han 60 had twenty-one or more negroes. Among the more important of
these were Robert Turnbull with 81, Colonel John Banister with 88,
Colonel William Diggs with 72, John Jones with 69, Mrs. Mary Bolling
with 51, Robert Walker with 52, Winfield Mason with 40, John Burwell
with 42, Gray Briggs with 43, William Yates with 55, Richard Taliaferro
with 43, Major Thomas Scott with 57, Francis Muir with 47.[8-58] The
wealth of the larger planters is also shown by the large number of
coaches recorded in these lists, which including phaetons, chariots and
chairs, aggregated 180 wheels.

Thus it was that the doors of opportunity opened wide to the
enterprising and industrious of the middle class, and many availed
themselves of it to acquire both wealth and influence. Smyth tells us
that at the close of the colonial period there were many planters whose
fortunes were "superior to some of the first rank," but whose families
were "not so ancient nor respectable."[8-59] It was the observation of
Anbury that gentlemen of good estates were more numerous in Virginia
than in any other province of America.[8-60]

In fact the Eighteenth century was the golden age of the Virginia slave
holders. It was then that they built the handsome homes once so numerous
in the older counties, many of which still remain as interesting
monuments of former days; it was then that they surrounded themselves
with graceful furniture and costly silverware, in large part imported
from Great Britain; it was then that they collected paintings and filled
their libraries with the works of standard writers; it was then that
they purchased coaches and berlins; it was then that men and women
alike wore rich and expensive clothing.

This movement tended to widen the influence of the aristocracy and at
the same time to eliminate any sharp line of demarkation between it and
the small slave holders. There was now only a gradual descent from the
wealthiest to the poor man who had but one slave. The Spotsylvania tax
lists for 1783 show 247 slaveholders owning from one to five negroes,
116 owning from six to ten inclusive, 66 owning from eleven to fifteen
inclusive, and seventy-six owning more than fifteen.[8-61] In Gloucester
156 had from one to five slaves, 66 from five to ten inclusive, 41 from
eleven to fifteen inclusive, and fifty-seven over fifteen. Thus in a
very true sense the old servant holding aristocracy had given way to a
vastly larger slave holding aristocracy.