Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/259

 York ordered the sale of a farm which he possessed in the vicinity of Walton, with the view of investing the proceeds in a Virginian plantation. Miles Cary owned two houses in Bristol. John Page had an interest for a term of seven years in five tenements situated in the city of Westminster. In 1692, Benjamin Read devised landed property which he possessed in England. Nicholas Spencer left a valuable estate in Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Essex. The inventories belonging to the period preceding 1650, upon which we have to rely to obtain a just conception of the size of the personal holdings in Virginia in that age, were comparatively few in number. The records of York alone throw any real light upon the point in inquiry. The largest estate in this county appraised by order of court previous to the middle of the century was that of William Stafford, which amounted to 30,681 pounds of tobacco in value, which, at the rate of two pence a pound, was equal to £250, or in purchasing power perhaps to about six thousand dollars at the present day. The personal estate of Thomas Deacon follows next in size at an appraisement of 19,343 pounds