
15.8
3.9
17.1
3.9
2050.0
900.0
365.0
335.5
0.0
39.8
202.0
36.5
0.0
47.4%
20.8
8.4
7.7
0.0
0.9
4.7
0.8
0.0
Totals
677
100.0%
70/6
100.0%
4329.1
100.0%
261
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
11.73
6.89
4.76
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.08
0.14
0.00
49.2%
28.9
20.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.3
0.6
0.0
23.84 100.0%
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
Block 29, Area G
Williamsburg Sites, 1735-1757
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins and Joanne Bowen, 1992, for Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation.
Household:
George Gilmer (1735-1757). Immigrant from Scotland, an apothecary.
Brother-in-law Thomas Walker had large estate.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Trash pit filled by apothecary George Gilmer in second quarter of 18th
century. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by Patricia
M. Samford, 1987-1989.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Investigations at the Brush-Everard Site, by Patricia M.
Samford. Department of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation. October 1997.
No. of Bones:
1818 (756 identifiable, 1062 unidentifiable). 41.6% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
407
204
55
21
0
14
6
17
17
22.4%
11.2
3.0
1.2
0.0
0.8
0.3
0.9
0.9
11/3
18
9
1
0
5
2
2
3
25.0%
32.1
16.1
1.8
0.0
8.9
3.6
3.6
5.4
4550.0
1800.0
315.0
100.0
0.0
17.0
200.0
5.0
0.0
61.6%
24.4
4.3
1.4
0.0
0.2
2.7
0.1
0.0
1818
100.0%
53/3
100.0%
7388.5
100.0%
262
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
163.99
35.12
9.64
0.53
0.00
0.42
2.91
0.35
0.67
61.5%
13.2
3.6
0.2
0.0
0.2
1.1
0.1
0.3
266.77 100.0%
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Block 4, Area B
Williamsburg Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Stephen C. Atkins, Gwenyth A. Duncan, and Jeremiah R. Dandoy, 1996, for
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
.Household:
John Custis (died 1749); Daniel Parke Custis (1749-1757); slave caretakers
(1757); lawyer Bartholomew Dandridge (1760); upholsterer Joseph Kidd
(1770); coach builder and brass worker P. Hardy (1772); Dr. McClurg (1778).
J. Custis was wealthy planter, owning land in Jamestown, 13,000-acre
plantation in King William County, 1000-acre Bridge Quarter and Ship
Landing plantations in York County.
Faunal Rpt:
Vertebrate Remains from the John Custis Well, by Stanley J. Olsen.
Description:
Small part of 49 x 23 foot main dwelling, 28.5 x 24 foot kitchen, trash pit, 10
x 10 foot dairy, two wells. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation,
directed by Ivor Noël Hume, March-November 1964 and May-July 1968.
Excavation Rpt:
The Archaeological Evidence Uncovered on the Custis Site, by Ivor Noël
Hume. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 1968?.
No. of Bones:
3091 (1225 identifiable, 4866 unidentifiable). 39.6 % identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
470
403
99
84
6
23
19
46
3
15.2%
13.0
3.2
2.7
0.2
0.7
0.6
1.5
0.1
11/5
12/3
7/1
2
1
2/1
6
3/4
2
21.9%
20.5
11.0
2.7
1.4
4.1
8.2
9.6
2.7
4650.0
1350.0
260.0
101.0
0.3
22.5
225.0
11.5
0.0
62.4%
18.1
3.5
1.4
0.0
0.3
3.0
0.2
0.0
3091
100.0%
56/17
100.0%
7456.5
100.0%
263
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
174.82
43.47
14.22
2.59
0.19
0.91
3.17
0.80
0.53
49.5%
12.3
4.0
0.7
0.1
0.3
0.9
0.2
0.1
353.17 100.0%
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Block 19, Area B
Williamsburg Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Stephen C. Atkins, Gwenyth A. Duncan, and Jeremiah R. Dandoy, 1996, for
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
James Geddy I (1738-1744); David and William Geddy (1744-ca. 1760);
James Geddy II (ca. 1760-1777). J. Geddy I was a gunsmith and brass
founder, sons David and William were smiths, son J. Geddy II was a
silversmith.
Faunal Rpt:
Animal Remains from the James Geddy House Site, by Stanley J. Olsen.
Description:
12 x 16 foot kitchen (Str. E1) expanded with addition (Str. E2). Rebuilt circa
1770 as Str. F. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by
Ivor Noël Hume and R. Neil Frank, 1966-1967.
Excavation Rpt:
James Geddy and Sons, Colonial Craftsmen, by Ivor Noël Hume. Colonial
Williamsburg Archaeological Series No. 5. 1970.
The James Geddy Site, Block 19, Area B, Colonial Lot 161: Report on 1966
and 1967 Archaeological Excavations, by R. Neil Frank, Jr. Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation. December 1969.
No. of Bones:
2040 (957 identifiable, 1083 unidentifiable). 46.9% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
488
328
96
9
0
3
1
9
0
23.9%
16.1
4.7
0.4
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.4
0.0
10/6
15/2
8
3
0
1
1
3
0
30.8%
32.7
15.4
5.8
0.0
1.9
1.9
5.8
0.0
4300.0
1600.0
280.0
143.0
0.0
7.5
100.0
7.5
0.0
66.7%
24.8
4.3
2.2
0.0
0.1
1.6
0.1
0.0
2040
100.0%
44/8
100.0%
6447.0
100.0%
264
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
161.58
39.74
13.78
0.83
0.00
0.15
0.63
0.28
0.00
59.6%
14.7
5.1
0.3
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.1
0.0
271.11 100.0%
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Block 28, Area D
Williamsburg Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Stephen C. Atkins, Gwenyth A. Duncan, and Jeremiah R. Dandoy, 1996, for
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Anthony Hay (1756-1767); Benjamin Bucktrout (1769-1771); Edmund
Dickinson (1771-1776). All were cabinetmakers. A. Hay was once owner of
the Raleigh Tavern as well.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Early 18th-century dwelling; shop probably built 1745-1756, with addition
added in 1760s; kitchen built by 1780s. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation, directed by Ivor Noël Hume, 1960.
Excavation Rpt:
Williamsburg Cabinetmakers: The Archaeological Evidence, by Ivor Noël
Hume. Colonial Williamsburg Archaeological Series No. 6. 1971.
The Anthony Hay Site, Block 28, Area D, Colonial Lots 263 and 264: Report
on Archaeological Excavations of 1959-1960, by Ivor Noël Hume. Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation. April 1961.
No. of Bones:
2052 (814 identifiable, 1238 unidentifiable). 39.7% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
335
269
103
18
1
5
2
16
1
16.3%
13.1
5.0
0.9
0.0
0.2
0.1
0.8
0.0
11/4
21/3
14/1
1
1
2
2
3/2
1
20.5%
32.9
20.5
1.4
1.4
2.7
2.7
6.8
1.4
4600.0
2250.0
505.0
100.0
1.0
7.5
10.0
9.5
0.0
52.9%
25.9
5.8
1.1
0.0
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.0
2052
100.0%
63/10
100.0%
8699.2
100.0%
265
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
197.41
46.44
21.21
0.68
0.03
2.40
0.07
0.49
0.96
49.0%
11.5
5.3
0.2
0.0
0.6
0.0
0.1
0.2
403.29 100.0%
Brush-Everard
(Thomas Everard Period)
Block 29, Area F
Williamsburg Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins and Susan T. Andrews, 1992, for Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation.
Household:
Thomas Everard (1752-1781). Wealthy landowner, one-time mayor of
Williamsburg.
Faunal Rpt:
Who Went to Market?: An Urban and Rural Late Eighteenth-Century
Perspective Based on Faunal Assemblages from Curles Neck Plantation and
the Everard Site, by Susan Trevarthen. M.A. thesis, Department of
Anthropology, College of William and Mary. 1993.
Description:
Post-1770 ravine deposits near the Brush-Everard house. Excavated by
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by Patricia M. Samford,19871989.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Investigations at the Brush-Everard Site, by Patricia M.
Samford. Department of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation. October 1997.
No. of Bones:
6386 (1952 identifiable, 4434 unidentifiable). 30.6% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
520
630
205
139
2
107
9
171
21
8.1%
9.9
3.2
2.2
0.0
1.7
0.1
2.7
0.3
9/5
20/3
10/1
13
1
13
3
13/13
2
13.0%
21.3
10.2
12.0
0.9
12.0
2.8
24.1
1.9
3850.0
2150.0
365.0
178.9
3.0
40.5
109.0
49.0
0.0
57.0%
31.8
5.4
2.6
0.0
0.6
1.6
0.7
0.0
6386
100.0%
86/22
100.0%
6759.4
100.0%
266
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
169.27
62.22
20.23
2.12
0.13
1.95
1.04
2.08
0.84
49.3%
18.1
5.9
0.6
0.0
0.6
0.3
0.6
0.2
343.37 100.0%
Brush-Everard
(Late Thomas Everard Period)
Block 29, Area F
Williamsburg Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Stephen Atkins, Susan T. Andrews, and Elise Manning-Sterling, 1990, for
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Thomas Everard (1752-1781). Wealthy landowner, one-time mayor of
Williamsburg.
Faunal Rpt:
Who Went to Market?: An Urban and Rural Late Eighteenth-Century
Perspective Based on Faunal Assemblages from Curles Neck Plantation and
the Everard Site, by Susan Trevarthen. M.A. thesis, Department of
Anthropology, College of William and Mary. 1993.
Description:
Post-1770 ravine deposits near the Brush-Everard house. Excavated by
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by Patricia M. Samford,19871989.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Investigations at the Brush-Everard Site, by Patricia M.
Samford. Department of Archaeological Research, Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation. October 1997.
No. of Bones:
1874 (747 identifiable, 1127 unidentifiable). 39.9% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
88
227
85
116
1
54
3
90
0
4.7%
12.1
4.5
6.2
0.1
2.9
0.2
4.8
0.0
3/3
7/1
6/1
6
1
10
2
14
0
10.9%
14.5
12.7
10.9
1.8
18.2
3.6
25.5
0.0
1350.0
750.0
225.0
148.5
1.0
43.0
9.0
52.5
0.0
52.3%
29.1
8.7
5.8
0.0
1.7
0.3
2.0
0.0
1874
100.0%
50/5
100.0%
2579.0
100.0%
267
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
20.13
18.90
8.04
2.10
0.03
1.45
0.09
1.21
0.00
25.3%
23.7
10.1
2.6
0.0
1.8
0.1
1.5
0.0
79.71 100.0%
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Block 4, Area B
Williamsburg Sites, 1775-1800
Analyzed by:
Stephen C. Atkins, Gwenyth A. Duncan, and Jeremiah R. Dandoy, 1996, for
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Land owned by John Parke Custis (1750-ca. 1781). Occupied by tenants
(1778-1811). Custis owned land in Hanover, York, Northhampton, and New
Kent Counties.
Faunal Rpt:
Vertebrate Remains from the John Custis Well, by Stanley J. Olsen.
Description:
Small part of 49 x 23 foot main dwelling, 28.5 x 24 foot kitchen, trash pit, 10
x 10 foot dairy, two wells. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation,
directed by Ivor Noël Hume, March-November 1964 and May-July 1968.
Excavation Rpt:
The Archaeological Evidence Uncovered on the Custis Site, by Ivor Noël
Hume. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 1968?.
No. of Bones:
3092 (1513 identifiable, 1579 unidentifiable). 48.9% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
354
552
132
246
7
43
7
99
21
11.4%
17.9
4.3
8.0
0.2
1.4
0.2
3.2
0.7
9/2
17/6
9/5
12
4
12/1
5
9/9
2/2
9.2%
19.2
11.7
10.0
3.3
10.8
4.2
15.0
3.3
3700.0
2000.0
390.0
139.9
6.6
38.9
28.0
31.5
0.0
54.7%
29.6
5.8
2.1
0.1
0.6
0.4
0.5
0.0
3092
100.0%
93/27
100.0%
6759.9
100.0%
268
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
128.23
54.02
17.69
3.03
2.06
1.31
0.25
1.88
0.23
44.5%
18.8
6.1
1.1
0.7
0.5
0.1
0.7
0.1
288.10 100.0%
Shields Tavern (John Draper Period)
Block 9, Area L
Williamsburg Sites, 1775-1800
Analyzed by:
Gregory J. Brown, 1989, for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
John Draper (1768-1780). Blacksmith.
Faunal Rpt:
The Faunal Remains from the John Draper Well: An Investigation in
Historic-Period Zooarchaeology, by Gregory J. Brown. M.A. thesis, San
Francisco State University, San Francisco. 1989.
Description:
Blacksmith assemblage, circa 1768-1780. Faunal remains came from a well,
forge features, and sheet refuse. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation, directed by Thomas F. Higgins III and David F. Muraca, August
1985-July 1986.
Excavation Rpt:
Archaeological Investigations of the Shields Tavern Site, Williamsburg,
Virginia, by Gregory J. Brown, Thomas F. Higgins III, David F. Muraca, S.
Kathleen Pepper, and Roni H. Polk. Department of Archaeological Research,
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. April 1990.
No. of Bones:
6171 (1382 identifiable, 4789 unidentifiable). 22.4% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
282
482
91
797
0
33
7
162
62
4.6%
7.8
1.5
12.9
0.0
0.5
0.1
2.6
1.0
6/3
13/4
10/1
7
0
8/2
4
9/1
3
12.3%
23.3
15.1
9.6
0.0
13.7
5.5
13.7
4.1
2550.0
1500.0
365.0
157.5
0.0
31.5
110.0
30.5
0.0
49.6%
29.2
7.1
3.1
0.0
0.6
2.1
0.6
0.0
6171
100.0%
62/11
100.0%
5144.5
100.0%
269
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
91.74
34.14
9.87
3.78
0.00
0.57
1.19
1.18
1.40
44.8%
16.7
4.8
1.8
0.0
0.3
0.6
0.6
0.7
204.71 100.0%
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Block 19, Area B
Williamsburg Sites, 1775-1800
Analyzed by:
Stephen C. Atkins, Gwenyth A. Duncan, and Jeremiah R. Dandoy, 1996, for
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
James Geddy I (1738-1744); David and William Geddy (1744-ca. 1760);
James Geddy II (ca. 1760-1777). J. Geddy I was a gunsmith and brass
founder, sons David and William were smiths, son J. Geddy II was a
silversmith.
Faunal Rpt:
Animal Remains from the James Geddy House Site, by Stanley J. Olsen.
Description:
12 x 16 foot kitchen (Str. E1) expanded with addition (Str. E2). Rebuilt circa
1770 as Str. F. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, directed by
Ivor Noël Hume and R. Neil Frank, 1966-1967.
Excavation Rpt:
James Geddy and Sons, Colonial Craftsmen, by Ivor Noël Hume. Colonial
Williamsburg Archaeological Series No. 5. 1970.
The James Geddy Site, Block 19, Area B, Colonial Lot 161: Report on 1966
and 1967 Archaeological Excavations, by R. Neil Frank, Jr. Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation. December 1969.
No. of Bones:
4500 (1817 identifiable, 2683 unidentifiable). 40.4% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
533
731
137
48
8
25
20
60
204
11.8%
16.2
3.0
1.1
0.2
0.6
0.4
1.3
4.5
12/3
18/2
7/2
8
2
3
6/1
3/8
5
16.5%
22.0
9.9
8.8
2.2
3.3
7.7
12.1
5.5
4950.0
1900.0
275.0
159.5
13.0
8.5
126.8
15.5
0.0
62.8%
24.1
3.5
2.0
0.2
0.1
1.6
0.2
0.0
4500
100.0%
74/17
100.0%
7886.5
100.0%
270
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
241.30
58.39
16.22
1.35
0.46
0.51
1.34
1.02
11.62
58.8%
14.2
3.9
0.3
0.1
0.1
0.3
0.2
2.8
410.64 100.0%
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
Block 28, Area D
Williamsburg Sites, 1775-1800
Analyzed by:
Stephen C. Atkins, Gwenyth A. Duncan, and Jeremiah R. Dandoy, 1996, for
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Household:
Anthony Hay (1756-1767); Benjamin Bucktrout (1769-1771); Edmund
Dickinson (1771-1776). All were cabinetmakers. A. Hay was once owner of
the Raleigh Tavern as well.
Faunal Rpt:
None.
Description:
Early 18th-century dwelling; shop probably built 1745-1756, with addition
added in 1760s; kitchen built by 1780s. Excavated by Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation, directed by Ivor Noël Hume, 1960.
Excavation Rpt:
Williamsburg Cabinetmakers: The Archaeological Evidence, by Ivor Noël
Hume. Colonial Williamsburg Archaeological Series No. 6. 1971.
The Anthony Hay Site, Block 28, Area D, Colonial Lots 263 and 264: Report
on Archaeological Excavations of 1959-1960, by Ivor Noël Hume. Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation. April 1961.
No. of Bones:
1391 (675 identifiable, 716 unidentifiable). 48.5% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
349
191
71
4
1
4
2
8
6
25.1%
13.7
5.1
0.3
0.1
0.3
0.1
0.6
0.4
16/3
13/3
10
1
1
2
2
2
2
32.2%
27.1
16.9
1.7
1.7
3.4
3.4
3.4
3.4
6550.0
1450.0
350.0
100.0
1.0
15.0
115.0
5.0
0.0
66.9%
14.8
3.6
1.0
0.0
0.2
1.2
0.1
0.0
1391
100.0%
53/6
100.0%
9788.0
100.0%
271
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
241.42
51.07
13.84
0.19
0.05
0.36
0.55
0.38
0.74
55.5%
11.7
3.2
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.2
435.16 100.0%
Calvert House (Early Period)
18AP28
Annapolis Sites, 1700-1750
Analyzed by:
Elizabeth J. Reitz, 1987, for Historic Annapolis, Inc.
Household:
Charles Calvert (1728-1734); Rebecca and Elizabeth Calvert (1734-1748). C.
Calvert was governor of Maryland.
Faunal Rpt:
Preliminary Analysis of Vertebrate Remains the Calvert Site in Annapolis,
Maryland, and a Comparison with Vertebrate Remains from Sites in South
Carolina, Georgia, and Jamaica, by Elizabeth J. Reitz. Calvert Interim
Report No. 6. Prepared for Historic Annapolis, Inc. by Elizabeth J. Reitz,
Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia. December 1987.
Description:
Postholes (Features 34 and 40) and planting hole (Feature 101). Excavated by
Historic Annapolis, directed by Anne Yentsch, 1985. Entered from hand
written notes.
Excavation Rpt:
A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology,
by Anne E. Yentsch. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1994.
No. of Bones:
4022 (808 identifiable; 3214 unidentifiable). 20.1% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
96
138
123
485
0
70
1
63
21
2.4%
3.4
3.1
12.1
0.0
1.7
0.0
1.6
0.5
7
9
5
9
0
9
1
9
1
13.7%
17.6
9.8
17.6
0.0
17.6
2.0
17.6
2.0
2800.0
900.0
175.0
152.5
0.0
27.5
0.9
20.0
0.0
68.7%
22.1
4.3
3.7
0.0
0.7
0.0
0.5
0.0
4022
100.0%
51
100.0%
4077.9
100.0%
272
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
32.97
18.64
15.83
1.94
0.00
1.40
0.00
0.99
0.12
29.4%
16.6
14.1
1.7
0.0
1.2
0.0
0.9
0.1
112.21 100.0%
Reynolds Tavern
18AP23
Annapolis Sites, 1750-1775
Analyzed by:
Elizabeth J. Reitz, 1989, for Historic Annapolis, Inc.
Household:
William Reynolds (1755-1769). Hat maker and tavernkeeper.
Faunal Rpt:
Vertebrate Fauna from Reynolds Tavern, Annapolis, by Elizabeth J. Reitz.
Prepared for Historic Annapolis, Inc. by Elizabeth J. Reitz, Department of
Anthropology, University of Georgia. May 1989.
Description:
Two trash pits (Features 103/130 and 107) associated with Reynolds
occupation. Entered from hand written notes. Excavated by Historic
Annapolis, Inc., directed by Anne Yentsch and Richard J. Dent, 1982-1984.
Excavation Rpt:
None.
No. of Bones:
5024 (789 identifiable; 4235 unidentifiable). 15.7% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
Taxon
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
Totals
NISP
Pct.
MNI
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
156
109
39
123
8
21
47
92
0
3.1%
2.2
0.8
2.4
0.2
0.4
0.9
1.8
0.0
8
4
6
3
1
4
5
7
0
20.0%
10.0
15.0
7.5
2.5
10.0
12.5
17.5
0.0
3200.0
400.0
210.0
33.5
0.6
22.5
21.0
17.5
0.0
81.9%
10.2
5.4
0.9
0.0
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.0
5024
100.0%
40
100.0%
3908.6
100.0%
273
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
66.24
13.54
6.69
1.67
0.17
0.84
0.59
1.77
0.00
33.1%
6.8
3.3
0.8
0.1
0.4
0.3
0.9
0.0
199.83 100.0%
Calvert House (Late Period)
18AP28
Annapolis Sites, Mid- to Late 18th C.
Analyzed by:
Elizabeth J. Reitz, 1987, for Historic Annapolis, Inc.
Household:
Benedict Calvert (1748-1784). Gentry.
Faunal Rpt:
Preliminary Analysis of Vertebrate Remains the Calvert Site in Annapolis,
Maryland, and a Comparison with Vertebrate Remains from Sites in South
Carolina, Georgia, and Jamaica, by Elizabeth J. Reitz. Calvert Interim
Report No. 6. Prepared for Historic Annapolis, Inc. by Elizabeth J. Reitz,
Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia. December 1987.
Description:
Hypocaust (Feature 5) and brick-lined well (Feature 121). Excavated by
Historic Annapolis, directed by Anne Yentsch, 1985. Entered from hand
written notes.
Excavation Rpt:
A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology,
by Anne E. Yentsch. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1994.
No. of Bones:
17516 (5799 identifiable, 11717 unidentifiable). 33.1% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
NISP
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
476
538
471
3034
11
489
105
166
726
2.7%
3.1
2.7
17.3
0.1
2.8
0.6
0.9
4.1
10
10
7
44
2
29
11
15
27
6.3%
6.3
4.4
27.8
1.3
18.4
7.0
9.5
17.1
4000.0
1000.0
245.0
118.3
10.0
153.0
149.0
37.5
0.0
65.4%
16.4
4.0
1.9
0.2
2.5
2.4
0.6
0.0
17516
100.0%
158
100.0%
6114.8
100.0%
Totals
MNI
274
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
122.38
37.07
39.75
6.65
0.33
11.57
1.30
3.22
11.48
29.6%
9.0
9.6
1.6
0.1
2.8
0.3
0.8
2.8
412.92 100.0%
Jonas Green
18AP29
Annapolis Sites, Late 18th to Early 19th C.
Analyzed by:
Justin Lev-Tov, 1990, for Historic Annapolis, Inc.
Household:
Jonas Green (1738-1767); Anne Catherine Green and son William (17671770); Anne Catherine Green and son Frederick (1770-1775); Frederick and
Samuel Green (1775-1811). All were printers.
Faunal Rpt:
The Faunal Analysis of Jonas Green’s Printshop Cellar in Annapolis,
Maryland, by Justin Lev-Tov. Honors thesis, Department of Anthropology,
University of Maryland, College Park. May 1990.
Description:
Cellar associated with Green print shop. Faunal remains come from Feature
77, cellar fill dated to destruction of house on February 11, 1780. Excavated
by Archaeology in Annapolis and Historic Annapolis, 1983-1986.
Excavation Rpt:
A Summary of Archaeological Excavations from 1983-1986 at the Green
Family Print Shop, 18AP29, Annapolis, Maryland, by C. Jane Cox and John
J. Buckler. Prepared by Archaeology in Annapolis. 1995.
No. of Bones:
8260 (990 identifiable, 7270 unidentifiable). 12.0% identifiable.
Faunal Distribution
MNI
NISP
Pct.
Cattle
Swine
Caprines
Fish
Turtles
Wild Birds
Wild Mammals
Domestic Birds
Commensals
179
341
74
1396
1
163
0
69
6
2.2%
4.1
0.9
16.9
0.0
2.0
0.0
0.8
0.1
5/2
7/4
5/1
12
1
14
0
7/3
2
10.1%
15.9
8.7
17.4
1.4
20.3
0.0
14.5
2.9
2100.0
900.0
190.0
43.5
1.0
105.0
0.0
20.5
0.0
62.0%
26.6
5.6
1.3
0.0
3.1
0.0
0.6
0.0
Totals
8260
100.0%
59/10
100.0%
3385.2
100.0%
275
Pct.
Meat Wgt
Lbs
Pct.
Taxon
Biomass
Kg
Pct.
56.72
19.71
7.96
2.22
0.02
4.29
0.00
0.88
0.06
35.9%
12.5
5.0
1.4
0.0
2.7
0.0
0.6
0.0
157.92 100.0%
276
APPENDIX 2.
ACCOUNT BOOKS ANALYZED
The documents described in this appendix are the account books that make up the three
aggregate files—store, household, and plantation—described in Appendix 4. Details of each
account book are given: the citation, the date of the source, the sample the aggregate account
book was used in, the location of the household, store, or plantation, and the Number of Records
Entered used in analysis. In addition, a table showing the count and total value of all food
transactions is displayed. The number of records in the database is not necessarily the total
number of food-related items. In some cases, data was collected on services or other household
goods unrelated to food. These items were excluded in the tables on the following pages.
277
ANDERSON AND LOW
1784-1788
Full Citation:
Anderson and Low Account Book, 1784-1788. College of William
and Mary.
Aggregate Sample:
Stores
Location of Store:
Williamsburg, Virginia
Document Owned by:
College of William and Mary
Number of Records Entered: 1,426
Dates of Recorded Data:
1784-1786
CATEGORY
SWEETENERS
ALCOHOL
TEA/COFFEE
MEAT
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
DAIRY
FRUITS/NUTS
FOOD GRAINS
LEGUMES
FOODSTUFFS
BAKERY/BREAD
VEGETABLES
COUNT
300
153
188
7
85
23
58
27
42
15
7
1
PERCENT
33.11%
16.89
20.75
0.77
9.38
2.54
6.40
2.98
4.64
1.66
0.77
0.11
278
TOTAL VALUE
£172.54
131.78
84.49
44.04
24.13
17.98
11.58
11.25
8.21
3.23
1.18
0.04
PERCENT
33.80%
25.82
16.55
8.63
4.73
3.52
2.27
2.21
1.61
0.63
0.23
0.01
JAMES BRAY LEDGER
1736-1746
Full Citation:
Bray, James. Ledger, 1736-1746. Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation.
Aggregate Sample:
Plantation
Location of Plantation:
James City County, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Number of Records Entered: 1,592
Dates of Records Entered: 1736-1746
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
MEAT
ALCOHOL
TEA/COFFEE
FRUITS/NUTS
SWEETENERS
POULTRY
DAIRY
VEGETABLES
FOODSTUFFS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
LEGUMES
COUNT
285
275
186
18
6
41
6
7
5
2
9
3
PERCENT
33.81%
32.62
22.06
2.14
0.71
4.86
0.71
0.83
0.59
0.24
1.07
0.36
279
TOTAL VALUE
£ 357.51
155.88
103.23
11.61
5.24
3.79
1.94
1.77
0.63
0.56
0.51
0.28
PERCENT
55.61%
24.24
16.06
1.81
0.82
0.59
0.30
0.28
0.10
0.09
0.08
0.04
JAMES BRICE LEDGER
Full Citation:
Aggregate Sample:
Location of Store:
Document Owned by:
Number of Records Entered:
Dates of Records Entered:
CATEGORY
MEAT
FOOD GRAINS
DAIRY
ALCOHOL
POULTRY
FISHING EQUIPMENT
SWEETENERS
FISH
FRUITS/NUTS
FOODSTUFFS
VEGETABLES
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
LEGUMES
TEA/COFFEE
1767-1799
Brice, James. Ledger, 1767-1799. Maryland State Archives.
Stores
Annapolis, Maryland
Maryland State Archives
548
1784-1785
COUNT
132
69
31
29
22
3
11
9
8
7
4
3
2
1
PERCENT
39.88%
20.85
9.37
8.76
6.65
0.91
3.32
2.72
2.42
2.11
1.21
0.91
0.60
0.30
280
TOTAL VALUE
£ 1432.52
892.40
67.53
40.87
28.27
13.54
12.54
4.44
3.06
2.55
2.42
1.83
1.20
0.78
PERCENT
57.21%
35.64
2.70
1.63
1.13
0.54
0.50
0.18
0.12
0.10
0.10
0.07
0.05
0.03
NATHANIEL BURWELL MILL DAY BOOK
1775-1777
Full Citation:
Burwell, Nathaniel. Mill Day Book, 1774-1778. George H.
Burwell Collection. Clarke County Historical Society, Berryville,
Virginia.
Aggregate Sample:
Plantation
Location of Plantation:
James City County, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Clarke County Historical Society
Number of Records Entered: 1809
Dates of Records Entered: 1774-1778
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
MONEY
ACCOUNT RECEIVABLE
WAGES
MEAT
MISC. SERVICES
LIVESTOCK
FUEL
ALCOHOL
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
COUNT
1731
48
15
5
2
3
1
2
1
1
PERCENT
95.69%
2.65
0.83
0.28
0.11
0.17
0.06
0.11
0.06
0.06
281
TOTAL VALUE
£ 2105.08
662.92
336.38
313.91
122.78
46.04
11.00
2.40
1.50
1.00
PERCENT
58.43%
18.40
9.34
8.71
3.41
1.28
0.31
0.07
0.04
0.03
NATHANIEL BURWELL DAYBOOKS
1773-1786
Full Citation:
Burwell, Nathaniel. Daybook, 1773-1779; Daybook, 1779-1786.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Aggregate Sample:
Plantation
Location of Plantation:
James City County, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Number of Records Entered: 1988
Dates of Records Entered: 1771-1786
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
ALCOHOL
MEAT
DAIRY
TEA/COFFEE
SWEETENERS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
LEGUMES
SEAFOOD
POULTRY
FOODSTUFFS
FRUITS/NUTS
BAKERY/BREAD
FISH
VEGETABLES
COUNT
665
149
283
83
34
54
39
6
12
11
1
3
4
3
1
PERCENT
49.33%
11.05
20.99
6.16
2.52
4.01
2.89
0.45
0.89
0.82
0.07
0.22
0.30
0.22
0.07
282
TOTAL VALUE
£ 27543.48
6884.81
6592.79
1819.13
1289.28
1152.13
465.75
32.10
22.22
11.24
0.75
0.49
0.38
0.21
0.00
PERCENT
60.12%
15.03
14.39
3.97
2.81
2.52
1.02
0.07
0.05
0.03
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
NATHANIEL BURWELL LEDGER
1785-1808
Full Citation:
Burwell, Nathaniel. Ledger, 1785-1808. George H. Burwell
Collection. Clarke County Historical Society, Berryville, Virginia.
