Part 2 (1/2)
In 1720, the a.s.sembly pa.s.sed an act to be effective in 1721, creating Spotsylvania County as has been mentioned. At the same time, there was an act to form a county from the southern part of Prince George County and name it Brunswick for the Duchy of Brunswick which was then a possession of the Electorate of Hanover. The description is as follows: that Brunswick County should begin ”on the south side of the River Roanoke at the place where the line lately run for ascertaining the uncontroverted bounds of this colony towards North Carolina intersects the said river Roanoke and to be bounded by the direction of the governor with consent of council so as to include the southern pa.s.s.” No steps were taken for carrying out this act because of the small number of settlers in the area, until May 1732, when it was enacted that the earlier legislation become effective the first of January ensuing.
Setting up the county government had been made possible by adding parts of Surry and Isle of Wight, thus increasing the number of t.i.thables and lessening the amount of taxes each would pay. The preamble to the act expresses this thought in more precise phrase when it says ”whereas by reason of the small number of t.i.thables in the county of Brunswick the poll taxes must necessarily be very grievous and burthensome to them, which by an addition of parts of the counties of Surry and Isle of Wight would be remedied, and divers of the inhabitants of the two last mentioned counties would thereby also be freed from hards.h.i.+ps and inconveniences which at present they labour under.”
The reference to the line lately run ”between Virginia and North Carolina” is the famous survey made by Col. William Byrd, Major William Mayo, John Irvine and others which forms the subject of _The History of the Dividing Line_ written by Colonel Byrd. The Mayo River in Patrick and Henry Counties perpetuates the name of Major Mayo, the skilled surveyor in the party. The entire boundary was not surveyed then, in fact it was a good many years later before it was necessary to have a clear limit between the two colonies for the entire area.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Virginia State Chamber of Commerce Lancaster County Clerk's Office, Lancaster, Virginia]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Virginia State Chamber of Commerce Ess.e.x County Clerk's Office, Tappahannock, Virginia]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Virginia State Chamber of Commerce Richmond County Clerk's Office, Warsaw, Virginia]
Brunswick County began to function in 1732 and grew rapidly. The ”overwrought ground” mentioned long before had in the interval became a more and more disturbing factor in agriculture. Tobacco was king, it demanded new land, hence new land must be provided. In Brunswick there was not only new land but the sort of land to raise good tobacco profitably, a condition equally true today. Settlers from Ess.e.x, King and Queen, Gloucester, York, Elizabeth City and other older counties soon made their way into Brunswick. It may not be amiss to observe that with the better living made possible by better tobacco crops a gastronomic delicacy was developed there, a rich and succulent stew called ”Brunswick Stew” in honor of the county. So far as the writer is aware no other county in the state has achieved similar fame.
ORANGE COUNTY REACHES TO THE MISSISSIPPI
In 1734, an expansion to the northwest took place in the creation of Orange County so named to honor William, Prince of Orange, later William III of England. The City of Williamsburg, King William and King and Queen counties had been prior evidences of his popularity. The new division was to embrace that part of Spotsylvania County lying in Saint Mark's Parish ”Bounden southerly by the line of Hanover County, northerly by the grant of Lord Fairfax and westerly by the utmost limits of Virginia.” This western boundary was the Mississippi River. The a.s.sembly further enacted ”for the encouragement of the inhabitants already settled and which shall speedily settle on the westward of Sherrendo (Shenandoah) River” that ”all who had established themselves by 1st January 1734/35 should be free of country, county and parish levies for the next three years.”
Part of this expansion was due to the natural increase of population, the allure of new settlements where there was greater opportunity for advancement of fortunes, and part to the tide of immigration. Years of warfare in Germany had left ruined communities along the Rhenish Palatinate. For these people, Rotterdam was the most convenient port of embarkation and Philadelphia was often their port of debarkation.
Following in the steps of John Van Metre, Adam Miller, Jacob Stover and Jost Hite who had come to the Valley of Virginia between 1725 and 1731, many immigrants, finding land cheaper in Virginia, left Pennsylvania and took up residence in Virginia.
In 1735, the act of the a.s.sembly pa.s.sed the year before for creating the new county of Amelia became effective. By this act, it was ordered that ”the said county of Prince George and that part of the parish of Bristol which lies in the same be divided from the mouth of Namozain Creek up the same to the main, or John Hamlin's, fork of the said creek, thence up the south or lowest branch thereof to White Oak Hunting Path and thence by a south course to strike Nottoway River.” The land below these courses retained the name of Prince George. The land lying above these courses bounded ”southerly by the Great Nottoway River including part of the county of Brunswick and parish of Saint Andrew as far as to take the ridges between Roanoke and Appomattox Rivers and thence along those ridges to the great mountains westerly by the said mountains and northerly by the southern boundaries of Goochland and Henrico Counties”
became Amelia County and Raleigh Parish. The name was in honor of the youngest daughter of George II.
