[Footnote 1:  Robert Carter’s plantation affairs are noted in Philip V. Fithian, Journal and Letters (Princeton, N.J., 1900); the Gunston Hall estate is described in Kate M. Rowland, Life of George Mason (New York, 1892), I, 98-102; many documents concerning Mt.  Vernon are among the George Washington MSS. in the Library of Congress, and Washington’s letters, 1793-179, to his steward are printed in the Long Island Historical Society Memoirs v. 4; of James Mercer’s establishments an inventory taken in 1771 is reproduced in Plantation and Frontier, I, 249.]

[Footnote 2:  Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, Va.), Oct. 22, 1767, reprinted in Plantation and Frontier, I, 133.]

[Footnote 3:  S.M.  Hamilton ed., Letters to Washington, IV, 286.]

The organization and routine of the large plantations on the James River in the period of an agricultural renaissance are illustrated in the inventory and work journal of Belmead, in Powhatan County, owned by Philip St. George Cocke and superintended by S.P.  Collier.[4] At the beginning of 1854 the 125 slaves were scheduled as follows:  the domestic staff comprised a butler, two waiters, four housemaids, a nurse, a laundress, a seamstress, a dairy maid and a gardener; the field corps had eight plowmen, ten male and twelve female hoe hands, two wagoners and four ox drivers, with two cooks attached to its service; the stable and pasture staff embraced a carriage driver, a hostler, a stable boy, a shepherd, a cowherd and a hog herd; in outdoor crafts there were two carpenters and five stone masons; in indoor industries a miller, two blacksmiths, two shoemakers, five women spinners and a woman weaver; and in addition there were forty-five children, one invalid, a nurse for the sick, and an old man and two old women hired off the place, and finally Nancy for whom no age, value or classification is given.  The classified workers comprised none younger than sixteen years except the stable boy of eleven, a waiter of twelve, and perhaps some of the housemaids and spinners whose ages are not recorded.  At the other extreme there were apparently no slaves on the plantation above sixty years old except Randal, a stone mason, who in spite of his sixty-six years was valued at $300, and the following who had no appraisable value:  Old Jim the shepherd, Old Maria the dairy maid, and perhaps two of the spinners.  The highest appraisal, $800, was given to Payton, an ox driver, twenty-eight years old.  The $700 class comprised six plowmen, five field hands, the three remaining ox drivers, both wagoners, both blacksmiths, the carriage driver, four stone masons, a carpenter, and Ned the twenty-eight year old invalid whose illness cannot have been chronic.  The other working men ranged between $250 and $500 except the two shoemakers whose rating was only $200 each.  None of the women were appraised above $400, which was the rating also of the twelve and thirteen year old boys.  The youngest children were valued at $100 each.  These ratings were all quite conservative for that period.  The fact that an ox driver overtopped all others in appraisal suggests that the artisans were of little skill.  The masons, the carpenters and various other specialists were doubtless impressed as field hands on occasion.