Aggregate Sample:
Plantation
Location of Household:
James City County, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Clarke County Historical Society
Number of Records Entered: 628
Dates of Records Entered: 1785-1808
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
ALCOHOL
MEAT
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
SWEETENERS
DAIRY
TEA/COFFEE
POULTRY
LEGUMES
VEGETABLES
COUNT
295
35
63
13
29
4
8
1
1
1
PERCENT
65.56%
7.78
14.00
2.89
6.44
0.89
1.78
0.22
0.22
0.22
283
TOTAL VALUE
£ 1152.69
204.95
157.45
73.91
17.62
5.17
3.91
2.50
0.50
0.20
PERCENT
71.20%
12.66
9.73
4.57
1.09
0.32
0.24
0.15
0.03
0.01
NATHANIEL BURWELL JR ACCOUNTS
1801-1806
Full Citation:
Burwell, Nathaniel. Philologic Exercise Book, 1801-1806. Clarke
County Historical Society, Berryville, Virginia.
Aggregate Sample:
Plantation
Location of Plantation:
James City County, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Clarke County Historical Society
Number of Records Entered: 1601
Dates of Records Entered: 1801-1806
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
MEAT
ALCOHOL
SWEETENERS
TEA/COFFEE
POULTRY
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
FRUITS/NUTS
SEAFOOD
FISH
VEGETABLES
DAIRY
LEGUMES
BAKERY/BREAD
COUNT
18
36
7
21
11
36
14
15
21
9
5
1
1
5
PERCENT
9.00%
18.00
3.50
10.50
5.50
18.00
7.00
7.50
10.50
4.50
2.50
0.50
0.50
2.50
284
TOTAL VALUE
£ 389.74
55.48
27.06
22.70
7.92
7.30
3.84
3.74
3.35
1.81
1.44
0.89
0.43
0.13
PERCENT
74.12%
10.55
5.15
4.32
1.51
1.39
0.73
0.71
0.64
0.34
0.28
0.17
0.08
0.02
CHARLES CARROLL
Full Citation:
Aggregate Sample:
Location of Household:
Document Owned by:
Number of Records Entered:
Dates of Records Entered:
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
ALCOHOL
MEAT
DAIRY
SWEETENERS
TEA/COFFEE
FISH
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
SEAFOOD
FRUITS/NUTS
POULTRY
BAKERY/BREAD
LEGUMES
VEGETABLES
1720-1812
Carroll, Charles. Account Book, 1720-1812. Library of Congress.
Household
Annapolis, Maryland
Library of Congress
177
1721-1739
COUNT
31
26
39
13
4
3
13
4
13
5
18
4
3
1
PERCENT
17.51%
14.69
22.03
7.34
2.26
1.69
7.34
2.26
7.34
2.82
10.17
2.26
1.69
0.56
285
TOTAL VALUE
£ 482.76
440.97
270.20
48.20
20.03
18.39
8.99
6.75
4.42
3.07
2.95
2.63
0.83
0.10
PERCENT
36.84%
33.66
20.62
3.68
1.53
1.40
0.69
0.52
0.34
0.23
0.23
0.20
0.06
0.01
WILLIAM COFFING ACCOUNT BOOK
1770-1771
Full Citation:
Coffing, William. Account book, 1770-1771. Maryland Historical
Society.
Aggregate Sample:
Stores
Location of Store:
Annapolis, Maryland
Document Owned by:
Maryland Historical Society
Number of Records Entered: 1,430
Dates of Records Entered: 1770-1771
CATEGORY
ALCOHOL
SWEETENERS
MEAT
TEA/COFFEE
FOOD GRAINS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
FOODSTUFFS
FISH
BAKERY/BREAD
DAIRY
LEGUMES
FRUITS/NUTS
COUNT
542
383
25
145
16
56
65
2
2
3
1
2
PERCENT
43.64%
30.84
2.01
11.67
1.29
4.51
5.23
0.16
0.16
0.24
0.08
0.16
286
TOTAL VALUE
£ 279.79
149.07
73.43
52.42
25.38
9.50
7.88
4.00
2.98
1.72
0.36
0.29
PERCENT
46.11%
24.57
12.10
8.64
4.18
1.57
1.30
0.66
0.49
0.28
0.06
0.05
JOHN DAVIDSON ACCOUNT BOOKS
1780-1794
Full Citation:
Davidson, John. Account Book, 1780-1783; Account Book, 17871794; Ledger, 1780-1794. Maryland State Archives.
Aggregate Sample:
Store
Location of Store:
Annapolis, Maryland
Document Owned by:
Maryland Historical Society
Number of Records Entered: 321
Dates of Records Entered: 1780-1787
CATEGORY
ALCOHOL
MEAT
DAIRY
FOOD GRAINS
TEA/COFFEE
FOODSTUFFS
SWEETENERS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
FRUITS/NUTS
BAKERY/BREAD
VEGETABLES
COUNT
40
7
7
8
17
2
7
21
3
2
1
PERCENT
34.78%
6.09
6.09
6.96
14.78
1.74
6.09
18.26
2.61
1.74
0.87
287
TOTAL VALUE
£ 1271.11
340.20
119.10
78.20
43.40
12.24
5.70
4.87
1.39
0.20
0.00
PERCENT
67.74%
18.13
6.35
4.17
2.31
0.65
0.30
0.26
0.07
0.01
0.00
CARTER BURWELL ACCOUNT BOOK
1738-1755
Full Citation:
Burwell, Carter. Account book, 1738-1755. Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation.
Aggregate Sample:
Plantation
Location of Plantation:
James City County, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Number of Records Entered: 450
Dates of Records Entered: 1738-1756
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
MEAT
SWEETENERS
POULTRY
DAIRY
ALCOHOL
FRUITS/NUTS
FOODSTUFFS
LEGUMES
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
TEA/COFFEE
COUNT
55
227
5
10
3
1
2
1
1
7
3
PERCENT
17.46%
72.06
1.59
3.17
0.95
0.32
0.63
0.32
0.32
2.22
0.95
288
TOTAL VALUE
£ 933.21
503.35
33.11
16.64
7.70
2.73
2.50
1.38
1.07
0.58
0.00
PERCENT
62.12%
33.51
2.20
1.11
0.51
0.18
0.17
0.09
0.07
0.04
0.00
JOHN DAVIDSON ACCOUNT BOOKS
1780-1794
Full Citation:
Davidson, John. Account Book, 1780-1783; Account Book, 17871794; Ledger, 1780-1794. Maryland State Archives.
Aggregate Sample:
Household
Location of Household:
Annapolis, Maryland
Document Owned by:
Maryland Historical Society
Number of Records Entered: 216
Dates of Records Entered: 1784-1785
CATEGORY
MEAT
ALCOHOL
FOOD GRAINS
TEA/COFFEE
DAIRY
SWEETENERS
FRUITS/NUTS
POULTRY
BAKERY/BREAD
SEAFOOD
FISH
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
DAIRYING
VEGETABLES
COUNT
7
64
6
26
13
29
16
18
22
4
4
4
1
2
PERCENT
3.24%
29.63
2.78
12.04
6.02
13.43
7.41
8.33
10.19
1.85
1.85
1.85
0.46
0.93
289
TOTAL VALUE
£ 358.31
37.55
21.23
20.08
19.63
18.31
4.12
4.03
2.43
1.60
1.19
0.62
0.15
0.07
PERCENT
73.23%
7.67
4.34
4.11
4.01
3.74
0.84
0.82
0.50
0.33
0.24
0.13
0.03
0.01
WILLIAM FARRIS ACCOUNT BOOKS
1770-1800
Full Citation:
Farris, William. Household Accounts, 1770-1800, and Day Book,
1773-1780. Maryland Historical Society.
Aggregate Sample:
Store.
Location of Store:
Annapolis, Maryland
Document Owned by:
Maryland Historical Society
Number of Records Entered: 1,242
Dates of Records Entered: 1795-1800
CATEGORY
MEAT
FOOD GRAINS
SWEETENERS
ALCOHOL
DAIRY
POULTRY
TEA/COFFEE
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
VEGETABLES
SEAFOOD
BAKERY/BREAD
FRUITS/NUTS
FOODSTUFFS
FISH
LEGUMES
WILD ANIMAL
COUNT
261
96
258
145
114
48
51
34
43
31
85
22
19
23
4
2
PERCENT
21.12%
7.77
20.87
11.73
9.22
3.88
4.13
2.75
3.48
2.51
6.88
1.78
1.54
1.86
0.32
0.16
290
TOTAL VALUE
£ 131.65
103.76
83.19
55.57
14.27
8.48
8.02
6.08
4.83
3.90
3.67
2.35
2.32
1.79
0.32
0.03
PERCENT
30.60%
24.12
19.34
12.92
3.32
1.97
1.87
1.41
1.12
0.91
0.85
0.55
0.54
0.42
0.07
0.01
GLASSFORD & COMPANY ACCOUNTS: COLCHESTER STORE
Full Citation:
Aggregate Sample:
Location of Household:
Document Owned by:
Number of Records Entered:
Dates of Records Entered:
CATEGORY
MEAT
FOODSTUFFS
FOOD GRAINS
LIVESTOCK
ALCOHOL
FUEL
DAIRY
FISH
POULTRY
BAKERY/BREAD
SWEETENERS
TEA/COFFEE
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
FRUITS/NUTS
SEAFOOD
WILD MEAT
STORAGE
LEGUMES
VEGETABLES
WILD BIRD
UNKNOWN
DRINKING
FOOD SERVING
1766-1768
Glassford, John. Account book, 1786-68. Library of Congress.
Household
Colchester, Virginia
Library of Congress
428
1766-1768
COUNT
64
3
52
11
15
5
7
25
79
3
68
17
23
13
10
4
3
5
9
5
4
2
1
PERCENT
14.95%
0.70
12.15
2.57
3.50
1.17
1.64
5.84
18.46
0.70
15.89
3.97
5.37
3.04
2.34
0.93
0.70
1.17
2.10
1.17
0.93
0.47
0.23
291
TOTAL VALUE
£ 63.62
27.50
19.83
17.65
15.19
14.13
5.63
3.78
2.47
2.34
2.14
1.39
1.26
1.14
0.79
0.59
0.34
0.19
0.18
0.12
0.03
0.00
0.00
PERCENT
35.29%
15.25
11.00
9.79
8.43
7.83
3.12
2.10
1.37
1.30
1.19
0.77
0.70
0.63
0.44
0.33
0.19
0.10
0.10
0.07
0.02
0.00
0.00
THOMAS JEFFERSON WILLIAMSBURG ACCOUNTS
1768-1784
Full Citation:
Jefferson, Thomas. Extracts of Williamsburg Trips, Typescript,
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. (Jefferson Papers of the
University of Virginia: Special Series 2 and “Memorandum Book,
1767-1770,” Series 4, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of
Congress. Microfilm, CWF.
Aggregate Sample:
Household
Location of Household:
Williamsburg, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (typescript and microfilm);
Library of Congress (Jefferson papers)
Number of Records Entered: 36
Dates of Records Entered: 1768-1784
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
TEA/COFFEE
ALCOHOL
FRUITS/NUTS
BAKERY/BREAD
DAIRY
COUNT
13
1
6
6
8
2
PERCENT
36.11%
2.78
16.67
16.67
22.22
5.56
292
TOTAL VALUE
£ 10.85
1.25
0.75
0.74
0.41
0.38
PERCENT
75.50%
8.70
5.23
5.12
2.84
2.61
THOMAS JEFFERSON ANNAPOLIS ACCOUNTS
1783-1784
Full Citation:
Jefferson, Thomas. Memorandum Book, Annapolis Accounts (with
James Monroe. 1783-1784) in James A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C.
Stanton, eds. Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with
Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press (Forthcoming).
Aggregate Sample:
Household
Location of Household:
Annapolis, Maryland
Original Owned by:
Photocopy of document provided by Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Foundation
Number of Records Entered: 63
Dates of Records Entered: 1783-1784
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
ALCOHOL
BAKERY/BREAD
SWEETENERS
POULTRY
MEAT
FRUITS/NUTS
DAIRY
VEGETABLES
FISH
TEA/COFFEE
SEAFOOD
FOODSTUFFS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
COUNT
14
4
3
4
10
3
7
7
4
2
2
1
1
1
PERCENT
22.22%
6.35
4.76
6.35
15.87
4.76
11.11
11.11
6.35
3.17
3.17
1.59
1.59
1.59
293
TOTAL VALUE
£ 13.60
12.13
7.68
3.18
2.54
1.85
1.45
1.08
0.98
0.81
0.80
0.13
0.10
0.09
PERCENT
29.30%
26.13
16.54
6.85
5.48
3.99
3.12
2.33
2.12
1.75
1.72
0.27
0.22
0.20
ETIENNE LEMAIRE: THOMAS JEFFERSON WHITE HOUSE ACCOUNTS
1807
Full Citation:
Jefferson, Thomas. Memorandum Book, (Market Accounts 1806,
probably kept by Etienne Lemaire), Huntington Library. In James
A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds. Jefferson’s Memorandum
Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (Forthcoming).
Aggregate Sample:
Household
Location of Household:
Washington, D.C.
Original Owned by:
Huntington Library
Number of Records Entered: 2256
Dates of Records Entered: 1807
CATEGORY
MEAT
DAIRY
BAKERY/BREAD
POULTRY
VEGETABLES
FRUITS/NUTS
FISH
ALCOHOL
FOOD GRAINS
SEAFOOD
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
WILD BIRD
LEGUMES
WILD MEAT
WILD ANIMAL
HERBS
FOODSTUFFS
COUNT
591
229
42
336
514
128
75
5
63
22
28
53
47
4
21
96
2
PERCENT
26.20%
10.15
1.86
14.89
22.78
5.67
3.32
0.22
2.79
0.98
1.24
2.35
2.08
0.18
0.93
4.26
0.09
294
TOTAL VALUE
£ 415.06
253.01
195.67
167.79
98.32
52.55
26.30
20.16
17.42
14.43
14.36
12.93
9.07
6.50
3.21
1.80
0.56
PERCENT
31.71%
19.33
14.95
12.82
7.51
4.01
2.01
1.54
1.33
1.10
1.10
0.99
0.69
0.50
0.25
0.14
0.04
FRANCIS JERDONE CARGO WASTE BOOK
1751-1753
Full Citation:
Jerdone, Francis. Cargo Waste Book, 1751-1753. Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation.
Location of Store:
Yorktown, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Number of Records Entered: 513
Dates of Records Entered: 1751-1753
CATEGORY
ALCOHOL
SWEETENERS
MEAT
FOOD GRAINS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
DAIRY
TEA/COFFEE
FOODSTUFFS
BAKERY/BREAD
COUNT
147
87
57
15
24
17
12
4
1
PERCENT
40.38%
23.90
15.66
4.12
6.59
4.67
3.30
1.10
0.27
295
TOTAL VALUE
£ 4756.98
978.29
748.25
404.24
277.74
64.57
33.27
12.78
2.50
PERCENT
65.36%
13.44
10.28
5.55
3.82
0.89
0.46
0.18
0.03
WILLIAM LIGHTFOOT ACCOUNT BOOK
1747-1787
Full Citation:
Lightfoot, William. Store Accounts, 1747-1787. Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation.
Aggregate Store:
Store
Location of Household:
Williamsburg, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Number of Records Entered: 1,159
Dates of Records Entered: 1747-1787
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
ALCOHOL
MEAT
SWEETENERS
FOODSTUFFS
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
POULTRY
DAIRY
FRUITS/NUTS
LEGUMES
WILD BIRD
TEA/COFFEE
BAKERY/BREAD
BEVERAGES
FISH
VEGETABLES
SEAFOOD
COUNT
110
358
182
150
14
28
56
23
9
3
16
6
2
1
2
1
2
PERCENT
11.42%
37.18
18.90
15.58
1.45
2.91
5.82
2.39
0.93
0.31
1.66
0.62
0.21
0.10
0.21
0.10
0.21
296
TOTAL VALUE
£ 989.17
775.27
642.99
274.18
21.41
18.98
15.73
14.29
6.19
3.19
2.10
1.50
0.65
0.50
0.16
0.15
0.10
PERCENT
35.76%
28.02
23.24
9.91
0.77
0.69
0.57
0.52
0.22
0.12
0.08
0.05
0.02
0.02
0.01
0.01
0.00
MOSES MYERS MARKET BOOK
1824-1827
Full Citation:
Myers, Moses. Account Book, 1824-1827. Chrysler Museum,
Norfolk.
Aggregate Sample:
Household
Location of Household:
Norfolk, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Chrysler Museum, Norfolk
Number of Records Entered: 1601
Dates of Records Entered: 1824-1827
CATEGORY
POULTRY
MEAT
FISH
SEAFOOD
VEGETABLES
FRUITS/NUTS
FOOD GRAINS
DAIRY
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
LEGUMES
WILD BIRD
TEA/COFFEE
FOODSTUFFS
BAKERY/BREAD
ALCOHOL
HERBS
BY-PRODUCT
SWEETENERS
COUNT
396
231
228
90
321
161
66
25
23
39
6
1
2
6
1
3
1
1
PERCENT
24.73%
14.43
14.24
5.62
20.05
10.06
4.12
1.56
1.44
2.44
0.37
0.06
0.12
0.37
0.06
0.19
0.06
0.06
297
TOTAL VALUE
£ 60.26
59.15
15.40
14.35
13.08
11.12
10.32
4.02
2.96
2.87
0.62
0.26
0.26
0.19
0.19
0.09
0.06
0.00
PERCENT
30.87%
30.30
7.89
7.35
6.70
5.70
5.29
2.06
1.52
1.47
0.32
0.14
0.13
0.10
0.10
0.05
0.03
0.00
GOVERNER’S PALACE KITCHEN ACCOUNTS
1769-1770
Full Citation:
Botetourt Manuscripts from Badminton. “An Account of Cash
Paid by William Sparrow for his Excellency Lord Botetourt.
[Kept] by William Marshman” (Governor’s Palace kitchen
accounts). Duke of Beaufort and the Gloucestershire Records
Office.
Aggregate Sample:
Household
Location of Household:
Williamsburg, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Duke of Beaufort and the Gloucestershire Records Office
Number of Records Entered: 962
Dates of Records Entered: 1769-1770
CATEGORY
MEAT
POULTRY
DAIRY
FRUITS/NUTS
BAKERY/BREAD
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
FISH
WILD ANIMAL
FOODSTUFFS
WILD MEAT
SEAFOOD
WILD BIRD
VEGETABLES
FOOD GRAINS
LEGUMES
SWEETENERS
BEVERAGES
COUNT
137
250
163
150
22
10
65
10
15
6
53
27
34
13
5
1
1
PERCENT
14.24%
25.99
16.94
15.59
2.29
1.04
6.76
1.04
1.56
0.62
5.51
2.81
3.53
1.35
0.52
0.10
0.10
298
TOTAL VALUE
£ 123.84
61.24
55.27
28.56
25.63
19.89
13.97
13.65
9.97
7.50
3.45
3.04
2.86
1.71
0.58
0.50
0.14
PERCENT
33.31%
16.47
14.87
7.68
6.89
5.35
3.76
3.67
2.68
2.02
0.93
0.82
0.77
0.46
0.16
0.13
0.04
ACCOUNTS OF THE ANONYMOUS WILLIAMSBURG WIGMAKER
1749
Full Citation:
Anonymous [French wigmaker in Williamsburg]. Household
Expenses for 1749 recorded in The Virginia Almanack for the Year
of our Lord…1749. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Aggregate Sample:
Household
Location of Household:
Williamsburg, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Number of Records Entered: 153
Dates of Records Entered: 1749
CATEGORY
ALCOHOL
DAIRY
SWEETENERS
BAKERY/BREAD
POULTRY
TEA/COFFEE
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
LEGUMES
FOODSTUFFS
FRUITS/NUTS
SEAFOOD
FISH
GRAINS
VEGETABLES
COUNT
53
19
15
18
18
2
5
2
1
4
3
1
4
8
PERCENT
34.64%
12.42
9.80
11.76
11.76
1.31
3.27
1.31
0.65
2.61
1.96
0.65
2.61
5.23
299
TOTAL VALUE
£ 5.54
3.40
2.69
1.92
0.82
0.50
0.25
0.22
0.19
0.12
0.07
0.06
0.00
0.00
PERCENT
35.13%
21.57
17.04
12.14
5.19
3.17
1.61
1.41
1.19
0.74
0.42
0.40
0.00
0.00
WILLIAM NELSON (IN BURWELL LEDGER)
1764-1779
Full Citation:
Burwell, Nathaniel. Daybook, 1773-1779. Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation.
Aggregate Sample:
Plantation
Location of Plantation:
James City County, Virginia
Document Owned by:
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Number of Records Entered: 1309
Dates of Records Entered: 1764-1779
CATEGORY
FOOD GRAINS
ALCOHOL
DAIRY
MEAT
SPICES/CONDIMENTS
LEGUMES
SWEETENERS
POULTRY
FISH
COUNT
300
159
64
76
7
11
9
11
1
PERCENT
47.02%
24.92
10.03
11.91
1.10
1.72
1.41
1.72
0.16
300
TOTAL VALUE
£ 2863.32
388.86
316.73
150.87
15.18
13.84
12.75
9.84
1.80
PERCENT
75.89%
10.31
8.39
4.00
0.40
0.37
0.34
0.26
0.05
APPENDIX 3.
DESCRIPTION OF ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES
AND COMPLETE DATA SETS
Theoretical Basis: Introduction to the Study of Provisioning Systems
The study of archaeological faunal remains (zooarchaeology) has the potential for addressing the
full range of foodways-related questions, but historical zooarchaeologists have been far too preoccupied with interpreting household subsistence patterns, defining variability primarily in terms
of environmental differences, and the social and economic status or ethnic affiliation of the
household. In assessing a household's diet, faunal analysts focus on determining the meat diet and
preference for certain cuts of meat, interpreting these consumption patterns as the result of
environmental constraints, cultural values, or the household's social and economic status.1
However, all phases of foodways, including the production, distribution, preparation, and
consumption, play an integral role in determining the availability of foods.
To limit our interpretations to adaptation, social and economic status, and ethnicity is to
limit our ability to see how the full range of food-related activities can affect faunal remains. We
need to look at the much broader context of the subsistence system and how it shapes the
household's selection of foods. Subsistence studies should also show how the household relates to
its community and how the community and regional system of food production and distribution
influences any household's consumption patterns.2
Often analyses of urban faunal assemblages have assumed that the provisioning systems in
early American urban centers were like today's highly commercialized system, where the prices of
different meats are determined by market forces, and individual choices are governed mostly by
the economic status of the household under investigation, not availability. For studies focusing on
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this may be true, since by this time rapid transit
systems had increased the availability of many foods, and residents living in every U.S. city, as
well as many small towns, had come to depend on, and expect, commercially-produced meats.
But many zooarchaeologists have gone beyond simplistic studies of status and ethnicity.3 Lyman
1
Joanne Bowen, “Faunal Remains and Urban Household Subsistence in New England,” in Anne Yentsch
and Mary C. Beaudry eds., The Art and Mystery of Historical Archaeology (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 1992), pp.
267-281.
2
Roselle Henn, “Reconstructing the Urban Foodchain: Advances and Problems in Interpreting Faunal
Remains Recovered from Household Deposits,” American Archeology 5(3)1985:202-209.
3
Joanne Bowen, “A Study of Seasonality and Subsistence: Eighteenth-Century Suffield, Connecticut”
(Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1990); Bowen, “Faunal Remains and Urban Household Subsistence in New
England”; Melinda Zeder, Feeding Cities: Specialized Animal Economy in the Ancient Near East (Washington
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991); J.M. Maltby, Faunal Studies on Urban Sites: The Animal Bones from
Exeter, 1971-1975. Exeter Archaeological Reports 2. (Sheffield, Eng.: Sheffield University Department of
Prehistory and Archaeology, 1979); Pam J. Crabtree ”Zooarchaeology and Complex Societies: Some Uses of
Faunal Analysis for the Study of Trade, Social Status, and Ethnicity,” in Michael B. Schiffer, ed., Archaeological
301
for example, questioned the narrow criteria used to rank cuts of meat, pointing out that the
amount of available flesh per cut of meat was an important factor to be considered. 4 Henn
pointed out that the assumption that all households participated in the market economy on a fulltime basis is invalid. She wrote: “...even in rural areas it was common practice for working class
households to keep livestock, such as goats, pigs, and poultry, and to grow vegetables for
domestic use. Butcher shop purchases or preparation of household livestock could have been
considered luxuries for this segment of the population.” 5
Henn spoke of poorer families living in small communities that were fully integrated in
highly commercialized economies, but her statement is equally appropriate for households of all
wealth groups living in towns and small cities in developing economies. Today in Third World
countries, and historically throughout most of our country's past, there were several alternatives
to commercially-produced foods.
Notably the zooarchaeologists working with European and Near Eastern faunal
assemblages have made important contributions to the study of complex societies by
demonstrating how faunal remains contain evidence on the scale of the urban market system.6
First, age profiles from domesticated cattle, pigs, and sheep show the mark of specialized forms of
animal husbandry through the increased presence of younger livestock, hallmarks of a market
economy. Second, the variety and relative importance of different animals show whether markets
and the decreasing availability of habitats suitable for wildlife constrained the availability of wild
animals. Third, element distributions of the major domestic mammals demonstrate the restriction
of certain portions of the carcass such as the heads and feet. Taken as a whole, these pieces of
evidence provide a measure of the extent to which the provisioning system has become
specialized.
To help refine archaeological questions on specialized economies and to provide historical
evidence that could help to refine archaeological interpretations, a research design was developed
to capture appropriate information from documentary research on animal husbandry, specialized
husbandry practices, market regulations, commercial vehicles for distributing rural produce, and
personal exchange networks. Together with the team of historians on the project, Bowen and her
staff transcribed evidence on animal husbandry and plantation herds from many sources, including
probate inventory records from Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and York County, Virginia, and
personal property tax records from counties where archaeological sites were located. Information
on regulations concerning livestock and markets was pulled from legal records from Maryland and
Virginia, and information needed on the early years when the herd system was established was
taken from the early Virginia Company records. Lastly, information specifically related to
livestock, pasturage systems and feeding practices was taken from diaries and plantation records.
Method and Theory, Vol. 2 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990), pp. 155-205; David Landon, “Feeding
Colonial Boston: A Zooarchaeological Study,” Historical Archaeology 30(1):1-153.
4
Lee Lyman, “On Zooarchaeological Measures of Socioeconomic Position and Cost-Efficient Meat
Purchases,” Historical Archaeology 21(1987):58-66.
5
Henn “Reconstructing the Urban Foodchain.”
6
Zeder, Feeding Cities; Maltby, Faunal Studies on Urban Sites; Gil J. Stein, “Regional Economic
Integration in Early State Societies: Third Millennium B.C. Pastoral Production at Gritille, Southeast Turkey,”
Paleorient 13(2)1987:101-111; P. Wattenmaker, “The Organization of Production and Consumption in a Complex
Society: A Study of a Village Site in Southeast Turkey,” MASCA Journal 4(1988):191-203.
302
Information on urban provisioning strategies was available in the York County Project data base,
a large collection of biographical information collected by Colonial Williamsburg historians for
each individual who lived in the county. In addition information on personal networks and
information on the commercial sources of meats was drawn from plantation, household, and
merchant accounts.
Together these sources have formed a critical data base not only for this study, but also
for the archaeological community in general, since they contain unparalleled information on the
economic, social, and cultural context that is needed to evaluate faunal data and their
interpretations. With these contemporary independent sources of information at hand, it is now
possible to explore animal husbandry and the many intricate relationships that existed between the
landscape, livestock, and colonists. Likewise with biographical information on urban residents and
economic information on the commercial distribution system through which livestock was
procured, processed, and sold to urban residents, it is now possible to see how faunal data reflects
the complex and varied provisioning strategies that evolved along with the development of the
Chesapeake market system.
Those analyses of historical data that were specifically focused on zooarchaeological
questions were designed with the goal of making the separate data bases as comparable as
possible. Since each documentary source has its own internal biases, just like faunal remains have
their unique and complex biases, each separate source was carefully considered, then the analysis
was structured in a way that the two independent data bases worked with each other. Computer
programs were developed to capture information on species, age, sex, herd size, and specifics on
animal husbandry in a manner similar to Roger Cribb’s and Kent Flannery’s live herd analyses.7
Probate inventory lists of livestock owned at the time of the owner’s death provided information
on the number of herds owned by any individual, their size, and age and sex composition.
Personal property taxes taken during the 1780s provided information on the numbers of slaves,
cattle, and horses owned by male heads of households.
Since kill-off patterns reflect the slaughtered population—not the live herd—and the goal
is to interpret live behavior involving humans and their herds, zooarchaeologists are forced to
“read backwards,” as it were, and infer from the age of death the intended use of live herds. But
many have been critical of these attempts, since the age of death varies according to numerous
biological and environmental factors that are not completely understood. Consequently methods
used to estimate the age of death have undergone the scrutiny of both critics and supporters alike
for decades. Some have been sufficiently critical that the long bone data base is dismissed
8
entirely. Those who have accepted the internal biases of their data have been faced with the
7
Kent V. Flannery, Joyce Marcus, and Robert G. Reynolds, The Flocks of the Wamani: A Study of Llama
Herders on the Punas of Ayacucho, Peru (New York: Academic Press, 1989); Roger Cribb, “The Analysis of
Ancient Herding Systems: An Application of Computer Simulation in Faunal Studies,” in Graeme Barker and
Clive Gamble, eds., Beyond Domestication in Prehistoric Europe (New York: Academic Press, 1985). See also
Roger Cribb, “Computer-simulated Herd Structure,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 7(1987):376-415;
Richard Redding, “Decision Making in Subsistence Herding of Sheep and Goats in the Middle East” (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Michigan, 1981).
