Colchester Colonial Port on the Potomac, Part 4

Author: Edith Moore Sprouse
Publication date: 1975-03
Publisher:
Number of Pages:


USA > Virginia > Fairfax County > Fairfax County > Colchester Colonial Port on the Potomac > Part 4


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


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Traces of brick foundations have been found at both of these early churches. Susan Annie Plaskett, in her Memories of a Plain Family (p. 47) spoke of her father having discovered one when he helped to dig a new grave in the Methodist church- yard near the 1842 tombstone of Thompson Clarke. A recent investigation by Edward F. Heite of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission in the long-abandoned town cemetery in the woods at Colchester disclosed evidence of a brick foundation at that place. The Colchester cemetery is on tract #113 ((1)) 85A on the Fairfax County Property Map.


2 Nugent, Cavaliers, p. 563. The full text of the grant is cited in Fairfax County Proceedings in Land Causes, II, p. 15.


3 Fairfax County Deed Book R-1, pp. 284, 349. Wagener v. Mason. The William Harris who owned the land in 1688 may have been that "Good Briton" who died in 1698; his tombstone has been moved to the churchyard of the present Pohick Church.


4 Elizabeth Luke lived in England. She may have been Luke's wife, in Fairfax County Proceedings in Land Causes, I, p. 76 (Wagener v. Lindsay) or his daughter. She was termed that in p. 6 (Bayly v. Henderson) of the same volume. Bayly v. Henderson establishes the Waugh possession of the lower half of the patent. The missing 300 acres may perhaps have been the land owned in the seven- teenth century by John Peake, which included a landing where the ferry docked.


5 This line separates property #113 ((1)) 84, owned by the Beach family, from #113 ((1)) 86A, owned by Timberlake McCue.


30


6 Fairfax County Proceedings in Land Causes, I, p. 87.


7


Fairfax County Deed Book R-1, pp. 284, 349.


8 Hening, Statutes, V, 252.


9 Fairfax County Deed Book B-1, p. 210. Graham paid Ł150 for what was still considered to be 500 acres, despite the findings of the 1729 survey.


10 Harrison, Landmarks, pp. 386-7, 424.


11 Fairfax County Deed Book C-1, p. 471. This page is missing, but the price of the land is cited in Lindsay v. Wagener as ₺300.


12 Hening, Statutes, VI, 396. The charter was issued in November.


13 David Divine, Hadrian's Wall: A Study of the Northwest Frontier of Rome (Boston: Gambit, Incorporated, 1969), pp. 12, 18.


14 A map depicting "The Siege of Colchester, Essex, by the Lord Fairfax ... ," made by T. Witham in 1650, is in the British Museum.


15 Occoquan's designation as a river rather than a creek, an official change made by the U. S. Board of Geographic Names in 1971, was the result of Mrs. Selecman's ten year campaign to restore the name shown on early maps. Interview, May 1971.


16 Fairfax County Deed Book R-1, p. 288.


17


Fairfax County Deed Book L-1, p. 239. An 11 acre strip along the east boundary of the town was mortgaged in 1774 with a 33 foot easement for an access road to the beach.


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18 Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, April 29, 1784, offered two water lots for rent, lying along the street running from the tobacco warehouse to the public wharf. The warehouse was located on Fairfax Street. There was a wharf at this location at the end of the nineteenth century, according to members of the Beach family of Colchester. A dip in the tree line along the bank may indicate the alignment of Fairfax Street.


19 Snowden, Some Landmarks, p. 83.


20 Fairfax County, Official Records of the Colonial Period in Fairfax County, Virginia (Fairfax: by the county, n.d.), p. 14.


21


Fairfax County Deed Book R-1, p. 288.


22 Letter from Governor Gooch to the Bishop of London, May 21, 1739, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XXXIII (January 1925), p. 56.


23


Virginia Gazette, July 13/20, 1739.


24


Maryland Gazette, May 18, 1748.


25


Fairfax County Deed Book C-1, p. 471.


26 "Childhood Recollections as Told by Mary Catherine (Shreve) Birch," typescript, Lebanon file, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Central Library. Mrs. Birch was born at Stisted in 1845. In a manuscript genealogy owned by Mrs. Murray F. Rose, Falls Church, Virginia, the house was described as "a rambling dormer-windowed colonial house."


