The Letterbook of John Custis IV of Williamsburg, 1717-1742

Download or read book The Letterbook of John Custis IV of Williamsburg, 1717-1742 written by John Custis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2005 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This absorbing letterbook, meticulously edited and thoroughly annotated, provides remarkable insight into the life and concerns of 18th-century colonial Virginians. The letters are especially revealing about economic life, the material culture of colonial Virginia, and the treacherous legal and financial conditions in which even important planters operated. The correspondence clearly shows how a wealthy colonial planter uses and could be misused by the British mercantile system. The letters also provide a view of the personal side of the sober and overly frugal Custis: his fashionable passion for gardening (in which he was 'inferior to few if any in Virginia'); his strife-filled nine-year marriage to Frances Parke, before her death from smallpox; and his uneven relationships with his son and daughter.