So a couple months back farmer Ed Schultz—master of the historic farming program here at Colonial Williamsburg—came to us with a request: Would we be willing to build him a plough? Not that Ed doesn't already have a working plough, but his aim was to start working with and interpreting a uniquely 18th century style of plough: The Rotherham. Ed knew that the shop had built a Rotherham for Mount Vernon a few years back. The shop's Rotherham design was drawn from a genuine 18th century plough in the museum of civilization in Canada. Based on its design, it is assumed to be an American variant of the Rotherham, albeit a rather provincial iteration. Mount Vernon commissioned our shop to build a Rotherham-style plough because among the surviving papers of George Washington is a correspondence to merchants in Liverpool where he expressly trades four hogsheads of tobacco for a Rotherham. I've excerpted George Washington's correspondence from March 6, 1765 below with the integral part in red:
