Norfolk County for
"unlawful gaming at cards."

Unfortunately, knowledge of games played in the seventeenth century is
available largely through the bets placed and subsequent accounts of
these in the Court records. Doubtless many games were played among
families on the plantations, as they are today, among friends, without
wagers, but there was no occasion to record them. Thus, the fact
predominates that cards, dice and ninepins were generally sources of
amusement--for stakes.

Playing ninepins at the ordinary was part of the gentleman's day, when
he came to the centers in the Colony, where these public places were
established in numbers, after the middle of the century. At Varina, in
Henrico County, Richard Cocke of "Bremo" operated the ferry and also
the ordinary there, where in 1681, his nephew young Thomas Cocke, Jr. is
recorded as having been playing at ninepins for stakes with Richard
Rathbone and Robert Sharpe. In 1685, in Henrico also, possibly at the
ordinary, Giles Carter won 500 pounds of tobacco at dice from Charles
Stewart. A card game called "putt" (put) and a game known as cross and
pile (probably similar to "heads and tails") also were the media for
bets, the bets no doubt affording the main interest in the game.

Luke Thornton and Peter Evans of Richmond County, "having agreed to play
at cards at the game of 'putt'," had their arrangements with one another
recorded, 7 February 1695, together with the consideration stipulated
for the winner. The records do not reveal the outcome of the game nor
any provision for enforcing by law the terms agreed upon. Nevertheless,
the likelihood is that the winner collected, for, otherwise, the loser
could be held up to public scorn.

FUNERAL CUSTOMS

When Abraham Peirsey, affluent cape-merchant, directed in his will,
1628, that he be buried "without any pomp or vainglory," he probably was
protesting the tendency towards elaborate funerals, even in the early
days of the Colony. It is not known whether or not his wishes in this
respect were carried out; however, he was, no doubt, buried in his
garden near his new frame house, as he requested.

On the other hand, Daniel Hopkinson, English merchant, who died on a
voyage to Virginia, requested that he be "decently" buried at the
Kecoughtan (Hampton) church, in accordance with the customs prevailing
in the area. The amount spent on his funeral is an item in the accounts
of the _Tristram and Jane_, on which he had c