Category: Places

Rum and Its Consumption

Noelle Robison // AMH 4110.0M01 – Colonial America, 1607-1763

Alcohol, rum specifically, was consumed regularly and at all times of the day in the British colonies of North America. The Colchester store ledger from 1760-1761 in Fairfax, Virginia, shed light on this observation. Almost every account listed in the folios have entries regarding the purchase of rum. For example, in Valinda Wade’s and William Turner’s accounts, there are several entries with rum purchased by the quart and a few by the gallon.^[1] Other folios, such as Benoni Halley’s account, show several gallons purchased in a short period of time.^[2] William Scott also purchased many gallons.^[3] In summation of the thirteen folios reviewed, a pattern of high rum purchases and consumption was realized. Rum was the alcohol of choice in the colonies largely due to its proximity to the sugar plantations in the Caribbean. It is estimated that the average colonist consumed 3.7 gallons annually.^[4]

In June and July of 1760, Mrs. Valinda Wade purchased multiple gallons of rum from the Colchester store (folio 19D).

In December of 1760, William Turner purchased 3 and a half gallons of rum from the Colchester store (folio 22D).

Though widespread, alcohol consumption was often regulated by both legal constraints and social expectations. Anyone wishing to sell alcohol and provide other service to townspeople and travelers alike were required to secure licenses for their establishments. These taverns or inns, otherwise known as ordinaries, were common throughout many of the colonies. Licenses were needed as early as the mid-1600s in some places.^[5] In Colchester, many licenses were granted during the town’s short history, though the most important was likely the Colchester Inn, or the Fairfax Arms Tavern, owned by Peter Wagener and managed by Charles Tyler.^[6] Under licenses, taverns or ordinaries were often restricted by how long they could be open each day, how much alcohol they could sell, and who they could serve.^[7] These legalities were coupled with social expectations. One was expected to control oneself, and this meant no drinking to excess. In the most extreme cases, those in violation of social norms or the law would find themselves publicly humiliated or fined.^[8] In these ways, the everyday consumption of alcohol, including rum, was ensured against excess and attempts were made to regulate it for the common good.

Metal tankards from ca. 1730-1745, possibly like ones used in ordinaries and taverns. From the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Acc. No. 1954-940.

Stoneware tankards dating from 1740-1780 that could have been similar to those used in colonial ordinaries or taverns. From the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Acc. No. 1973-231.

Additionally, while the consumption of alcohol was high, so was its opposition. Religious tolerance was common amongst the British colonies. However, some of these religious groups were extreme in their practices against alcohol. They condemned alcohol and many attempted to prohibit the sale and consumption of it. This disdain for alcohol was highlighted in a recent interdisciplinary journal article by Utah Valley University professor, regarding the interactions between Quakers and Native Americans in the mid 1700s. The article states, “Indian and Quaker revivalism intersected through a shared concern for moral purity and regulating alcohol consumption.”^[9] This article goes further stating, “For colonists rum generated profit as well as anxieties about its potential disorder.”^[10] Meanwhile, sugar plantations in the Caribbean were supplying the foundation for the highly successful rum market. There is no doubt that the rum trade brought wealth to investors and producers. However, this caused concern in towns and religious sanctuaries. This article elaborates on alcohol consumption in the same time period as the Colchester ledgers, providing a broader view and context of the folio pages analyzed.

While rum was an extremely popular drink and part of the culture surrounding the British colonies, it was also heavily regulated by both laws and norms, as well as deemed intolerable by some religious groups. Sugar as a cash crop was extremely beneficial financially to investors and planters. Its versatility made it so, including its importance in the production of rum. Successful sugar plantations were essential for colonial profit while also encouraging the creation, and in turn, the consumption of rum. Thus, sugar plantations and rum consumption created a complex web of interdependencies among various peoples living in the colonies.

^[1] Alexander Henderson, et. al., Ledger 1760-1761, Colchester, Virginia folio 19, 22 Debit, from the John Glassford and Company Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 58 (owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association).

^[2] Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1760-1761 folio 23 Debit.

^[3] Ibid., folio 24 Debit.

^[4] Ian Williams, Rum: A Social & Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776 (New York: Nation Books, 2005), 166.

^[5] Alice Morse Earle, Stage-Coach and Tavern Days (New York: Macmillan Co, 1900), 2, https://archive.org/details/stagecoachtavern00earluoft.