By 1738, people living across the Blue Ridge Mountains found them a barrier to frequent attendance at Orange County Court. For their convenience, a division was ordered. ”All that territory and tract of land at present deemed to be a part of the county of Orange lying on the northwest side of the said mountains (Blue Ridge) extending from thence northerly, westerly and southerly beyond the said mountains to the utmost limits of Virginia” shall be ”separated from the rest of the said county and erected into two distinct counties and parishes; to be divided by a line to be run from the head spring of Hedgman River to the head spring by the River Potomac.” ”That part of the said territory lying to the northeast of the said line beyond the top of the said Blue Ridge shall be one distinct county, to be called and known by the name of the county of Frederick and parish of Frederick. And that the rest of the said territory lying on the other side of the said line beyond the top of the said Blue Ridge shall be one other distinct county and parish to be called by the name of the county of Augusta and parish of Augusta.” The counties thus created honored Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II, and his wife, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, Princess of Wales. Frederick predeceased his father and it was Frederick's son who became George III.
The a.s.sembly had repeated with reference to Augusta and Frederick Counties its action in the case of Brunswick; namely: created counties before they were financially able to function. Not until 1743 did Frederick have sufficient t.i.thables to begin to hold court, and it was two years later before Augusta set up her county organization.
In 1742, it was enacted that Prince William County be divided. The bounds of this county were set as follows: ”all that part thereof lying on the south side of Occoquan and Bull Run and from the heads of the main branch of Bull Run by a straight course to the Thoroughfare of the Blue Ridge of Mountains known by the name of Ashby's Gap or Bent.”
Hamilton was the parish for Prince William County. That portion of Prince William which had, in 1732, been placed in Truro Parish became the new county of Fairfax. The name was, of course, in honor of Lord Fairfax, the Proprietor of the Northern Neck Grant.
Pohick, one of the churches in Truro Parish, is still standing and in use. General George Was.h.i.+ngton, who lived at nearby ”Mount Vernon,”
George Mason of ”Gunston Hall” and Lord Fairfax of ”Greenway Court” were vestrymen; and planned for the erection of this present building in 1769.
In the same year that Fairfax was formed in the northern part of the colony, Hanover County in the middle section was divided. The Act ordered ”all that tract of land now deemed to be a part of the said county of Hanover lying above a straight course to be run from the mouth of Little Rockey Creek on the River Northanna south, twenty degrees west until it intersects the line of Goochland County” should become a distinct county and known by the name of Louisa County. The name honored a daughter of George II, as Amelia had done a few years earlier.
Two years later the first of the eight counties eventually cut from Goochland was created and given the name Albemarle. This was in honor of William Anne Keppel, second Earl of Albemarle, Governor-General of the Colony, 1737-1754. Like most of the Governors-General, he did not come to Virginia, but the Lieutenant Governor as his deputy, performed the duties of his office.
The bounds of Albemarle were to be divided from Goochland on the west ”by a line run from the point of fork of James River north, thirty degrees east to the Louisa County line, and from the said point of fork a direct course to Brooks mill and from thence the same course continued to Appomattox River.” ”The point of fork” is the junction of the Rivanna with the James. It will be noted by the reference to the Appomattox River that Albemarle extended across James River just as Goochland did.
”Monticello” the beloved home of Thomas Jefferson, is in Albemarle County, and in architecture and planning is another example of the amazing versatility of his genius.
In 1746, the settlements in Brunswick County had grown to such an extent that a new division was required. The line was ordered ”to be run from the county line where it crosses Roanoke River below the place called the Horse Ford to strike Nottoway River at the south.” The territory above this line was to be called Lunenburg County. This t.i.tle, anglicized from the German form, Luneburg, was chosen since the Duchy of Luneburg, like that of Brunswick, belonged to the Electorate of Hanover.
Lunenburg embraced a vast acreage stretching from the rolling country where bright tobacco came to perfection as far west as the mountains and on the south to the North Carolina boundary.
c.u.mBERLAND, CULPEPER, SOUTHAMPTON AND CHESTERFIELD CREATED, 1749
The western portion of Goochland lying on both sides of the James had, in 1744, been taken to form the new county of Albemarle; now, five years later, the southeast portion of Goochland was made into the new county of c.u.mberland. The name was further honor for the Duke of c.u.mberland, ”The Butcher of Culloden.” The growth in this locality had been hastened by the arrival of numerous Huguenot families seeking asylum from persecution in France. Manakintown was the name of their settlement. The name is perpetuated in a newly erected Episcopal church not far from the site of the settlement where the Agee, Fourqurean, Legrand, Michaux, Guerrant, Flournoy and other families wors.h.i.+p now, as they have done for some 250 years.
In the same year that c.u.mberland was formed, a new county was taken from Orange and named Culpeper, presumably in honor of Lord Culpeper, Governor of Virginia 1680-1683, a compliment to Lord Fairfax ”who had inherited from him the owners.h.i.+p of the Northern Neck.” Culpeper lay on the south side of the Rappahannock and north of the Conway River commonly called the fork of the Rappahannock River. The fork of the Rappahannock was the area between the Rappahannock River and its tributary, the Conway, now called the Rapidan. ”Horseshoe Farm” is in Culpeper County and takes its name from the bend or horseshoe made by the Rapidan within which it is situated. While the residence is modern, the farm is of colonial times and was once owned by Governor Spotswood.