8
J.P.N. Watson, “The Interpretation of Epiphyseal Fusion Data,” in D.R. Brothwell, K.D. Thomas, and
Juliet Clutton-Brock, eds., Research Problems in Zooarchaeology, Institute of Archaeology Occasional Publication
3 (London: Institute of Archaeology, 1978), 97-102.
303
difficulty of interpreting the result of economic goals and intended uses, and all too often have
found the data base inexplicable. Others have taken the approach of creating simulated “live
herds” using biological and ethnographic evidence.
During the course of the provisioning project several attempts were made to create
simulated live herds. But the probate data was inconsistent in recording ages, and attempts to
reconstruct relative ages using terms, such as cow, steer, and bull, was no more successful, since
an analysis of the probate data indicated these terms covered many age groups. Further, computer
simulated herds required assumptions concerning death and birth rates. But since most
demographic data dates to the eighteenth century and refers to the husbandry of the wealthy and
commercially-focused planters, applying these rates to all time periods was deemed too
problematical.
The approach used to interpret slaughter ages has been to marshal all independent sources
of evidence together and synthesize data from each in order to assess the human/animal
relationships as they changed from the time of initial settlement on through the emergence of
commercially-focused husbandry. Where sample size was large enough, tooth wear data could be
compared and contrasted with epiphyseal fusion data. Vice versa, on sites with good preservation,
epiphyseal fusion data could be compared and contrasted with the tooth wear data. Unlike
virtually any other zooarchaeological study, contemporary age data has been extracted from
probate inventories to provide the essential contextual information needed to interpret the
complex human/animal relationships.
Thus the decision was made to create from the probate data age groups that would be
comparable to the archaeological slaughter data. Ages for cattle, sheep, and swine were grouped
by the same time periods used for the archaeological data and sorted into groups that were as
close as possible to age groups seen in the epiphyseal and tooth wear data. The results speak for
themselves, as they mirror the archaeological data.
Last, but certainly not least, over a hundred primary sources dating from the early
seventeenth on through the early nineteenth centuries were combed for specific information on
pasture systems, herd structures, and the care and feeding of livestock. Most zooarchaeologists
have looked towards seventeenth- and eighteenth-century agricultural texts to inform their
archaeological data, but this evidence is prescriptive. The texts written by progressive English
breeders were intended to instruct on ways that would improve production, not tell what people
actually did. Since the goal was to define significant shifts in husbandry patterns, diaries, laws,
family and Virginia Company-related correspondence papers, and plantation records became the
primary source of information on what people actually did—not what British agriculturalists
thought should be done.
To be able to systematically retrieve data from over 6,000 records that often contained
information on multiple topics, a key word search system was developed to recover information
on the health, care, and feeding of livestock. As information was transcribed from primary
sources, the researcher entered the appropriate key words along with the text into Notebook II, a
computer database designed to sort complex bibliographic citations. Once this was completed,
printouts corresponding to various topics, such as open woodlands feeding, fences, or
supplemental foods, were made.
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This evidence proved critical in interpreting the slaughter data. With the contemporary
evidence on herding, feeding, and economic orientation, it became possible to distinguish between
environmental, biological, and economic factors that underlie the biological maturation process
and economic decision of when to slaughter an animal. It also became possible to identify the
broad outlines of the husbandry system, then correlate changes in slaughter ages with major
changes that occurred as planters shifted from a subsistence-based husbandry system towards a
commercially based system. Future analyses will build on this beginning work. Additional
refinements to the probate data base will be made, as will further work with the large husbandry
data base. When fully integrated, these two sources should allow more finely detailed and
analytically powerful live herd models.
Zooarchaeological Methods
Over the past two years the Colonial Williamsburg Zooarchaeological Laboratory has processed,
identified, and/or extracted data from 53 faunal assemblages from Williamsburg, Annapolis, and
throughout the Chesapeake. Together with faunal analyses that have already been completed by
Bowen, her students, and her associates at Colonial Williamsburg, this collection of analyses form
an unprecedented regional data base of rural and urban assemblages dating from the early
seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century. From these assemblages, which range in
size sample and analytical strengths, we have selected those best able to address the questions
concerning the emergence of specialized provisioning in the Chesapeake region.
While gaps still exist, in the sense that certain time periods are less well represented than
others, and most of the assemblages represent the literate and wealthy, this data base provides an
remarkable sample of rural and urban assemblages that have enabled us to identify when the
specialized production and distribution of animals and animal products developed, and to identify
when Williamsburg’s urban residents came to rely upon the regional provisioning system and
commercially produced foods, rather than their own personal resources. Ultimately, this data base
has allowed certain observations about when and how the diets of urban dwellers began to
diverge from the diets of rural dwellers.
The assemblages that were selected from this data base for more specialized analysis come
from several sources. First is a group of assemblages that were excavated by Colonial
Williamsburg in the 1960s and 1970s. Second is a group that were excavated during the 1970s
and 1980s by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and the Kicotan Chapter of the
Archeological Society of Virginia. Third is a group that had been analyzed by Henry Miller,
Bowen, and Elizabeth Reitz, but had never been computerized. Fourth is group of assemblages
that fortuitously came our way from local archaeologists during the past two years. And fifth is
group is of assemblages that have been analyzed over the past decade by Colonial Williamsburg
zooarchaeologists. Each of these assemblages have been now encoded into a custom-designed
computer program developed for the Department of Archaeological Research by Bowen and
Brown, and since elegantly refined by Brown in numerous ways.
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Analytical Procedures
Research questions concerning provisioning systems in complex societies defined which of the
many zooarchaeological methods and procedures would be used to analyze these materials. Since
the specialization of producing and distributing foods in developing economies have been
identified through diversity estimates, slaughter ages of the large domesticates, and the
presence/absence of waste portions of cattle, swine, and caprine carcasses, analyses of these
assemblages focused on capturing these three sets of data.9
Previously Analyzed Faunal Assemblages
One major goal of the zooarchaeological portion of the project was to incorporate previouslyanalyzed assemblages into a large computer data base of faunal assemblages from throughout the
Chesapeake and East Coast. In order to do this, it was necessary to encode the information
consistently. Bowen’s work on Clifts Plantation in the 1970s, for example, had to be transferred
from cards into the computer database. Likewise, with the kind permission of Historic Annapolis
and other institutions, raw data created by Henry Miller, Elizabeth Reitz, and Justin Lev-Tov was
transcribed as completely and accurately as possible.
Because every analyst has developed a slightly different set of tools, a careful assessment
of the methods and procedures used by these talented analysts was a necessary step in integrating
their work. Recording Bowen’s early work into Colonial Williamsburg’s computer data base was
relatively straightforward, since the program evolved out of methods Bowen has used for years.
Encoding identifications furnished by Lev-Tov, Miller, and Reitz, however, required some
translation. We worked closely with each to verify how the material should be translated, then
encoded the data using our faunal program. Since MNI determinations are possibly one of the
more idiosyncratic steps used to analyze assemblages, and since one important measure of
diversity depends upon MNIs, we focused on insuring MNI data sets would be compatible with
each other.
For the most part we have succeeded in integrating the work of these analysts and through
this effort have made available analyses that were completed before microcomputers became
generally available. Justin Lev-Tov, who analyzed the Jonas Green materials for Historic
Annapolis, kindly provided his data in hard-copy form. In working with him, however, it was
apparent that certain sets of data could not be obtained from his data sheets, and we opted to reenter the materials ourselves. In every other case, however, we found ways to integrate the data
collected by other specialists into the data base. Translating Elizabeth Reitz’s work with the
Calvert House and Reynolds Tavern faunal assemblages was made relatively easy by the fact that
one of her former students and employees, Gwenyth Duncan, was a member of our team.
Since the early 1970s, when both Miller and Bowen began analyzing historic faunal
assemblages, each independently developed virtually identical approaches to determining MNIs.
Integrating Miller’s data bases into our system was therefore relatively straightforward.
As in any field, the development of new analytical techniques will require new evidence
and new or revised procedures. When Miller and Bowen completed much of the early work on
Chesapeake faunal assemblages, there was no consensus on what dietary estimate was thought to
9
Crabtree, “Zooarchaeology and Complex Societies”; Maltby, Faunal Studies on Urban Sites.
306
be the most accurate. The biomass technique, described later, was only widely applied after the
early 1980s, particularly through the work of Elizabeth Reitz and her students and colleagues.
Neither Miller and Bowen, therefore, systematically weighed each bone fragment, or set of
fragments, a requirement for the application of biomass. It was simply not then part of the
standard tool kit. Short of re-identifying the original bones, it was impossible to compute biomass
estimates for these assemblages.
By the same token, there is considerable variation in the way that MNIs are determined,
from those who calculate MNIs directly from data sheets to those who carefully attempt to
physically match each bone fragment. Fortunately, both Miller and Bowen independently
developed similar approaches to MNI determinations. Each chose the painstaking route of visual
comparisons, where size and age differences for each element were taken into consideration.
Since 1985 Bowen and her colleagues have relied largely on biomass estimates, but to
retain comparability with the older analyses, we have continued to compute usable meat weight
estimates from the MNIs. With few exceptions, for example when fish are the predominant taxa,
the two measures demonstrate the same ranked importance for the identified taxa. It appears that
both estimates provide more or less accurate dietary estimates for those assemblages which are
composed of predominantly large domesticates. Throughout the report references to both
estimates are made.
Recovery Techniques
Recovery techniques always have a great effect on zooarchaeological analysis, and this work is no
exception. Studies have repeatedly shown that, if soil is not screened during excavation, most of
the small mammal, birds, fish, and amphibian remains will be lost. If soil is sieved through onequarter inch mesh screen, some of the larger elements from these smaller animals will be
recovered. By using other methods, such as flotation and screening soil through window screen or
one-eight inch hardware mesh, it becomes possible to recover bones from most of the smaller
animals as well.10
Since screening became a common recovery practice on local historic-period sites only in
the 1980s, it has long been assumed that diversity estimates using assemblages excavated in the
1960s and 1970s are suspect. While the “hand-picked” assemblages, excavated by skilled
archaeologists, have revealed a remarkable range of small artifactual evidence, there can be no
doubt the range of smaller wildlife found in these assemblages are less than those that were
carefully recovered with one-quarter and one-eighth inch mesh screens. Since the early 1980s,
Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeologists have consistently used one-quarter inch screen, and have
begun to recover microfauna using fine-screen recovery methods and flotation. Other excavators
(including those from Virginia Commonwealth University, the Virginia Department of Historic
Resources, James River Institute for Archaeology, the William and Mary Center for
Archaeological Research, and others) have independently adopted similar methods, although like
all archaeological methods their application depends heavily on time and financial constraints and
the research questions being addressed.
10
Brian Shaffer, “Quarter-Inch Screening: Understanding Biases in Recovery of Vertebrate Faunal
Remains,” American Antiquity 57(1)1992:129-136.
307
Hand-picking, fortunately, had less of an impact on the recovery of the remains of the
large domesticated mammals that form the basis of the diet, including cattle, swine, sheep, and
goats. Analyses of aging and element distributions based on these remains, therefore, are far more
reliable than assessments of relative dietary contribution. Hand-troweling has not prevented the
determination of age estimates and element distributions. By looking at the consistency of data
within the time period, it appears that the element distribution estimates are to a large extent
related to time and household variability.
Assemblage Formation
An important step was to select the assemblages having the most research potential. Over the
years, Bowen worked closely with curators and archaeologists in the region who had faunal
assemblages that had never been fully analyzed. Over time large numbers of assemblages of
potential importance surfaced. In each case the archaeologist involved was asked to provide
information on the site, date of occupation, and whatever was known about the occupants. He or
she was asked to help break the site down into specific occupational periods that were both
historically correct and analytically useful (for example, isolating the bones associated with the
occupation of a particular household). These “sub-assemblages” are described in our computer
recording system as “macro-features” and “phases.”
Visits to the institution were made to assess each group of bones for fragmentation,
sample size, and potential to answer our research questions. Several listed in our proposal, along
with others that were recently excavated, were eliminated from consideration on the basis of
fragmentation, poor preservation, assemblage size, poor to non-existent documentation, or in the
case of salvage sites an insufficient degree of archaeological analysis that would permit a reliable
assemblage formation. Working with old archaeological collections proved a much greater
challenge than anticipated. When it seemed as though the potential number was sinking below the
desired number, others that did contain sufficiently large numbers of bone in a good or excellent
state of preservation surfaced.
Date ranges for most assemblages were narrowed to at least a half-century, but those that
could be narrowed down to a quarter-century proved most useful in the end. For a few
assemblages, it was necessary to create sub-assemblages based on a careful re-consideration of
the artifact assemblage. Dr. Fraser Neiman, now of Monticello, kindly helped us develop an
algorithm that allowed contexts from several Williamsburg sites to be divided into early and late
components.
Bone Identification Procedures
Since an extremely large number of bone fragments had to be processed, identified, and analyzed
in a very short period of time, the staff worked to streamline procedures for basic processing.
Briefly, all bone fragments submitted for analysis were first sorted into “identifiable” and
“unidentifiable” categories. The unidentifiable bone, fragments which cannot be taken to at least
the taxonomic level of Order, were sorted by class (mammal, fish, bird, etc.), and element type
(long bone, rib, tooth, etc.). Each grouping (for example, large mammal long bone from a
particular context) was then given a “unique bone (UB) number,” which is used for computeraided tracking. The number of bone fragments in the group was tabulated, and the bone was
308
weighed on a digital scale for the purpose of estimating fragmentation and biomass calculations
(described later). Any burned bone fragments in the unidentified category were noted and
recorded separately. Once recorded, this data was entered into the computer.
Each identifiable bone fragment was also given a UB number, which was affixed to the
element itself along with the site and context or feature number. Given the numbers of bone that
had to be processed, speed was imperative. Fortunately, a technique developed by our curatorial
staff helped to speed this time-consuming process. Numbers were generated on the computer on
acid-free paper, which was then affixed to the bone itself with a glue made from acetone and B72. The number was placed in the most inconspicuous place possible on the bone itself, atop a
layer of seal coat. When dry, another coat of glue that prevented the label from rubbing off was
applied. If the bone was too small to number, the UB number was placed along with the bone into
a plastic bag.
Working with a comparative collection housed and maintained in Colonial Williamsburg's
Zooarchaeology Lab, the identifiable bone fragments were carefully studied. Initial sorts by taxon
and element were made. By working with morphological characteristics, each bone was identified
to the lowest possible taxonomic level. The taxon, bone element, side, portion of the element,
tooth wear, state of epiphyseal fusion and butchery evidence was carefully recorded. Since
evidence of the state of fusion, butchery, and cut of meat each depend upon the taphonomic
processes that might have modified bone after it had been deposited, any and all evidence of
alterations resulting from natural processes were recorded. Processes include temperature
variation that can dry out, split, or otherwise degrade bone, carnivores and rodents that chew
bone, and human feet that can further fragment bone. Identifying modifications resulting from
cultural activities such as butchering were also noted, since particularly for bone which has been
butchered with a cleaver or ax, modifications resulting from percussion tools look to the
unschooled and unwary much like stress fractures resulting from temperature variation.11
Quantification Methods
There are four recognized measures of taxonomic abundance—NISP, MNI, usable meat weights,
and biomass. Each is used in various ways to measure the relative, or ordinal, importance of
different taxa in an archaeological assemblage. Although the most common goal of these analyses
is to identify relative dietary importance, zooarchaeologists have long debated their relative
strengths and weaknesses.
Since each provides a different measure of relative importance, however, we have
regularly computed all four estimates, thereby allowing us to take advantage of the strengths of
11
Diana Gifford, "Taphonomy and Paleoecology: A Critical Review of Archaeology's Sister Disciplines,"
in Michael B. Schiffer, ed., Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 4 (Tucson: The University of
Arizona Press, 1981), pp. 365-438; R.E. Lyman, “Archaeofaunas and Butchery Studies: A Taphonomic
Perspective,” in Michael B. Schiffer, ed., Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 10 (New York:
Academic Press, 1987), pp. 249-337; R.E. Lyman, Vertebrate Taphonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994); Robson Bonnichsen and Marcella Sorg, Bone Modification (Orono, Maine: Center for the Study of
the First Americans, Institute for Quaternary Studies, University of Maine, 1989); Eileen Johnson, “Current
Development in Bone Technology,” in Michael B. Schiffer, ed., Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory,
Vol. 8 (New York: Academic Press, 1985), pp. 157-235.
309
each, as Charles Cleland so ably demonstrated in his study of Ft. Michilimackinac.12 In addition,
this comprehensive approach allows us, unlike many of our colleagues, the broadest comparisons
of our data with the work of others.
The most basic method of quantification is to count the numbers of identified fragments.
Known as the NISP (Number of Identified Specimens) method, this simply measures the relative
abundance of identified bone fragments of different taxa. There are several weaknesses in this
method. From a statistical point of view the most important problem with the NISP is that of
element interdependence.13 The NISP assumes the bones being counted are representative of the
sampled population, and that each item is independent of every other item. There is no way,
however, to demonstrate which bone fragments came from different individuals across an entire
faunal sample. Other problems with this method include the unequal numbers of bones in different
classes, differential preservation rates, uneven fragmentation rates that can occur with different
classes and sizes of animals, and representation of complete skeletons intermixed with fragmented
pieces from an indeterminate number of individuals.
From an interpretive standpoint, NISP represents only the number of fragments identified
to taxon. It does not directly consider the differences in size and meat weight between various
classes of animals. For this reason, as well as the potential biases described above, many
zooarchaeologists have come to the conclusion that this technique alone cannot provide an
accurate assessment of the relative dietary importance of various species.14
The most common alternative to the NISP is the method known as “Minimum Numbers of
Individuals” (MNI). The MNI is the smallest number of live animals that can be accounted for in
the recovered bone fragments.15 For each taxon, the MNI was calculated by determining the
smallest number of individuals represented for each element, taking into consideration differences
in age, sex, and size. MNIs are determined for each element, then a figure for the entire skeleton
is determined. In this way it was possible to take into consideration not only gross size
differences, but more importantly, it enabled us to count the number of immature, neonate-size
remains so often encountered in historic assemblages.
The MNI effectively corrected for the differential number of bones found in bird, mammal,
and fish skeletons, as it corrected for the presence of complete skeletons. But, more importantly,
since it views the data in terms of live animals, the method also produces data more comparable to
information on livestock found in historical sources.16 Probate inventories, tax records, and farm
12
Charles Cleland, “”Comparison of the Faunal Remains from French and British Refuse Pits at Fort
Michilimackinac: A Study in Changing Subsistence Patterns,” Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in
Archaeology and History 3(1970):7-23.
13
Donald Grayson, Quantitative Zooarchaeology: Topics in the Analysis of Archaeological Faunas
(Orlando: Academic Press, 1984).
14
Grayson, Quantitative Zooarchaeology; Kathryn Cruz-Uribe, "The Use and Meaning of Species
Diversity and Richness in Archaeological Faunas," Journal of Archaeological Science 15(1988):179-196.
15
T.E. White, “A method of calculating the dietary percentage of various food animals utilized by
aboriginal peoples,” American Antiquity 18(1953):396-98.
16
Joanne Bowen, “An Evaluation of Probate Inventories from the Perspective of Zooarchaeology and
Agricultural History at Mott Farm,” Historical Archaeology 9(1975):11-26; Emanuel Breitburg, "Verification and
Reliability of NISP and MNI Methods of Quantifying Taxonomic Abundance: A View from Historic Site
310
records tend to list numbers of individuals, not numbers of pounds of meat. Such comparability
has been mostly overlooked in historical archaeology, despite the obvious potential.
However, accurate estimations of dietary importance based on MNI require a large
number of bones, since infrequently-occurring animals are over-represented in small
assemblages.17 In fact, Wing, Reitz, and Grayson claim that the total MNI in an assemblage must
be at least 200 before they become an accurate assessment of relative importance, albeit this ideal
situation is often not achievable in practice.18 Following Katherine Cruz-Uribe’s analysis,
however, we selected assemblages having a minimum MNI of 25.19
As Grayson has pointed out, MNI values are intimately tied to units of aggregation.20 In
addition, MNIs are dependent on the thoroughness of the analyst and sample size. We carefully
selected the largest group of bones and based the MNIs on the largest aggregate with
archaeological and chronological integrity, and computed the MNI’s visually, using all fragments
identified to species (including cf. specimens). In this way, we minimized as best as possible the
overinflation of less common species.
In computing MNI's painstaking efforts were taken to produce the most reliable estimates
possible. Many zooarchaeologists compute this estimate using their computer programs rather
than physically re-examining the bones. We work on the assumption that there are far too many
variables to consider which are glossed over or left out of these programs. Therefore, all bones
identified to species are again laid out by assemblage or sub-assemblage for visual comparison.
The relative size, portion of element, and age of each bone are each taken into careful
consideration.
It has long been recognized that MNIs do not provide a true dietary estimate, since large
and small taxa are given equal weight. Far too many interpretations of historic assemblages have
been based solely on MNIs, with the result that the dietary importance of swine, the smaller
domesticate commonly found in these assemblages, has been greatly over-estimated. We fully
recognize the fact that these estimates do not provide a picture of the relative importance of meat.
Fortunately, the third common method, usable meat weight, was developed to account for
differences between large and smaller animals. To obtain a rough estimate of the dietary
importance of different taxa, the number of individuals for a given taxon are multiplied by the
average amount of useable meat. Average values are obtained either from modern animals or from
estimates based on the size of colonial livestock; the averages used in this study, in fact, are
largely those developed by Henry Miller in his 1984 dissertation.21
Zooarchaeology," in James Purdue et al., eds., Beamers, Bobwhites, and Blue-Points: Tributes to the Career of Paul
W. Parmalee (Carbondale: Illinois State Museum, 1991), pp. 153-162.
17
Grayson, Quantitative Zooarchaeology.
18
Elizabeth Wing and Antoinette Brown, Paleonutrition: Method and Theory in Prehistoric Foodways.
(New York: Academic Press, 1979); Grayson, Quantitative Zooarchaeology.
19
Cruz-Uribe, “The Use and Meaning of Species Diversity and Richness in Archaeological Faunas.”
Grayson, Quantitative Zooarchaeology.
21
Henry Miller, “Colonization and Subsistence Change on the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake Frontier”
(Ph.D. diss. Michigan State University. 1984).
20
311
Since this method relies on MNI directly, this data set suffers from the same problems
inherent in the MNI method. Other problems include the fact that they are based on the “average”
weight of a given taxon. Since fish and other cold-blooded vertebrates grow continually
throughout their lives, there is no single average weight. Thus, with faunal assemblages, as those
from slave sites in the Chesapeake, the Southeast, and Caribbean, where assemblages are
frequently dominated by fish, the usable meat weight estimates are totally unrealistic. However, in
the Chesapeake, where every non-slave site contains a predominance of large domesticates, this
problem is less significant.
The fourth main measure of dietary importance is known as the “biomass” or “skeletal
mass allometry” method. As mentioned earlier, it relies on the weight of the bone itself to
determine relative meat weights. It is based on the basic principle of allometry that any two
dimensions of an animal grow in a relatively-predictable exponential curve, from which an
equation relating the two can be derived.22 This estimate, therefore, provides a balance to the
NISP, MNI, and MNI-based usable meat weights. It successfully counters the problem of
continual growth in cold-blooded taxa, since the estimate is based on the relationship between the
actual weight of the bone and the weight of the individual rather than an presumed average. It also
successfully counters the problem of interdependence, since it accounts for the presence/absence
of partial and complete skeletons.
The principal practical drawback of the method, as mentioned previously, is that the bone
must be weighed, an extra step in the identification process. Biomass information is thus
unattainable for older assemblages unless the bone is pulled out and weighed, an unrealistic goal
during this project.
Our goal has been to produce a data base that combined assemblages analyzed before
biomass was popularized with those that would be analyzed in the future. Thus, both the usable
meat weight and biomass estimates are referred to throughout the report.
Element Distributions
The determination of what cuts of meat are represented in a faunal assemblage begins with the
careful analysis of taphonomic modifications. Although we did not specifically focus on butchery
on a detailed level, an assessment of butcher marks and other modifications were made while the
identified bones were laid out to determine the MNIs. Element by element, the cow, pig, and
sheep/goat remains were examined for butcher marks and alterations made by dogs, rodents, and
undetermined sources.
Body part distributions are known to affected by differential preservation factors that
result from the differential composition of bones, size, and shape of different elements. Therefore,
each assemblage was carefully chosen out of many possibilities. Those that were selected for this
22
Elizabeth Reitz and Dan Cordier, “Use of Allometry in Zooarchaeological Analysis,” in C. Grigson and
J. Clutton-Brock, eds., Animals and Archaeology: 2 Shell Middens, Fishes and Birds (London: B.A.R. Series,
1983), pp. 237-252; Elizabeth Reitz and Margaret Scarry, Reconstructing Historic Subsistence with an Example
from Sixteenth-Century Spanish Florida Special Publication Series, Number 3 (The Society for Historical
Archaeology, 1985); Elizabeth Reitz and Dan Cordier, “Use of allometry in zooarchaeological analysis,” in C.
Grigson and J. Clutton-Brock, eds., Animals and Archaeology: 2 Shell Middens, Fishes and Birds, (London:
B.A.R. Series, 1983), pp. 237-252.
312
analysis come largely from wells, cellars, ravines that were rapidly filled, and privies. Since sheet
refuse assemblages are typically highly fragmented and their element distributions would be
potentially problematical, only bones from protected contexts were included in this study.
As archaeologists have begun interpreting butchery patterns in light of distribution
networks and the exchange of various meat parts that occurs within any society, numerous
techniques aimed at accurately reconstructing the data base have been developed.23 In order to
accurately reconstruct the differential presence of some body parts over others, some have looked
at the problems of density and resulting differential preservation, others have focused on the
variable nutritional content of various bones over others, others have focused on the meat vs.
bone content in various cuts, others have focused on efficiency as the main determining factor.
These studies have tended to focus on either the weight of various cuts or ease of stripping the
meat from the bone as being the determining factor of which bones get left at the hunting sites and
which get “schlepped.” Others have looked at the nutritional content of some portions over other
portions, and those working with historical assemblages have started from the modern assumption
that heads and feet were, as they are today, waste parts. Each have developed specialized
analytical techniques aimed at capturing element distributions as the analyst has conceived of
them.
While many of these techniques have merit, our approach has been to construct element
distributions in a manner that could identify butchery waste—simply as head, main body parts,
and feet, the portions that are thought to be consumables and those that are thought to be
butchery waste. Thus, all cranial elements were added together into one group, all main body
parts, including vertebra, ribs, and the upper portions of the limb bones were combined together
into a second group. The last group is composed of feet elements, including all elements that are
located in the body below the tibia, radius and ulna. Then using Elizabeth Reitz’s straightforward
method, determined relative proportions of the normal skeleton of Bos taurus, Sus scrofa, and
23
L.E. Bartram, E.M. Kroll, and H.T. Bunn, “Variability in camp structure and bone food refuse
patterning at Kua San camps,” in E.M. Kroll and T.D. Price, eds., The Interpretation of Archaeological Spatial
Patterning (New York: Plenum Press, 1991), pp. 77-148; L.R. Binford, Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology (New York:
Academic Press, 1978). See also L.R. Binford, “Butchering, Sharing, and the Archaeological Record,” Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 3:235-257; L.R. Binford and J.B. Bertram, “Bone Frequencies and Attritional
Processes,” in L.R. Binford, ed., For Theory Building in Archaeology (New York: Colombia University Press,
1977), pp. 77-153; H.T. Bunn, “Patterns of Skeletal Representation and Hominid Subsistence Activities at Olduvai
Gorge, Tanzania, and Koobi Fora, Kenya,” Journal of Human Evolution 15(1986):673-690; Donald Grayson,
“Bone Transport, Bone Destruction, and Reverse Utility Curves,” Journal of Archaeological Science
16(6)1989:643-652; K.T. Jones and D. Metcalfe, “Bare Bones Archaeology: Bone Marrow Indices and Efficiency,”
Journal of Archaeological Science 15(4)1988:415-423; Landon, “Feeding Colonial Boston”; R.E. Lyman,
“Available Meat from Faunal Remains: A Consideration of Techniques,” American Antiquity 44(3)1979:536-546;
Lyman, “On Zooarchaeological Measures of Socioeconomic Position and Cost-Efficient Meat Purchases”; Lyman,
Vertebrate Taphonomy; J. O’Connell, K. Hawkes, and N. Burton-Jones, “Hadza Hunting, Butchering, and Bone
Transport and their Archaeological Implications,” Journal of Anthropological Research 44(1988):112-162; J.
O’Connell, K. Hawkes, and N. Burton-Jones, “Patterns in the Distribution, Site Structure and Assemblage
Composition of Hadza Kill-Butchering Sites,” Journal of Archaeological Science 19(3)1992:319-345; D. Perkins
and P. Daly, “A Hunter’s Village in Neolithic Turkey,” Scientific American 219(5)1968:96-106; P.D. Schultz and
S.M. Gust, “Faunal Remains and Social Status in 19th Century Sacramento,” Historical Archaeology
17(1)1983:44-53; J.E. Yellen, “Cultural Patterning in Faunal Remains: Evidence from the !Kung Bushman,” in D.
Ingersoll, J. Yellen, and W. Macdonald eds., Experimental Archeology (New York: Columbia University Press,
1977), pp. 271-331.
313
Ovis aries.24 All element distributions from every assemblage have been figured similarly, and for
this initial phase of the analysis have been compared against the relative distributions of elements
found in the normal skeleton. As documentation from cookbooks and various merchant and
plantation accounts becomes more thoroughly integrated, additional statistical analyses will be
performed with the data base.