^[6] Edith Moore Sprouse, Colchester: Colonial Port on the Potomac (Fairfax, Va: Fairfax County Office of Comprehensive Planning, 1975), 61, https://archive.org/details/Colchester_201704.

^[7] Mark Harrison Moore and Dean R. Gerstein, eds., Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1981), 132.

^[8] Moore and Gerstein, Alcohol and Public Policy, 137.

^[9] Michael Goode, “Dangerous Spirits,” Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal 14, no. 2, 260.

^[10] Goode, “Dangerous Spirits,” 262.

October 11, 2018
Tobacco on the Occoquan: A Smooth Sailing Economy

Mercy Alexander // AMH4110.0M01 – Colonial America, 1607-1763

Tobacco was the foundation of the Chesapeake’s economic prosperity throughout the eighteenth century. By the late 1780s, Virginia and Maryland were exporting some 80,000 hogsheads worth of tobacco yearly to Great Britain, the primary port of destination. In London, Chesapeake planters exchanged their produce for manufactured goods or consigned it for papered bills.^[1]

Tobacco was so valuable at that time that it was often used in place of currency. In Glassford and Henderson’s Colchester store ledger for 1760-1761, tobacco was both a commodity to be bought and a form of payment for purchasing material goods available at the store.

Tobacco used as payment for the purchase of goods at the Glassford and Henderson Store, August 1761. Folio 59C

However, despite its importance to the economy of Virginia, the plant proved to lend itself to an unstable market. The value of tobacco often fluctuated depending on the harvest yield, popular demand, and other unforeseen and uncontrollable variables. In 1727, oversaturation of the market and the decline in prices sunk the worth of tobacco so low that planters found it difficult to make a living from its production.^[2] Virginia Governor William Gooch, hoping to relieve the colony’s economic woes, set into motion a series of laws which would come to be known as the Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730. The laws were designed to reduce the number of inferior grades of tobacco being sold to Britain, thereby preventing chronic overproduction and allowing for an increase in market price. The act called for the construction of several warehouses throughout the colony where planters would be required to send their tobacco for inspection prior to its exportation to Britain.^[3]

At Glassford and Henderson’s store in Colchester, any written record of the transaction of tobacco was generally accompanied by the name of the location of a warehouse. From the 1760-1761 store ledger, it appears much of the tobacco bought and sold within the store stemmed from a warehouse located along the Occoquan River.^[4] While little other information regarding the warehouse is given within the ledger itself, it can be inferred that Glassford and Henderson’s customers likely exchanged most of their tobacco from here due to the warehouse’s relative proximity to the store.

Map Showing the Distance Between the town of Colchester and the Occoquan Warehouse in 1760.
“An Interoperative Historical Map of Fairfax County Virginia in 1760” – © Beth Mitchell – Published by Office of
Comprehensive Planning, County of Fairfax, 1987.

The first mention of a warehouse being built on the Occoquan comes in 1734 when authorities established one on land previously used as the site of a copper mine owned by a man named Carter.^[5] The construction of the warehouse along the river and the creation of Prince William County in 1731 (south of the Occoquan River) led local landowners north of the Occoquan River to petition the Virginia Assembly for the founding of a new town and county. In 1742, the County of Fairfax was officially created, named in honor of Thomas, Sixth Lord of Fairfax, and composing some 399 square miles.^[6] Eleven years later in 1753, The General Council laid the foundation of what would become Colchester, Virginia, when they called for the surveying of land “lying and being on Occoquan river in the county of Fairfax…beginning on the upper side of the ferry landing, and extending down the said river…”^[7] Located near the bustling north bank of the Occoquan River, Colchester became a prominent tobacco port town and the site for Glassford and Henderson’s store.

Map showing the property owned by Benjamin Grayson where the new warehouse would be built.
“An Interoperative Historical Map of Fairfax County Virginia in 1760” – © Beth Mitchell – Published by Office of
Comprehensive Planning, County of Fairfax, 1987.

