All,

Here's a question I'm hoping one of our learned list members can answer. Writing to his Virginia business manager Joseph Chinn in 1745, Joseph Ball of Stratford on Bow nigh London, instructs Chinn to grow "right sweet true Townsend" tobacco "clean, stemmed and laid straight" and to take care that the overseers do not "shark nor sham" in making it. (I don't know what "shark" and "sham" here mean either.) Later in the letter he calls it "real true Townsend" and that says that he knows how to make money from it, and that the overseers are to be paid for growing it in Aranoko tobacco.

So, I find myself wondering word these words mean.

Any thoughts or direction for further reading are greatly appreciated.

Craig Kilby

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html