Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/392

 storehouses at Jamestown; this was the course followed by Abraham Piersey, the former Cape Merchant and the most prominent citizen in Virginia at the time of his death. Very large areas of land were secured by men of this class in consideration of the importation or purchase by them of many servants and slaves. In 1638, George Menefie sued out a patent to three thousand acres on the basis of sixty head rights, and in the following year he acquired a patent to three thousand acres additional.

The store was one of the principal institutions in Virginia, whether the property of a foreign or a native merchant. In the course of time, stores which at first were confined to the principal ports were found in great numbers on every navigable stream, this situation being preferred not only because the adjacent country was the most thickly settled and the planters the wealthiest, but