John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 673

All of the compensations for these activities were in tobacco, which was the medium of exchange in Virginia.  One could actually pay in the tobacco itself or one could use warehouse receipts.  (When one took his tobacco to a warehouse, he was given a receipt.  Then, one could sign the receipt over to someone else.)  One of the problems was that the price of tobacco fluctuated.  Within Virginia, this mattered little, but when the tobacco was sold in England, it did make a difference.  Typically, year in and year out, tobacco prices ran about fifteen shillings per hundred weight.  A skilled worker might earn two and one half shillings per day.  The surveyor above was to get eight hundred pounds of tobacco which would be about 120 shillings, or six pounds.  Many of the larger payments mention "Convenant", which I am guessing meant that the tobacco was to be in a cask.  Once the tobacco had been transferred, one had to arrange for its sale.

(The Rev. George Samuel Klug at the German Church was paid in tobacco.  The Moravians record that they missed seeing him on one of their trips through the region because he had gone to Williamsburg to arrange for the sale of his tobacco.)

The vestry met again on May 3, and the major item of business was to arrange the purchase of two hundred acres of land for a glebe .  The land was purchased from John and Mary Ashley, and they were paid fourteen thousand pounds of tobacco (about 105 pounds of money), in two equal payments, one half in the coming year and the other half in the year following.  The glebe was to be a place for the minister to live, and he was expected to provide for some of his needs from this land.  A minor item of business at this same vestry meeting was to discharge John Carder from paying his parish levy.  There were two reasons that were admitted as valid causes, age and infirmities.  The parish levy was distinct from other levies, and remission of the parish levy did not cancel the other levies.