Virginia Colonial Abstracts By Beverley Fleet
An account book kept in 1736 and 1737 by John Nash, the Sheriff of Henrico County, abstracted by Virginian historian, Beverley Fleet, now available as a separate publication entitled Virginia Colonial Abstracts Vol. 21, Henrico County - Southside 1736 from amazon.com, or click on the amazon.com link on right side column of this screen under the picture of books, in which he writes that the account book is "more like a tax list of persons living in 1736 and 1737" on the southside of the James River. In 1749, this area of Henrico County became present day Chesterfield County. There were two chapels in Henrico County at this time, the original one located at Curles Plantation.
Included in the accounts are individuals named William, RIchard, and John Perdue. It is not yet known what relationship these men had with each other, whether they were brothers or cousins, or if one, or another of them was the father, grandfather, or a more distant ancestor of the other(s). It seems very probably they likely had a common recent ancestor with the same surname; but the records are just too few to determine at this point to what degree that relationship may have been.
The entries in the book were mostly store accounts held by John Nash until the harvest and selling of the tobacco crop, at which time the bills were due and when paid the process began all over again.
This financial arrangement was brought to Virginia by the colonists from England, and continued down through the history of Southern agriculture, as well as other parts of the country, until the mid to late twentieth century when the history of credit was changed by present day banking and credit management. Where the note was paid by a third party in the accounts list may well indicate that the person, whose note it was, was employed by the one who paid the note.
In Colonial Virginia, a planter was one who owned his own land; a farmer, unlike New England, was one who was a tenant on someone else's land. That sharecrop system, as previously noted, was brought to Colonial America with the settlement at Jamestown. See Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a Cultural History) [Paperback] by David Hackett Fischer, Temple University Historian.
p. 15 1736 To WILLIAM PERDUE'S Levy.
p. 17 1736 Your order to WILLIAM PERDUE, store debt. Paid by Inspector's note.
p. 19 1736 To sum'n PERDUE and Hatchett for you vs Norris.
p. 26 1736 WILLIAM PERDUE - order to Moses Farguson.
p. 26 1736 JOHN PERDUE - store debt.
p. 26 1736 RICHARD PERDUE - store debt.
Genealogy Is Never Done; It Is Always A Work In Progress!