Age of Slaughter
Several aging techniques, ranging from relatively subjective criteria such as characteristics of the
bone to more scientific methods such as tooth wear, are used by zooarchaeologists to determine
the age at death. General criteria include the relative size of bone and the bone's degree of
graininess. More precise data is obtained by assessing the degree of fusion of the epiphysis of the
long bone, tooth eruption, and the degree of tooth wear.25 Although tooth eruption and wear
patterns provide more accurate age information than epiphyseal fusion rates, however, often
historic-period assemblages do not contain enough mandibles and maxillae from which kill-off
patterns could be reconstructed.
For this reason no zooarchaeologist working in this region has attempted a systematic
study of tooth wear patterns, relying instead on epiphyseal fusion data. Using this technique to
age long bones, both Miller and Bowen both have studied the evolution of cattle herding in the
Chesapeake. With data from seventeenth-century sites located throughout the Chesapeake, Miller
identified from the increased presence of older individuals from the time when fields had been
cleared sufficiently that oxen could pull plows to plant corn and tobacco.26 Bowen built upon this
work by comparing cattle slaughter patterns from New England and the Chesapeake and
integrating what was historically known about cattle herding from both regions. In New England,
an enclosed pasture system was established in this northern region of rocky soils that was wellsuited to grazing. Here New England colonists developed a cattle husbandry system aimed at
producing milk, with meat as an important by-product. But in the Chesapeake, an open
woodlands pasture system was developed in a region where commercial tobacco production
became the primary focus. Together with fact that the warm climate was ill-suited to making hard
cheeses, cattle were raised primarily for meat—and not milk.27 Both analysts had historical data
24
Elizabeth Reitz, “A Faunal Report on the Calvert House Faunal Assemblages.” (report on file, Historic
Annapolis, Inc., 1986).
25
Raymond E. Chaplin, The Study of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites (Seminar Press: London,
1971); J.P.N. Watson, "The Interpretation of Epiphyseal Fusion Data," in D.R. Brothwell, K.D. Thomas, and Juliet
Clutton-Brock, eds., Research Problems in Zooarchaeology, Occasional Publication No. 3 (London: Institute of
Archaeology, 1978); Bob Wilson, Caroline Grigson, and Sebastian Payne, Age and Sexing Animal Bones from
Archaeological Sites (BAR British Series 109, 1982); J.M. Maltby, “The Variability of Faunal Samples and their
Effects on Ageing Data,” in Bob Wilson, Caroline Grigson, and Sebastian Payne, eds., Ageing and Sexing Animal
Bones from Archaeological Sites, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 109, (Oxford: B.A.R., 1982); J.M.
Maltby, “Patterns in Faunal Assemblage Variability,” in G. Barker and C. Gamble, eds., Beyond Domestication in
Prehistoric Europe (London: Academic Press, 1985), pp. 33-74.
26
Miller, “Colonization and Subsistence Change on the 17th-Century Chesapeake Frontier.”
27
Joanne Bowen, “A Comparative Analysis of the New England and Chesapeake Herding Systems,” in
Paul A. Shackel and Barbara J. Little, eds., The Historic Chesapeake: Archaeological Contributions (Washington:
Smithsonian Museum Press, 1994).
314
that backed up the slaughter ages identified in the epiphyseal fusion data, but a few assemblages
produced enigmatic kill-off patterns that defied interpretation.
About this time Watson’s highly influential paper criticizing epiphyseal fusion data brought
to the foreground the unsettling realization that taphonomic, biological, and cultural factors could
not be sorted out. More and more zooarchaeologists began to shift their interest to tooth wear
evidence, dismissing the long bone method entirely.28
As this project developed, it seemed that the time had come when the analysis of tooth
wear patterns had to become incorporated as an integral part of the zooarchaeological tool kit for
the study of complex societies. Since analysts working on the project lacked experience with the
methods being applied, Susan Arter was brought onto the team. Arter, now research associate at
the San Diego Museum of Natural History, was trained by Melinda Zeder of the Smithsonian
Institution. She conducted tooth wear analyses for Near Eastern sites for almost a decade.
Assemblages Used for Aging
Mandibular remains from cattle, swine, and caprines were retrieved from appropriate assemblages
for analysis. Appropriate assemblages included any with a sufficient number of ageable mandibles
to contribute substantially, and which could be obtained from the institution curating the remains.
We are grateful for the help of the collections managers involved.
In order to evaluate the accuracy of the long bone data, these materials were also carefully
selected. Only those assemblages containing relatively complete long bones having intact
epiphyseal ends were selected for this study. Consequently, every slave-related assemblage, most
notably the House for Families assemblages from Mount Vernon and the Rich Neck Slave Quarter
assemblage, were excluded from this study since they contained insufficient numbers of ageable
long bones to obtain reliable age data, even though these assemblages are among the largest—if
not the largest—excavated in this region. Numerous other assemblages that were too small, or
exhibited high degrees of fragmentation were also excluded from this study. The end result was
that the selection process included only those assemblages that had large numbers of relatively
intact ageable long bones.
Epiphyseal Fusion
The technique of epiphyseal fusion aging is based on general developmental morphology. There
are three growth areas in a typical mammalian long bone: the shaft (or diaphysis) and epiphyses
on either end. The diaphysis is separated from each epiphysis by cartilage, which is progressively
ossified as the epiphyses “fuse” to the shaft.29 The age at which these epiphyses fuse varies by
element and articulation, but is generally consistent (within a few months) for each element in a
given species. By noting which epiphyses are fused and which are not in animals of known age,
the sequence of bone fusion can be determined. It should be understood that the ages at which
28
Watson, “The Interpretation of Epiphyseal Fusion Data.”
Simon Davis, The Archaeology of Animals (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); I.A. Silver,
“The Ageing of Domestic Animals,” in D. Brothwell and E. Higgs eds., Science in Archaeology, 2nd edition
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1969).
29
315
this occurs are statistical tendencies rather than absolute dates.30 In females and castrated males,
for example, the fusion process appears to be delayed. It also varies with different breeds of the
same species and with diet and environmental factors. For that reason a number of epiphyseal
articulations are used, and the results are averaged out over relatively wide date ranges (generally
10-18 months). Ages given should be translated as statistical age groups, rather than exact ages.
When fusion statistics are determined for a large number of bones for a given assemblage,
estimates of approximate slaughter ages can be reconstructed. Following Raymond Chaplin, as
has outlined in The Study of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites, the fused or unfused
condition of the epiphysis of the limb bones were recorded whenever possible.31
By noting that the different elements in the cattle, swine, and caprine skeletons tend to
fuse at various stages of development, Chaplin and others have offered an alternative that
produces data that is somewhat more comparable to tooth wear and historical data. In his method,
he grouped them according to natural categories, then calculated the proportions of fused and
unfused bones present in each age group. Typically several bones fuse before the animal reaches
12 months, another group fuses before the animal reaches 24 months, followed by another group
before the animal reaches 36 months, and a last group that fuses when the animal reaches 42 to 48
months of age. Thus, it is possible within acknowledged limits to group the elements according to
these biological age groups.
Watson correctly pointed out the fallacy of this method. As in any biological process,
developments in the body do not occur in every individual at the same time. Consequently, the
epiphyses in some individuals fuse later than the average age, while others fuse earlier than the
average age. This produces an indeterminate amount of overlapping between contiguous age
groups. For example, epiphyses that normally fuse at 36 months and are therefore placed into the
24-36 age group along with others that fuse during this phase of development, might actually
have fused slightly later and should be more accurately placed into the 36-48 month age group.
This is a biological reality, but not a totally insurmountable problem.
There is, however, a more serious problem, which is that grouped together in a single age
group are a number of epiphyseal ends, and among them are certain numbers of fused and unfused
epiphyses, some of which actually belong in different age groups. For example, epiphyses are not
fused in the 0-12 month age group clearly belong in this age group, but the fused elements could
be any age greater than 12 months, but there is no way to determine which age group. The
problem becomes even more complicated for the middle age groups, as in the 24-36 month age
group, since the age of the unfused elements could actually be any where from 0-24 months old,
while those that are fused might actually fall into the 36-48 or >48 age group. Thus, the most
reliable age groups are the youngest, since the unfused are clearly in that age group, and oldest,
since the fused fall clearly into that category.
Attempts were made to circumvent these problems. Since the tooth wear data portrays
age in terms of decedent populations, and the goal was to easily compare and contrast them with
the long bone data, we sought to find ways to portray the long bone data in similar terms, even
though it is presumed that survivorship curves, as constructed by Chaplin, Redding, and others,
30
31
Silver, “The Ageing of Domestic Animals ”; Watson, "The Interpretation of Epiphyseal Fusion Data."
Chaplin, The Study of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites.
316
are more accurate.32 Several zooarchaeologists, and archaeologists Fraser Neiman and Lisa
Kealhofer, were consulted to develop a more accurate technique than the one that was promoted
by Chaplin. Weeks were spent laying out the data as we sought to eliminate the strong bias that
occurred as a result of the overlapping of age groups. No one agreed with anyone else, and to end
a fascinating journey of problem solving, it was decided to retain the old method in decedent
curves for several reasons. First decedent curves were needed to compare with the tooth wear and
historical data. Second, the survivorship curves preferred by many actually presents the same data
and therefore contains the same flaws. Third, some sage advice from one tooth wear expert was
that, given the statistical problems and the fact that there is no mutually agreed-upon solution, it
was preferable to present the data in a form that retained “its bumps and warts.” Suspect
statistical manipulations would only cloud the data, and if all kill-off patterns were constructed
using the same method, the data could show when changes occurred over a two-hundred-year
time period.
Given the interdisciplinary nature of this project and the fact that we had so many
carefully-selected assemblages spanning a very long time period, we believed we had a chance to
test the reliability of the method. Some of us are still critics, and there are surely more accurate
ways of portraying the data. But since no better alternative had surfaced, it was decided to retain
the method, since this critical analysis had become all consuming, and no resolution was in sight.
We proceeded to construct kill-off patterns using Chaplin’s decedent method, and to postpone
statistical testing until all data bases had had a chance to be developed, and the initial comparisons
had been completed. The end result was an epiphyseal data base formed of assemblages with
minimal taphonomic problems that so often plague our analytical data bases. Ages used are from
Silver’s now classic work, and elements were grouped according to how they could most
accurately reflect developmental phases. 33
To test the validity of these kill-off patterns, the effects of taphonomic processes on
epiphyseal ends were carefully considered. Because soft immature bone will not survive as well as
more mature bone, it is generally thought that the younger animals will be under-represented in
the archaeological kill-off patterns. Normally kill-off patterns are thought to under-represent the
young in ways that cannot be understood, let alone be measured. In an attempt to measure and
create depositional and postdepositional indices, procedures were established to record any and all
evidence of breakage and dog chewing on the epiphyseal ends. This data base is now in place, and
the potential is there to correlate long bone epiphyseal data, tooth wear data, and historical data
with archaeological contexts, fragmentation, and chewing indices. Future analysis will no doubt
find this information useful in developing further refinements to aging long bone epiphyses.
32
Zeder, Feeding Cities; Richard Redding, “The Faunal Remains. In An Early Town on the Deh Luran
Plain,” in Henry T. Wright, ed., Museum of Anthropology Memoirs 13 (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan,
1981), 233-261; Chaplin, The Study of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites.
33
Silver, “The Ageing of Domestic Animals. ”
317
Tooth Wear
This section is based on papers prepared by Susan Arter and Ethel Wu, both of whom have made
significant contributions to the development of aging techniques for this study. 34
Methods and Analysis, by Susan Arter35
Tooth eruption, replacement, and wear studies, and linear measurement techniques based on
crown height, incremental layering of dentine in the tooth crown, and formation of cementum
annuli in tooth roots form the basis of analytical techniques which use teeth to age wild and
domestic animals associated with archaeological sites. Linear measurement techniques based on
incremental layering provide absolute or exact chronological ages and are considered highly
accurate.36 However, these processes are not always practical, since they are time consuming,
require expensive equipment, and are destructive to the specimens.
Tooth eruption and wear analyses document relative age in months, require no special
equipment, may be conducted in a rapid manner, and are nondestructive to the specimens. Tooth
eruption sequences and wear patterns can identify animals ranging in age from under six months
to as old as 8-10 years in the case of caprines. For these reasons the tooth study was selected to
supplement the long bone data.
The timing of eruption sequences and subsequent wear patterns on the chewing surface of
deciduous milk teeth and permanent teeth in domesticated and wild mammals has been
documented by researchers in the fields of veterinary science, biology, wildlife management, and
archaeology.37 Techniques derived from eruption sequences and wear patterns on teeth of known34
Susan Arter, “Tooth Eruption and Wear Analyses: Determining Age at Death in Cattle, Swine, &
Caprines for the Colonial Williamsburg Provisioning Study” (ms. on file, Department of Archaeological Research,
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1997); Ethel Wu, “Biased Bite: Annie Grant’s Tooth Wear Analysis Method
Revisited” (paper submitted to the Westinghouse Science Competition, 1996).
35
Susan Arter, “Tooth Eruption and Wear Analyses.”
36
S. Stallibrass. “The Use of Cement Layers for Absolute Ageing of Mammalian Teeth: A Selective
Review of the Literature, with Suggestions for Further Studies and Alternative Applications” in B. Wilson, C.
Grigson and S. Payne, eds., Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites.
37
S. Sisson and J.D. Grossman. The Anatomy of Domestic Animals, fifth editon (Philadelphia: W.B.
Saunders Company, 1975); R. J. Aitken. “Cementum Layers and Toothwear as Criteria for Ageing Roe Deer
(Caproleolus capreolu)” Journal of Zoology 174(1975):15-28; W.A.B. Brown, D.V.M., M. Christofferson, M.
Masler, and M.B. Weiss, “Postnatal Tooth Boar,” American Journal of Veterinary Research 21(80)1975: 7-34;
M.M. Weinreb and Y. Sharav. “Tooth Development in Sheep” American Journal of Veterinary Research 25(1964):
891-908; P. Morris, “A Review of Mammalian Age Determination Methods” Mammal Review 2(3)1972: 69-102;
R.E. Chaplin and R.W. White, “The Uses of Tooth Eruption and Wear, Body Weight and Antler Characteristics in
the Estimation of Male Wild and Park Fallow Deer (Dama dama)” Journal of Zoology, London, 157(1969): 125132; F.L. Miller. “Eruption and Attrition of Mandibular Teeth in Barren-ground Caribou” Journal of Wildlife
Management 36(2)1972: 606-612; V.P.W. Lowe. “Teeth as Indicators of Age With Special Reference to Red Deer
(Cervus elaphus) of Known Age from Rhum,” Journal of Zoology, London, 152(1967): 137-153; G.H. Matschke,
“Ageing European Wild Hogs by Dentition,” Journal of Wildlife Management 31(1967): 109-113; D.C. Quimby
and J.E. Gaab, “Mandibular Dentition as an Age Indicator in Rocky Mountain Elk” Journal of Wildlife
Management 21(1957): 435-451; W.L. Robinette, D.A. Jones, G. Rogers and J.S. Gashwiler, “Notes on Tooth
Development and Wear in Rocky Mountain Mule Deer” Journal of Wildlife Management 21(1957): 134-153; C.W.
Severinghaus, “Tooth Development and Wear as Criteria of Age in White-tailed Deer” Journal of Wildlife
Management 13(2)1949: 195-216; Simon Hillson, Teeth (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. 1986);
318
age animals have been successfully applied to archaeological specimens for determining culling
schedules of various domestic mammals according to their age at death.38
TOOTH STRUCTURE AND ERUPTION
Deciduous milk teeth and permanent teeth consist of a crown and root. At the tooth core is a pulp
cavity containing blood vessels and nerves. The pulp cavity is encapsulated by a secondary dentine
matrix which is overlaid by the tooth’s primary dentine substructure. The dentine is covered by
the hard, pearly colored enamel on the exterior of the tooth crown. These general components are
formed while the tooth is beneath the gumline and continue to development while the tooth is
erupting through the gumline. Root development continues for some time after the tooth has fully
erupted into the mouth.
Among cattle and caprines the tooth eruption sequence begins late in utero with
emergence of the first deciduous incisors. For swine the deciduous third incisor and canine erupt
just prior to birth. The remaining deciduous incisors and milk molars erupt within three weeks of
birth for cattle, within six weeks for sheep, at twelve weeks for goat, and within fourteen weeks
for swine. Deciduous teeth are later replaced by permanent molars, incisors, and premolars. Full
sets of permanent teeth are in place by approximately 48 months for cattle and caprine, and by 22
months for swine.
After a tooth has fully erupted and has reached the occlusal chewing plane, the wear
process begins on the hard outer enamel tooth covering. Within three to five months of the onset
of this early wear the softer dentine matrix beneath the enamel begins to be exposed. This wear
process continues during the animal’s lifetime with the exposure of more and more dentine until
the enamel between the tooth cusps wear down to tiny islands and eventually disappear leaving a
A.H. Andrews. “The Use of Dentition to Age Young Cattle” in B. Wilson, C. Grigson, and S. Payne, eds., Ageing
and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites (BAR British Series 109, 1982), 141-153; Gail Bull and S.
Payne, “Tooth Eruption and Epiphyseal Fusion in Pigs and Wild Boar” in B. Wilson, C. Grigson and S. Payne,
eds., Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites (BAR British Series 109, 1982), 55-71; Esrif
Deniz and S. Payne, “Eruption and Wear in the Mandibular Dentition as a Guide to Ageing Turkish Angora
Goats” in B. Wilson, C. Grigson and S. Payne, eds., Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites
(BAR British Series 109, 1982), 105-205; Annie Grant, “The Use of Toothwear as a Guide to the Age of Domestic
Ungulates” in B. Wilson, C. Grigson and S. Payne, eds., Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological
Sites (BAR British Series 109, 1982), 91-108; Annie Grant, “The Use of Toothwear as a Guide to the Age of
Domestic Animals: A Brief Explanation,” in The Excavations at Portchester Castle Volume I: Roman (Reports and
Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries, London, 33, 1975), 437-450; Annie Grant, “Variation in Dental
Attrition in Mammals and its Relevance to Age Estimation” in D.R. Brothwell, K.D. Thomas, and J. CluttonBrock, eds., Research Problems in Zooarchaeology, Occasional Publication No. 3 (The Institute of Archaeology,
Great Britain, 1978), 283-302; Sebastian Payne., “Morphological Distinctions between the Mandibular Teeth of
Young Sheep Ovis and Goats Capra,” Journal of Archaeological Science 12 (1985): 139-147; I.A. Silver, “The
Ageing of Domestic Animals,” in D. Brothwell and E. Higgs eds., Science in Archaeology, 2nd edition (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1969); C.W.F. Higham, “Stock Rearing as a Cultural Factor in Prehistoric Europe,”
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 33(1967): 84-106; J.M. Ewbank, D.W. Phillipson, R.D. Whitehouse, and
E.S. Higgs. “Sheep in the Iron Age: a Method of Study,” Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 30(1964): 423426.
38
Landon, “Feeding Colonial Boston”; B.V. Rolett and M. Chiu, “Age Estimation Of Prehistoric Pigs
(Sus scrofa) by Molar Eruption and Attrition,” Journal of Archaeological Science 21(1994): 377-386; Zeder,
Feeding Cities; Maltby, Faunal Studies on Urban Sites.
319
smooth dentine chewing surface on the surface of the tooth. This steady, measurable process of
attrition on the occlusal surface of the teeth forms the basis for age determination beyond the final
stages of tooth eruption.
ANALYSIS PROCEDURES
Measures were employed in the analysis of the mandibular specimens from the Chesapeake study
sites to maximize the number of ageable specimens while controlling for erroneous counts
resulting from duplications in the data sets. Mandibles and mandibular fragments with intact cheek
teeth, and all loose cheek teeth were sorted by species, by right and left sides, by anterior and
posterior portion of the jaw, and by tooth type. All specimens were rigorously examined for the
purpose of mending broken teeth and jaws, and reconstructing tooth rows.
Complete mandibles, partial mandibles, and selected loose teeth were intensively examined
to identify matching left and right sides so that age data from only one specimen per individual
animal would be represented in the data sets. Upper maxillary teeth were not included in the study
because most of the tooth-based age determination methods apply specifically to the lower
mandibular teeth. Omission of the upper teeth also alleviates the likelihood of data duplications
associated with coding the upper and lower dentition of the same individual Once identified,
sorted, mended, and paired, the mandibles and loose lower p4, P4, and M3 teeth were coded
according to the respective systems described below.
METHODS OF ANALYSIS
Four analytical systems were employed for determining age at death based on archaeological
dentition of cattle, pigs, and caprines from the Chesapeake study population. Each system
documents tooth eruption sequences and occlusal wear by individual specimen. Procedures
developed by Payne and Deniz and Payne use symbols to record stages of tooth eruption and
tooth wear from archaeological caprine specimens.39 Bull and Payne have developed a system for
aging swine which uses typographic symbols to document eruption and wear.40 Higham’s system
for aging cattle records tooth eruption sequences and documents subsequent primary, secondary,
and tertiary wear stages.41 Each of these systems determine an animal’s relative age at death in
months or years.
Annie Grant’s system records eruption and wear data on a value based numeric continuum
or scale of distribution which reflects the age structure of cattle, swine, and caprine assemblages.42
The detail and fineness involved in her recording method are matched only by those developed by
Payne’s system for aging caprines. Because Grant’s method does not assign relative ages in
months or years, the utility of her system lies in its ability to serve as a control for assessing the
basic compatibility of age data derived from the other techniques used in this study, particularly
the cattle and swine.
39
Sebastian Payne, “Kill-Off Patterns in Sheep and Goats,” Anatolian Studies 23(1973):281-303; Deniz
and Payne, “Eruption and Wear in the Mandibular Dentition as a Guide to Ageing Turkish Angors Goats.”
40
Bull and Payne, “Tooth Eruption and Epiphyseal Fusion in Pigs and Wild Boar.”
Higham, “Stock Rearing as a Cultural Factor in Prehistoric Europe.”
42
Grant, “The Use of Toothwear as a Guide to the Age of Domestic Ungulates”; Grant, “The Use of
Toothwear as a Guide to the Age of Domestic Animals: A Brief Explanation.”
41
320
Mandibular cheek teeth were used as the basis for age determinations in each system, and
include deciduous third milk molars (m3), permanent fourth premolars (P4), and first, second, and
third permanent molars (M1, M2, M3) from complete and partially intact tooth rows. Loose m3,
P4 and M3 teeth found disarticulated from the jaw were utilized as they are key age indicators
because of the specific ages at which they erupt and come into wear. Loose M1’s and M2’s were
omitted as it is not always possible to distinguish one from the other, particularly in cattle, and
because they are often found in the single longest wear stage which requires the presence of
associated teeth for positive age determination.
PAYNE
Sebastian Payne’s system for aging caprines from archaeological sites is based largely on data he
collected from known-age sheep and to a lesser extent goats first published in 1973.43 This work
was expanded upon in 1982 in Deniz and Payne’s study on tooth eruption and wear in known-age
goats.44 This analytical method determines an animal’s relative age in months by documenting the
sequence of mandibular tooth eruption (after Silver’s 1969 work) and subsequent wear stages for
deciduous milk molars and permanent premolars and molars.45
Payne’s coding process utilizes alphabetical letters to document tooth eruption stages, and
iconic symbols to depict the stages of wear visible on the mandibular teeth. Zeder adapted
numeric sequences in place of Payne’s letters and symbols for ease of coding and data synthesis.46
Individual teeth within the mandible are assigned a number based on the state of eruption and/or
degree of wear. Numbers assigned to the respective teeth are then summed to determine the
specimen’s age stage. Payne’s system includes nine different stages representing age groups
ranging from 0-2 months to 8-10+ years.
All caprine specimens used in the present tooth wear study were analyzed according to
Payne’s system using Zeder’s numeric assignments. Mandibles with intact rows of deciduous
and/or permanent cheek teeth assignable the specific age stages were utilized whenever possible.
Partial mandibular tooth rows and loose teeth were also used to ensure maximum representation
of all age groups, particularly fragile jaws from young animals which are often found broken. In
the cases where partial tooth rows and loose teeth were unassignable to specific age stages, it was
possible to securely place them within a range of two or three stages. Although specific ages
could not be determined for these specimens it was possible to identify their relative age spans of
two months to one year, one to two years, three to five years and so on.
Once the caprine mandibles and loose teeth were coded and the age stages assigned all
data were recorded on data entry sheets by site. Ages were tallied by groups for each site and
were plotted by temporal periods to assess shifts in culling strategies over time.
43
Payne, "Kill-Off Patterns in Sheep and Goats: The Mandibles from Asvan Kale."
44
Deniz and Payne, “Eruption and Wear in the Mandibular Dentition as a Guide to Ageing Turkish
Angora Goats.”
45
Silver, "The Aging of Domestic Animals."
46
Zeder, Feeding Cities.
321
BULL AND PAYNE
Bull and Payne’s system was applied to mandibular pig teeth from the Chesapeake study
population. It is based on the eruption sequence and tooth wear patterns in a population of wild
boars. Tooth eruption sequences for wild boar and domestic pig breeds fall within similar age
ranges though the permanent third molar erupts slightly later in wild boars than in domestic pigs.
Age assignments for Bull and Payne’s study group were based on the amount of time
lapsed between the April-May birthing season and late December-early March culling season and
are broken into four groups for upper maxillary and lower mandibular teeth. Animals with intact
deciduous milk molars (m1-3) and unerupted second permanent molars (M2) born in April or
May and killed in late December to early March would have been 7-11 months old at death,
forming Bull and Payne’s “Group 1.” Those exhibiting permanent premolars (P2-P4) second
permanent molars (M2) with wear, and third permanent molars (M3) erupting but not worn were
considered a year older at age 19-23 months forming “Group 2.” Specimens assigned to “Group
3” exhibited permanent M3’s in later eruption and wear stages, and were determined to be 31-35
months. Specimens exhibiting more extensive wear than specimens in Group 3 were classified as
“older” than 31-35 months.
In some cases specimens fell distinctly between groups. For example some archaeological
specimens exhibited teeth whose state of eruption clearly preceded those documented in “Group
1” at 7-11 months. In such cases where specimens were clearly younger than those in “Group 1”
they were assigned as “< Group 1” and were aged 0-6 months. Specimens exhibiting eruption and
wear stages midway between “Group 1” at 7-11 months and “Group 2” at 19-23 months, were
assigned age 12-18 months. Similarly, those which fell between “Group 2” and “Group 3” were
identified as 24-30 months of age. These determinations were made due to the number of
specimens exhibiting intermediate eruption and wear stages relative to Bulls and Payne’s groups
and that the significant gaps of up to 12 months between some of the their groups dictated the
assignment of specimens into intermediate age groupings. Moreover, the omission of
archaeological specimens whose wear stages clearly fall between those in Bull and Payne’s groups
would skew the Chesapeake mortality data and generate incomplete culling profiles.
HIGHAM
Using Silver’s data on tooth development and replacement in domesticated mammals together
with his own observations, Higham devised a series of 23 stages documenting the ages at which
cattle teeth erupt and wear down.47 It provides approximate ages for cattle ranging from fetal to
50 months. Specimens exhibiting wear at or beyond Stage 23 were assigned an age of >50
months. Complete mandibular tooth rows were utilized when possible. Partial tooth rows and
isolated m3’s, M3’s, and P4’s were also coded. As noted previously, these specific teeth are
particularly informative even when disarticulated from the jaw because the time at which they
erupt and wear down occurs at definitive ages of under six months, two to three years, and three
to four years respectively.
Age stages assigned to mandibular cheek tooth rows and select isolated teeth were
recorded on code sheets for all specimens by site. Age groups were then tallied by site and by
47
Higham, “Stock Rearing as a Cultural Factor in Prehistoric Europe.”
322
temporal period to reflect culling schedules over time. The Higham aging technique is the least
comprehensive among those used in this study. To assess the reliability of Higham’s technique the
age profiles generated from his system were compared with age distribution profiles generated by
Grant’s system.
GRANT
Annie Grant’s methodological premise is based on the application of known age tooth eruption
and wear sequences to archaeological specimens.48 She uses an extensive population of cattle,
swine, and caprine from British archaeological sites dating from the eighteenth century to the
Bronze Age as a comparative baseline for assessing age-related values in archaeological
specimens.
All cattle, swine, and caprine specimens from the Chesapeake study population were
systematically analyzed according to Grant’s system. Her analytical method involves assignment
of a Tooth Wear Stage (TWS) to each tooth within a mandible. TWS assignments represent
specific states of eruption or stages of wear. Each TWS has a corresponding numeric value
ranging from 1 to 20. Eruption stages are denoted by the symbols “C, V, E, 1/2, U” and represent
values 1-5 respectively. Wear stages are represented by the letters “a” to “p” and range in value
from 6-20. TWS “C” represents the earliest stage of eruption and has a value of one. TWS “p”
reflects the most extensive degree of occlusal wear and has a value of 20.
TWS are assigned to five specific teeth within in given mandible including the third
deciduous milk molar (m3), permanent fourth premolar (P4), and first, second, and third
permanent molars (M1-3) for caprine, pig, and cattle. Once coded, TWS values for the permanent
molars M1-M3 are summed to determine the Mandibular Wear Stage (MWS) for each jaw. In
cases of animals under six months where the permanent M1-M3 teeth have not yet erupted or are
just beginning to erupt, the MWS value is based on the TWS of the deciduous m3 alone or in
conjunction with the erupting M1 when applicable. MWS values are a summation of the
developmental stages of each tooth within the mandible. The sum value of each specimen is
plotted on a histogram from youngest to oldest according to a numeric scale ranging from 1-54
for cattle, 1-47 for pig, and 1-52 for caprines.
Unlike the previously described aging methods Grant’s system does not identify a
specimen’s relative age in months or years. For this reason, Grant’s system was not used to
generate age specific mortality profiles. Her system does, however, have extremely useful
methodological and analytical applications for the Chesapeake study population and was used as
an important control for the other aging systems used in this study.
Grant’s method allows for the reconstruction of relative age structures for cattle, swine,
and caprine by using the specific numeric values derived from eruption and wear stages on
individual specimens. Once determined, the MWS values associated with the respective specimens
are plotted on a histogram as noted. The breakout of these eruption and wear-based values serve
as a statistical basis of comparison for the relative age distributions and mortality profiles obtained
from the other aging methods utilized in this study. Moreover, the detail and fineness prescribed
for recording age criteria according to Grant’s system serves as an underlying methodological
48
Grant, “The Use of Toothwear as a Guide to the Age of Domestic Ungulates”; Grant, “The Use of
Toothwear as a Guide to the Age of Domestic Animals: A Brief Explanation.”
