exported. In the matter of apparel, as in the other interests of their private lives and of the community at large, the colonists looked upon themselves as constituting just as much a part of the mother country in its social and economic habits as if no ocean rolled between Virginia and England. The physical conditions were different; the hinds of the people were the same. Silk stockings, beaver hats, red slippers, green scarfs, and gold lace appeared to be as natural articles of apparel to the Virginians in the early part of the century, when the community was made up of a few small settlements, as they did to Englishmen in the largest towns of the kingdom in the same age. This was all element of those class distinctions which have always entered so deeply into the English spirit, and which have cropped out without regard to physical surroundings; nowhere were these distinctions more jealously observed than in the infant Colony, and it is not, therefore, surprising to find that in spite of the rough conditions of life prevailing there, there was a marked disposition to indulge a taste for expensive clothing.
It has been seen that it was the habit of all the planters in affluent or even moderate circumstances to keep on hand many ells of different cloths to supply household needs as they arose.[1] These were lockram, oznaburg, dowlas, blue linen, striped dimity, serge, kersoy, canvas, penistone, calico, linsey-woolsey, shalloon, damask, muslin, drugget, fustian, thread silk, galloon, and Scotch. Some description of these various materials will be of interest as showing the nature of the fabrics in which the people of Virginia dressed in the seventeenth century. Lockram and dowlas were species of cheap and coarse linen; this was also the
- ↑ For examples, see Records of York County, vol. 1684-1687, p. 85, Va. State Library; Records of Henrico County, vol. 1677-1692, p. 221, Va. State Library.