27 Fairfax County Will Book C-1, p. 249. Inventory of the estate of Peter Wagener, September 19, 1774.


28


Fairfax County Court Order Books, December 21, 1762 and May 18, 1772.


32


29 The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799, ed. by John C. Fitzpatrick (39 vols; Washington: prepared under the direction of the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission and published by authority of Congress, 1931-1934) III, 208. The Loudoun tract is mentioned in the will of Peter Wagener, Fairfax County Will Book G-1, p. 404.


30 Fairfax County Deed Book J-1, p. 268. Margaret's name does not appear in Wagener's will but is listed in the lawsuit.


31 Journals of the Council of the State of Virginia, ed. by H.R. Mellwaine (3 vols .; Richmond; Virginia State Library, 1932) I, July 4, 1777; April 6, 1781.


32


Washington, Writings, XXIII, 109.


33


Fairfax County Court Order Book, June 16, 1783, June 21, 1790. 34 Order Book, February 21, 1792. In January 1752 Richard Rogers, deputy clerk, petitioned the court to move the clerk's office from Occoquan Ferry to his own house.


35


Fairfax County Will Book I-1, p. 132. Sinah Wagener's will is in Will Book J-1, p. 266.


36


Fairfax County Deed Book A-3, p. 147. Sinah Wagener Morton was by then Mrs. Porter, of Fauquier County.


37 Fairfax County Deed Book X-2, p. 188. On July 10, 1827 Sinah deeded the tract to the Bates, who were mentioned as living on the land. Sinah's deed from her brother is indexed in missing Deed Book K-2, p. 272.


38 Two later deeds give information on this tract. Deed Book C-4, p. 333, Bates' sale to John Underwood of lot 2 in the division of. Peter Wagener's land, states it to be 2862 acres. In 1871 Underwood sold Ashael Troth 150 acres of this lot. The boundaries of the tract were Ox Road, a line from the road to the Occoquan at Bates Landing, up the shoreline to Bates Creek, and a line from the creek back to Ox Road, in Deed Book N-4, p. 195.


33


39 Fairfax County Deed Book W-2, p. 214. At that time Mary Elizabeth's share was put in trust until her marriage. This was lot 3 in Wagener's division, as stated in Deed Book C-4, p. 335, when she sold part of the tract to John Underwood in 1859.


40 Later Lee deeds were in 1871, when Edgar W., Thomas H. and Mary E. Wiley, her children, sold 75 acres to Oliver Underwood, running from the foot of a steep bank on the lower side of Alum Gut on the Occoquan, up the gut to Ox Road, down Ox Road to the line of the railroad, with the railroad to the river, and upriver to the beginning, in Deed Book N-4, p. 428; their sale of 83 acres to Ashael Troth, running from Bates Landing which was the lower corner of lot 2, downriver to Alum Gut and up the gut to Ox Road, on p. 43; in 1878 Lee sold the 17+ acres between the rail- road and the town of Colchester, in Deed Book X-4, 238. In 1907, Edgar Lee sold 94 acres, which he termed "the residue of the land of Mary E. Lee," to John McElroy, in Deed Book W-6, p. 433.


41 Fairfax County Deed Book Y-2, p. 17. 42


Fairfax County Deed Book B-3, p. 11.


43 Fairfax County Deed Book X-4, p. 238, Lee to Haislip, and E-5, p. 621, Haislip to John Weston. It is not clear whether this 17 acres included the lots on the north side of Colchester Road (#36 through 17). A suit in 1960, Williams v. Seidell, Chancery File #15098 determined that it did include them, but Lewis Weston and his family had paid taxes on 7 lots since 1855. His deed for #15, bought in 1831, is in Deed Book Z-2 p. 284. Title examiners' testimony in this lengthy suit indicated con- flicting nineteenth century deeds, they concluded that it was impossible to prove the basic ownership of lots in this north tier.


44 Fairfax County Court Order Book, May 1749.


45 Prince William County Deed Book, D-1, p. 301.


46 Fairfax County Court Order Book, September 24, 1751; October 11, 1753. Edward Barry was a justice of the county court and clerk of the first vestry of Truro Parish. The plantation was advertised in the Phenix Gazette (Alexandria) on January 16, 1827.


