The tracts of land or plantations occupied by individual settlers of
the colony were very few until after the "starving time" in 1610. When
the colony had been reorganized by Lord De La Warr and Sir Thomas
Gates, and something like peace existed with the Indians, more land
patents were issued year after year. A list of land owners, in 1625,
in the records of the Company, shows nearly two hundred persons owning
plots of land varying in size from forty acres to the thirty-seven
hundred acres of Sir George Yeardley's plantation at Hungar's river on
the Eastern Shore.
In _A Perfect Description of Virginia_ by an unnamed writer in 1648,
it is stated that there were in the colony "pinnaces, barks, great and
small boats many hundreds, for most of their plantations stand upon
the rivers' sides and up little creeks and but a small way into the
land." Every planter must have had a boat of some kind. Neighborly
communication had to be maintained, religious services attended,
fishing and oystering to be done, crops of tobacco transferred to the
ships anchored out in the channel, and cargoes of goods taken from the
ships to the warehouses. The planter navigated the boat himself unless
he could provide a slave or an indentured servant.
Most of the shipbuilding done on the plantations was done by ship
carpenters or men trained by them. The shipyards were very simple
affairs, the essentials being a plot of ground on the bank of a stream
with water deep enough to float the vessel and near a supply of
suitable timber. Later would be added, perhaps, a small pier to which
the boat could be attached, and a small building or shed for the
protection of tools.
A visiting ship in need of repair would seek some convenient place on
the river and the hospitality of the neighboring planter. An instance
is that of Captain Thomas Dermer from Monhegan, North Virginia, now in
Maine, who arrived at the colony in September, 1619, in an open
pinnace of five tons. He had met Captain Ward several weeks earlier at
a place called "St. James his Isles," and there had put most of his
provisions on board the _Sampson_, Captain Ward's boat. Of his arrival
in Virginia, he wrote to Samuel Purchas as follows: "After a little
refreshing, we recovered up the river to James Citie and from thence
to Captain Ward his plantation, where immediately we fell to hewing
boards for a close deck." He and his men soon fell sick with malaria
and "were sore shaken with burning fever." As their recovery was slow
and winter had overtaken them, Dermer decided to wait until spring
before sailing north. Captain John Ward had arrived in Virginia during
the previous April and was already a member of the House of Burgesses.
Some of the visitors did their shipbuilding more quickly. A Captain
Thomas Young arrived in the colony with two ships on July 3, 1634, and
by July 14, was reported by Governor Harvey to have built two
pinnaces, and that he would be gone in two more days.
Some planters on the larger plantations continued to build their own
ships even after public shipyards had been established in seaport
towns. Flowerdieu Hundred on the James River was a prosperous
plantation, where many vessels were built. It had its own wharf where
large ships could be moored for loading.
Some shipbuilding at Westover on the James River is recorded in the
diary of William Byrd II, who, after the death of his father in 1704,
became owner of the plantation.
In July 1709, Byrd wrote: "I sent the boatmaker to Falling Creek to
build me a little boat for my sea sloop." Two days later he wrote: "I
sent Tom to Williamsburg for John B-r-d to work on my sloop." Later in
the month, he noted that John B-r-d had come in the night to work on
his sloop. In November, he wrote: "In the afternoon we paid a visit to
Mr. Hamilton who lives across the creek. We walked about his
plantation and saw a pretty shallop he was building." In August, 1710,
he wrote that he had taken a walk to see the boatbuilder at work. On
August 9, he wrote that he had paid the builder of his sloop sixty
pounds, which was twenty pounds more than he had agreed for. Later in
the year, he noted that his sloop had gone down to the shipyard at
Swinyards.
Byrd acquired a new shipwright who came from England on the ship
_Betty_ in 1711. In March, he wrote that the new shipwright was
offended because he had been given corn pone instead of English bread
for breakfast. He had taken his horse and ridden away without a word.
However, he reported later that the shipwright had returned. On May
15, 1712, Byrd reported that he had engaged Mr. T-r-t-n to build him a
sloop next year. Several years later, he recorded the loss of his
great flat boat, but it was found by a man at Swinyards. Swinyards was
a place for public warehouses and a shipyard, located on the north
bank of the James River, a short distance below Westover, opposite
Windmill Point.
At Berkeley, a neighboring plantation on the James River, owned by
Benjamin Harrison, there were extensive merchant mills and a large
shipyard where vessels were built for the plantation. On October 20,
1768, there appeared a for-sale advertisement in the _Virginia
Gazette_: "A double decked vessel of 110 tons on the stocks at
Berkeley Shipyard, built to carry a great burden, and esteemed a very
fine vessel." Two years later, John Hatley Norton and a Mr. Coutts
were negotiating with Colonel Harrison for the purchase of the ship
_Botetourt_ built there for which they offered 1100 pounds sterling.
"She is as stout a ship as was ever built in America, and we expect
will carry 380 hogsheads of tobacco," wrote Mr. Norton.