USA > Virginia > Virginia counties : those resulting from Virginia legislation > Part 4
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"Inferior Courts were therefore, in the Beginning of the Year 1622 appointed in convenient Places, to relieve the Governor and Council of the vast Burthen of Business, and to render justice more cheap and accessible. This was the Original and Foundation of our County Courts; altho' the Country was not yet laid off in Counties, T but still continued in Townships and particular Plantations, as they called those settlements, which were not considerable enough, to have the Title and Priviledges of Burroughs".tt
* Of the striking fluctuations in population, Tyler's "Cradle of the Republic", 1906, pp. 183-4, has this to say:
"The following figures may be taken as approximately representing the population of the colony at different times from 1607 to 1776. The number of emigrants brought over to June 10, 1610, inclusive of Lord Delaware's company, was about 800. Between this time and December, 1618, 1,000 arrived, making a total of 1,800 persons, and of this number 1,200 died, leaving 600 survivors. Then in the interval between De- cember, 1618, and November, 1619, 840 emigrants arrived, who made with the survivors 1,440 persons, of whom 540 died, leaving about 900 survivors. There were sent to Virginia between November, 1619, and February, 1625, 4,749 emigrants, who with the 900 of November, 1619, make a total of 5,649, of whom only 1,095 were living in Virginia February 20, 1625; showing a total mortality in about eighteen years of 6,294 persons out of 7,389 imported. After this time, the violent fluctuations of the early years ceased, and there was a slow but steady increase. In 1629, the population of Virginia was about 3,000; in 1634, 5,000; in 1649, 15,000 (of whom 500 were negroes); in 1654, 21,600; in 1665, 40,000 (of whom 2,000 were negroes); in 1681, 70,000 or 80,000; in 1715, 95,000 (of whom 23,000 were negroes); in 1755, 295,672 (of whom 120,156 were negroes); in 1776, 567,614 (of whom 270,762 were negroes)."
** U. S. Census, 1910, Abstract, p. 567, n.
+ Stith's "History of Virginia", pp. 203-4.
# Barton's "Virginia Colonial Decisions", i, p. 62.
|| Hening, i, pp. 113, 115, 116.
[ Although Hening i, p. 224, quotes the word "shires" for the original divisions of the colony, yet on p. 223 of the same volume, we find quoted from "Roll No. 11,-1634", "Pa. 174,-Sheriff's appointed for the several coun- ties", which is the earliest use of the word "county" officially used that we have been able to locate, Page 228, of this same volume gives an abstract (very brief) of an Act (XXII) of 1639-'40, a copy of the full text of which will be found in Part VI, chap. i, below, wherein the word "countye" is used as many as five times; again, we find the word used in this volume of Hening, p. 247, and again on p. 272-3, for designating the "countie courts", for the first time.
11 Stth's "History of Virginia", p. 207-8.
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On March 22, 1622, occurred the Great Massacre, in which, "in one Hour, and almost at the same Instant, fell three hundred and forty-seven, Men, Women, and Children [of the twelve hundred and forty English living in Virginia]" .*
The news of this was received by the Company with "inexpressible Grief" and was a sincere shock to the adventurers and to the English generally. The disaster discouraged colonization and greatly dampened the ardour of those who wished to settle new plantations on the outskirts of civilization, though the whole affair was largely attributed to the negligence of the governor and the colonists, who had not heeded such warnings as the attempt of Opechancanough to poison the whole Colony, and the death of Nemattenow. But a re-action set in almost at once, and there was a patriotic, though more or less non-effectual, effort to assist and re-inforce such as had escaped the tragic affair, with the result that the king gave "for immediate Dispatch" twenty barrels of powder, but only "upon the Security of the Company's Seal, afterwards to repay it", Lord St. John of Basing gave sixty coats of mail; and there were many other offers of assistance, for it was felt that the Colony, settled at so great expense and at the cost of so many lives,* should be saved and per- petuated; while the colonists, after formally rejecting a proposal to abandon James Towne, at once began a concentration of all resources at the most easily defended plantations; and especially those in the neighborhood of Jamestown Island.
Right on top of this disaster, the king laid oppressive imposts on tobacco, while the Company quarrelled violently amongst themselves and thus re-
* Brown's "First Republic", p. 464; wherein it is said, "In March, 1621, there were 843 English in Virginia, of whom about 750 were acclimated. Between that date and March, 1622, seventeen ships arrived in Virginia, which left England with 1,580 persons. In March, 1622, there were by the census 1,240 English living in Virginia. Of 2,423 people (about 750 acclimated and 1,673 newcomers) 1,183 had died en route and in Virginia, showing that the death rate among the newcomers had been almost as great in the summer of 1621 as in that of 1620, probably equally as great, because of the 1,240 living, about four hundred had recently arrived and had not yet gone through the seasoning".
