Parish (Hanover) in1716. Apparently the presumption here was that a widow was capable of providing suitable care and nurture for a girl. St. Paul s Parish (Hanover) Vestry Book, 3 April 1716, 74. 46. Lynnhaven Parish Vestry Book, 97. 47. Blisland Parish Vestry Book, 21 July 1729, 37. 48. Ordered by this Vestry that on the Complaint of Bryan Henryes Wife: for More allow- ance for: Keeping Lucey Gilles & being informed that the Sd Child Was More than Ordinary troublesome: they are to be allowed Annually 200 poundes of Tobbaccoe: More than their former Allowance. Ibid., 29. 49. Ibid., 17 18. In the annual levy for 1725, John Doran received 1,695 lbs. for Cureing Martha Goodings. Ibid., 19. 50. Bristol Parish Vestry Book, 18 February 1728, 37. 51. By 1755 the term nursing begins to appear in the vestry records of Upper Parish (Nanse- mond), where formerly keeping covered most forms of care. Upper Parish (Nansemond) Vestry Book, 20 November 1755, 102. 52. Kingston Parish Vestry Book, 7 October 1745, 34. 53. In St. Paul s Parish in 1743, Dr. Tulloh received Ł5 for salivating John Rowland s wife. St. Paul s Parish (Hanover) Vestry Book, 8 October 1743, 174. The aim in salivating was to produce an unusual se- cretion of saliva generally through the use of mercury. Administering Physick likely meant giving a cathartic or purge. For examples of fees for Physick, see Christ Church Parish (Middlesex) Vestry Book, 18 October 1717, 160. 54. Lynnhaven Parish Vestry Book, 45, 47, 49, 51, 54, 59. 55. Ibid., 49. 56. Ibid., 15 October 1757, 60. For English practices and precedents, see Oxley, Poor Relief, 66. 57. Lynnhaven Parish Vestry Book, 62 70. 58. Shelburne Parish Vestry Minutes, 16 November 1773, 14; Truro Parish Vestry Minutes, 15 April 1745, 52. 59. Brent Tarter, ed., The Order Book and Related Papers of the Common Hall of the Borough of Norfolk, Virginia, 1736 1798 (Richmond, Va., 1979), 69. 60. St. Patrick s Parish Vestry Minutes, 15 January 1770, 33. 61. By the seventeenth century, responsibility for poor relief in English parishes increasingly passed from churchwardens to specially elected overseers of the poor. Oxley, Poor Relief, 43. 62. Virginia Bernhard concludes that seventeenth-century parishes were not only responsive but generous in their support of the poor. Bernhard, Poverty and the Social Order, VMHB 85 (1977): 150. 63. An artificial leg was made by John Scott for Robert Taylor in Upper Parish. Upper Parish Vestry Book, 21 October 1751, 57. 64. Bristol Parish Vestry Book, 6 August 1744, 116; 11 October 1745, 121. 65. Upper Parish Vestry Book, 3 November 1744, 12. 66. St. Paul s Parish (Hanover) Vestry Book, 14. The order was well intentioned, but it appears that it came too late, for among the parish expenses later that year was an item of 400 lbs. to pay for the burial of Benj: Billingsly. Ibid., 36. Other examples of parishes paying for transatlantic travel: Christ Church Parish (Middlesex) paid the passage to England of Elizabeth Thackston; on 12 July 1738 the Blisland Parish vestry ordered that Coll. William Bassett one of the present Churchwar- dens agree with Some Master of a Ship to Carry Honour Moore to Bristoll and also to alow her Something to beare her Charges from Bristoll to Irland ; and in Bristol Parish the vestry, upon learning that William Fisher, he now being a charge to this P ish, hath A desire to goe to England, agreed to pay his way in 1721, and again years later on 15 October 1771 the vestry ordered its wardens to Endeavour to agree with Some Capt to carry Jeremiah Bishop to The Port of London. Christ Church Parish (Middlesex) Vestry Book, 22 June1691, 69; Blisland Parish Vestry Book,12 July1738, 67; Bristol Parish Vestry Book, 18 June 1721, 5; 15 October 1773, 249. 67. St. Paul s Parish (Hanover) Vestry Book, 2 April 1707, 18. 68. Stratton Major Parish Vestry Book, 11 April 1732, 11. Blisland Parish gave 300 lbs. to Mary Crook toward building her house in 1731 and an identical sum to Rebeckah Merideth the following year. . notes to pages 77 80 367