Cider was in as common use as beer; in season it was found in the house of every planter in the Colony. In the opinion of English judges, like Hugh Jones, it was not much inferior in quality to the most famous kinds produced in Herefordshire.[1] Fitzhugh, however, does not appear to have entertained this opinion, although, like Jones, he had in early life been in a position to compare English with Virginian cider on the ground where it was made. On one occasion, he sent to George Mason of Bristol a sample of the cider of the Colony, accompanying it with a somewhat apologetic letter: “I had not the vanity,” he wrote, “to think that we could outdo, much less equal, your Herefordshire red stroke, especially that made at particular places. I only thought because of the place from where it came, it might be acceptable, and give you an opportunity in the drinking of it to discover what future advantages this country may be capable of.”[2]
Large quantities of cider were frequently the subject of specialties; thus Peter Marsh of York County about 1675 entered into a bond to pay James Minge one hundred and twenty gallons.[3] It was also the form of consideration in which rent was occasionally settled.[4] The instance of Alexander Moore of York shows the quantity often bequeathed; he left at his decease twenty gallons of raw cider and one hundred and thirty of boiled. Richard Moore, of the same county, kept on hand as many as fourteen cider casks.[5] Richard Bennett made about twenty butts of cider annually, while Richard Kinsman compressed from the pears growing in his orchard forty
- ↑ Hugh Jones’ Present State of Virginia, p. 41.
- ↑ Letters of William Fitzhugh, May 17, 1695.
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1675-1684, p. 63, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Records of Elizabeth City County, vol. 1684-1699, p. 106, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1687-1691, p. 64, Va. State Library.