In 1762, further legislation passed by the Virginia General Assembly had the Occoquan warehouse discontinued, citing the “ruinous” conditions of the building and its inconvenient location so far removed from the county’s main port of trade—Colchester. The new warehouse was to be established in the town Colchester on the property of a local resident, Benjamin Grayson, where it would remain until the end of the Revolutionary War.^[8]

The Occoquan River warehouse was just one of many such buildings erected throughout Virginia on the south side of the Potomac River and its tributaries. These public warehouses were overseen by inspectors, generally themselves planters, who were appointed yearly by the justices of Virginia’s county courts.^[9] With two inspectors assigned to every one warehouse, these men were charged with assuring the quality of the tobacco being sold within the market.^[10] Planters whose tobacco passed inspection were given crop notes or transfer notes which could be exchanged for goods.^[11] These notes were used as a form of money and created a system of exchange based upon the value of tobacco.^[12] Any tobacco that failed to pass the inspector’s judgment was burned.^[13]

Example of a transfer tobacco Note, 1777. Courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

At Glassford and Henderson’s Colchester, Virginia, one sees numerous credit accounts in which customers purchased their goods either through the use of notes or, more commonly, via transactions of hogsheads full of tobacco. The overwhelming majority of these containers had their origins listed as being from “on the Occoquan” likely in reference to the warehouses where the crop had been inspected.

Tobacco was at the heart of the Virginia economy, and in that sense, it was the lifeblood of the Glassford and Henderson store. The passing of the Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730 led to an explosion in the productivity and value of the tobacco trade. The subsequent establishment of the Occoquan Warehouse and the tobacco ports culminated in the founding of both Fairfax County and the important trading town of Colchester, Virginia. Tobacco allowed Virginians a means of purchasing British manufactured goods, exchanging bills, notes, and hogsheads as an alternative form of currency which could be used to buy nails, linen, glass, china, rum, salt, and other popular or necessary commodities from local shops like the Colchester store.

^[1] “Description of Virginia Commerce,” The William and Mary Quarterly 4, no. 2 (Oct. 1906): 88.

^[2] Stacy L. Lorenz, “To Do Justice to His Majesty, the Merchant and the Planter: Governor William Gooch and the
Virginia Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 108, no. 4 (2000): 345.

^[3] Lorenz, “To Do Justice to His Majesty, the Merchant and the Planter,” 363.

^[4] “Description of Virginia Commerce,” 90.

^[5] Earnie Porta, Images of America: Occoquan (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2010), 8.

^[6] Office of the Sherriff, Fairfax County, Virginia: 1742-2001 (Nashville, Tennessee: Turner Publishing Company,
2002), 16.

^[7] William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of all Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of
Legislature, in the Year 1619 (Richmond, Virginia: Franklin Press – W.W Gray, Prints, 1819), Vol. 6, Ch. XXII, 396, accessed May 2, 2018, http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol06-18.htm.

^[8] Hening, The Statutes at Large, Vol. 7, Ch. II, 530-531, http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol07-24.htm.

^[9] Ibid., Vol. 4, Ch. III, 247-271, http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol04-13.htm.

^[10] “Description of Virginia Commerce,” 90.

^[11] John C. Rainbolt, “The Case of the Poor Planters in Virginia under the Law for Inspecting and Burning Tobacco,”
The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 79, no. 3 (July 1971): 315.

^[12] Lorenz, “To Do Justice to His Majesty, the Merchant and the Planter,” 376.

^[13] Rainbolt, “The Case of the Poor Planters in Virginia,” 315.

September 11, 2018
The Fairfax Arms: The Place to Be

Raymond Nye // AMH 4110-0M01 – Colonial America, 1607-1763

The town of Colchester, established in 1753 by the Virginia Assembly, was laid out in a triangular shape and consisted of forty-one lots and a marketplace.^[1] Colchester quickly became a thriving port town, shipping tobacco to Great Britain.^[2] One of the earliest businesses to be established in the port town were ordinaries or taverns that provided a place where merchants, craftsmen, and planters could go and enjoy good fare, talk about life or business, all in a warm and friendly environment.

Layout of Colchester in 1760 – “An Interoperative Historical Map of Fairfax County Virginia in 1760.” Published by Office of Comprehensive Planning, County of Fairfax, 1987.

