John Bolling, who died in 1757, left an estate of
40,000 acres, and this is not mentioned as an extraordinary amount of
land for one man to own.[7] From an early period it was customary
to keep these great estates together by entailing them, and this
continued until entails were abolished in 1776 through the influence
of Thomas Jefferson.
[Footnote 7: Edward Channing, "Town and County Government," in
_Johns Hopkins University Studies_, vol. ii. p. 467.]
[Sidenote: Absence of towns.]
A glance at the map of Virginia shows to what a remarkable degree it
is intersected by navigable rivers. This fact made it possible for
plantations, even at a long distance from the coast, to have each its
own private wharf, where a ship from England could unload its cargo of
tools, cloth, or furniture, and receive a cargo of tobacco in return.
As the planters were thus supplied with most of the necessaries of
life, there was no occasion for the kind of trade that builds up
towns. Even in comparatively recent times the development of town life
in Virginia has been very slow. In 1880, out of 246 cities and towns
in the United States with a population exceeding 10,000, there were
only six in Virginia.
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