The London shoemaker’s guild, the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers, helped finance Captain John Smith’s 1607 expedition to Virginia, and Smith, inducted into the guild himself, was honored with a statue in London. Whether Smith actually made shoes is not known. The first shoemakers arrived in America at Jamestown in 1610, and the trade was thriving as early as 1616. By the 1660s, the Virginia Assembly directed that each county must erect a tannery and a shoe manufactory. It also imposed tariffs on leather and shoes exported from Virginia to control speculation and profiteering in the local shoe trade, and stipulated that the fees collected go to finance the founding of the College of William and Mary.
Olmert, Michael. Official Guide to Colonial Williamsburg. Ninth printing. Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1995.
Wamsley, James S. The Crafts of Williamsburg. Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1982.
The Book of Trades, or Library of the Useful Arts, In Three Parts. Illustrated With Copper Plates, Part 1. London: 1800. Reprinted as Peter Stockham, ed. The Little Book of Early American Crafts & Trades. New York: Dover Publications, 1976.