Situated approximately three hundred meters from the Occoquan River along Essex Street (formerly known as the King’s Highway) stood the Colchester Inn, commonly known as the Fairfax Arms Tavern.^[3] On May 17, 1756, lot 21 was one of six lots purchased by Benjamin Grayson that became the Fairfax Arms Tavern.^[4] William Linton rented the property from Grayson and was granted a license to run an ordinary at the premises on July 21, 1761, which was renewed on February 15, 1763.^[5] Linton was financially backed by Hugh West, a local attorney and prominent land owner, who had made his wealth through inheritance and tobacco.^[6]

Undated photograph of the Fairfax Arms Tavern. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS, Reproduction number HABS VA,30-COLCH,1-3

Evidence of the Colchester Inn can be found in the accounts of the Colchester store of the mercantile firm of John Glassford & Company, established in Colchester in 1758.^[7] As can be seen in the account below, the tavern keeper William Linton made several purchases from Henderson’s Colchester store in 1761.^[8] The purchase of the tea kettle suggests that, even in the American colonies, the English still enjoyed a nice cup of hot tea when they were away from home. The candlesticks infer that there was an inviting, cozy atmosphere for the patrons of the Fairfax Arms.

Purchases made at the Colchester store in 1761, by the Tavern kept by William Linton (the Fairfax Arms Tavern), from Glassford and Henderson’s Colchester, Virginia store (folio 141D).

Benjamin Grayson ran into some financial troubles in 1762 and was forced to mortgage the property, and eventually put the property up for sale in 1767. Hector Ross purchased it in 1772 but sold it again a year later to Alexander Henderson, the manager and owner of the Colchester store where William Linton made his purchases in 1761.^[9]

During the late 1770s, the Fairfax Arms started to provide another important service for the residents of Colchester. Alexander Henderson and William Thompson were the town’s postmasters, and it is believed that they operated their postal business from the premises. Henderson sold the property to Thompson who in July 1784 tried to put the property up for sale in the Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser. However, he was unable to sell the property and held onto it until his death in 1800. According to the listing, excerpted below, the property by that time included a stable and a meat house.^[10]

A large and convenient dwelling with excellent cellar, four rooms on a floor with a fireplace to each and three rooms above. Good kitchen with oven adjacent to the fireplace, a room at one end with a planked floor, lathed and plastered, glass windows, was intended for a housekeeper or white servant; stable for eight horses and a meathouse, garden and about one acre adjacent in grass well inclosed.^[11]

What makes this tavern extra interesting is that it is one of only two original buildings built in Colchester in the 1760s still standing today. Now a private residence, the building represents an important part of colonial America in Virginia. Because of its value to the port town of Colchester, the Fairfax Arms was included in the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1933 and was listed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1979.^[12]

April 1959 image of the building that once housed the Fairfax Arms Tavern. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS, Reproduction number HABS VA,30-COLCH,1-3.

^[1] Thomas M. Slade, “National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form,” Virginia Department of Historic Resources, accessed March 23, 2017, http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Fairfax/029-
0043_Fairfax_Arms_1979_Final_Nomination.pdf.

^[2] Slade, “NRHP Inventory – Nomination Form.”

^[3] Historical Marker Database, “Colchester Historical Marker,” HMdb.org, accessed April 20, 2017,
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=206 ; John R. Maass, “‘An Elegant Seat and Situation’: Mount Vernon and Vicinity,” in George Washington’s Virginia (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2017), 98.

^[4] Slade, “NRHP Inventory – Nomination Form.”

^[5] Beth Mitchell, Fairfax County Road Orders 1749-1800 (Charlottesville, VA: Virginia Transportation Research Council, June 2003), accessed March 23, 2017, http://www.virginiadot.org/vtrc/main/online_reports/pdf/03-r19.pdf.

^[6] Jim Bish, “Hugh West and the West Family’s Momentous Role in Founding and Developing Alexandria and Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, Virginia,” The Alexandria Chronicle (Spring 2010): 2,
https://alexandriahistoricalsociety.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/The_Chronicle/2010_Sp_Chronicle.pdf.

^[7] Slade, “NRHP Inventory – Nomination Form.”

^[8] Alexander Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1760-1761, Colchester, Virginia folio 141 Debit, from the John Glassford and Company Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 58 (owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association).

^[9] Slade, “NRHP Inventory – Nomination Form.”

^[10] Ibid.

^[11] Ibid.

^[12] HABS and John Davis, “Colchester Inn”; Slade, “NRHP Inventory – Nomination Form.”

September 7, 2018