34


47 Charles W. Stetson, Washington and His Neighbors (Richmond, Va .: Garrett and Massie, Incorporated, 1956), p. 190. See Cordelia Jackson, Edward Washington and His Kin (Washington: Mimeoform press, 1934).


48 Fairfax County Court Order Book, April 19, 1763. The vestry election is discussed in Philip Slaughter, The History of Truro Parish in Virginia ... , ed. by Edward L. Goodwin (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1908), p. 45.


49 Fairfax County Proceedings in Land Causes, II, 85. His stepdaughter testified as to the date of his death. Edward, Jr.'s appointment as inspector is in the Council Journal, III, May 13, 1782. Court Order Book, May 1787 lists him as a Captain in the Fairfax Militia.


50 Alexandria Gazette, Commercial & Political, June 8, 1813. Fairfax County Deed Book G-3, p. 369 names owners until 1831. Benjamin Nevitt, grandson of Isaac Hutton, lived at Huntington until about 1968. He was then in his 90's and had served on the vestry of Pohick Church for 50 years. Mr. Nevitt stated that the plaster and paneling in the parlor were original, and that the house, according to family tradition, had been built by Edward Barry in 1727.


51 John Glassford & Company Records 1753-1834, 288 vols., Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, He is listed as inspector in ledger #216 and 187, also in Fairfax County Court Order Book, August 21, 1759.


52 The Papers of George Mason 1725-1792, ed. by Robert A. Rutland (3 vols .; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970) I, glossary.


53 "Committee of Correspondence, " William & Mary Quarterly, 1st series, XII (April 1904), p. 233. Mason, Papers, I, glossary.


54 Hening, Statutes, IX, 247. The "Westwood Genealogy" is given in William & Mary Quarterly, 1st series, XXVI (April 1918), p. 286.


55


Columbian Mirror & Alexandria Gazette, February 25, 1796; April 14, 1796.


35


56


For a comprehensive study of the McCartys, see Edith M. Sprouse, Mount Air (Fairfax, Va .: Fairfax County Division of Planning, 1970).


57 Prince William: the Story of Its People and Its Places, American Guide Series (2nd printing; Richmond: Whittet & Shepperson for the Bethlehem Good House- keeping Club, Manassas, Virginia, 1961), pp. 76, 82.


58


Fred W. Grayson, "The Grayson Family," Tylers Quarterly Magazine, V (January 1924), p. 195.


59 Alexander Henderson MS Letterbook 1760-1764, Alexandria, Virginia, Public Library. Henderson to John Glassford, June 1758.


60


Maryland Gazette, April 3, 1760.


61 Fairfax County Deed Book D-1, p. 869.


62 Fairfax County Deed Book E-1, p. 43.


63 Glassford, Records, #186:159.


64 Fairfax County Deedbook D-1, p. 381 has 1760 deed for lots #25 and 39. Deed Book E-1, p. 156 refers to 1762 deed for #18 and 37. Grayson inherited #3, 6, 19, 23, 42 from his father. Missing Deed Book F-1, pp. 46, 271, 273 has deeds for other lots. Deed Book E-1, pp. 156, 339 and G-1, p. 93 have mortgages on his lots.


-


65


Glassford, Records, #187:107 (February 1765).


66


Fairfax County Deed Book G-1, p. 260 and K-1, p. 201. Ads appeared in the Maryland Gazette August 1, 1765, in the Virginia Gazette Septem- ber 5, 1766, April 9, 1767 and December 1, 1773.


36


67


Fairfax County Deed Book G-1, p. 95. Grayson is of Loudoun County. Glassford, Records, #189:86.


68


Fairfax County Will Book C-1, p. 24. This was his Fairfax property. Grayson also had L155 in Loudoun County.


69 Fairfax County Deed Book K-1, p. 197 mentions her dower rights. Grayson, Grayson Family, mentions the legacy. Mrs. Grayson later married the Reverend Mouse. Glassford, Records, #225:124. 226:47.


70


Glassford, Records, #184:79.


71


Henderson, Letterbook, September 1762.


72


Fairfax County Deed Book D-1, p. 883, also missing Deed Book F-1, p. 356.


73


Fairfax County Court Order Book August 15, 1768; November 19, 1770. 74 Virginia Gazette, June 28, 1770. Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts Preserved in the Capitol: covering the period from 1652 to 1869, ed. by H.W. Flournoy et al., (11 vols .; Richmond: by authority of the Legis- lature, 1875-1893), 1, 263 and V, 172.