323
control for age data generated by Bull and Payne’s method for swine, and especially for Higham’s
method for cattle as their respective systems do not record specific wear stages but only whether
or not the respective teeth or tooth cusps are in wear or not.
Grant’s has indeed proved to be a useful control for other systems. Data generated from
Higham’s, Bull and Payne’s, and Payne’s methods for aging the Chesapeake cattle, swine, and
caprines respectively proved to be highly compatible with the data generated from Grant’s system
for these same animals. This information has been particularly useful in justifying the utility of
Higham’s system and verifying the age data captured with his system.
Evaluation of Grant’s Method, by Ethel Wu49
Grant’s method, as in other tooth wear methods, is based on the principle that over time, as an
animal chews on food, its teeth become worn. Problems arise in this method, however, since it
disregards the natural variability of wear that results from the diet of the animal and its
relationship with humans. The complex interplay that exists between environmental, biological,
and cultural factors affecting the rate of wear is not considered, when her entire method of aging
is based on British sites dating from the Bronze Age to the eighteenth century. Two problems
jump out immediately from this fact. First is the reliability of the information; colonial Chesapeake
husbandry occurred in a landscape created by Native Americans, not the landscape that had
evolved over many hundreds of years in Britain, when husbandry would have evolved in the many
micro-environments that were present throughout the British Isles. By using Grant’s method, the
rate of wear that occurred and resulting kill-off patterns would have been biased by her
population. The second problem arises from Grant’s method itself. Tooth wear analysis, which
can determine “definite” relative ages in some cases, but in many instances only broad age ranges
can be determined. Grant tries to rid her system of the vagueness by only using those specimens
which yield a definite tooth wear stage. Neglecting the specimens leaves out, unfortunately in
many cases, the majority of the population.
This research sought to refine Annie Grant’s method. In order to eliminate most of the
bias of basing the colonial populations on British populations, a regional data base was created.
The advantages in doing this were twofold. First, general trends of tooth wear, and thus, age,
would not depend heavily upon patterns of populations far different from the studied ones.
Second, distinctive patterns of aging in the region may be distinguished within the populations
themselves; this provided additional, but valuable information.
METHODS
This method has accomplished two things; first it has created a “natural data base” of “definite”
tooth wear stages. Since specimens found in urban assemblages were likely to have been from
livestock raised using commercial feeding practices, the natural sample was split again, into rural
and urban sub-populations. The tooth wear stages for teeth present in all “definite” specimens
were then plotted onto graphs showing the range of wear present in the sample. These graphs
were used to determine the ranges of the mandibles with a range of mandibular wear values. Each
tooth of the mandible was compared to the graph of that tooth. Its assigned tooth wear stage
value was read from the y-axis, and its range of the x-axis or mandibular wear stage values were
49
Wu, “Biased Bite: Annie Grant’s Tooth Wear Analysis Method Revisited.”
324
taken. Each tooth of the mandibles lacking a single MWS then had a range. The highest possible
MWS and the lowest possible high MWS was taken from the MWS ranges of each tooth in the
mandibles. In other words, the overlapping ranges of the teeth were chosen, with the reasoning
that each tooth may have a wide range, but to exist with another tooth of a certain MWS, it must
be a smaller range of MWS Thus, a narrowed MWS was determined.
After the ranges were narrowed, they were plotted on another graph developed in this
research. First, all specimens with definite MWS values were plotted. Afterwards those specimens
having more than one MWS were plotted proportionally across the graph in the appropriate wear
stages. The narrowing and plotting of ranges have led to several beneficial results. Firstly,
comparison of the ranges did, in most cases, lead to narrowing of the MWSs. In a few cases, the
ranges stayed the same, but in the majority of cases the proportions of specimens in various age
groups differed significantly from histograms using only the specimens with definite MWSs.
Immediate benefits from this approach was that older oxen and cattle which were lost in all
samples using the original Grant method became visible. Secondly, this method has helped to sort
through the problem that the middle wear stages is extended for relatively long periods of an
animal’s life. Adding the refined MWS ranges has shown a fuller picture of this ambiguous and
poorly understood group of the population.
Benefits of this method are only beginning to be understood. First, proponents of tooth
wear over long bone data have not fully considered the potential overlapping problem that is
present in the middle age groups. A few understand it to be present in the epiphyseal fusion
process, but it is likely present in the tooth wear data as well. This method may well help to sort
through some of these problems. Secondly, wearing rates are dependent upon diet and feeding
practices. By creating MWS histograms using specimens from the same region and same time
period, we may well be able to sort out the complicated relationship that exists between diet and
tooth wear. Initial sorts of the tooth wear data into seventeenth and eighteenth century data bases
demonstrating slightly different wear rates, a sign that diets—or something had changed over the
two hundred year period.
Histograms of these refinements to Grant’s method have been completed for the tooth
wear data for all cattle, swine, and caprine remains from all assemblages. Synthesis of this
evidence is only in the beginning stages.
Discussion
It has been the contention of this study that tooth eruption sequences and subsequent wear stages
which form the basis of the analytical methods described here, can reliably determine age at death
in domestic animal stock, and that these methods are reliably applicable to the Chesapeake
domesticates. Data collected according to these methods and in conjunction with age data based
on long bone epiphyseal fusion serve as baseline archaeological evidence of provisioning
processes and strategies associated with the emergence of America’s first urban centers.
Each data base—epiphyseal fusion, tooth wear, probate records, and text—became an
independent source of information, where each could inform the other. This approach is extremely
productive, since once the shortcomings were understood, it became clear how each data base
could inform the other. Learning to deal with long bone and tooth wear data in this manner,
however, was a hard lesson. At first, tremendous energy was expended trying to structure both
325
data sets in such a manner that they could be easily compared. Gradually, as taphonomic indices
and variability existing both within and between data sets were explored, it became clear that both
taphonomy and biological factors played a part. Identifying one or the other as the being the
major causal factor for anomalous patterns was a frustrating enterprise.
The first phase of research, however, has been productive, demonstrating that variability
existing between the long bone and tooth wear data is that the young is consistently underrepresented. But more importantly, comparisons of multiple data bases has shown that variability
existing between the older age groups is related to sample size, since whenever data from the
same time periods were combined into macro-assemblages, discrepancies generally disappeared.
Further statistical analyses involving chewing and fragmentation indices are in order, but
for now, it is clear that the two data sets do work well together. On occasion they disagree, but
more often than not the tooth wear evidence helps to amplify and clarify age groups present in the
long bone data. The mistake the field of zooarchaeology has made (and is making) is to expect
each data base to be an exact copy of the other. If they do not agree, then one is presumed to be
suspect and dismissed. Through this thinking process long bone fusion data has become the poor
stepchild of zooarchaeology. Hopefully, this study will demonstrate that the epiphyseal data base
does have utility, particularly when it is accompanied by tooth wear and other forms of evidence,
such as annuli, historical, and ethnographic studies. Each will clearly enhance the results of
epiphyseal data.
326
Data Sets
The tables given below reflect the raw data used in the analysis. Complete, detailed data is
available from the Zooarchaeological Lab at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
327
Table C.1.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
DOMESTIC COW (BOS TAURUS), ADULT
Assemblage
Head % Body % Feet %
N
Normal Distribution
29.7
42.2
28.1
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
Kingsmill Tenement
50.1
58.3
41.6
39.5
23.2
25.2
45.2
28.9
24.8
27.7
34.9
58.5
31.8
29.5
20.9
16.9
29.9
25.6
18.3
43.0
25.3
1867
1157
137
43
142
107
281
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Jenkins Neck Site
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
Utopia
Pettus Plantation
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
Drummond Plantation
27.9
27.2
42.5
29.7
23.8
26.2
24.4
30.5
41.5
46.3
40.0
32.1
40.9
39.0
47.2
41.8
30.5
26.5
17.5
38.2
35.1
34.7
28.3
27.7
3440
460
40
165
596
629
180
1370
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby Site
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland Plantation)
Clifts Plantation (Phases III and IV)
29.4
37.4
14.1
33.6
32.3
38.3
32.1
74.2
45.2
25.3
31.6
30.5
11.7
21.2
41.1
1632
243
341
146
902
Rural 1750-1775
Curles Neck Plantation
Mount Vernon
Kingsmill Plantation
21.3
15.0
25.5
20.3
42.5
47.7
52.4
31.0
36.0
36.8
21.8
48.6
1659
321
639
699
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
54.5
44.8
55.8
31.2
32.8
31.0
14.2
22.4
13.2
2712
317
2395
Rural Early 19th C
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
26.2
40.7
7.6
44.3
35.6
55.4
28.6
23.7
34.8
210
118
92
Rural Late 18-Early 19th
Settlers Landing Road
Thomas Brown Site
28.1
23.7
38.3
57.4
67.2
34.6
14.3
9.1
26.3
441
308
133
Note:
Normal distribution represents percentages found in skeletally complete animal. Head category
represents all cranial elements; foot category represents all elements from the carpals or tarsals to the
phalanges (e.g., carpals, tarsals, metapodials, and phalanges). Body category represents all others,
including long bones, scapula, innominate, vertebrae, and ribs.
328
Table C.1.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
DOMESTIC COW (BOS TAURUS), ADULT
Assemblage
Head % Body % Feet %
N
Frontier 1750s
Fort Chiswell
32.4
32.4
40.4
40.4
27.2
27.2
389
389
Rural Mid-Late 18th C
Gloucester (44GL357)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
29.9
4.1
50.4
30.6
1.3
43.9
48.6
28.6
50.9
69.3
25.9
47.3
20.9
18.0
29.4
2902
556
1098
945
303
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Public Hospital
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
23.6
21.4
23.7
3.6
35.4
61.4
67.5
62.7
83.8
46.4
15.0
11.1
13.6
12.6
18.2
645
117
59
167
302
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
32.9
42.1
29.8
53.4
42.9
57.0
13.7
15.0
13.2
519
133
386
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
20.4
31.3
21.2
21.3
9.7
7.7
59.6
33.1
62.3
66.9
75.6
78.5
20.1
35.6
16.5
11.8
14.7
13.8
1679
441
424
314
435
65
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
18.1
27.8
12.5
20.2
10.8
59.9
33.5
68.5
62.9
73.4
22.0
38.6
19.0
16.7
15.9
1475
334
327
480
334
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
9.4
9.4
55.2
55.2
35.4
35.4
96
96
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
30.1
30.1
29.4
29.4
40.5
40.5
153
153
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th C
Calvert House (Late Period)
32.8
32.8
48.9
48.9
18.3
18.3
476
476
0.0
0.0
79.0
79.0
21.0
21.0
167
167
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
329
Table C.2.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
DOMESTIC COW (BOS TAURUS), CALF
Assemblage
Head % Body % Feet %
N
Normal Distribution
29.7
42.2
28.1
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
Kingsmill Tenement
57.1
62.5
66.7
0.0
27.8
0.0
33.3
35.0
32.1
33.3
100.0
50.0
0.0
33.3
7.9
5.4
0.0
0.0
22.2
0.0
33.3
140
112
6
1
18
0
3
42.1
69.7
100.0
0.0
33.3
10.3
0.0
33.3
26.3
21.2
0.0
0.0
33.3
34.5
0.0
33.3
31.6
9.1
0.0
0.0
33.3
55.2
100.0
33.3
76
33
3
0
3
29
2
6
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby Site
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland Plantation)
Clifts Plantation (Phases III and IV)
22.2
14.3
34.6
0.0
0.0
55.6
57.1
57.7
0.0
50.0
22.2
28.6
7.7
0.0
50.0
45
7
26
0
12
Rural 1750-1775
Curles Neck Plantation
Mount Vernon
Kingsmill Plantation
43.8
33.3
55.0
0.0
43.8
55.6
40.0
33.3
12.5
11.1
5.0
66.7
32
9
20
3
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
38.1
71.4
21.4
38.1
28.6
42.9
23.8
0.0
35.7
21
7
14
Rural Early 19th C
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
44.4
0.0
57.1
22.2
75.0
7.1
33.3
25.0
35.7
18
4
14
Rural Late 18-Early 19th
Settlers Landing Road
Thomas Brown Site
28.6
30.4
0.0
18.4
17.4
33.3
53.1
52.2
66.7
49
46
3
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Jenkins Neck Site
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
Utopia
Pettus Plantation
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
Drummond Plantation
Note:
Normal distribution represents percentages found in skeletally complete animal. Head category
represents all cranial elements; foot category represents all elements from the carpals or tarsals to the
phalanges (e.g., carpals, tarsals, metapodials, and phalanges). Body category represents all others,
including long bones, scapula, innominate, vertebrae, and ribs.
330
Table C.2.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
DOMESTIC COW (BOS TAURUS), CALF
Assemblage
Head % Body % Feet %
N
Rural Mid-Late 18th C
Gloucester (44GL357)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
54.5
77.8
60.0
32.0
81.8
34.5
22.2
30.0
52.0
9.1
10.9
0.0
10.0
16.0
9.1
55
9
10
25
11
Frontier 1750s
Fort Chiswell
40.0
40.0
40.0
40.0
20.0
20.0
10
10
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Public Hospital
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
15.0
20.0
0.0
15.0
20.0
80.0
80.0
100.0
75.0
80.0
5.0
0.0
0.0
10.0
0.0
40
5
5
20
10
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
43.3
46.2
38.1
46.7
43.6
52.4
10.0
10.3
9.5
60
39
21
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
42.6
35.5
45.3
33.3
45.1
43.5
43.0
32.3
42.2
52.4
42.9
52.2
14.3
32.3
12.5
14.3
12.1
4.3
230
31
64
21
91
23
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
50.3
40.0
50.0
60.4
31.3
44.2
55.0
43.1
35.8
62.5
5.4
5.0
6.9
3.8
6.3
147
20
58
53
16
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
100.0
3
3
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th C
Calvert House (Late Period)
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0
16.7
16.7
83.3
83.3
0.0
0.0
12
12
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
331
Table C.3.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
DOMESTIC PIG (SUS SCROFA)
Assemblage
Head % Body % Feet %
Normal Distribution
N
28.2
34.5
37.3
66.6
66.3
62.5
100.0
55.6
77.8
65.4
23.3
23.8
20.5
0.0
37.0
19.2
23.9
10.1
9.8
17.0
0.0
7.4
3.0
10.7
1271
650
176
31
81
99
234
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Jenkins Neck Site
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
Utopia
Pettus Plantation
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
Drummond Plantation
56.5
64.2
64.5
45.8
65.4
46.5
73.7
78.9
22.5
27.0
25.3
30.5
28.1
22.5
22.8
16.6
20.9
8.8
10.2
23.6
6.5
31.0
3.5
4.5
3537
204
166
203
231
1966
57
710
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby Site
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland Plantation)
Clifts Plantation (Phases III and IV)
54.9
62.2
38.5
50.3
64.0
25.5
26.5
43.4
19.9
21.9
19.6
11.4
18.1
29.7
14.2
1941
185
343
622
791
Rural 1750-1775
Curles Neck Plantation
Mount Vernon
Kingsmill Plantation
63.6
64.8
64.6
56.9
21.6
22.1
20.2
27.5
14.9
13.1
15.2
15.7
2151
398
1447
306
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
58.5
67.2
53.6
30.6
23.4
34.8
10.8
9.3
11.7
1848
674
1174
Rural Early 19th C
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
59.6
56.2
64.2
18.8
19.9
17.4
21.6
23.9
18.5
612
347
265
Rural Late 18-Early 19th
Settlers Landing Road
Thomas Brown Site
56.3
56.9
55.7
28.3
30.5
25.7
15.3
12.5
18.6
717
383
334
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
Kingsmill Tenement
Note:
Normal distribution represents percentages found in skeletally complete animal. Head category
represents all cranial elements; foot category represents all elements from the carpals or tarsals to the
phalanges (e.g., carpals, tarsals, metapodials, and phalanges). Body category represents all others,
including long bones, scapula, innominate, vertebrae, and ribs.
332
Table C.3.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
DOMESTIC PIG (SUS SCROFA)
Assemblage
Head % Body % Feet %
N
Rural Mid-Late 18th C
Gloucester (44GL357)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
68.6
69.6
77.9
56.3
66.5
20.8
20.9
15.7
26.0
23.7
10.6
9.5
6.4
17.6
9.9
3921
537
1518
1076
790
Frontier 1750s
Fort Chiswell
35.2
35.2
45.9
45.9
18.9
18.9
122
122
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Public Hospital
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
31.3
37.5
24.4
52.2
23.6
31.9
44.4
48.7
43.3
21.3
36.8
18.1
26.9
4.5
55.1
636
72
78
134
352
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
53.3
48.6
57.4
33.6
32.8
34.3
13.1
18.6
8.3
381
177
204
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
46.5
51.1
50.3
46.5
44.6
37.9
36.4
31.3
37.2
38.7
36.0
42.7
17.1
17.6
12.5
14.9
19.4
19.4
1857
403
328
269
630
227
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
52.0
51.8
60.8
43.6
62.8
25.6
24.6
24.3
25.4
31.9
22.4
23.6
14.9
30.9
5.2
1956
552
482
731
191
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
60.1
60.1
24.6
24.6
15.2
15.2
138
138
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
40.4
40.4
26.6
26.6
33.0
33.0
109
1009
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th C
Calvert House (Late Period)
52.4
52.4
26.8
26.8
20.8
20.8
538
538
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
47.5
47.5
29.3
29.3
23.2
23.2
341
341
333
Table C.4.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
DOMESTIC SHEEP OR GOAT (OVIS ARIES/CAPRA HIRCUS)
Assemblage
Head % Body % Feet %
N
Normal Distribution
29.7
42.2
28.1
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
Kingsmill Tenement
33.1
42.2
23.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
37.2
37.5
42.2
45.6
0.0
57.1
0.0
0.0
29.5
15.6
31.1
0.0
42.9
0.0
62.8
275
128
90
0
14
0
43
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Jenkins Neck Site
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
Utopia
Pettus Plantation
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
Drummond Plantation
26.3
38.7
0.0
0.0
29.5
21.9
75.0
39.7
26.4
50.4
100.0
0.0
50.0
20.1
25.0
32.1
47.2
10.9
0.0
0.0
20.5
57.8
0.0
28.2
1246
137
6
0
44
899
4
156
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby Site
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland Plantation)
Clifts Plantation (Phases III and IV)
30.1
50.0
24.8
15.0
36.8
56.8
38.6
63.7
60.0
47.4
13.1
11.4
11.5
25.0
15.8
259
44
157
20
38
Rural 1750-1775
Curles Neck Plantation
Mount Vernon
Kingsmill Plantation
43.7
18.3
56.6
11.5
40.5
76.7
32.0
55.2
15.8
5.0
11.4
33.3
815
60
572
183
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
49.8
33.0
51.2
44.1
43.2
44.1
6.1
23.9
4.7
1162
88
1074
Rural Early 19th C
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
48.5
65.5
35.9
39.7
27.6
48.7
11.8
6.9
15.4
68
29
39
Rural Late 18-Early 19th
Settlers Landing Road
Thomas Brown Site
11.7
7.0
17.6
66.2
60.5
73.5
22.1
32.6
8.8
77
43
34
Note:
Normal distribution represents percentages found in skeletally complete animal. Head category
represents all cranial elements; foot category represents all elements from the carpals or tarsals to the
phalanges (e.g., carpals, tarsals, metapodials, and phalanges). Body category represents all others,
including long bones, scapula, innominate, vertebrae, and ribs.
334
Table C.4.
ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION
DOMESTIC SHEEP OR GOAT (OVIS ARIES/CAPRA HIRCUS)
Assemblage
Head % Body % Feet %
N
Rural Mid-Late 18th C
Gloucester (44GL357)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
37.4
21.4
48.1
41.1
27.1
54.0
66.7
38.7
55.7
65.7
8.6
11.9
13.3
3.2
7.1
596
126
181
219
70
Frontier 1750s
Fort Chiswell
20.7
20.7
63.2
63.2
16.1
16.1
87
87
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Public Hospital
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
18.8
26.9
14.3
6.9
32.3
75.8
65.4
85.7
79.3
61.3
5.4
7.7
0.0
13.8
6.5
149
26
63
29
31
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
10.9
15.3
0.0
76.2
68.1
96.6
12.9
16.7
3.4
202
144
58
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
16.2
30.1
10.3
10.7
14.9
16.9
72.6
54.4
71.1
86.4
76.9
67.4
11.1
15.5
18.6
2.9
8.2
15.7
647
103
97
103
255
89
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
32.6
34.3
6.3
51.1
29.6
55.3
50.7
76.0
41.6
62.0
12.1
14.9
17.7
7.3
8.5
438
134
96
137
71
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
28.5
28.5
63.4
63.4
8.1
8.1
123
123
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
15.0
15.0
55.0
55.0
30.0
30.0
40
40
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th C
Calvert House (Late Period)
39.8
39.8
38.5
38.5
21.3
21.3
475
475
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
15.6
15.6
68.8
68.8
15.6
15.6
77
77
335
Table C.5.
KILL-OFF PATTERN BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
DOMESTIC COW (BOS TAURUS)
Assemblage
0-12
12-24
24-36
36-48
>48
Months Months Months Months Months
N
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
Kingsmill Tenement
19.0
14.3
0.0
0.0
25.0
0.0
50.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
6.4
16.3
0.0
0.0
3.6
16.7
0.0
23.6
29.4
25.0
0.0
51.4
50.0
0.0
50.9
40.0
75.0
100.0
20.0
33.3
50.0
215
112
21
7
33
12
30
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Jenkins Neck Site
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
Utopia
Pettus Plantation
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
Drummond Plantation
9.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
40.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
6.7
0.0
5.6
4.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
3.6
14.4
100.0
3.5
0.0
0.0
11.1
15.5
18.7
15.3
0.0
57.6
17.2
0.0
5.6
13.4
68.6
63.6
0.0
33.3
78.3
60.0
83.3
71.1
839
64
4
41
139
160
39
392
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
3.3
8.3
0.0
0.0
3.6
32.3
13.1
28.6
22.2
38.6
33.3
66.1
34.7
24.8
37.8
31.1
12.5
36.7
52.9
20.0
345
45
95
35
170
Rural 1750-1775
Curles Neck Plantation
Mount Vernon
Kingsmill Plantation
5.9
16.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
10.0
0.0
5.1
1.9
13.5
3.6
36.4
41.5
50.5
12.6
52.6
40.0
25.9
83.9
281
73
85
123
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
6.6
0.0
7.3
1.3
3.4
2.3
16.4
29.9
13.6
22.9
0.0
27.3
52.9
66.7
49.5
346
57
289
Rural Mid-Late 18th C
Gloucester (44GL357)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
1.7
0.0
0.0
4.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
2.1
0.0
0.0
29.9
31.0
44.2
22.0
10.0
27.9
11.9
0.0
37.3
68.8
40.5
57.1
53.7
36.0
21.2
579
157
131
206
85
Rural Late 18-Early 19th
Settlers Landing Road
Thomas Brown Site
6.3
8.3
0.0
0.0
4.2
0.0
25.3
17.5
33.3
35.1
36.7
33.3
33.3
33.3
33.3
80
54
26
Rural Early 19th C
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
0.0
0.0
0.0
18.8
33.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
31.3
46.7
20.0
50.0
20.0
80.0
44
15
29
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby Site
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland Plantation)
Clifts Plantation (Phases III and IV)
Note:
0-12 Month category includes scapula and innominate; 12-24 Month category includes distal humerus,
proximal radius, first phalange, and second phalange; 24-36 Month category includes metacarpal, distal
tibia, metatarsal, and metapodial; 36-48 Month category includes proximal humerus, proximal and distal
ulna, distal radius, proximal and distal femur, proximal tibia, and calcaneus.
336
Table C.5.
KILL-OFF PATTERN BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
DOMESTIC COW (BOS TAURUS)
Assemblage
0-12
12-24
24-36
36-48
>48
Months Months Months Months Months
N
Frontier 1750s
Fort Chiswell
10.0
10.0
0.0
0.0
40.0
40.0
0.0
0.0
50.0
50.0
100
100
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Public Hospital
Firehouse
Peyton Randolph (Planting Beds)
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
9.7
11.1
0.0
5.3
0.0
9.1
33.3
0.5
0.0
13.3
0.0
0.0
30.9
0.0
13.5
28.9
2.5
17.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
45.5
36.9
67.5
33.4
50.0
44.2
43.1
30.7
23.1
16.7
43.8
50.0
15.8
23.5
375
36
44
165
4
68
58
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
10.5
50.0
5.9
0.0
0.0
4.1
3.8
0.0
0.5
47.6
34.6
41.2
38.1
15.4
48.3
112
27
85
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
9.1
20.0
7.7
8.3
7.7
0.0
7.6
0.0
19.6
0.0
17.3
33.3
15.1
7.0
14.4
15.2
17.1
0.0
28.6
0.6
24.4
33.6
31.6
54.2
39.6
72.4
33.9
42.9
26.3
12.5
410
101
116
93
86
14
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
4.4
0.0
12.5
10.0
0.0
5.5
9.8
0.0
3.5
4.0
11.8
19.7
5.7
15.1
10.8
35.8
26.1
34.4
39.4
36.0
42.5
44.4
47.4
32.0
49.2
404
89
56
121
138
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
0.0
0.0
33.3
33.3
28.2
28.2
0.0
0.0
38.5
38.5
23
23
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
0.0
0.0
11.1
11.1
18.3
18.3
17.6
17.6
52.9
52.9
50
50
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th C
Calvert House (Late Period)
9.1
9.1
9.7
9.7
0.0
0.0
32.9
32.9
48.4
48.4
73
73
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
90.0
90.0
10.0
10.0
26
26
337
Table C.6.
KILL-OFF PATTERN BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
DOMESTIC PIG (SUS SCROFA)
Assemblage
0-12
12-24
24-36
36-42
>42
Months Months Months Months Months
N
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
Kingsmill Tenement
47.4
70.4
12.5
0.0
50.0
0.0
25.0
15.1
0.0
87.5
0.0
25.0
0.0
25.0
16.4
20.5
0.0
0.0
25.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
3.8
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
21.1
5.3
0.0
100.0
0.0
100.0
50.0
138
65
15
0
18
12
28
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Jenkins Neck Site
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
Utopia
Pettus Plantation
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
Drummond Plantation
26.9
60.0
0.0
0.0
5.6
36.4
0.0
16.7
10.6
0.0
33.3
0.0
14.4
30.2
0.0
0.0
17.3
0.0
0.0
35.7
80.0
7.1
0.0
0.0
16.6
30.0
66.7
0.0
0.0
5.8
0.0
38.9
28.6
10.0
0.0
64.3
0.0
20.4
100.0
44.4
618
24
22
47
39
389
13
84
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby Site
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland Plantation)
Clifts Plantation (Phases III and IV)
16.2
0.0
11.4
57.1
0.0
15.5
50.0
48.6
0.0
33.3
27.9
0.0
20.0
0.0
50.0
24.9
50.0
0.0
38.5
0.0
15.6
0.0
20.0
4.3
16.7
246
17
75
92
62
Rural 1750-1775
Curles Neck Plantation
Mount Vernon
Kingsmill Plantation
19.6
9.5
23.1
19.0
37.5
63.8
26.9
31.0
7.4
0.0
5.6
50.0
18.1
6.7
40.9
0.0
17.4
20.0
3.6
0.0
233
57
141
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
27.8
45.5
22.7
31.1
18.2
35.1
28.6
25.3
29.2
9.1
11.1
8.8
3.4
0.0
4.3
244
54
190
Rural Mid-Late 18th C
Gloucester (44GL357)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
10.8
15.4
2.9
15.1
10.4
51.9
34.6
42.5
59.1
44.1
9.4
50.0
54.5
0.0
0.0
19.3
0.0
0.0
10.8
45.5
8.6
0.0
0.0
15.0
0.0
285
28
54
132
71
Rural Late 18-Early 19th
Settlers Landing Road
Thomas Brown Site
10.8
12.9
0.0
63.4
47.1
87.5
7.6
11.4
0.0
11.9
11.9
12.5
6.3
16.7
0.0
106
59
47
Rural Early 19th C
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
20.0
31.3
7.1
52.7
57.6
0.0
15.5
11.1
26.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
11.8
0.0
66.7
72
46
26
Note:
0-12 Month category includes scapula, innominate, distal humerus, proximal radius, and second
phalange; 12-24 Month category includes metacarpal, first phalange, and distal tibia; 24-36 Month
category includes calcaneus, metatarsal, and distal fibula; 36-42 Month category includes proximal
humerus, distal radius, proximal and distal ulna, proximal and distal femur, proximal tibia, and proximal
fibula.
338
Table C.6.
KILL-OFF PATTERN BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
DOMESTIC PIG (SUS SCROFA)
Assemblage
0-12
12-24
24-36
36-42
>42
Months Months Months Months Months
N
Frontier 1750s
Fort Chiswell
20.0
20.0
13.3
13.3
3.0
3.0
22.0
22.0
41.7
41.7
39
39
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Public Hospital
Firehouse
Peyton Randolph (Planting Beds)
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
11.5
0.0
33.3
0.0
50.0
6.3
8.6
22.4
0.0
54.2
100.0
50.0
73.8
4.6
29.2
100.0
12.5
0.0
0.0
20.0
24.3
26.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
52.0
10.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
10.5
228
17
43
18
11
31
108
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
19.0
0.0
29.6
31.0
66.7
3.7
21.4
16.7
0.0
15.2
2.4
54.2
13.3
14.3
12.5
76
34
42
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
13.1
27.6
0.0
0.0
27.1
0.0
58.0
37.6
75.0
50.0
63.4
85.7
9.6
25.7
17.3
4.5
0.0
0.0
9.1
0.0
0.0
45.5
2.1
0.0
10.3
9.1
7.7
0.0
7.4
14.3
373
71
71
68
119
44
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
11.6
0.0
30.0
14.3
0.0
56.6
78.4
36.7
50.0
42.9
17.9
4.2
16.7
29.5
17.1
4.6
7.4
7.6
0.0
23.3
9.3
10.0
9.1
6.3
16.7
348
96
67
150
35
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
14.3
14.3
85.7
85.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
17
17
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
20.0
20.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
80.0
80.0
0.0
0.0
36
36
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th C
Calvert House (Late Period)
34.3
34.3
12.4
12.4
31.1
31.1
0.0
0.0
22.2
22.2
105
105
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
18.2
18.2
81.8
81.8
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
38
38
339
Table C.7.
