ar.

The colonists, used to their drink, found an ever-flowing cheap supply
from the West Indies in rum, distilled there from molasses produced from
sugar cane. This drink was stocked especially for the servants in the
Colony. The Bridger store had on hand six barrels and one hogshead of
rum, the entire contents being approximately two hundred and fifty-five
gallons. In addition, there had been laid aside "for Colonel Powell's
hands" sixty-five gallons of rum.

In wearing apparel, the store was stocked with shoes for men, women and
boys, hose for men and women, hats at various prices, bodices for women,
"plaines" for men and boys and "falls" for men and boys.

The little pest, the moth, had made its appearance in Virginia, for in
goods accounted for, are four pairs of moth-eaten hose and a piece of
moth-eaten kersey.

No firearms are listed in the salable goods on hand but 106 pounds of
shot are valued at 12s 6d.

Urban folks, coming to Virginia in the early twentieth century, and
visiting rural areas, were wont to comment upon the inevitable
horse-collars and harness that usually held a prominent place in the
cluttered country store. They were no less indispensable to travel over
the dirt roads of that time than were the harness accessories in the
Bridger store, such as snaffles and check-bits, stirrup-leathers,
halters and girths. While, as hereafter mentioned, the waterways in
Virginia served as open travel routes, the use of the horse was more or
less general by the latter part of the century, at least among the
well-to-do, for riding about the plantation, for visiting, and for sport
in racing. As noted, Colonel Bridger owned fourteen horses.

The shares in the estate of Colonel Bridger's three married daughters
were claimed by their husbands and are recorded by items. It is of
interest to note that Thomas Godwin, husband of Martha Bridger, was
speaker of the House of Burgesses, in 1676, that Thomas Lear, who
married Elizabeth Bridger, was a prominent planter of Nansemond County,
and Richard Tibboth, husband of Mary Bridger, was master of the ship
_Anne and Mary_, which plied between England and "James River in
Virginia."

THE STATUS OF WOMEN

Notwithstanding the declaration by Virginia's first representative
legislative Assembly in session at Jamestown, 30 July 1619, that "in a
new plantation it is not known which be the most necessary, man or
woman," the plantation representatives saw fit to extend to