75 Fairfax County Deed Book M-1, p. 168, power of attorney. Council Journals, II, November 4, 1778.


76 Fairfax County Deed Book N-1, p. 251. This book, covering 1778 to 1783, although indexed, is missing.


77 Council Journals, II, September 8, 1781. Osnaburg was a coarse cotton fabric.


37


78 Fairfax County Deed Book A-2, p. 266. This deed, a power of attorney to John Laird in 1793, states that the firm's Colchester store was first run by Ross, then Gibson. The Aquia store was managed by Gibson, then John Murray. The Bladensburg store was under their partner Robert Dick, deceased. Piscataway was run by Thomas Claggett and the store in Georgetown by John Laird.


79 Fairfax County Deed Book J-1, p. 398. This deed book, which is missing, covers 1770 to 1771; the deed is indexed as Hector Ross to Oswald & Denniston, the name by which the firm was known at that date. The deed for #12 is referred to in Deed Book U-1, p. 478, when the lot was sold in 1785 to John Gibson. The deeds for #3, 19, 21, 23 are in Deed Book K-1, p. 197 and Deed Book L-1, p. 41. The purchase of #6 and 42 is in Deed Book K-1, p. 203; Ross sold them the following year to his firm, in Deed Book M-1, p. 217. The deeds for #11 are in Deed Book M-1, p. 172 and S-1, p. 505.


In 1805-1806 the attorney for the firm sold certain lots to Ann Muir, in missing Deed Book F-1, p. 228. In 1831 the executor of the deceased Mrs. Muir's husband sold #15 and 6, 42 in Deed Book Z-2, pp. 284, 292.


80 Alexandria Advertiser & Commercial Intelligencer, March 16, 1803.


81


Mason, Papers, I, glossary.


82


Fairfax County Deed Book Y-1, p. 465.


83 Fairfax Counry Deed Book N-1, p. 228, which is missing, has the deed for #19, 21, 23; p. 572 has the deed for #14. #38 is in Deed Book Y-1, p. 53 and Z-1, p. 289 is the sale of #30. Lot #11 is in S-1, p. 505.


84 Fairfax County Deed Book L-2, p. 7 states that the 2} acre strip had been sold by Wagener to Henderson in 1771, and by Henderson to Thompson.


85


Virginia Journal & Alexandria Advertiser, October 11, 1787.


86


Snowden, Some Landmarks, p. 83.


87


Calendar of State Papers, V, 172.


38


88


Snowden, Some Landmarks, p. 81.


89 "Descendents of Two John Washingtons, " Virginia Magazine, XXIII (January 1915), p. 100; W.B.McGroarty, "Elizabeth Washington of Hayfield," XXXIII, (April 1925), p. 156 tells of this branch of the Washington family.


90


Peter Wagener's will, Fairfax County Will Book G-1, p. 404, be- queaths a lot "near the gate of the town between Thompson and where McPherson keeps store.“


91


Fairfax County Deed Book B-1, p. 192.


92


William Thompson's will is in Fairfax County Will Book H-1, p. 164. Lawrence Washington's is on p. 52 and his inventory on p. 66. A wing of Belmont is standing


93 Columbian Mirror & Alexandria Gazette, October 9, 1800.


39


40


inl


Figure 5. Tobacco hogshead being drawn by oxen along a rolling road. Smithsonian Institute.


Chapter III COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES


It is a maxim with me never to refuse money.


Alexander Henderson, Letterbook


The Role of the Scots Merchants


The mercantile life of the town is reflected in the letters of Alexander Henderson to his employer in Glasgow, Scotland. The firm of John Glassford & Company established a system of stores along the rivers of Virginia and Maryland, sending young Scotsmen to the colonies as managers. These factors were transferred from one store to another on the Potomac and Patuxent Rivers; some later returned to the parent firm in Scotland while others settled permanently in America. Glassford had stores at Dumfries, Aquia, Boyd's Hole, Alexandria and Colchester. In Maryland their branches included Piscataway, Benedict, Nottingham and Port Tobacco. The fortunate survival of 288 volumes of the business records gives a wealth of material concerning everyday life in these port towns. The firm is said to have owned 25 ships, which supplied the stores and returned loaded with tobacco, flour or bar iron. One Glasgow historian estimated that trade in the amount of L500, 000 was carried on by Glassford & Company during the years preceding the American Revolution. In 1777 a Virginian remarked that "the Scots had got two thirds of Virginia and Maryland mortgaged. "2


