In most instances the warehouses were private property, but they were
always subject to the control of the legislature. Regulations regarding
the location, erection, maintenance and operation as official places of
inspection were set forth by special legislation. Owners of the land
sites selected were ordered to build the warehouses and rent them to
the inspectors. If the land owner refused to build, then the court
could order the warehouse built at public expense. Just how many
warehouses were built at public expense is difficult to determine,
probably only a few, if any, were built in this manner.
The rent which the proprietor received usually depended upon the number
of hogsheads inspected at his warehouse, though the rates were
regulated by the General Assembly. In 1712 the proprietors received
twelve pence for the first day or the first three months and six pence
every month thereafter per hogshead. In 1755 the owners received eight
pence per hogshead. During the Revolution the rate was raised to four
shillings, but was lowered to one shilling six pence after the
cessation of hostilities. At the beginning of the nineteenth century
rent per hogshead, including a year's storage, was twenty-five cents.
To keep pace with the movement of the tobacco industry, new warehouses
were built and others discontinued from time to time. And by observing
the warehouse movement it is possible to grasp a general picture of the
decline of the tobacco industry in Tidewater Virginia. The expansion of
the industry into Piedmont is more difficult to follow during this
period owing to the fact that inspection houses were not permitted
above the Falls until after the Revolution.
In 1730 seventy-two warehouses located in thirty counties were ordered
erected and maintained for the purpose of inspection and storage by the
General Assembly. Twelve years later warehouses were erected in only
one additional county, Fairfax. A few of those established in 1730 were
discontinued, but twenty-six new ones had been erected by 1742, making
a total of ninety-three in operation at that time. From 1742 to 1765
the total number of inspection houses increased by about six, but this
does not reveal a complete picture of the warehouse movement. A closer
examination shows a much greater shift in the movement. Sixteen new
inspection warehouses were erected during this period, twelve of them
near the Fall Line; in the meantime, ten of the old established
warehouses far below the Falls were discontinued.
After a year without an official inspection system the lapsed
inspection law was revived in October, 1776; seventy-six of the
warehouses were re-established as official inspection stations. Soon
after the end of the war the number of inspections began to increase
again, and it was chiefly through the efforts of a David Ross that
inspection warehouses were permitted above the Falls. The first
inspections seem to have appeared above the Falls in Virginia in 1785:
one at Crow's Ferry, Botetourt County; one at Lynch's Ferry, Campbell
County; and a third at Point of Fork on the Rivanna River, Fluvanna
County. Tobacco inspected in the warehouses above the Falls could not
be legally delivered for exportation without first being delivered to a
lower warehouse for transportation and reinspection upon demand by the
purchaser.
There were a number of reasons why the inspection warehouses were
restricted to Tidewater Virginia until after the Revolution. It was not
until after the Revolution that a strong need and demand for them was
felt above the Falls. Inadequate transportation facilities in the
interior made exportation from upland inspections less feasible. It is
also probable that the Legislature was opposed to upland inspections as
it would be more difficult to control the inspections, spread out over
a larger area, as rigidly as those concentrated in a smaller area. And
no doubt Tidewater Virginia recognized the economic value of having all
of the inspections located in its own section. However, the sharp
decline in tobacco production in the Tidewater followed by an equal
increase in the Piedmont made inspections above the Falls inevitable.
Of the ninety-three inspection warehouses in operation in 1792, only
about twenty were above the Fall Line; but by 1820 at least half of the
137 legal inspections were above the Falls. Of the forty-two new
inspections established in the period 1800-1820 only three were in
Tidewater Virginia; one in Prince George County in 1807, one in Essex
County in 1810, and the third in Norfolk County in 1818, owing to the
opening of the Dismal Swamp Canal.