net, 200 to Robert Foster, 200 to
William Smither, 200 to William Howlett, 300 to Anthony Samuell, and 200
to William Williams.

Professor Susie M. Ames in _Studies of the Virginia Eastern Shore in
the Seventeenth Century_ found evidence of the same trend by which
original land grants increased in size by the middle of the century and
reached its peak in the third quarter of the century. Near the end of
the period many of the larger tracts were being divided by wills
distributing them among children or by sales in smaller units. Much of
the land obtained by the first two generations on the Eastern Shore was
broken up into small holdings by the third. As stated by Professor
Ames, "It is the subtraction and division of acres, with only
occasionally any marked addition, that seems to be the chief
development in land tenure during the last quarter of the seventeenth
century."

Even with the trend of dividing some of the large estates on the Eastern
Shore, a small per cent of the population held a considerable part of
the land. In 1703/04 the average size of landholding in Northampton
County was 389 acres, in Accomack 520 acres. When analyzed by use of the
list of tithables, Northampton County had twenty-one persons, only three
per cent of the tithables, holding thirty-nine per cent of the land;
Accomack County had a total of forty-six persons, only four per cent of
the tithables, holding forty-three per cent of the land.

Considering all of Virginia of the seventeenth century, one cannot say
that it was primarily a land of large plantations, of cavaliers, and of
noble manors which have been romanticized by some writers. Yet there was
a significant number of prominent planters who took an active part in
the social and political life of the colony and exerted an influence
disproportionate to their ratio of the population. Professor Wertenbaker
listed the following men among the prominent planters of the first half
of seventeenth-century Virginia--George Menefie, Richard Bennett, and
Richard Kinsman; for the second half of the century, a more extensive
list--Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., Thomas Ballard, Robert Beverley, Giles
Brent, Joseph Bridger, William Byrd I, John Carter, John Custis I,
Dudley Digges, William Fitzhugh, Lewis Burwell, Philip Ludwell I,
William Moseley, Daniel Parke, Ralph Wormeley, Benjamin Harrison, Edward
Hill, Edmund Jennings, and Matthew Page. Members of this group
accumulated large landholdings, mostly by