One of the resident agents employed by Glassford was Alexander Henderson, whose brother Archibald managed the Quantico Creek store. In April 1758 Archibald Henderson established a new store in Colchester, installing his 20 year old brother as factor. Benjamin Grayson, who was about the same age, was running his father's store in the new town. On April 10th Alexander Henderson arrived in Colchester, took up residence as a boarder at Peter Wagener's, rented a storehouse from him for -20 annually and went into business. 3


In June he wrote John Glassford that another store had been started in Colchester and two others at the Occoquan tobacco warehouse two miles upstream. Henderson was selling 125 to E50 in goods monthly and proposed to order L1250 of stocks for the coming year. This would be delivered at the Quantico store and brought by cart to Colchester. An assistant, John Campbell, was sent out on the Nisbet from Glasgow. He arrived in September 1758.


The Prentis store in Williamsburg, although constructed about 1740, illustrates mid-eighteenth century commercial design. The shop proper, consisting of some 20 square feet, was in front, with a counting room and stairs at the rear of the building.


41


The front windows provided the only light, as the other three walls were covered with shelves. The fireplace was in the counting room. The upper storey served as a storage area and probably had goods hoisted up through a large front window. Sometimes the clerks slept above the shop. 4


Among Henderson's first customers were Charles Tyler, who operated Wagener's Colchester Tavern and needed such items as flour, barley, nuts and rum; attorney George Johnston who purchased "twelve prints of Ladys framed;" and artisan William Buckland, who bought two hammers at five shillings apiece while he was finishing Gunston Hall. For Edward Conner of Loudoun County Henderson imported a wig from Glasgow and a silk suncap for his lady. He stocked all the necessities and sold vast quantities of the panacea, Turlington's Balsam of Life, which his customers seemed to use for all ailments. Most accounts were paid in tobacco, many carried over from one year to the next. As was to be expected there was soon a separate page in the ledger headed "Desperate Debts."


Henderson was doing well enough by September 1758, to make his first land purchase. He bought lot #15 on the north side of Essex Street facing the marketplace for £15.10. Its location made it more expensive than those farther up the street. John McIntosh, the tailor, had paid only 19 the previous week for lot #20. Although the store was doing moderately well, Henderson, after his brother had almost been drowned in Quantico Creek in December unloading goods from an iced-in vessel, paused to give some thought to his own future. He was uncertain of the wisdom of signing a six year contract with Glassford & Company. "I can't expect to be in a condition to settle in my native country in a shorter time, not indeed then, for which reason I must be looking out for some way of life in this country," the young man wrote in 1759. The arrangement with Glassford allowed him to import only £100 in goods for personal trading during the year beside his wages of E15. Henderson told his employer that he wished to sell goods wholesale to merchants in Dumfries and make a little money for himself. "By limiting me so strictly you will put it out of my power to acquire a livelihood, before I am so advanced in life as to lose a relish for the enjoyment of it."5


Despite this gloomy prediction the young man expanded his foothold in the town, bought nails to build a smokehouse in March 1759 and purchased three additional lots. Located on Fairfax Street, #14, 5 and 38 gave him control of the space between the market and the bank of the Occoquan. In this way he had direct access to the waterfront by June and could load hogsheads of tobacco directly onto flatboats to be carried to vessels offshore. During the spring Henderson had a flatt (raft) built which he named the Golgotha. John Ballendine provided 52} feet of one-inch oak plank to five shillings, William Bayly 14 feet of "junk" lumber, and 31 yards of twilling were needed for a sail. Benjamin Grayson supplied the rudder and mast irons. º The total cost was over E28, but by hiring the craft to Grayson, Ballendine, Wagener and other neighbors he was able in the first year of use to report that he had made up all but 1.5 of his investment.


A storehouse, stable and salt house were rented from Grayson from April 1759 to December 1761. These were possibly located on lot #3.7 Meanwhile construction began in July 1759 on a 16 feet by 25 feet house on lot #15.8 Some 8,200 nails of


42


a


Figure 6. a. Common tobacco warehouse; b. tobacco hanging upon a scaffold; c. the operation of prizing; d. inside of tobacco house; e. outside of public warehouse; f. inside of public warehouse showing process of inspection. Etching by William Newman in William Tatham, An Historical and Practical Essay on the Culture and Commerce of Tobacco, 1800.


