Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/394

 was to supply the special goods demanded by the needs of the inhabitants of the Colony. To enumerate the contents of one of these establishments would be to name all the articles, with a few exceptions, in use in Virginia in the seventeenth century. A store in the rural districts of the State to-day is less of an epitome of the wants of the people in certain directions than it store in the valley of the James in the last half of the seventeenth century. In the present age, custom is diverted from the country store by the proximity of cities in which the best class of goods can be procured without difficulty, in person or by correspondence. It is true that in the seventeenth century, custom was diverted from the store by orders given to merchants in England, but these direct dealings with the mother country were practically restricted to planters engaged in trade or possessed of large wealth. It is not strange to find that cloths and garments made up the larger portion of the contents of the average establishment. In this respect, the inventory of the Hubbard store, situated in York County, which was taken in 1667, after the death of the owner, dud not differ from others which either preceded or followed it. It contained lockram, canvas, dowlas, Scotch cloth, blue linen, oznaburg, cotton, holland, serge, kersey, and flannel in bales, full suits for adults and youths, bodices, bonnets, and laces for women, shoes for persons of both sexes, gloves, hose, cloaks, cravats, handkerchiefs, hats, and other articles of dress in use in that age. In addition, there was a large miscellaneous collection of goods, such as hammers, hatchets, chisels, augers, locks, staples, nails, sickles, bellows, froes, saws, axes, files, bed-cords, dishes, knives, flesh-forks, porringers,