Name: Colonial Williamsburg Eve and Bristol
Made by and When: Merrymakers, Inc. for Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1998 and 2003
Material: Stuffed cloth, screen printing ink, cotton clothing
Marks: Each doll has or had a hangtag identifying its name, year made, and the manufacturer
Height: The taller Eve is 12 inches. The smaller Eve and Bristol are 6 inches tall.
Hair, Eyes, Mouths: Black yarn hair, screen-printed faces, and attached cloth ears; black thread is looped through 12-inch Eve’s earlobes.
Clothes: The two Eves are dressed identically in 18th-century-style clothing of headscarves, white undergarments underneath a green blouse, a tan skirt, and blue-green-white and checked aprons that match the headscarf fabric. Minus the original removable black socks, 12-inch Eve wears replaced rust-colored buckle shoes (the original buckle shoes are rust-colored cloth). Smaller Eve’s black socks and rust-colored buckle shoes are sewn-on. Bristol’s blue hat piped in gold, a combination white shirt and off-white vest with screen printed buttons and attached mock pockets, blue coat, blue knickers, and painted-on white socks and black buckle shoes are influenced by American Revolutionary War uniforms.
Other: This cloth doll trio was sold through The Shops at Colonial Williamsburg. The two Eves represent a person enslaved by Peyton Randolph, a planter and public official from the Colony of Virginia. Eve’s bio from a past history.org website read, “Eve was one of 27 slaves who belonged to the Peyton Randolph household in 1775, the year of Peyton Randolph’s death. Valued at 100 pounds, Eve was the highest-valued female slave and one of the most valuable of all the slaves, suggesting that she was of prime age and highly skilled. In his will, Randolph bequeathed ‘Eve and her children’ to his wife, Betty Randolph.’ Six years later, Eve ran away from the Peyton household. Read more here. No additional documentation about Bristol is known besides the American Revolutionary War-style uniform.
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