43


varied sizes cost E1.10.4; the thousand nails used for the fence were only five shillings, five pence. The following year he built a landing house and upper house, most likely on his Fairfax Street lots, leasing them back to Glassford & Company. The ledger entry for July 18, 1760 shows purchases of 393 feet of scantling, 1,297 bricks and 60 bushels of shells for mortar. One of the lots with kitchen and smokehouse was also rented to Glassford at E5 a month.


When autumn of 1760 arrived, Henderson was able to summarize his progress. In a little over two years in Colchester he had shipped back to his employer some four hundred hogsheads of tobacco on ships out of Norfolk, Quantico and Nanjemoy Creek in Maryland. He had traveled to Glassford's stores in Piscataway, Nanjemoy and Port Tobacco. Expenses for houses and housekeeping since the store began came to E54.7 and 21.0.8 was used for keeping servants. One of these was a boy four feet, one inch in height, whom he named Glasgow. The cost of living or boarding for the past 18 months ran to E114.10.03, while Henderson's wages for that year had risen to -50. On his personal trading account he had shipped 227 hogsheads of tobacco.9


A respectable number of pieces of household furniture had been acquired since June 15, 1759, all listed as Glassford & Company assets. Their value totalled E66. Included in the list were such kitchen items as a pine table, a brass mortar and pestle, a Dutch oven and an ironing table. There were a feather bed, a tent bed and a walnut bedstead and chest, while in the room which served as living quarters were such niceties as a square walnut tea-table from the Quantico store, six leather-bottom chairs pur- chased from Catesby Cocke (who in 1760 had leased his Belmont plantation on Mason Neck to Benjamin Grayson10) a writing desk, nine flag-bottom chairs, and a wooden safe made for Henderson by Jack, the negro carpenter.


Three and a half yards of printed cotton were made into curtains for three windows and there were two iron fireplace fenders. An oval walnut dining-table had come from the Quantico store. This list of tableware indicates that young Henderson was living in some degree of comfort:


stoneware plates 1} dozen tortoise shell plates


9 pewter plates


3 pewter dishes


4 wineglasses


20 table knives and forks


6 breakfast knives


6 pewter teaspoons


6 pewter tablespoons


12 silver teaspoons 1


That summer L420 in goods were ordered for the store, Henderson directing that the printed cottons should be "of good lively patterns and pretty large." Commenting on rugs that had been ordered but not received, he said that "disappointments of this kind make a man appear little in the eyes of his customers. " 12 The balanced account for the store shows a total of E140. 18. 12 sterling, E1030.6. 124 in currency and 5039 lbs. of tobacco. 13 His wages had risen from £15 in 1758 to -20 per year in 1759 and in- creased appreciably in 1760.


In October 1760, Alexander Henderson started out for Williamsburg in the hopes of meeting Glassford's partner, but was informed at Falmouth that the gentleman had left the country. The visitor had perhaps departed in one of the ships engaged in the


44


Potomac trade, among them the Triton, Catherine, Glassford, Nisbet, America, Nugent, Thistle, Hannah, Potomack, Fair American, Jeanie, Nellie, Henderson, George, Russell, Sally, Upton and Capell. Others mentioned in the 1761 ledgers were the King of Prussia, Esther & Mary, Friendship, Elizabeth and the Wilson. This last sailed from London and the John of Susannah came from Barbadoes with -173.11.3 worth of rum as a cargo.


The summer of 1761 found another assistant, Mr. Brice, living with Henderson; he had come out with Captain Hamilton. "I dare say, " commented Henderson, "he will turn out to be a good assistant. "14 He needed help"> to cope with such unsatisfactory merchandise as two copper coal scoops. "I never ordered them for they are an un- saleable article. I shall pack up and send to you on the first vessel from Quantico to the Clyde, I suppose some use may be made of them with you, there cannot be any here, " complained the factor in a letter of April 20th. Trade in the store had not been extensive but no money had been lost. The copper coal scoops were sent back on the Henderson, which also carried 190 hogsheads of tobacco weighting 202,969 pounds. 16




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