KILL-OFF PATTERN BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
DOMESTIC SHEEP OR GOAT (OVIS ARIES/CAPRA HIRCUS)
Assemblage
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
Kingsmill Tenement
0-12
12-36
36-42
>42
Months Months Months Months
N
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
19
11
7
0
0
0
1
21.0
11.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
30.8
0.0
0.0
16.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
20.0
12.6
0.0
26.3
19.0
22.2
0.0
0.0
30.0
23.3
0.0
0.0
43.8
66.7
100.0
100.0
50.0
33.3
100.0
73.7
309
23
0
0
14
217
1
54
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby Site
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland Plantation)
Clifts Plantation (Phases III and IV)
4.5
0.0
6.1
0.0
0.0
18.5
0.0
25.2
0.0
20.0
36.9
0.0
18.8
100.0
0.0
40.0
100.0
50.0
0.0
80.0
75
6
51
10
8
Rural 1750-1775
Curles Neck Plantation
Mount Vernon
Kingsmill Plantation
3.7
0.0
2.6
5.9
21.0
12.5
27.4
17.8
23.3
37.5
20.0
23.0
52.0
50.0
50.0
53.3
199
18
77
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
9.2
16.7
8.9
26.5
0.0
30.9
1.4
83.3
0.0
62.9
0.0
60.3
249
18
231
Rural Mid-Late 18th C
Gloucester (44GL357)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
11.5
10.0
0.0
18.5
0.0
28.1
28.5
20.0
36.0
44.4
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
60.5
61.5
80.0
45.5
55.6
128
43
16
46
23
Rural Late 18-Early 19th
Settlers Landing Road
Thomas Brown Site
0.0
0.0
0.0
50.0
50.0
50.0
50.0
50.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
50.0
20
8
12
Rural Early 19th C
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
100.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
11
2
9
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Jenkins Neck Site
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
Utopia
Pettus Plantation
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
Drummond Plantation
Note:
6-10 Month category includes scapula, innominate, distal humerus, and proximal radius; 12-36 Month
category includes proximal and distal ulna, metacarpal, proximal femur, distal tibia, metatarsal,
metapodial, calcaneus, first phalange, and second phalange; 36-42 Month category includes proximal
humerus, distal radius, distal femur, and proximal tibia.
340
Table C.7.
KILL-OFF PATTERN BASED ON LONG BONE FUSION
DOMESTIC SHEEP OR GOAT (OVIS ARIES/CAPRA HIRCUS)
Assemblage
0-12
12-36
36-42
>42
Months Months Months Months
N
Frontier 1750s
Fort Chiswell
16.7
16.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
83.3
83.3
19
19
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Public Hospital
Firehouse
Peyton Randolph (Planting Beds)
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
12.5
0.0
50.0
0.0
0.0
9.1
25.0
7.5
50.0
0.0
16.7
22.2
15.9
0.0
50.0
10.0
0.0
83.3
65.3
25.0
0.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
0.0
12.5
50.0
75.0
82
10
13
13
21
19
6
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
8.0
15.4
0.0
42.0
26.3
75.0
10.0
38.3
0.0
40.0
20.0
25.0
76
43
33
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
8.1
0.0
12.5
7.7
10.7
0.0
30.0
18.8
44.6
31.4
36.9
33.3
9.1
6.3
0.0
7.0
10.7
33.3
52.8
75.0
42.9
53.8
41.7
33.3
198
26
27
62
61
22
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
6.0
6.7
0.0
0.0
14.3
23.5
20.6
36.4
22.2
16.5
27.6
39.4
13.6
27.8
35.9
42.9
33.3
50.0
50.0
33.3
108
29
28
21
30
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
9.1
9.1
49.7
49.7
0.0
0.0
41.2
41.2
36
36
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
11.1
11.1
8.9
8.9
20.0
20.0
60.0
60.0
29
29
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th C
Calvert House (Late Period)
17.9
17.9
29.1
29.1
8.6
8.6
44.4
44.4
104
104
7.7
7.7
28.7
28.7
0.0
0.0
63.6
63.6
24
24
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
341
Table C.8.
KILL-OFF PATTERN BASED ON TOOTH WEAR
DOMESTIC COW (BOS TAURUS)
Months
0-6
6-9
30-36
36-40 Over 40 40-50 Over 50
N
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (All Sites)
53.8
50.0
57.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
7.7
0.0
14.3
7.7
0.0
14.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
30.8
50.0
14.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
13
6
7
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
33.3
33.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
26.7
26.7
33.3
33.3
6.7
6.7
15
15
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
37.5
60.0
0.0
12.5
20.0
0.0
50.0
20.0
100.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
8
5
3
Rural 1750-1775
Mount Vernon
33.3
33.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
16.7
16.7
50.0
50.0
0.0
0.0
6
6
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
1.0
10.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
7.6
30.0
5.3
11.4
20.0
10.5
30.5
0.0
33.7
38.1
30.0
38.9
11.4
10.0
11.6
105
10
95
Williamsburg 1700-1750
23.8
Public Hospital
50.0
Firehouse
28.6
Peyton Randolph (Planting Beds) 20.0
Brush-Everard (Ravine and Privy)14.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
23.8
0.0
14.3
60.0
14.3
14.3
0.0
42.9
0.0
0.0
38.1
50.0
14.3
20.0
71.4
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
21
2
7
5
7
Williamsburg 1735-1757
50.0
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit) 50.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
25.0
25.0
25.0
25.0
4
4
Williamsburg 1750-1775
34.1
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
12.5
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
40.0
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
33.3
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard) 63.6
4.5
6.3
0.0
8.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
6.8
12.5
20.0
0.0
0.0
22.7
31.3
40.0
8.3
18.2
27.3
25.0
0.0
50.0
18.2
4.5
12.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
44
16
5
12
11
10.7
0.0
14.3
0.0
20.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
10.7
16.7
14.3
20.0
0.0
17.9
0.0
14.3
40.0
20.0
28.6
83.3
0.0
0.0
30.0
7.1
0.0
28.6
0.0
0.0
28
6
7
5
10
Rural 1700-1750
Hornsby Site
Jordan's Journey (Bland
Plantation)
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
25.0
0.0
28.6
40.0
30.0
342
Table C.9.
KILL-OFF PATTERN BASED ON TOOTH WEAR
DOMESTIC PIG (SUS SCROFA)
Months
0-6
6-12
12-18
18-24
24-30
10.7
7.7
50.0
14.3
11.5
50.0
14.3
15.4
0.0
46.4
50.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
3.6
3.8
0.0
10.7
11.5
0.0
28
26
2
0.0
0.0
10.0
10.0
40.0
40.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
40.0
40.0
10.0
10.0
10
10
22.2
18.2
25.0
3.7
0.0
6.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
22.2
9.1
31.3
3.7
0.0
6.3
40.7
63.6
25.0
7.4
9.1
6.3
27
11
16
4.8
4.8
4.8
4.8
9.5
9.5
57.1
57.1
0.0
0.0
23.8
23.8
0.0
0.0
42
42
11.6
27.3
6.8
29.5
18.2
32.9
5.3
4.5
5.5
31.6
36.4
30.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
16.8
9.1
19.2
5.3
4.5
5.5
95
22
73
Williamsburg 1700-1750
3.8
Public Hospital
20.0
Firehouse
0.0
Brush-Everard (Ravine and Privy) 0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
7.7
0.0
0.0
18.2
19.2
0.0
20.0
27.3
30.8
0.0
50.0
27.3
26.9
40.0
30.0
18.2
11.5
40.0
0.0
9.1
26
5
10
11
Williamsburg 1735-1757
0.0
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit) 0.0
0.0
0.0
11.8
11.8
11.8
11.8
11.8
11.8
58.8
58.8
5.9
5.9
17
17
Williamsburg 1750-1775
12.5
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
16.7
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
16.7
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
10.7
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard) 10.0
2.3
5.6
0.0
0.0
3.3
11.4
11.1
25.0
3.6
13.3
31.8
16.7
8.3
39.3
43.3
3.4
5.6
16.7
0.0
0.0
36.4
44.4
25.0
46.4
26.7
2.3
0.0
8.3
0.0
3.3
88
18
12
28
30
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
4.8
3.6
7.7
0.0
7.7
19.0
17.9
23.1
35.3
7.7
22.6
28.6
15.4
11.8
26.9
3.6
0.0
15.4
5.9
0.0
34.5
21.4
15.4
41.2
53.8
1.2
0.0
7.7
0.0
0.0
84
28
13
17
26
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (All Sites)
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Rural 1700-1750
Hornsby Site
Jordan's Journey (Bland
(Plantation)
Rural 1750-1775
Mount Vernon
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
14.3
28.6
15.4
5.9
3.8
343
30-36 >30-36
N
Table C.10.
KILL-OFF PATTERN BASED ON TOOTH WEAR
DOMESTIC SHEEP OR GOAT (OVIS ARIES/CAPRA HIRCUS)
Months
0-12 12-24 12-36 24-36 24-48 36-48 36-96 48-12072-120
N
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (All Sites)
0.0
0.0
0.0
8.3
12.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
16.7
25.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
16.7
12.5
25.0
25.0
37.5
0.0
25.0
12.5
50.0
8.3
0.0
25.0
12
8
4
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
0.0
0.0
66.7
66.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
33.3
33.3
0.0
0.0
3
3
Rural 1700-1750
Hornsby Site
50.0
50.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
25.0
25.0
25.0
25.0
0.0
0.0
4
4
Rural 1750-1775
Mount Vernon
23.1
23.1
3.8
3.8
7.7
7.7
11.5
11.5
11.5
11.5
7.7
7.7
15.4
15.4
7.7
7.7
11.5
11.5
26
26
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
4.6
50.0
2.4
6.9
0.0
7.2
4.6
25.0
3.6
23.0
0.0
24.1
3.4
0.0
3.6
11.5
0.0
12.0
13.8
0.0
14.5
25.3
0.0
26.5
6.9
25.0
6.0
87
4
83
Williamsburg 1700-1750
Public Hospital
Firehouse
Brush-Everard (Ravine and
Privy)
56.3
0.0
57.8
50.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
10.4
0.0
11.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
12.5
0.0
13.3
0.0
0.0 14.6
0.0 100.0
0.0 11.1
0.0 50.0
6.3
0.0
6.7
0.0
48
1
45
2
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas
Everard)
46.7
66.7
33.3
0.0
100.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
6.7
0.0
33.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
20.0
0.0
33.3
50.0
0.0
13.3
16.7
0.0
25.0
0.0
13.3
16.7
0.0
25.0
0.0
15
6
3
4
2
Williamsburg 1775-1800
34.8
Custis Site (Post-1780)
57.1
Shields Tavern (John Draper) 100.0
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
33.3
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
0.0
4.3
14.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
13.0
0.0
0.0
33.3
0.0
4.3
14.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
13.0
0.0
0.0
33.3
0.0
4.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
16.7
17.4
14.3
0.0
0.0
50.0
8.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
33.3
23
7
1
9
6
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
50.0
50.0
50.0
50.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
2
2
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
0.0
0.0
344
Table C.11.
RELATIVE DIETARY IMPORTANCE
BASED ON USABLE MEAT WEIGHT
Dom Other
Total
a
b
c
d
Dom Wild Cattle Swine S/G Fowl Wild Fish Meat Wt
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
Bennett Farm (Early Period)
Kingsmill Tenement
74.7
82.7
61.0
71.9
66.0
65.8
86.4
22.2
25.0
12.0
7.9
15.6
20.0
34.9
1.3
2.5
3.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.6
0.3
0.6
0.3
0.4
0.2
0.1
0.1
Rural 1660-1700
Jenkins Neck Site
Clifts Plantation (Phases I and II)
Utopia
Pettus Plantation
Bennett Farm (Late Period)
Drummond Plantation
88.0 8.4 60.6 24.1
59.6 38.4 21.3 33.2
76.1 11.0 50.7 25.3
94.2 5.7 68.4 23.5
91.1 4.8 52.4 32.2
88.5 11.5 63.8 22.5
88.3 5.8 67.9 17.7
3.1
5.0
0.0
2.2
6.3
2.0
2.3
0.2 4.7 3.7 45854.5
0.1 18.4 20.0 2110.5
0.2 7.1 3.9 3158.3
0.1 3.8 1.9 9353.0
0.2 4.8 0.0 9930.0
0.2 4.3 7.2 7761.2
0.3 2.8 3.0 13541.5
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby Site
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland Plantation)
Clifts Plantation (Phases III and IV)
82.9
86.5
80.0
70.1
87.6
57.2
65.8
50.6
41.1
63.0
22.8
17.5
23.8
25.7
23.2
2.7
3.2
5.2
2.7
1.3
0.2
0.1
0.4
0.6
0.1
3.5
2.4
2.4
5.9
3.4
1.6
0.2
1.7
3.4
1.4
23441.2
3724.8
5039.1
3890.1
10787.2
Rural 1750-1775
Curles Neck Plantation
Mount Vernon
Kingsmill Plantation
89.7 8.5 59.6
87.9 4.8 65.5
89.7 10.3 49.7
90.8 9.2 64.8
24.5
18.8
33.9
19.5
5.4
3.4
5.6
6.4
0.3
0.2
0.5
0.1
6.1
2.9
6.4
7.7
2.4
1.9
3.8
1.5
23080.8
5575.0
8252
9254.3
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
91.7
83.7
93.9
4.8 68.8 18.3
7.9 56.1 24.6
3.9 72.2 16.6
4.5
2.7
5.0
0.1
0.4
0.1
3.2
2.9
3.2
1.6 24060.8
5.0 5082.3
0.7 18978.5
Rural Mid-Late 18th C
Gloucester (44GL357)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
92.1
88.5
93.7
91.1
94.4
4.1
5.5
3.0
4.2
5.3
25.1
18.0
24.3
22.3
41.3
4.0
3.4
4.2
5.0
2.8
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.2
1.8
3.2
1.3
0.6
3.2
2.3
2.3
1.6
3.5
2.1
Rural Late 18-Early 19th
Settlers Landing Road
Thomas Brown Site
82.1
82.5
81.6
6.4 53.4 23.5
7.1 54.6 23.4
5.6 52.0 23.6
4.2
3.6
4.9
1.0
0.9
1.1
3.9
3.1
4.8
2.5 7019.6
4.0 3846.2
0.7 3173.4
Rural Early 19th C
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
86.3 13.5 62.2 21.0
84.5 15.2 56.2 24.7
87.3 12.5 65.8 18.8
2.6
3.1
2.3
0.4
0.4
0.4
5.1
7.2
3.9
8.4 5947.1
8.0 2225.0
8.6 3722.1
Frontier 1750s
Fort Chiswell
48.9 50.7 38.9
48.9 50.7 38.9
1.6
1.6
0.1 50.7
0.1 50.7
0.0 4245.8
0.0 4245.8
Note:
a
22.3
12.0
30.3
28.1
34.0
34.0
13.6
5.1
2.6
4.1
9.3
4.9
50.9
54.6
45.7
63.6
50.3
45.7
50.8
62.7
66.8
65.1
63.5
50.2
8.2
8.2
Domestic; b Sheep/Goat (Caprine); c Domestic Fowl; d Meat Weight in pounds.
345
15.7 6.7 27431.2
8.0 4.0 7599.3
21.8 8.5 4595.9
27.3 0.8 1258.5
33.7 0.3 4178.9
6.4 27.6 3501.3
11.3 2.3 6297.3
32615.1
6661.0
12370.2
8502.6
5081.3
Table C.11.
RELATIVE DIETARY IMPORTANCE
BASED ON USABLE MEAT WEIGHT
Dom Other
Total
Dom Wild Cattle Swine S/G Fowl Wild Fish Meat Wt
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
86.9 4.6 62.8 19.6
87.0 10.9 56.6 20.0
87.4 0.7 62.7 20.4
86.4 5.4 64.7 18.9
4.0
9.3
4.1
2.4
0.5
1.2
0.2
0.5
1.6
2.2
0.2
2.3
3.1
8.7
0.5
3.1
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
85.5 7.6 56.3 23.0
77.4 13.3 47.4 20.8
90.3 4.3 61.6 24.4
5.8
8.4
4.3
0.4
0.8
0.1
3.9
5.6
2.9
3.7 11717.6
7.7 4329.1
1.4 7388.5
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
89.6
84.1
96.0
84.7
94.9
92.2
3.9
4.7
3.9
1.4
4.9
7.8
58.7
62.4
66.7
52.9
57.0
52.3
25.4
18.1
24.8
25.9
31.8
29.1
5.1
3.5
4.3
5.8
5.4
8.7
0.4
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.7
2.0
1.8
3.3
1.7
0.2
2.3
2.1
2.1
1.4
2.2
1.1
2.6
5.8
31941.1
7456.5
6447.0
8699.2
6759.4
2579.0
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
88.1
90.6
86.4
90.5
85.4
3.6
3.2
5.8
3.9
2.4
60.0
54.7
49.6
62.8
66.9
23.2
29.6
29.2
24.1
14.8
4.7
5.8
7.1
3.5
3.6
0.3
0.5
0.6
0.2
0.1
1.7
1.1
2.8
1.9
1.3
1.9
2.1
3.1
2.0
1.0
29578.9
6759.9
5144.5
7886.5
9788.0
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
95.5
95.5
4.4 68.7 22.1
4.4 68.7 22.1
4.3
4.3
0.5
0.5
0.7
0.7
3.7 4077.9
3.7 4077.9
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
97.7
97.7
2.0 77.5
2.0 77.5
9.7 10.1
9.7 10.1
0.4
0.4
1.2
1.2
0.8 3698.6
0.8 3698.6
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th C
Calvert House (Late Period)
86.4
86.4
7.0 65.4 16.4
7.0 65.4 16.4
4.0
4.0
0.6
0.6
5.1
5.1
1.9 6114.8
1.9 6114.8
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
94.8
94.8
4.4 62.0 26.6
4.4 62.0 26.6
5.6
5.6
0.6
0.6
3.1
3.1
1.3 3385.2
1.3 3385.2
346
9956.0
1503.0
3428.0
5025.0
Table C.12.
RELATIVE DIETARY IMPORTANCE
BASED ON BIOMASS
Dom Other
Total
a
b
c
d
Dom Wild Cattle Swine S/G Fowl Wild Fish Biomass
Rural 1620-1660
Hampton University
Jordan's Journey (44PG302)
Jordan's Journey (44PG300)
Jordan's Journey (44PG307)
60.1
76.3
45.4
23.9
44.5
47.1 9.0
58.5 12.7
36.1 4.9
21.9 1.8
36.8 6.3
3.5
4.2
4.3
0.0
1.3
0.5 9.7
0.8 3.8
0.1 17.2
0.2 13.7
0.1 15.7
2.2
2.0
4.0
1.6
0.2
758.23
397.72
191.74
48.84
119.93
Rural 1660-1700
Rich Neck Plantation
Jenkins Neck Site
63.1 12.3 48.0 10.8
66.4 9.6 54.9 6.3
49.9 23.0 19.7 29.1
4.3
5.1
1.0
0.1 9.4 2.9
0.1 9.1 0.5
0.1 10.6 12.5
339.14
271.99
67.15
Rural 1700-1740
Hornsby Site
Hampton Carousel
Jordan's Journey (Bland Plantation)
72.8
74.7
75.5
68.2
2.5
2.8
1.4
3.7
17.3
15.0
13.7
23.4
4.2
3.5
6.2
2.1
0.6
0.2
0.7
0.7
1.8
2.7
0.6
2.8
0.7
0.1
0.8
0.9
650.04
138.40
290.56
221.08
Rural 1750-1775
Curles Neck Plantation
Mount Vernon
64.5
72.2
60.8
4.6 40.4 16.7
4.0 54.1 14.6
4.8 33.8 17.8
7.1
3.5
8.8
0.2
0.0
0.3
3.0
3.3
2.8
1.6
0.8
2.0
767.21
248.56
518.65
Rural 1775-1800
Ferry Farm
Kingsmill Slave Quarter
75.4
70.3
76.5
2.4 54.0 12.1 9.1
4.3 47.6 18.4 3.8
2.1 55.4 10.8 10.2
0.2
0.6
0.1
2.0
3.1
1.8
0.4 1223.42
1.2 209.09
0.3 1014.33
Rural Mid-Late 18th C
Gloucester (44GL357)
Boothe Site
Gloucester Point
Hopewell (Route 10 Bridge)
69.3
62.1
79.5
66.1
68.5
1.7
1.1
1.9
1.4
2.8
14.5
9.3
18.0
11.3
22.9
3.4
3.7
3.5
2.9
4.2
0.2
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.1
0.7
0.8
0.6
0.4
1.3
1.0 1773.70
0.3 372.11
1.3 488.36
1.0 646.08
1.5 267.15
Rural Late 18-Early 19th
Settlers Landing Road
Thomas Brown Site
68.9
80.8
52.7
3.0 45.4 18.9
3.3 56.3 20.4
2.5 30.7 16.8
3.2
2.8
3.7
1.4
1.4
1.5
1.7
1.6
1.9
1.3
1.7
0.6
318.12
183.26
134.86
Rural Early 19th Century
Massie Farm
Hewick Plantation
66.3
61.7
69.7
7.5 45.3 16.9
8.9 35.4 22.7
6.5 52.7 12.7
3.5
2.9
3.9
0.6
0.8
0.5
2.7
4.4
1.5
4.8
4.6
5.0
156.29
66.40
89.89
Frontier 1750s
Fort Chiswell
34.9 25.2 28.4
34.9 25.2 28.4
3.1
3.1
0.0 25.1
0.0 25.1
0.0
0.0
360.75
360.75
Williamsburg 1700-1740
Grissell Hay (Blair Root Cellar)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Ravine)
Brush-Everard (John Brush Privy)
78.3
60.3
75.6
83.5
0.9
2.5
0.8
0.6
12.8 4.6
13.6 16.5
15.0 4.7
11.6 2.0
0.6
2.0
0.4
0.3
0.6
1.7
0.6
0.4
0.3
0.8
0.2
0.2
382.61
48.27
111.28
223.06
Williamsburg 1735-1757
Shields Tavern (Late Tavern)
Brush-Everard (Gilmer Trash Pit)
80.2
98.8
78.5
1.4 60.5 14.5 5.1
0.3 49.2 28.9 20.1
1.4 61.5 13.2 3.7
0.2
0.6
0.1
1.2
0.3
1.2
0.2
0.0
0.2
290.61
23.84
266.77
Note:
a
b
11.9
5.8
21.2
15.3
15.9
c
50.7
56.1
54.8
42.0
51.2
49.1
57.7
51.6
41.3
60.3
28.3
55.4
69.6
d
3.3
3.3
Domestic; Sheep/Goat (Caprine); Domestic Fowl; Biomass in kg.
347
Table C.12.
RELATIVE DIETARY IMPORTANCE
BASED ON BIOMASS
Dom Other
Total
Dom Wild Cattle Swine S/G Fowl Wild Fish Biomass
Williamsburg 1750-1775
Custis Site (Pre-1780)
Geddy Kitchen (Pre-1762)
Anthony Hay (Pre-1770)
Brush-Everard (Thomas Everard)
Brush-Everard (Late Everard)
70.6
66.5
79.5
65.8
75.6
61.5
1.4
1.9
0.6
0.8
1.5
4.6
50.1
49.9
59.6
48.9
49.8
25.3
14.5 5.7
12.3 4.1
14.7 5.1
11.5 5.3
18.1 7.0
23.7 11.0
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.6
1.5
0.8
1.2
0.3
0.6
0.9
2.0
0.6 1450.65
0.7 353.17
0.3 271.11
0.2 403.29
0.6 343.37
2.6
79.71
Williamsburg 1775-1800
Custis Site (Post-1780)
Shields Tavern (John Draper)
Geddy Kitchen (Post-1762)
Anthony Hay (Post-1770)
73.3
70.2
75.4
77.2
70.8
1.3
2.3
2.7
0.9
0.3
53.9
44.5
53.1
58.8
55.8
14.8
18.8
16.7
14.2
11.7
4.4
6.3
5.0
3.9
3.2
0.3
0.7
0.6
0.2
0.1
0.6
1.3
0.9
0.6
0.2
0.6 1338.61
1.1 288.10
1.8 204.71
0.3 410.64
0.0 435.16
Annapolis 1700-1750
Calvert House (Early Period)
61.0
61.0
3.0 29.4 16.6 14.1
3.0 29.4 16.6 14.1
0.9
0.9
1.2
1.2
1.7
1.7
112.21
112.21
Annapolis 1750-1775
Reynolds Tavern
44.4
44.4
1.6 33.1
1.6 33.1
6.8
6.8
3.6
3.6
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.8
0.8
199.83
199.83
Annapolis Mid-Late 18th C
Calvert House (Late Period)
50.6
50.6
4.8 29.6
4.8 29.6
9.0 11.2
9.0 11.2
0.8
0.8
3.2
3.2
1.6
1.6
412.92
412.92
Annapolis 1775-1800
Jonas Green
54.1
54.1
4.1 35.9 12.5
4.1 35.9 12.5
0.6
0.6
2.7
2.7
1.4
1.4
157.92
157.92
348
5.1
5.1
Table C.13.
NUMBER OF LIVESTOCK IN PROBATE INVENTORIES
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND
1660-1700
(N=4)
No. Avg. High
1700-1750
(N=777)
No. Avg. High
1750-1775
(N=542)
No. Avg. High
1775-1800
(N=707)
No. Avg. High
Cattle
Bull
Oxen
Cow
Steer
Heifer
Calf
Cow and Calf
74 18.5
4 1.0
0 0.0
7 1.7
16 4.0
8 2.0
2 0.5
21 5.2
42
3
0
4
8
5
2
14
15279 19.6 341
408 0.5 21
31 0.0 11
3132 4.0 78
2544 3.2 88
1264 1.6 29
326 0.4 20
1840 2.3 39
8740 16.1 181
233 0.4
7
89 0.1 19
2176 4.0 55
1351 2.4 45
611 1.1 29
183 0.3 31
1071 1.9 33
8002 11.3 196
228 0.3
7
337 0.4 16
2121 3.0 36
1088 1.5 34
697 0.9 15
389 0.5 20
694 0.9 14
Swine
Boar
Sow
Hog
Barrow
Pig
Shoat
55 13.7
1 0.2
12 3.0
0 0.0
18 4.5
4 1.0
20 5.0
23
1
6
0
12
4
13
18663 24.0 542
113 0.1
4
2097 2.6 46
7885 10.1 505
1363 1.7 97
2863 3.6 163
4319 5.5 109
13830 25.5 218
42 0.0
3
1340 2.4 26
5854 10.8 218
301 0.5 25
2493 4.5 54
3800 7.0 88
12766 18.0 143
40 0.0
2
1235 1.7 17
4984 7.0 112
132 0.1 16
2738 3.8 54
3627 5.1 58
Sheep
Ram
Ewe
Wether
Lamb
20
0
0
0
0
5.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
20
0
0
0
0
8460 10.8 133
69 0.0
8
1494 1.9 74
96 0.1 14
976 1.2 36
7568 13.9 158
54 0.0
4
1064 1.9 40
103 0.1 21
835 1.5 40
8294 11.7 127
26 0.0
3
593 0.8 29
102 0.1 22
663 0.9 33
Goat
0
0.0
0
2
0.0
2
0
0.0
0
4
0.0
4
Horse and Mule
Horse
Colt
Mare
Mare and Colt
Foal
Gelding
Mule
6
4
0
1
1
0
0
0
1.5
1.0
0.0
0.2
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
3
2
0
1
1
0
0
0
2987
1541
273
837
242
0
80
0
3.8
1.9
0.3
1.0
0.3
0.0
0.1
0.0
41
22
7
12
7
0
7
0
2509
1268
266
730
152
0
65
3
4.6
2.3
0.4
1.3
0.2
0.0
0.1
0.0
54
54
23
12
10
0
8
2
3289
1539
479
1057
80
0
22
60
4.6
2.1
0.6
1.4
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
46
18
10
11
3
0
4
14
349
Table C.14.
NUMBER OF LIVESTOCK IN PROBATE INVENTORIES
YORK COUNTY, VIRGINIA
1620-1660
(N=52)
No. Avg. High
1660-1700
(N=214)
No. Avg. High
1700-1750
(N=628)
No. Avg. High
1750-1775
(N=316)
No. Avg. High
12121 19.3 173
250 0.3 14
66 0.1
6
3105 4.9 63
1216 1.9 47
646 1.0 24
850 1.3 31
421 0.6 37
1 0.0
1
4514 14.2 126
61 0.1
5
78 0.2
8
1323 4.1 58
439 1.3 20
184 0.5 12
267 0.8 15
213 0.6 21
0 0.0
0
7.4 120
0.0
1
1.0 23
3.1 120
0.8 24
0.5 15
1.7 45
0.0
3
0.0
0
9007 14.3 194
5 0.0
2
429 0.6 16
5750 9.1 189
191 0.3 21
1081 1.7 54
1426 2.2 58
9 0.0
3
1 0.0
1
4149 13.1 111
3 0.0
1
350 1.1 10
1851 5.8 111
76 0.2 18
694 2.1 45
1138 3.6 42
19 0.0
5
18 0.0 18
2007
6
61
2
122
47
6.3
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.3
0.1
98
1
8
2
19
18
Cattle
Bull
Oxen
Cow
Steer
Heifer
Calf
Cow and Calf
Heifer and Calf
423
20
9
135
76
70
58
1
0
8.1
0.3
0.1
2.5
1.4
1.3
1.1
0.0
0.0
44
4
6
13
15
8
8
1
0
3811 17.8 182
176 0.8
9
68 0.3 12
1232 5.7 51
594 2.7 29
430 2.0 18
335 1.5 19
87 0.4 13
0 0.0
0
Swine
Boar
Sow
Hog
Barrow
Pig
Shoat
Sow and Pig
Sow and Shoat
231
1
39
66
11
41
73
0
0
4.4
0.0
0.7
1.2
0.2
0.7
1.4
0.0
0.0
24
1
10
18
5
9
23
0
0
1589
4
221
680
191
123
365
5
0
Sheep
Ram
Ewe
Wether
Lamb
Ewe and Lamb
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
624
16
143
22
97
1
2.9
0.0
0.6
0.1
0.4
0.0
77
6
24
7
19
1
4582
14
143
37
328
46
Goat
41
0.7
41
11
0.0
11
0
0.0
0
7
0.0
7
Horse and Mule
Horse
Colt
Mare
Mare and Colt
Mare and Foal
Foal
Gelding
Nag
Mule
26
13
3
8
0
0
1
1
0
0
0.5
0.2
0.0
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
7
7
2
4
0
0
1
1
0
0
603
266
59
204
9
2
12
18
1
0
2.8
1.2
0.2
0.9
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
42
39
9
10
1
1
2
4
1
0
1531
835
132
403
95
0
3
39
0
0
2.4
1.3
0.2
0.6
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
22
9
6
8
6
0
2
6
0
0
575
346
35
158
31
0
0
3
0
0
1.8
1.0
0.1
0.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
19
11
3
5
2
0
0
3
0
0
Other
Fowl
Goose
Gander
Duck
Hen
Turkey
Stag
0
1
1
0
35
6
1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.6
0.1
0.0
0
1
1
0
15
6
1
0
2
0
4
0
9
3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
2
0
4
0
3
1
5
394
0
36
39
76
0
0.0
0.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.0
4
51
0
12
15
21
0
13
323
0
30
42
84
0
0.0
1.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.0
13
72
0
9
9
33
0
350
7.2 107
0.0
3
0.2 27
0.0 18
0.5 37
0.0 22
Table C.14.
