General Notes

ROBERT GLASCOCK received a grant of 200 acres in Elizabeth City, Virginia in  1635, next to Lt. Cheeseman's land. Land could be had almost for the asking  throughout the colonial period, although many a frontier squatter who succumbed  to the lure for land ignored the formalities of getting a deed. In colonial law, land titles rested ultimately upon grants from the crown, and in colonial practice, the evolution of land policy in the first colony set patterns that were followed everywhere save in New England.   In 1614, when Governor Dale gave each of the Virginia Company's colonists three acres for his own use, it was the beginning of a policy that every colonist could claim a plot of his own. In 1618 the company, lacking any assets other than land, promised each investor a fifty-acre "share-right" for twelve pounds, 10 shillings, and each settler a "headright" for paying his own way or for bringing in others. When Virginia became a royal colony in 1624, the headright system continued to apply, administered by the governor and his council.   Lord Baltimore adopted the same practice in Maryland, and successive proprietors in the other southern and middle colonies adopted variations on the plan. As time passed, certain tracts were put up for sale and throughout the colonies, special grants (often sizable) went to persons of rank or persons who had performed some meritorious service, such as fighting the Indians. Since land was plentiful and population desired, the rules tended to be generously interpreted and carelessly applied. With the right connections, persons or companies might engross handsome estates and vast speculative tracts in the interior, looking toward future growth and rising land values.   From the beginning of colonization, the real-estate boomer was a stock figure in American history, and access to power was often access to wealth. But by the early 1700's, acquisition of land was commonly by purchase under more or less regular conditions of survey and sale by the provincial government. The later national land surveys followed the southern practice. The first grants were made without any conditions attached, but at an early date, the crown and proprietors decided to recover something from the giveaways by the levy of annual quit-rents on the land.   In the Middle Ages, such payments would quit (release) the tenant from military  and other duties to his lord. In the New World, however, such levies had no  roots in a feudal tradition, and came to be a point of chronic protest,  resistance, and evasion. But they remained on the books. Some promoters of  colonization, including Ferdinando Gorges, Lord Baltimore, and the Lords  Proprietors of Carolina, had dreams of reviving the feudal manor in the New  World. Their plans went awry, it is commonly said, because of the New World  environment.   With land aplenty, there was little call to volunteer for serfdom. Yet in unexpected ways the southern colonies gave rise to something analogous, a new institution with a new name: the plantation. The word originally carried the meaning of colony. The plantations in the New World were the colonies, and planters were the settlers who had "planted" them. Gradually the name attached itself to individual holdings of large size. If one distinctive feature of the South's staple economy was a good market in England, another was a trend toward large-scale production. Those who planted tobacco soon discovered that it quickly exhausted the soil, thereby giving an advantage to the planter who had extra fields to rotate in beans and corn or to leave fallow. With the increase of the tobacco crop, moreover, a fall in prices meant that economies of scale might come into play: the large planter with lower cost per unit might still make a profit. Gradually he would extend his holdings along the river fronts, and thereby secure the advantage of direct access to the ocean-going vessels that moved freely up and down the waterways of the Chesapeake, discharging goods from London and taking on hogsheads of tobacco.   So easy was the access in fact that the Chesapeake colonies never required a city of any size as a center of commerce, and the larger planters functioned as merchants and harbor masters for their neighbors. If the planter found no volunteers for serfdom, and if wage labor was scarce and expensive, one could still purchase an indentured servant for six pounds to thirty pounds (a substantial sum, which in much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries  would equal perhaps 900 to 5,000 pounds of tobacco), and get his labor for a  term of years. Voluntary indentured servitude accounted for probably half the  arrivals of white settlers in all the colonies outside New England. The name  derived from the indenture, or contract, by which a person could bind himself  to labor in return for transportation to the New World. Usually one made the  contract with a shipmaster who would then sell it to a new master upon arrival.  Not all went voluntarily. The London underworld developed a flourishing trade  in "kids" and "spirits", who were kidnapped or spirited into servitude. On  occasion orphans were bound off to the New World; from time to time the mother  country sent convicts into colonial servitude, the first as early as 1617.   After 1717, by act of Parliament, convicts guilty of certain crimes could  escape the hangman by "transportation." Most of these, like Moll Flanders, the  lusty heroine of Daniel Defoe's novel, seem to have gone to the Chesapeake.  And after 1648, political and military offenders met a like fate, beginning  with some captives of the Parliamentary armies. In due course, however, the  servant reached the end of his term, usually after four to seven years, claimed  the freedom dues set by custom and law--some money, tools, clothing, food--and  took up land of his own. And with the increase of the colonies, servants had a  wider choice of destination.   Pennsylvania became more often the chosen land, "one of the best poor man's countries in the world," in the verdict of a judge at the time. Robert Glascock is known to have had indentured servants, a Peter Rigglesworth turned over to Robert Glascocke in 1637. Peter Rigglesworth, purchased by Robert Glascocke, was a land owner by 1652 when Robert Grimes patenting 300 acres lying at the head of the westernmost branch of Elizabeth River describes it as adjoining Peter Rigglesworth. The westernmost branch of Elizabeth River is now usually called Western Branch. Robert Glascocke received a patent on October 7, 1635 for 200 acres lying in Elizabeth City County adjoining Lieutenant Cheeseman.  The Glascock, like many other Warwick and Elizabeth City County families, somewhat later moved to the Northern Neck of Virginia which lies between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers. Early church services were conducted at the house of Robert Glascock. The citizens of Elizabeth City, Virginia conducted church services at the house of Robert Glascock until a church could be constructed in Elizabeth City. PATENT--ROBERT GLASCOCKE, 200 acres, Elizabeth County, 7 October 1635, p. 290.Being a point of land on South side the Maine river bounded with a great Cr., North upon land of Lieutenant Cheeseman and East into the woods. Transportation of four servants. PATENT--ROBERT GLASCOCKE, 50 acres Low. County New Norfolk, June 10, 1639,page 658. Up the Western branch of Elizabeth River, above land of Jonathan Langworth. Transportation of Iszabella Dixon, a servant.