which Mr. Reeves of Henrico inserted in the contract by which he leased a part of his estate to William Arrington in 1695, was one requiring the latter to maul six hundred fencing rails.[1] The abstraction of such material was a frequent cause of criminal prosecution and civil suit.[2]
The worm fence, in the construction of which rails were used, was the invention of the settlers of a new country where wood was extremely abundant, and sawmills were few in number. The scarcity and, as a consequence, the costliness of nails in the early years of colonization were doubtless an element of importance in its popularity. Whenever it was decided to build an enclosure, there, in close proximity to the line selected, was a very heavy growth of timber, only requiring the application of the axe and maul to convert it into rails for the immediate erection of a fence. No posts were to be fashioned, no holes to be dug, no nails to be driven in.[3] The worm fence is still one of the most familiar features of the Virginian plantation, a monument, like the fence law itself, of the perpetuation of agricultural conditions beginning with the very foundation of the Colony. In spite of its angular character, it is not devoid of picturesqueness in the plantation landscapes. In the colonial age, as in the present day, it became, after standing for several years, a trellis for the vines of the
- ↑ Records of Henrico County, vol. 1688-1697, p. 578, Va. State Library. The references to fence rails in the county records are very numerous. See Records of Rappahannock County, vol. 1695-1699, p.176, Va. State Library; Records of Elizabeth City County, vol. 1684-1699, p. 123, Va. State Library; Records of Middlesex County, original vol. 1694-1705, p. 109.
- ↑ Records of Henrico County, vol 1684–1704, p. 93. Va. State Library; Records of Elizabeth City County, vol. 1684-1699, pp. 123, 125, Va. State Library.
- ↑ The first reference to this fence as the "worm fence" which I have found, is in Hugh Jones' Present State of Virginia, p. 39.
