It might further be added that in those inventories where any of such as tools, beds and rugs and ticking bags, chests, kettles and cookware, chairs, tables, and usually animals, are completely missing one has a clue that the inventory is but partial. Still though, giving consideration to the fact that in most inventories few rooms have NOTHING within, I have found it not difficult to picture the structure, even the items in the dog trot and food in the "cellar". Conversely, as you mentioned, when the inventory is extensive and includes such as pewter, guns, any jewelry, spinning wheels, books, Bibles and armor are present, one may assume that much of the entire inventory is at hand, and efforts to map the house from such lists can be highly rewarding, as I mentioned. ----- Original Message ----- From: Harold Gill To: VA-ROOTS@LISTLVA.LIB.VA.US Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 4:06 PM Subject: Re: [VAROOTS] Fw: Inventories You have to careful in doing this. I have seen in personal papers rough drafts of inventories. Separate sheets for various rooms or spaces. When the final fair copy was made for the courts the order of the sheets became irrelevant. That's why you sometimes see cattle listed in among household furniture. Court appointed appraisers sometimes hired others to do the actual appraisements. This is especially true when specialized objects are involved such as the contents of an apothecary shop or a collection of silver. HBG >From: qvarizona <qvarizona@YAHOO.COM> >Reply-To: qvarizona <qvarizona@YAHOO.COM> >To: VA-ROOTS@LISTLVA.LIB.VA.US >Subject: Re: [VAROOTS] Fw: Inventories >Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 10:06:06 -0700 > >Of course, the men doing inventories would go room to room! Can't wait >to re-read those old inventories I've saved in my files. Thanks, Paul-- >and everyone-- for the info re inventories. >--Joanne > >Paul Drake <pauldrake@CHARTER.NET> wrote: > >....It is interesting that very often by noting the order of the items >listed, one may draw an approximate picture of the interior rooms of the >home.... Thereafter, one will often find that those men went room to room >until they were done, making it easy to see what was in the parlor, the >main "living room", the bedrooms (chambers), and the pantry and accessory >buildings.... > > >--------------------------------- >Yahoo! for Good > Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. > >To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at >http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.10.22/97 - Release Date: 9/12/2005

I thought the following was an interesting effort to use the inventory to try to understand the people who lived there. I actually have this inventory, but it didn't occur to me to wonder about where those nine indentured servants slept! But note the napkins--these were very civilized folk. Christopher Calthorpe, a second son of an aristocratic family in Norfolk, England, came to Jamestown in 1622 as a teenager. The first mention of Poquoson in Colonial records is contained in a land grant issued to Christopher Calthorpe by a court at Elizabeth City in 1631. He died ca. 1661/62--perhaps in North Carolina--several documents in 1661-62 refer to his taking a trip southward, and there is reference to his land in Perquimons. The house he built in York--on Calthrops Neck Road in Tabb--is still standing and lived in by descendants. From COLONIAL KITCHENS, THEIR FURNISHINGS AND THEIR GARDENS, Fances Phipps, Hawthorne Books, Inc. New York, 1972 p. 58 "in 1662, fifty-six years after the first attempt at Virginia settlement, the inventory of the estate of Christopher Calthorpe, a York County commissioner and member of the House of Burgesses (and as such entitled to be called Captain [actually, by that time he was called Colonel Calthorpe]) was filed. He left to his widow, three daughters, and son supplies of tobacco, corn, beehives, and a well-stocked dairy farm including thirteen milch cows, five heifers, four yearlings, four oxen, six steers, seven calves, three sows, two barrows, and four shoats. Captain Calthorpe's three-room house was divided, according to probate records, into an outer room, a chamber, and a shed (lean-to). Around the fireplace in the shed, listers noted andirons, a rack, a spit and bellows, an iron pot, a gridiron, a frying pan, a dripping pan, two brass kettles, a skimmer (perhaps for cream separation), a mortar and pestle, a grater, pewter places, and three dozen napkins. The chamber furnishings were given as two feather beds, bolsters, sheets, blankets, valence, and curtains. No bedstead as such was listed, although a "couch bed and a couch" were counted, apparently reference to some sort of daybed." p. 95-96 During both centries, with rare exception such as that of William Googe, estate inventories of those who owned land or warehouses or who practiced skilled trades listed possession of indentured servants or slaves. No inventory examined, however, used the phrases "hired man's bed" or "under-eaves bed" to describe the type of low-post bedstead to which those names are given today. The Calthorpe "couch bed" may have referred to a narrow low-post bedstead, but the usual form for these was "truckle bed" or "trundle bed." While servants undoubtedly slept in loft or garret areas or in lean-tos behind the kitchens, no special provision for their comfort was provided. Some, in warmer climates, may have been bedded down in barns. The Calthorpe inventory, for example, listed nine indentured servants, but even with the seventeenth century lack of regard for privacy, these nine plus the five members of the family seem to us an overwhelming number for whom to have found sleeping space in ! a three room house." ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Drake<mailto:pauldrake@charter.net> To: VA-SOUTHSIDE-L@rootsweb.com<mailto:VA-SOUTHSIDE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 3:38 PM Subject: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] Re: [VAROOTS] Fw: Inventories It might further be added that in those inventories where any of such as tools, beds and rugs and ticking bags, chests, kettles and cookware, chairs, tables, and usually animals, are completely missing one has a clue that the inventory is but partial. Still though, giving consideration to the fact that in most inventories few rooms have NOTHING within, I have found it not difficult to picture the structure, even the items in the dog trot and food in the "cellar". Conversely, as you mentioned, when the inventory is extensive and includes such as pewter, guns, any jewelry, spinning wheels, books, Bibles and armor are present, one may assume that much of the entire inventory is at hand, and efforts to map the house from such lists can be highly rewarding, as I mentioned.