t busy constructing barns and servants' quarters,
or repairing stables, fences, gates and wagons. The blacksmith was
called upon to shoe horses, to keep in order ploughs, hinges, sickles,
saws, perhaps even to forge outright such rough iron ware as nails,
chains and hoes. The cooper made casks in which to ship the tobacco
crop, barrels for flour and vats for brandy and cider. The tanner
prepared leather for the plantation and the cobbler fashioned it into
shoes for the slaves. Sometimes there were spinners, weavers and
knitters who made coarse cloth both for clothing and for bedding. The
distiller every season made an abundant supply of cider, as well as
apple, peach and persimmon brandy.

And the plantation itself provided the materials for this varied
manufacture. The woods of pine, chestnut and oak yielded timber for
houses and fuel for the smithy. The herd of cattle supplied hides for
the tanner. The cloth makers got cotton, flax and hemp from the
planter's own fields, and wool from his sheep. His orchard furnished
apples, grapes, peaches in quantities ample for all the needs of the
distiller. In other words, the large planter could utilize
advantageously the resources at hand in a manner impossible for his
neighbor who could boast of but a small farm and half a score of
slaves.[8-54]

It was inevitable, then, that the widespread use of slave labor would
result in the gradual multiplication of well-to-do and wealthy men. In
the Seventeenth century not one planter in fifty could be classed as a
man of wealth, and even so late as 1704 the number of the well-to-do was
very narrowly limited. In a report to the Lords of Trade written in that
year Colonel Quary stated that upon each of the four great rivers of
Virginia there resided from "ten to thirty men who by trade and industry
had gotten very competent estates."[8-55] Fifty years later the number
had multiplied several times over.

Thus in Gloucester county in 1783, of 320 slave holders no less than 57
had sixteen or more. Of these one possessed 162, one 138, one 93, one
86, one 63, one 58, two 57, one 56, one 43 and one 40.[8-56] In
Spotsylvania, of 505 owners, 76 had sixteen or more. Of these Mann Page,
Esq., had 157, Mrs. Mary Daingerfield had 71, William Daingerfield 61,
Alexander Spotswood 60, William Jackson 49, George Stubblefield 42,
Frances Marewither 40, William Jones 39.[8-57]

The Dinwiddie tax lists for 1783 show that of 633 slave holders, no less
t