NUMBER OF LIVESTOCK IN PROBATE INVENTORIES
YORK COUNTY, VIRGINIA
1775-1800
(N=172)
No. Avg. High
After 1800
(N=4)
No. Avg. High
Cattle
Bull
Oxen
Cow
Steer
Heifer
Calf
Cow and Calf
Heifer and Calf
3178 18.4 337
71 0.4
6
187 1.0 34
758 4.4 39
221 1.2 31
179 1.0 14
149 0.8 15
180 1.0 28
0 0.0
0
41 10.2
1 0.2
0 0.0
13 3.2
9 2.2
6 1.5
11 2.7
1 0.2
0 0.0
40
1
0
13
9
6
11
1
0
Swine
Boar
Sow
Hog
Barrow
Pig
Shoat
Sow and Pig
Sow and Shoat
3395 19.7 256
6 0.0
1
267 1.5 20
1740 10.1 209
16 0.0
4
402 2.3 78
932 5.4 54
2 0.0
1
4 0.0
3
50 12.5
0 0.0
8 2.0
26 6.5
0 0.0
0 0.0
16 4.0
0 0.0
0 0.0
48
0
8
24
0
0
16
0
0
Sheep
Ram
Ewe
Wether
Lamb
Ewe and Lamb
1780 10.3 171
0 0.0
0
67 0.3 26
2 0.0
2
112 0.6 27
15 0.0 11
29
0
0
0
0
0
7.2
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
29
0
0
0
0
0
Goat
Horse and Mule
Horse
Colt
Mare
Mare and Colt
Mare and Foal
Foal
Gelding
Nag
Mule
Other
Fowl
Goose
Gander
Duck
Hen
Turkey
Stag
0
0.0
0
0
0.0
0
462
252
51
117
25
0
0
1
0
12
2.6
1.4
0.2
0.6
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
41
24
4
7
4
0
0
1
0
10
6
3
1
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.5
0.7
0.2
0.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
6
3
1
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
16
70
0
27
93
77
0
0.0
0.4
0.0
0.1
0.5
0.4
0.0
12
18
0
8
60
21
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
351
Table C.15.
AGE OF LIVESTOCK IN PROBATE INVENTORIES
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND
1660-1700 1700-1750 1750-1775 1775-1800
(N=4)
(N=777)
(N=542)
(N=707)
Cattle
No Age
0-6 Months
6-12 Months
12-24 Months
12-36 Months
24-36 Months
36-48 Months
Over 36 Months
Over 48 Months
“Old”
“Young”
46
0
0
0
16
0
1
0
11
0
0
10965
0
0
0
1635
0
951
0
984
173
571
6809
0
0
0
769
0
336
0
245
116
465
6765
0
0
0
349
0
198
0
161
140
390
Swine
No Age
0-6 Months
6-12 Months
12-24 Months
12-36 Months
24-36 Months
36-48 Months
Over 36 Months
Over 48 Months
“Old”
“Young”
55
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
14529
79
132
1399
0
391
0
525
0
231
1377
12471
8
31
288
0
111
0
0
0
49
872
11557
0
113
150
0
39
0
0
0
64
843
Sheep/Goat
No Age
0-6 Months
6-12 Months
12-24 Months
12-36 Months
24-36 Months
36-48 Months
Over 36 Months
Over 48 Months
“Old”
“Young”
20
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
7730
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
565
167
6506
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1031
31
7513
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
758
32
352
Table C.16.
AGE OF LIVESTOCK IN PROBATE INVENTORIES
YORK COUNTY, VIRGINIA
1620-1660 1660-1700 1700-1750 1750-1775 1775-1800 After 1800
(N=52)
(N=214)
(N=628)
(N=316)
(N=172)
(N=4)
Cattle
No Age
0-6 Months
6-12 Months
12-24 Months
12-36 Months
24-36 Months
36-48 Months
Over 36 Months
Over 48 Months
“Old”
“Young”
282
0
1
0
77
0
27
0
26
5
5
2227
2
0
0
648
0
255
0
577
49
53
10019
0
0
0
795
0
280
0
183
356
488
3826
0
0
0
205
0
17
0
3
150
313
2782
0
0
0
105
0
7
0
0
40
244
30
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
11
Swine
No Age
0-6 Months
6-12 Months
12-24 Months
12-36 Months
24-36 Months
36-48 Months
Over 36 Months
Over 48 Months
“Old”
“Young”
188
7
0
16
0
4
0
4
0
7
5
1076
2
29
157
0
36
0
60
0
54
175
8008
0
16
130
0
78
0
9
0
119
647
4022
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
33
94
3150
0
5
52
0
2
0
0
0
40
146
50
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Sheep/Goat
No Age
0-6 Months
6-12 Months
12-24 Months
12-36 Months
24-36 Months
36-48 Months
Over 36 Months
Over 48 Months
“Old”
“Young”
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
21
20
600
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
34
1
4332
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
235
15
1909
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
95
3
1636
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
144
0
29
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
353
354
APPENDIX 4.
DOCUMENTARY TECHNICAL OVERVIEW
The Provisioning Early American Towns study relied heavily on the use of computers and
computerized data. The analysis described in the previous chapters was based on more than
100,000 records from documentary sources. Creation, editing, and analysis of that data as well as
overall management required careful planning and organization. This appendix describes the
decisions made about hardware and software and addresses other technical issues related to data
collection and analysis.
Hardware and Software
All data for the Provisioning Early American Towns project was collected and stored on 80486
and Pentium personal computers in the Departments of Historical Research and Archaeological
Research. In 1996, Colonial Williamsburg moved its research division to a new research campus
linked by a local area network. The later months of the project benefited by our ability to store
increasingly large files on NT servers and to access shared versions of files using the network. All
data files, analysis formats, programs, and the final report were stored on the network in the final
month of the project.
The software system chosen at the beginning of the project was Microsoft’s FoxPro
Relational Database program. The choice of FoxPro as the project software was based on several
factors. First, the Department of Archaeological Research had used FoxPro for a number of years
for cataloguing excavated artifacts. Staff members were already familiar with the program and had
developed considerable programming skills. Secondly, FoxPro is a flexible and robust database
management system. Ultimately, we amassed tens of thousands of records, so we required a
software program designed to manage large amounts of data in relational files. Perhaps the most
important reason for selecting FoxPro is its compatibility with earlier versions of Borland’s dBase.
DBase was the database program used to compile information during earlier research projects at
Colonial Williamsburg. Our research plan called for us to use biographical information from the
NEH-funded York County Project undertaken at Colonial Williamsburg in the 1980s (Project #
RO-20869-85 and RS-0033). Using FoxPro, we were able to link newly created data with data
collected during the York County Project. No time was lost converting older, incompatible files.
FoxPro is based on xBase programming language and can also make use of programming
written in Structured Query Language (SQL). In the course of the project, members of the
Provisioning Early American Towns acquired programming expertise or added to already
considerable programming ability. They were able to program custom-designed data-entry
programs as well as write programs for the extraction and analysis of collected data. The probate
inventory entry program was customized in the first months of the project to allow data entry
personnel to enter records as fast as possible. On average 500 records per day were added to the
inventory database from transcript records while 300 records could be entered by a staff member
working from original documents. A similar program was created for the entry of information
355
from account books. This program was also altered many times in the first few months of its use
to improve the speed and efficiency of data collection.
Considerable attention was given to the creation of database structures before data
collection was underway. The information collected about individual transactions in the account
books and inventoried objects in the inventory files were stored in fields for later analysis. The
name of the customer (account books) or decedent (inventories) was entered in a name field. The
date of transaction was recorded. The object purchased or inventoried was entered into an object
field. The quantity and unit information was collected. A field for material (for example, “wood”
or “pewter”) was included, as was a qualifier field (“large” or “old”). Price data was collected in
fields for the English pounds, shillings, and pence. These entries were automatically converted to
a fraction of a pound for ease in later numerical calculations. Other fields included unit price fields
(both pounds, shilling, pence and decimal), unique line numbers, an additional name field for
recording any third parties involved in account book transactions, and fields for lumping objects
into larger analytical groups. Because not every line could easily and understandably be broken
down into its constituent parts, a note field was associated with every record. This field was used
for explanatory comments or for filling in data that could not easily be placed into other fields.
Eventually every individual in the probate inventory file and in the account book files was
given a unique identification number. These numbers corresponded to unique identification
numbers in the York County Records project and allowed us to associate biographical
characteristics with the individual making the transaction or with the inventoried household items.
More than 1,300 individuals were represented in the Virginia probate inventory file. Individual
households in the Maryland inventory file numbered more than 1,700. The number of individuals
from all the account books was 1,396.
The Documentary Sources
The documents selected for data collection files were drawn from both Virginia and Maryland
archives. Five main types of data were identified that would help answer complex questions about
the Chesapeake provisioning system. Merchant account books were used to study provisioning in
towns and examine consumer behavior. Household account books illuminated private marketing
strategies and the consumer behavior of institutional customers such as the Governor’s Palace
kitchens. Plantation account books shed light on the supply of agricultural goods to town
residents. Probate inventories helped answer questions about the distribution of assets that would
have allowed townspeople to process their own food. Finally, a price series was compiled to
examine the fluctuations of prices of produce and imported store goods.
Data was collected from both York County and Anne Arundel probate inventories. York
County’s span of inventories dates from 1633 to 1802. Livestock was collected from inventories
in every year. Livestock data from Anne Arundel County inventories was collected for the years
1693 to 1800. In addition to the livestock data, food preparation, serving, and storage items were
collected for sample years from the Virginia inventories. Using the year groupings in the
consumer work of Lorena Walsh, food-related information was collected for the following years:
1637-1660, 1678-1684, 1700-1712, 1720-1732, 1745-1754, 1768-1780, and 1790-1802.
356
As items were added to the database, they were automatically associated with codes to aid
in analysis. Each object was assigned to a class and category that allowed us to lump items into
larger groups. For example, cows were assigned to the class “agricultural product” and to the
category “livestock.” Additionally, the species name, “Bos Taurus,” was entered in the material
field. The object “a large pewter plate” in an inventory was assigned to the class “food objects”
and to the category “food serving” while the clerk entered “pewter” into a field for material and
“large” into the qualifier field. In addition to the quantity, the unit, the object, and the code fields,
the assessed price of each object was entered. The program automatically converted the pounds,
shillings, and pence to a decimal fraction of Virginia currency.
All information related to food, fuel, or livestock was collected from account books and
put into a separate series of databases. The first step was to collect data from each account book.
This data was stored in a separate file. These separate files were then combined into aggregate
files according to the type of book. The store file included the data from the following account
books: Anderson and Low, William Lightfoot, Francis Jerdone, John Davidson, William Coffing,
James Brice, and William Farris. The household accounts included the data collected from the
anonymous Williamsburg wigmaker accounts; the Governor’s Palace kitchen accounts; John
Davidson’s household accounts; the marketing accounts of Moses Myers; household records of
Thomas Jefferson from Williamsburg; Washington; and Baltimore; John Glassford’s household
records from Colchester; and the household accounts of Charles Carroll from Maryland. The
plantation file included the ledgers of several generations of the Burwell family recording the
business of their plantations in James City County. It included the accounts of a Burwell-owned
grist mill from the 1770s and 1780s, and the account books of James Bray, another James City
County planter.
Information was collected from the account books in much the same way it was collected
for the probate inventories. Members of the staff used custom-designed data-entry programs and
entered data for each line in the account books that concerned food, fuel, or livestock. A separate
account book code file was used to classify individual commodities in the book. Total prices and
unit prices were entered when possible, and those numbers were converted from a
pounds/shilling/pence format into a fraction of a pound of Virginia currency to facilitate price
analysis.
Because the data we collected spanned many years, we needed to account for price
fluctuations and the differences in the valuation of local currency. We used a deflator to create
comparable values for each year to use in making price comparisons across many years. Each
price was deflated using numbers established by the St. Mary’s City Commission and P.M.G.
Harris for Chesapeake prices. Many of the prices during the Revolutionary war period were based
on greatly inflated paper money values; these prices were excluded from our work. Calculations
were also made to account for differences in local currency based on pieces of eight. In Maryland
the piece of eight was valued at 6 shillings. We multiplied Maryland prices by 1.111 to adjust for
the difference. We made the same adjustment to post-1780 Virginia currency, which was also
valued at 6 shillings. Maryland hard currency from 1765 was valued at 7 shillings 6 pence. These
prices were divided by 1.125 to compensate for the difference.
After we analyzed the three aggregate files for stores, households, and plantations, we
combined all the data for which we had unit prices into a single aggregate file. We examined the
data carefully to exclude prices that were obviously wrong, and we ran a comprehensive price
357
report for each commodity. The results of this analysis are displayed in Appendix 5. The prices
reflect the price that consumers would have paid for commodities in the retail markets of
eighteenth-century Virginia and Maryland.
Data Analysis
The system of analysis was largely the same for each group of account books. First, analysis was
done on the account books at the object level. Reports were generated that showed the most
common commodities in each book and the percentage of each commodity to the total amount of
objects recorded. Price analysis was done to show the total volume of business and the amount of
money transacted on each commodity. Reports were also generated which showed the seasonal
variations in prices of commodities and in frequency of purchase. Appendix 2 displays summary
analysis for the frequency of transactions in each category in the account books.
The analysis of commodity frequency and prices was sorted by debtor or creditor
transactions. Each account book item entered into a database was assigned a type of either “D”
(debtor item) or “C” (creditor item). For those questions that involved only purchases we filtered
out creditor items and used only debtor lines. Questions regarding methods of payment or of
supply of stores required us to filter the database using only “C” lines. We used all lines when we
generated reports to describe the nature of the entire business, such as the summary tables
included in Appendix 2.
The next step in the analysis of the data was to link the commodity information in the
databases collected in the Provisioning Early American Towns project with the biographical files
created during the York County Project. While the software used to create these two sets of files
was compatible, the format of the York County Project files at the beginning of the Provisioning
Early American Towns study required considerable alterations to make the files useable. The first
task that had to be accomplished was to convert encoded data into words. At the time the York
County Project files were created, hard drive space was limited. The project staff encoded the
information put into the files in order to save space. Instead of filling in an occupation field with
“PLANTER,” for example, “091” was entered into the field. Similar codes were used for office
holding and for locations.
An additional problem with the York County Project files was that they were broken apart
into many separate files. Office holding information, for example, was stored in eighteen different
files based on the type of office held and the research sample in which that individual was
included. Time was spent in the first year of the Provisioning project reorganizing the York
County Project files and converting encoded information into words. The nearly sixty files that
made up the York County Project were condensed into just four. While the Provisioning project is
the immediate beneficiary of this revision, the converted files are already much more available to a
wider audience. Researchers and interpreters have been able to use the files in the last two years
to identify individuals with certain characteristics. These files will be used in future projects that
will aim to link disparate data sources such as archaeological databases and biographical
information.
We linked the York County files to the Provisioning files using a common field, the unique
identification number for each individual. We collected occupational information, residence in
358
town and in the county, dates of activity in the York County records, and office holding details.
For those people who did not fall into the York County computer sample, we conducted primary
research to collect those details. One of our research assistants, working in the Maryland archives,
collected biographical information for individuals in the Maryland Account books.
The compiled biographical information was used to analyze the purchasing characteristics
of store and plantation customers. We examined the purchasing differences between rural and
urban dwellers and between men and women. We also used the linked biographical information to
examine the location of purchasers. Broad biographical profiles for the plantation accounts were
produced for consumers of fuel, meat, and grains.
The probate inventory analysis followed much the same way as the account book data. We
first generated reports that identified the variety of food objects found in individual households.
We used the sample year groupings to examine the change of food items in households over time.
Like the account book data, the records collected from the probate inventories were
analyzed using biographical data collected during the York County Project. In the probate
inventory analysis we also used data from two NEH-funded projects conducted by the St. Mary’s
City Commission between 1976 and 1979 (Project # RS-23687-76-431) and by St. Mary’s City
and Historic Annapolis (Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, Maryland: A Study of Urban
Development in a Tobacco Economy, 1649-1776, Project # RS-20199-81-1955). The
biographical files created by the St. Mary’s City Commission were based on the inventoried
decedents and included information such as occupation, total estate value, value of slaves, value
of livestock, birth and death dates, and residence information. Most of the inventories compiled
during the Provisioning project linked up with biographical profiles in the St. Mary’s City file.
Those that did not (approximately 30% of all the inventories) were linked to the York County
Project files for biographical data. A small number of inventoried decedents did not fall into either
project and had to be researched from scratch.
Using unique identification numbers we were able to count unique households to arrive at
average numbers of items per household. We also used total estate values as a means for assigning
individuals to wealth categories. Wealth categories were taken from Lorena Walsh’s work on
consumerism in the eighteenth-century Chesapeake. Five categories were employed to group
people. The lowest group was made up of people whose estates were valued at less than £50. The
next three groups were £50 – 94, £95-255, and £226-490. The highest status category were those
whose estates were valued at more than £490.
Using these groups we were able to identify
differences in food processing ability at different levels of wealth.
The probate inventory work is not yet complete. Additional questions about the material
culture of food preparation and presentation will be addressed as work continues over the next
year. Work will also continue on data collection of inventory items using grant funds from the L.J.
and Mary Skaggs Foundation. The remaining information from the eighteenth-century York
County database file will be added to the food and livestock to create a complete database of
eighteenth-century household items.
359
360
APPENDIX 5.
ANNUAL COMMODITY PRICE SERIES
YEAR
1785
1770
1771
1784
1785
1785
1806
1806
1784
1785
1806
1825
1826
1743
1759
1769
1778
1784
1774
1775
1777
1771
1785
1785
1795
1806
1751
1735
1736
173?
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1746
1748
1749
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
OBJECT
UNIT
ALE
ALLFOURS
ALLFOURS
ALLSPICE
ALLSPICE
ALMONDS
ALMONDS
APPLE
APRON
APRON
ASPARAGUS
ASPARAGUS
ASPARAGUS
BACON
BACON
BACON
BACON
BACON
BARLEY
BARLEY
BARLEY
BASIN
BASIN
BEANS
BEANS
BEANS
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BOTTLE
QUART
QUART
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
BUSHEL
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.064
0.086
0.077
0.222
0.230
0.083
0.174
0.329
0.744
0.603
0.065
0.032
0.038
0.025
0.021
0.022
0.117
0.050
0.125
0.150
0.213
0.134
0.255
0.060
0.005
0.046
1.768
0.015
0.008
0.010
0.008
0.007
0.007
0.009
0.010
0.010
0.006
0.011
0.013
0.010
0.010
0.006
0.010
0.007
0.011
0.009
BUNCH
BUNCH
BUNCH
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
QUART
QUART
QUART
BARREL
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
361
COUNT
8
8
15
3
7
2
4
4
4
5
2
2
2
2
5
2
2
2
2
2
5
2
3
10
2
4
7
5
2
3
17
21
36
10
15
5
106
2
16
5
16
7
21
10
13
17
YEAR
1759
1760
1766
1767
1769
1770
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1779
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1806
1824
1825
1827
1743
1760
1803
1788
1806
1826
1806
1755
1754
1783
1774
1775
1776
1806
1785
1785
1784
OBJECT
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF
BEEF HEART
BEEF LEG
BEEF STEAK
BEEF TONGUE
BEER
BEER
BEER
BEEVE
BEEVE
BEEVE
BIRD
BISCUIT
BLACK JACK
BLANKET
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
BOTTLE
CASK
GALLON
KEG
PAIR
362
£ 0.012
0.007
0.008
0.010
0.012
0.012
0.017
0.017
0.016
0.014
0.028
0.125
0.019
0.024
0.019
0.024
0.022
0.024
0.022
0.017
0.018
0.014
0.012
0.019
0.021
0.023
0.025
0.026
0.019
0.021
0.039
0.016
0.020
0.017
1.344
0.472
2.357
0.033
0.118
0.088
0.173
0.025
3.227
0.086
3.000
3.000
3.000
0.011
0.333
0.111
1.292
COUNT
4
4
6
16
2
9
7
10
6
8
4
4
5
7
2
14
18
19
16
6
4
5
3
6
17
7
26
20
2
2
150
2
8
2
2
2
3
2
74
3
15
2
2
16
5
2
4
8
3
2
2
YEAR
1757
1758
1771
1744
1751
1752
1784
1785
1786
1785
1786
1771
1784
1785
1786
1787
1777
1775
1776
1777
1778
1771
1760
1736
1740
1743
1744
1754
1763
1783
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1784
1806
1785
1757
1771
1784
1785
1784
1785
1751
1726
1743
1749
1752
1755
1757
OBJECT
BLUE WING
BLUE WING
BOARD
BOARDS
BOHEA TEA
BOHEA TEA
BOHEA TEA
BOHEA TEA
BOHEA TEA
BOOK
BOOK
BOWL
BOWL
BOWL
BOWL
BOWL
BRAN
BRAN
BRAN
BRAN
BRAN
BRAN
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BRANDY
BREAD
BREAD
BROOM
BROWN SUGAR
BROWN SUGAR
BROWN SUGAR
BROWN SUGAR
BRUSH
BRUSH
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.017
0.013
0.332
0.013
0.425
0.376
0.277
0.275
0.232
0.063
0.770
0.372
0.099
0.084
0.048
0.098
0.050
0.050
0.051
0.055
0.091
0.011
0.094
0.087
0.175
0.083
0.056
0.585
0.250
0.694
0.492
0.354
0.313
0.306
0.376
0.022
4.479
0.139
0.024
0.031
0.035
0.034
0.246
0.146
1.502
0.038
0.032
0.043
0.025
0.029
0.031
WEEK
BOARD
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
BARREL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
POUND
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
POUND
WEEK
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
FIRKIN
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
363
COUNT
2
2
3
2
5
3
2
35
3
4
3
8
5
9
5
2
3
11
75
46
11
2
2
23
3
18
36
2
2
2
13
25
26
21
19
2
27
6
4
10
7
66
2
2
5
4
3
5
2
3
2
YEAR
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1774
1775
1777
1778
1779
1784
1785
1788
1790
1791
1792
1793
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1806
1807
1825
1785
1785
1785
1806
1825
1785
1744
1762
1785
1785
1785
1773
1785
1784
1785
1784
1785
1785
1806
1741
1783
OBJECT
UNIT
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER
BUTTER PLATE
BUTTER POT
BUTTON
CABBAGE
CABBAGE
CABBAGE SEED
CALF
CALF
CALF
CALF SKIN
CALF SKIN
CANDLE
CANDLE
CANISTER
CANISTER
CARDS
CARDS
CARPETING
CARROTS
CARRY LOG HIRE
CARTING
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.050
0.048
0.047
0.049
0.044
0.045
0.054
0.038
0.039
0.046
0.046
0.070
0.208
0.600
0.088
0.093
0.043
0.048
0.062
0.060
0.072
0.061
0.070
0.078
0.093
0.089
0.085
0.132
0.130
0.053
0.023
0.241
0.002
0.040
0.017
0.070
0.479
1.000
2.667
0.501
0.281
0.044
0.070
0.105
0.280
0.070
0.239
0.375
0.584
0.400
0.653
OUNCE
POUND
POUND
POUND
PACK
PACK
YARD
BUSHEL
DAY
364
COUNT
7
11
6
10
10
12
26
8
3
7
3
2
6
3
5
9
6
4
2
3
2
4
4
22
17
8
6
190
2
8
2
3
2
8
4
7
2
2
2
17
2
2
2
8
11
4
7
2
3
3
3
YEAR
1785
1741
1755
1784
1785
1786
1785
1806
1785
1784
1785
1786
1754
1751
1752
1756
1758
1759
1784
1785
1788
1806
1806
1724
1743
1744
1754
1756
1757
1758
1759
1761
1764
1767
1768
1769
1770
1806
1824
1825
1826
1752
1758
1770
1771
1785
1797
1798
1799
1744
1775
OBJECT
CARTING
CARTING
CASH
CASH
CASH
CASH
CAULIFLOWER SEED
CELERY
CHAFING DISH
CHAMBER POT
CHAMBER POT
CHAMBER POT
CHEESE
CHEESE
CHEESE
CHEESE
CHEESE
CHEESE
CHEESE
CHEESE
CHEESE
CHEESE
CHESTNUTS
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHICKEN
CHOCOLATE
CHOCOLATE
CHOCOLATE
CHOCOLATE
CHOCOLATE
CHOCOLATE
CHOCOLATE
CHOCOLATE
CIDER
CIDER
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.333
0.500
3.473
2.359
2.725
0.943
0.139
0.104
0.250
0.128
0.132
0.126
0.272
0.028
0.025
0.029
0.031
0.078
0.069
0.065
0.021
0.091
0.052
0.015
0.016
0.017
0.016
0.015
0.016
0.015
0.015
0.017
0.017
0.014
0.021
0.027
0.034
0.090
0.047
0.043
0.044
0.100
0.125
0.082
0.081
0.171
0.084
0.084
0.086
0.025
2.000
DAY
OUNCE
BUNCH
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
QUART
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
BOTTLE
CASK
365
COUNT
2
2
3
5
7
5
3
3
2
2
6
2
2
4
6
3
2
3
12
20
2
3
2
3
2
2
2
5
2
3
5
4
2
6
4
33
11
48
4
22
20
2
3
11
52
13
4
8
3
2
2
YEAR
1741
1743
1744
1745
1756
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1762
1783
1785
1783
1785
1758
1785
1751
1767
1768
1770
1771
1784
1785
1796
1797
1798
1785
1785
1784
1785
1786
1798
1754
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
173?
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
OBJECT
UNIT
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CIDER
CLARET
CLARET
CLARET
CLARET
CLOVES
COALS
COCK
COFFEE
COFFEE
COFFEE
COFFEE
COFFEE
COFFEE
COFFEE
COFFEE
COFFEE
COFFEE
COFFEE POT
COMB
CONGO TEA
CONGO TEA
CONGO TEA
CONGO TEA
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
CASE
OUNCE
BUSHEL
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.035
0.022
0.036
0.029
0.038
0.036
0.035
0.037
0.032
0.033
0.030
0.035
0.034
0.034
0.400
0.195
0.188
13.888
0.077
0.470
0.195
0.092
0.042
0.081
0.074
0.074
0.077
0.082
0.097
0.103
0.102
0.694
0.084
0.481
0.425
0.528
0.438
9.413
0.291
0.380
0.556
0.417
0.436
0.379
0.411
0.410
0.471
0.413
0.458
0.325
0.325
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
366
COUNT
2
6
16
2
2
3
32
16
34
20
31
6
7
8
4
4
3
2
2
4
3
2
2
3
8
32
2
33
2
4
2
2
6
17
25
3
5
3
5
3
2
4
8
3
7
10
17
8
24
4
12
YEAR
1748
1749
1751
1752
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1795
1799
1801
1806
1806
1786
1742
174?
