Wealth and Welfare in Early Maryland: Evidence from St. Mary's County

Abstract

S T. Mary's was Maryland's first county. Located on a peninsula bounded by the Chesapeake Bay on the south, the Patuxent River on the east, and the Potomac River and one of its tributaries on the west, the county became part of what today is loosely called southern Maryland, a region that also includes Charles and Calvert and the southern parts of Prince George's and Anne Arundel Counties (see Figure I). Along both rivers and the bay, water resources are abundant. However, following the water-in the language of present-day Maryland fishermen-was not an occupation in colonial St. Mary's. There, men sought their fortunes in tobacco, specifically oronoco leaf, for which the soils of the region are exceptionally well suited. In some parts of the Chesapeake, eighteenth-century planters diversified into other export crops, but St. Mary's County planters were slow to follow.' St. Mary's was a tobacco county. This article analyzes economic performance in St. Mary's over the colonial period. A remarkable set of probate inventories provides a foundation upon which to construct estimates of mean, per head, and per household wealth for decedents and those who lived in the households of decedents. A small cluster of these records survive for the years around i640, and a nearly continuous series begins in i658. Unfortunately, inventories report only the movable wealth of some recently deceased propertyowners, not the wealthor, better yet, the incomes-of the living population. Nevertheless, these records do enumerate the belongings of decedents in exquisite detail, listing and valuing all possessions except real estate. Consequently, inventories are the best available source for studying colonial wealth in personalty. With some manipulation, they can be used to estimate changes in the accumulation and distribution of wealth in this form among the living as well as the dead. (For convenience, wealth in movables will be referred to hereafter as personal wealth.) This use of inventories, in combination with information