Abstract
JUST before Christmas I755, John Karr bought a new caster from a tavern keeper in Rowan County, North Carolina. It was a beaverskin hat, probably made in England and imported through Philadelphia, and it cost him thirty shillings, North Carolina moneythree weeks' wages for a hired hand and nearly enough to buy four rough hats.' Extravagance is not what makes this purchase significant; the rising wealth of England's colonies had brought such luxuries within the reach of colonial gentry, including militia officers like Captain Karr, well before I755 .2 Nor is it surprising that Karr could buy the hat in Rowan County, which was two hundred miles from the nearest port; stores and taverns dotted the southern backcountry-the Piedmont region between western Maryland and upcountry South Carolina-and many of them sold English goods brought west from coastal markets.3 What separates John Karr's purchase from thousands like it and gives it historical importance is the
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