1744
1767
1772
1798
1799
OBJECT
UNIT
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN
CORN MEAL
COTTON
COW
COW
COW AND CALF
COW AND CALF
COW AND CALF
CRAB
CRAB
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BUSHEL
YARD
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.350
0.400
0.477
0.450
0.360
0.409
0.440
0.394
0.400
0.500
0.500
0.604
0.584
0.472
0.503
0.452
0.562
0.609
0.653
0.591
0.504
0.538
0.922
1.345
18.000
15.090
19.026
0.741
0.878
1.171
0.869
0.938
0.891
0.807
0.653
0.855
0.645
0.718
0.755
0.379
1.389
0.517
1.806
0.352
1.275
1.458
1.800
2.917
4.334
0.080
0.003
367
COUNT
2
2
14
2
8
7
8
4
3
3
21
18
28
33
20
18
20
8
3
37
136
34
40
15
5
15
3
3
9
28
26
26
29
18
12
3
5
7
5
3
2
15
4
2
2
6
2
3
2
2
2
YEAR
1806
1806
1770
1806
1826
1771
1785
1786
1784
1785
1785
1771
1755
1771
1771
1784
1785
1786
1743
1771
1754
1755
1756
1761
1767
1769
1770
1785
1806
1825
1826
1827
1784
1758
1751
1751
1784
1767
1769
1770
1784
1785
1796
1797
1798
1799
1806
1807
1824
1825
1826
OBJECT
UNIT
CRACKER
CRACKER
CREAM
CREAM AND MILK
CUCUMBER
CUP
CUP/SAUCER
CUP/SAUCER
CURRANTS
CURRANTS
DECANTER
DEEP SEA LINE
DELIVERY
DIET
DISH
DISH
DISH
DISH
DITCHING
DRUM LINE
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUCK
DUTCH OVEN
DUTY
EARTHENWARE
EARTHENWARE
EDGING
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
EGG
BARREL
POUND
QUART
WEEK
UNIT PRICE
POUND
POUND
FATHOM
DAY
ROD
CASK
HOGSHEAD
YARD
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
DOZEN
368
£ 0.468
0.052
0.060
1.881
0.002
0.010
0.025
0.102
0.056
0.056
0.151
0.014
0.217
0.151
0.101
0.221
0.230
0.163
0.021
0.089
0.025
0.025
0.025
0.021
0.010
0.045
0.037
0.044
0.179
0.068
0.067
0.069
0.500
6.446
6.850
6.850
0.139
0.011
0.033
0.030
0.048
0.054
0.054
0.044
0.048
0.055
0.094
0.209
0.038
0.032
0.042
COUNT
5
2
3
30
2
3
9
2
2
2
8
3
2
5
6
4
2
4
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
3
3
29
12
4
3
2
2
2
3
2
2
10
39
3
4
4
5
3
6
145
3
5
42
38
YEAR
1827
1755
1776
1777
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1767
1768
1776
1782
1783
1786
1793
1795
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1806
1796
1797
1799
1806
1806
1771
1743
1768
1770
1771
1775
1776
1777
1778
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1792
1794
1795
1796
OBJECT
UNIT
EGG
FERRIAGE
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FIREWOOD
FISH
FISH
FISH
FISH
FISH
FISH
FISH HOOK
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
DOZEN
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.054
10.844
0.350
0.350
0.133
0.250
0.287
0.270
0.281
0.087
0.094
0.295
0.769
0.611
0.548
0.500
0.556
0.556
0.556
0.596
0.556
0.556
0.556
0.567
0.408
0.018
0.031
0.028
0.129
0.038
0.009
0.167
0.005
0.020
0.009
0.225
0.006
0.057
0.063
0.010
0.320
0.012
0.011
0.535
0.010
0.010
0.145
0.009
0.011
0.018
0.018
CORD
CORD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
BUNCH
BUNCH
BUNCH
BUNCH
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
369
COUNT
11
2
6
12
3
5
60
193
178
12
6
129
33
3
7
2
2
5
5
14
10
18
19
8
6
2
4
6
2
10
4
3
2
2
4
65
159
94
65
4
15
7
9
38
11
8
4
2
2
6
6
YEAR
1797
1798
1799
1800
1762
1765
1769
1770
1743
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1776
1784
1785
1769
1742
1787
1791
1770
1785
1824
1825
1826
1827
1760
1751
1752
1752
1771
1771
1784
1785
1786
1785
1785
1752
1770
1771
1772
1784
1785
1757
1767
1770
1806
1824
OBJECT
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FLOUR
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FODDER
FOWL
FOWL
FOWL
FOWL
FOWL
FOWL
FREIGHT
FREIGHT
FREIGHT
FREIGHT
FRONTINIACK
FRYING PAN
FRYING PAN
FRYING PAN
GAMMON
GARDEN SEED
GARDEN SPADE
GINGER
GINGER
GINGER
GLASS
GLASS
GLASS
GOOSE
GOOSE
GOOSE
GOOSE
GOOSE
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
BUNDLE
BUNDLE
BUNDLE
BUNDLE
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
HUNDREDWEIGHT
M
POUND
POUND
POUND
BARREL
HOGSHEAD
TIERCE
BOTTLE
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
PANE
370
£ 0.019
0.013
0.015
0.018
0.150
0.001
0.001
0.002
0.001
0.125
0.125
0.286
0.125
0.274
0.125
0.130
0.003
0.003
0.002
10.625
0.001
0.002
0.001
0.040
0.054
0.066
0.062
0.079
0.058
2.750
0.069
0.250
0.200
0.200
0.253
0.353
0.379
0.053
1.204
0.482
0.069
0.043
0.084
0.084
0.073
0.047
0.050
0.067
0.076
0.244
0.104
COUNT
6
5
5
2
2
2
2
5
3
2
7
7
4
14
5
5
2
2
3
2
2
2
3
4
2
2
33
14
15
2
2
5
2
6
3
7
4
2
4
2
3
4
10
2
2
2
3
2
5
26
2
YEAR
1825
1826
1806
1806
1785
1786
1784
1806
1785
1785
1785
1785
1784
1786
1784
1785
1765
1806
1776
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1825
1826
1771
1785
1774
1775
1777
1785
1786
1771
1777
1805
1755
1774
1784
1784
1785
1786
1771
1786
1780
1771
1785
1771
OBJECT
GOOSE
GOOSE
GOURD
GRAPES
GREEN TEA
GREEN TEA
GRID IRON
GUINEA FOWL
GUN POWDER TEA
HAIR POWDER
HAIR POWDER
HALF THICK
HANDKERCHIEF
HANDKERCHIEF
HAT
HAT
HAY
HEN
HIDE
HOG
HOG
HOG
HOG
HOG
HOG
HOG
HOG
HOG FISH
HOG FISH
HOGSHEAD
HOGSHEAD
HOMINY
HOMINY
HOMINY
HOMINY
HOMINY
HOOK
HOPS
HOPS
HORSE
HORSE
HOSE
HYSON TEA
HYSON TEA
HYSON TEA
JUG
JUG
KETTLE
KNIFE
KNIFE
KNIFE/FORK
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.110
0.113
0.417
0.157
0.469
0.444
0.278
0.101
0.600
0.083
0.083
0.209
0.311
0.176
1.702
0.661
1.000
0.129
0.017
1.289
1.283
1.320
1.508
1.320
1.047
0.971
1.326
0.023
0.006
0.317
0.306
0.500
0.500
0.917
0.833
1.111
0.005
0.050
0.154
54.375
14.667
0.535
0.893
0.813
0.945
0.028
0.292
100.000
0.030
0.083
0.025
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
YARD
LOAD
HIDE
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
POUND
POUND
PAIR
POUND
POUND
POUND
371
COUNT
11
2
3
2
9
5
2
4
5
2
11
2
3
2
2
5
5
16
3
5
7
4
4
6
4
8
7
4
4
4
2
3
82
48
12
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
17
44
2
8
2
2
4
3
4
YEAR
1784
1785
1786
1784
1785
1785
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1771
1785
1787
1788
1806
1795
1796
1742
1743
1744
1769
1770
1786
1787
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1806
1825
1826
1743
1786
1785
1806
1806
1785
1785
1784
1751
1785
1754
1771
1784
1785
1795
1770
OBJECT
KNIFE/FORK
KNIFE/FORK
KNIFE/FORK
KNIFE/FORK
KNIFE/FORK
LADLE
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LAMB
LEMON
LEMON
LETTUCE
LIME
LIME JUICE
LINEN
LISBON WINE
LIVERY LACE
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
SET
SET
POUND
POUND
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
SIDE
SIDE
BOTTLE
YARD
PIPE
YARD
LOAF
LOAF
LOAF
LOAF
LOAF
POUND
372
£ 0.154
0.006
0.573
0.500
0.472
0.139
0.625
0.588
0.450
0.449
0.542
0.446
0.625
0.556
0.361
0.352
1.667
0.022
0.034
0.097
0.101
0.117
0.130
0.130
0.167
0.130
0.178
0.220
0.202
0.231
0.254
0.222
0.301
0.172
0.216
0.188
0.695
0.005
0.025
0.058
0.145
0.556
0.195
26.000
0.084
0.679
0.494
0.566
0.808
0.698
0.055
COUNT
5
13
2
3
2
2
11
10
5
17
3
7
3
3
2
2
2
8
5
6
8
3
2
2
2
3
11
15
29
35
3
10
40
9
4
2
4
39
14
3
11
2
2
5
2
2
15
5
11
2
8
YEAR
1771
1784
1785
1795
1796
1798
1799
1800
1784
1785
1751
1752
1768
1783
1774
1784
1785
1742
1743
1744
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1824
1825
1826
1827
1771
1826
1770
1776
1771
1785
1786
1741
OBJECT
UNIT
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
LOAF SUGAR
MACE
MACE
MADEIRA
MADEIRA
MADEIRA
MADEIRA
MARE
MATTRESS
MATTRESS
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEAL
MEASURES
MELON
MILK
MILK
MILK PAN
MILK PAN
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
OUNCE
OUNCE
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.056
0.128
0.109
0.092
0.097
0.104
0.104
0.104
0.271
0.341
0.269
0.289
0.625
0.825
10.889
2.963
1.385
0.081
0.082
0.078
0.188
0.108
0.105
0.127
0.194
0.327
1.650
0.125
0.169
0.170
0.188
0.168
0.111
0.211
0.300
0.289
0.237
0.249
0.333
0.141
0.245
0.310
0.141
0.518
0.012
0.030
0.016
0.034
0.128
0.028
0.107
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
QUART
QUART
BOTTLE
GALLON
373
COUNT
88
13
121
2
5
4
2
2
2
2
8
12
2
2
2
3
2
19
31
24
2
3
484
62
191
94
15
4
59
33
52
8
2
10
4
9
10
10
3
3
10
6
2
2
5
2
10
2
6
3
2
YEAR
1743
1744
1751
1752
1766
1767
1770
1771
1772
1774
1784
1785
1805
1784
1784
1785
1786
1770
1771
1784
1785
1796
1797
1798
1827
1784
1785
1786
1754
1761
1764
1765
1766
1770
1772
1784
1736
1737
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1747
1751
1755
1757
1774
1784
1785
OBJECT
UNIT
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MOLASSES
MORTAR/PESTLE
MUG
MUG
MUG
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUSTARD
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.150
0.100
0.105
0.119
0.096
0.088
0.122
0.152
0.119
0.100
0.197
0.122
0.226
0.681
0.084
0.083
0.135
0.067
0.056
0.082
0.070
0.053
0.060
0.059
0.132
0.250
0.209
0.264
3.472
1.000
0.750
0.750
0.750
0.750
0.875
0.667
0.017
0.017
0.017
0.017
0.016
0.017
0.017
0.016
0.017
0.017
0.031
0.021
0.021
0.078
0.024
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
374
COUNT
2
2
16
7
6
7
5
53
2
2
2
7
5
2
2
11
3
7
19
6
9
2
2
2
2
2
7
2
3
2
4
4
2
3
2
4
12
2
2
26
9
13
2
9
3
4
3
5
4
2
3
YEAR
1787
1788
1789
1795
1796
1797
1798
1806
1769
1797
1798
1785
1784
1785
1786
1806
1754
1755
1756
1759
1771
1772
1774
1775
1778
1784
1806
1806
173?
1806
1785
1769
1770
1806
1826
1784
1785
1786
1760
1732
1733
1785
1798
1806
1825
1826
1796
1797
1806
1797
1825
OBJECT
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
MUTTON
NUTMEG
NUTMEG
NUTMEG
NUTMEG
NUTMEG
OATS
OATS
OATS
OATS
OATS
OATS
OATS
OATS
OATS
OATS
OLIVE
ONION
ONION
ONION
ONION SEED
ORANGE
ORANGE
ORANGE
ORANGE
OSNABURG
OSNABURG
OSNABURG
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
OYSTERS
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
OUNCE
OUNCE
OUNCE
OUNCE
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BOTTLE
BUNCH
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
OUNCE
YARD
YARD
YARD
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
QUART
QUART
375
£ 0.022
0.022
0.022
0.026
0.021
0.027
0.028
0.038
0.220
0.259
0.241
0.019
0.109
0.111
0.139
0.277
0.050
0.109
0.053
0.079
0.094
0.093
0.063
0.815
0.300
0.188
0.312
0.052
0.125
0.542
0.070
0.012
0.051
0.041
0.023
0.079
0.158
0.331
0.050
0.073
0.070
0.089
0.089
0.229
0.125
0.141
1.337
1.337
1.546
1.195
1.242
COUNT
2
2
2
3
2
7
5
88
4
3
3
2
4
12
2
3
2
2
4
2
3
2
2
3
2
2
2
5
4
6
2
2
5
17
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
2
14
3
2
2
3
7
2
7
YEAR
1771
1806
1769
1770
1806
1785
1764
1765
1766
1772
1774
1785
1806
1825
1826
1771
1784
1785
1795
1797
1806
1785
1806
1806
173?
1787
1806
1806
1806
1785
1771
1785
1786
1799
1741
1742
1751
1752
1767
1768
1771
1733
1734
1735
1736
1740
1741
1742
1745
1747
1748
OBJECT
PAN
PARSNIP
PARTRIDGE
PARTRIDGE
PARTRIDGE
PATTERN
PEAS
PEAS
PEAS
PEAS
PEAS
PEAS
PEAS
PEAS
PEAS
PEPPER
PEPPER
PEPPER
PEPPER
PEPPER
PEPPER
PEPPER BOX
PERCH
PHEASANT
PIG
PIG
PIG HEAD
PIGEON
PINEAPPLE
PIPE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLUM
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.026
0.482
0.015
0.010
0.034
3.061
0.010
0.008
0.009
0.009
0.009
0.075
0.024
0.010
0.014
0.146
0.173
0.173
0.165
0.173
0.209
0.032
0.139
0.197
0.125
23.461
0.285
0.035
0.104
0.098
0.035
0.002
0.013
0.089
1.633
1.900
3.018
2.874
3.556
1.928
4.430
0.009
0.009
0.012
0.008
0.005
0.005
0.009
0.007
0.007
0.008
BUSHEL
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
BUNCH
POUND
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
BARREL
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
376
COUNT
3
3
2
5
21
7
4
2
4
2
2
26
2
13
4
8
6
15
2
2
5
3
3
10
2
3
2
3
2
2
7
8
4
2
3
3
14
36
3
2
12
4
9
3
4
9
2
2
10
4
5
YEAR
1749
1751
1755
1757
1767
1768
1769
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1778
1781
1785
1786
1787
1788
1793
1794
1795
1803
1805
1806
1806
1784
1784
1785
1784
1771
1784
1785
1784
1787
1797
1798
1805
1806
1825
1785
1784
1806
1785
1759
1784
1785
1770
1784
1785
1798
OBJECT
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORK
PORTER
PORTER
PORTER
PORTER
POT
POT
POT
POTATO
POTATO
POTATO
POTATO
POTATO
POTATO
POTATO
PUDDING PAN
QUILT
RABBIT
RADISH SEED
REPAIR
RIBBON
RIBBON
RICE
RICE
RICE
RICE
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
QUARTER
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
CASK
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
OUNCE
YARD
YARD
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
377
£ 0.008
0.010
0.008
0.015
0.010
0.015
0.011
0.021
0.017
0.015
0.012
0.010
0.010
0.035
0.010
0.022
0.017
0.017
0.016
0.019
0.019
0.019
0.019
0.028
0.042
0.375
0.045
0.014
0.006
3.785
0.283
0.463
0.299
0.237
0.200
0.195
0.219
0.167
0.673
0.244
0.128
1.014
0.057
0.019
4.000
0.114
0.065
0.025
0.029
0.028
0.018
COUNT
5
2
4
4
2
14
4
4
2
3
29
4
5
3
2
6
2
2
2
2
3
2
4
2
27
4
2
11
7
2
5
4
7
3
2
4
3
2
14
4
2
2
20
4
3
3
2
2
2
22
4
YEAR
1799
1806
1770
1806
1825
1754
1755
1760
1761
1762
1743
1775
1784
1785
1751
1753
1732
1734
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1749
1751
1752
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1761
1762
1767
1769
1770
1771
1773
1774
1775
1779
1785
1796
1751
1779
1743
1751
1752
1756
OBJECT
UNIT
RICE
RICE
ROCK FISH
ROCK FISH
ROCK FISH
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM
RUM AND SUGAR
RYE
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
POUND
POUND
UNIT PRICE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
HOGSHEAD
HOGSHEAD
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
QUART
PART
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
378
£ 0.019
0.032
0.374
0.444
0.066
0.312
0.287
0.125
0.071
0.084
0.063
0.050
0.070
0.077
15.274
15.671
0.044
0.039
0.029
0.062
0.060
0.060
0.063
0.063
0.068
0.048
0.049
0.063
0.062
0.061
0.059
0.063
0.075
0.070
0.063
0.042
0.057
0.049
0.048
0.075
0.060
0.043
2.500
0.069
0.111
83.717
4.000
0.100
0.052
0.063
0.168
COUNT
3
7
10
4
2
5
2
3
3
5
2
3
2
2
9
2
2
2
3
13
13
10
5
2
24
69
16
19
33
29
16
14
5
10
6
2
2
46
368
4
4
2
2
123
3
3
2
3
12
2
4
YEAR
1757
1758
1766
1767
1771
1774
1775
1777
1783
1785
1786
1795
1798
1799
1803
1805
1806
1824
1771
1772
1773
1785
1785
1785
1771
1784
1785
1785
1784
1768
1806
1825
1826
1771
1743
1744
1752
1762
1764
1772
1777
1770
1776
1777
1764
1775
1776
1801
1784
1785
1801
OBJECT
UNIT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT
SALT CELLAR
SALTPETER
SALTS
SAUCEPAN
SAUCEPAN
SEED
SEINE
SHAD
SHAD
SHAD
SHAD
SHAD
SHEEP
SHEEP
SHEEP
SHEEP
SHEEP
SHEEP
SHEEP
SHELL DRAKE
SHIP STUFF
SHIP STUFF
SHOAT
SHOAT
SHOAT
SHOAT
SHOES
SHOES
SHUCKS
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
POUND
SACK
SACK
SACK
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.133
0.167
0.073
0.067
0.133
0.100
0.125
2.350
0.611
0.188
0.241
0.209
0.364
0.352
0.284
0.518
0.448
0.151
0.062
0.332
0.425
1.000
0.122
0.139
0.089
0.135
0.056
0.051
13.008
0.004
0.060
0.046
0.043
2.000
0.250
0.347
0.350
1.025
1.000
0.556
0.676
0.038
0.042
0.005
0.400
0.736
0.620
1.139
0.545
0.547
0.056
POUND
POUND
OUNCE
BARREL
POUND
POUND
PAIR
PAIR
BARREL
379
COUNT
3
3
5
3
4
3
6
2
2
6
6
2
2
2
2
3
7
2
3
2
2
5
2
3
2
3
2
12
2
2
20
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
4
12
8
2
4
8
2
5
6
2
YEAR
1785
1784
1783
1797
1826
1785
1755
1776
1771
1785
1786
1785
1774
1785
1771
1785
1795
1796
1771
1806
1738
1743
1744
174?
1785
1785
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1825
1751
1752
1806
1751
1786
1736
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1749
1751
1752
OBJECT
SIFTER
SILK
SILK SHAPE
SIMLIN
SIMLIN
SKILLET
SKIN
SKIN
SLAVE DIET
SNUFF
SNUFF
SOAP
SOW
SPECTACLES
SPIRITS
SPIRITS
SPIRITS
SPIRITS
SPOON
SQUIRREL
STEER
STEER
STEER
STEER
STEW PAN
STOCKINGS
STRAW
STRAW
STRAW
STRAW
STRAW
STRAW
STRAW
STRAW
STRAW
STRAWBERRIES
STRONG BEER
STRONG BEER
STURGEON
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.111
0.042
1.222
0.005
0.002
0.981
0.094
0.176
0.044
0.111
0.111
0.056
1.334
0.333
0.449
0.453
0.400
0.453
0.020
0.038
2.000
1.250
1.944
1.969
1.132
0.993
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
0.026
0.115
0.160
0.146
4.438
0.681
0.031
0.032
0.031
0.033
0.043
0.033
0.033
0.096
0.104
0.141
HANK
POUND
SKIN
DAY
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
POUND
PAIR
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
PAIR
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
QUART
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
PEICE
BARREL
LOAF
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
380
COUNT
2
2
2
2
2
5
2
9
3
4
2
2
2
3
39
48
11
5
3
5
2
2
5
4
2
4
11
26
16
10
10
19
11
8
3
6
4
3
2
4
2
4
3
2
2
4
3
5
2
27
22
YEAR
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1767
1768
1770
1771
1772
1774
1780
1783
1784
1785
1786
1788
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1802
1805
1785
1825
1784
1776
1786
1787
1788
1784
1739
1741
1758
1770
1771
1783
1784
1785
1787
1788
1797
1798
1799
1805
1785
1784
OBJECT
UNIT
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUGAR
SUIT
SWEET POTATO
TABLE CLOTH
TALLOW
TALLOW
TALLOW
TALLOW
TAPE
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA
TEA CANISTER
TEA KETTLE
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.045
0.069
0.029
0.030
0.034
0.038
0.037
0.032
0.023
0.030
0.031
0.024
0.039
4.250
0.088
0.050
0.043
0.073
0.048
0.052
0.052
0.054
0.054
0.054
0.050
0.056
0.088
1.111
0.150
0.944
0.031
0.043
0.044
0.044
0.151
0.313
0.400
0.563
0.367
0.375
0.667
0.574
0.452
0.494
0.311
0.370
0.529
0.477
0.733
0.153
0.870
BUSHEL
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
PIECE
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
381
COUNT
5
3
8
15
7
4
4
3
2
31
168
2
7
2
2
21
75
2
6
32
32
44
46
38
34
4
6
2
4
2
5
4
3
2
2
5
6
4
21
84
2
3
24
2
2
9
6
5
5
3
4
YEAR
1785
1784
1785
1786
1758
1785
1785
1784
1788
1806
1785
1744
1788
1784
1785
1785
1754
1768
1769
1770
1784
1785
1787
1788
1792
1796
1798
1803
1806
1825
1826
1827
1796
1771
1797
1798
1806
1769
1739
1775
1777
1778
1779
1805
1825
1826
1827
1769
1803
1825
1795
OBJECT
TEA KETTLE
TEA POT
TEA POT
TEA POT
TEAL
TEAPOT/STAND
TEAWARE
THREAD
TONGUE
TONGUE
TOOTHBRUSH
TOPS
TRIPE
TUMBLER
TUMBLER
TUREEN
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURKEY
TURLINGTON
TURNIP
TURNIP
TURNIP
TURTLE
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
SET
OUNCE
STACK
POUND
BOTTLE
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
POUND
BREAST
BREAST
BREAST
HIND QUARTER
LEG
LOIN
POUND
382
£ 0.905
0.125
0.333
0.139
0.013
0.333
5.128
0.093
0.089
0.184
0.034
2.425
0.111
0.079
0.170
0.417
0.250
0.100
0.134
0.154
0.249
0.632
0.122
0.100
0.152
0.261
0.297
0.181
0.434
0.191
0.207
0.182
0.025
0.312
0.089
0.097
0.382
0.055
0.500
1.250
1.500
4.500
15.000
1.333
0.154
0.150
0.198
0.163
0.236
0.194
0.030
COUNT
10
2
2
2
2
3
2
2
2
4
4
2
2
3
17
2
3
2
8
8
6
3
2
2
2
3
2
2
58
23
11
12
2
2
2
3
3
2
2
3
2
10
11
3
6
5
3
3
2
3
5
YEAR
1797
1798
1799
1800
1806
1807
1742
1743
1744
1770
1775
1776
1770
1806
1770
1806
1825
1826
1827
1825
1806
1785
1767
1806
1795
1797
1798
1799
1800
1785
1743
1744
1806
1785
1806
1825
1826
1764
1754
1759
1736
1737
1738
1741
1742
1743
1744
1747
1748
1749
1750
OBJECT
UNIT
UNIT PRICE
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL
VEAL FOOT
VEAL HEAD
VEAL HEAD
VEAL HEAD
VEAL HEAD
VEAL HEAD
VEAL HEAD/FEET
VEAL LIVER
VELVET
VENISON
VENISON
VINEGAR
VINEGAR
VINEGAR
VINEGAR
VINEGAR
WAFER
WAGON HIRE
WAGON HIRE
WALNUTS
WASH HAND BASIN
WATERMELON
WATERMELON
WATERMELON
WEATHER
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
QUARTER
SIDE
YARD
POUND
POUND
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
BOX
DAY
DAY
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
383
£ 0.029
0.033
0.032
0.037
0.042
0.042
0.125
0.125
0.150
0.258
0.250
0.268
0.633
0.053
0.117
0.234
0.094
0.088
0.063
0.094
0.110
0.417
0.008
0.061
0.111
0.063
0.064
0.069
0.111
0.063
0.500
0.500
0.417
0.111
0.112
0.041
0.033
0.750
0.333
55.375
0.160
0.164
0.175
0.183
0.197
0.213
0.146
0.150
0.200
0.167
0.150
COUNT
5
10
2
2
111
2
2
9
7
4
6
11
3
6
3
2
2
9
3
2
4
3
3
4
2
3
4
2
2
2
2
2
4
2
4
2
4
2
2
2
5
18
9
13
18
12
11
2
4
3
3
YEAR
1751
1754
1755
1756
1758
1759
1760
1762
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1781
1782
1783
1784
1786
1792
1803
1804
1805
1807
1770
1784
1777
1778
1781
1782
1783
1784
1791
1792
1794
1795
1796
1785
1758
1753
1754
OBJECT
UNIT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT
WHEAT FAN
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WHISKEY
WINDSOR BEANS
WINE
WINE
WINE
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
BUSHEL
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.163
0.175
0.198
0.169
0.154
0.175
0.175
0.190
0.228
0.233
0.224
0.210
0.226
0.193
0.185
0.204
0.225
0.245
0.297
0.194
0.150
0.281
0.559
6.150
0.278
0.295
0.383
0.329
0.327
0.278
0.360
0.566
0.410
0.274
4.000
0.056
0.500
0.650
16.804
0.308
0.212
0.222
0.278
0.254
0.278
0.278
0.426
0.070
7.314
0.005
0.019
BOTTLE
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
QUART
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
384
COUNT
2
3
21
2
6
3
2
4
9
19
20
28
24
35
11
12
7
7
16
30
5
36
16
31
3
13
10
8
3
2
2
4
7
3
2
2
5
2
2
12
5
4
2
4
4
3
3
2
2
2
2
YEAR
1757
1788
1783
1754
1755
1756
1757
1759
1760
1762
1770
1771
1796
1798
1799
1743
1805
1784
1785
1767
1768
1783
1785
1743
1768
1776
1783
1736
1737
1742
1755
1758
1764
1765
1766
1772
1774
1775
1744
OBJECT
UNIT
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE
WINE GLASS
WINE GLASS
WOOD
WOOD
WOOD
WOOD
WOOD
WOOD
WOOD
WOOD TICKET
WOOL
WOOL
WOOL
WOOL
WOOL
WOOL
WOOL
WOOL
WOOL
WOOL
WOOL
WORK
BOTTLE
BOTTLE
CASK
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
GALLON
QUART
QUART
UNIT PRICE
£ 0.108
0.083
83.325
0.350
0.400
0.300
0.550
0.375
0.478
0.383
0.533
0.531
0.461
0.667
0.474
0.084
0.167
0.030
0.052
0.375
0.370
1.806
1.042
0.275
0.100
0.200
0.667
0.034
0.031
0.028
0.052
0.031
0.032
0.042
0.042
0.042
0.031
0.050
0.100
CORD
CORD
CORD
CORD
LOAD
LOAD
LOAD
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
DAY
385
COUNT
3
2
4
2
2
2
4
9
3
6
4
50
4
4
3
2
2
3
10
3
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
2
2
3
3
2
3
3
2
3
3
4
2
386
APPENDIX 6.
THE LAND TRACT PROJECT
One of the projects undertaken as part of the Provisioning Early American Towns grant was a
study of the rural landscape around eighteenth-century Williamsburg. The goal of this project was
to identify the owners of tracts of land in York County and to trace the evolution of those tracts
through an eighty-year span of time. The work on the entire county was not completed by the end
of the grant period, but the portion of the project that was finished has provided the basis for an
ongoing investigation of the relationship between the town and countryside in the eighteenth
century. The Land Tract Project will be continued in another grant- funded study this fall when
the research on the unfinished parts of the county will be completed and maps of the entire county
will be created
The six maps in this appendix were based on a map created in 1983 as part of the NEHfunded York County Project (Project #RO-20869-85, 1989). Staff members used several
documentary sources to pinpoint the locations of all York County landowners in 1704. The first
of these sources was the 1704 rent roll, a list of landowners and acreage created by colony
officials in the process of assessing land taxes. A number of rent rolls were made in the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, but the 1704 list is the most complete, with names and
landowners for counties throughout Virginia. The rent roll, however, is only a list. To place tracts
of land on the ground, York County Project staff turned to a second source of evidence, the York
County records. Using wills, deeds, and other land evidence from the surviving York County
records and correlating those records with a United States Geographic Survey map of the area,
staff members eventually identified the locations of every landowner whose name appeared on the
1704 list. More than 250 individuals and tracts of land in an area approximately 200 square miles
were identified using this method.
The 1704 Rent Roll Map provides a snapshot of land ownership at a single point in the
eighteenth century. To see the evolution of land ownership throughout the century, it was
necessary to identify another benchmark. The 1784 tax list provided such a reference. Like the
1704 list, the 1784 tax assessment contains names and acreage for the entire county. We divided
the intervening 80 years into fifteen-year periods and attempted to trace the transfer of the tracts
of property over that time span.
We selected a five-mile radius around Williamsburg as the area to work on first. Using a
digitized copy of the 1704 rent roll map and additional documentary sources, a student intern,
Michelle Jarrett, established the pattern of land transactions from 1704 to 1784. While the trail ran
cold on a few tracts and their ownership in 1784 remains unknown, Michelle established the
evolution of ownership on enough tracts to begin to see a pattern. The initial tracts got larger by
mid-century as owners bought up smaller pieces of land. By mid-century, however, these tracts
began to be subdivided again. This corresponded with a tendency in the area right around
Williamsburg in the 1740s and 1750s for owners to subdivide larger parcels to create subdivisions
that catered to the large number of people unable to find affordable dwellings in Williamsburg.
This pattern of conglomeration and subsequent subdivision is clearly seen in the maps.
387
Work on this project will continue in another grant-funded effort this fall. The Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation has already received a grant from the L.J. and Mary Skaggs Foundation
of Oakland, California to build an interactive computer program of people and places in and
around eighteenth-century Williamsburg. We will use the completed rent roll maps in this program
to link information about people to the places in Williamsburg and York County where they were
known to have lived. The completed Land Tract Project will provide an invaluable head start to
linking urban and rural dwellers and associating information with their known places of residence.
388