Stith (p. 281), quoting from the Company's "Declaration", says "there were still (Christmas, 1622) remaining (as was computed) above five and twenty Persons, sent over at the Expense only of thirty thousand Pounds of the public Stock, *". Yonge's "Site", p. 43, says, "A census taken in 1623 gives the population of the town (James Towne) at 183. It also shows that during the preceding year, eighty-nine people had died in the town".
Yonge's "Site" (p. 44) says, "Captain Nathaniel Butler represented that up to the winter of 1622, the mortality was 8,000 out of 10,000, while the resident colonists declareu that up to the winter of 1622 not over 6,000 were sent to Virginia, of whom 2,500 were living. Captain John Smith says that 'neere 7,000 people out of 8,500 had died to 1627' ".
t Flower dew Hundred, Klccoughtan, Paspahey, Shirley Hundred, South- ampton Hundred, Jordan's Point and Nowport Nows,-the latter two having been successfully defended by their respective owners, who refused to. obey the orders to concentrate at the other points,-to say nothing of "Mrs. Proc- tor, a proper, civil, and modest Gentlewoman, who, with an heroic spirit, defended her Estate for a Month, till she, with all with her, were obliged, by the English Officers, to go with them and leave their substance to the Havock and Spoll of the Enemy" (Stith, pp. 235-6).
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tarded development just at the time when it was most needed; for, "accord- ing to John Wroth, a member of the Warwick faction, up to 1623, 3,570 out of 5,720 colonists died in the four years ending 1622" .;
The Assembly of 1623/4 provided "that there shall be courts kept once a month in the corporations of Charles City and Elizabeth Citty for the de- cyding of suits and controversies not exceeding the value of one hundred pounds of tobacco and for punishing of petty offences, * * * "; | and so for the first time undoubtedly came up the question of the territorial jurisdiction of these several courts,-the question of over what area, to what extent and within what metes and bounds each of the now three courts had Jurisdiction,-the forerunner of the question of county boundaries, for "this was the first step taken by law' for the establishment of the Monthly Courts which were afterwards given the English name of County Courts" .* The "Humble Petition" and Butler's "Unmasked Face", with their charges and counter-charges, brought on more violent quarrels within the Company, as well as between the Company and His Majesty, with the result that the year 1623 saw a demand from the king forced upon the Company to state whether they would surrender their old charters and accept a new one with certain suggested amendments; to which the Company replied in the negative, whereupon His Majesty appointed Commissioners "to make particular and vigilent Enquiry, touching divers Matters, which concerned the State of the Colony of Virginia",; after which the king forced various irregular rulings against the Company.
"However, at the time, [the dissolution of the Company] was by no means the wish of the colonists, for the good things that had come to them had come through the Company, while the evil ones had been chiefly of the King's making". The end of the Company came, however, from several influences, but more immediately from James's jealousy of the freedom of discussion in the meetings of the council of the London Company,. * * ** Factions in the Company itself hastened its downfall, and finally, in October, 1623, about seventeen years after it came into existence, its charter was revoked by an Act of the Privy Council, and its delegated powers of sover- eignty were resumed by the King,§ after "they had also expended largely above an hundred thousand Pounds, out of their own private Fortunes", ** and although "between November, 1619, and February, 1625, 4,749 came to Virginia and 4,400 died, thus making a total mortality in about nine- teen years of 6,040, out of 7,289".T
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At the time the Colony was turned over to the Crown in February, 1625, the population was one thousand, two hundred and twenty-seven, which number included twenty-three negroes and two Indians, ff while the General
# Yonge's "Site", p. 43-4.
' || Hening, i, p. 125.
* Barton's "Virginia Colonial Decisions", i, p. 194.
t Stith's "History of Virginia" p. 299.
§ Barton's "Virginia Colonial Decisions", 1, p. 65.
** Slith's "History of Virginia", p. 340.
" Yonge's "Site", p. 43.
tt Brown's "First Republic", p. 627.
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Assembly of that year contained twenty-three burgesses,t representing with- out doubt the sixteen political units, which had sent burgesses to the As- sembly of 1623/4,-one of which was the Eastern Shore.t 1912242
The Company defunct, James fortunately appointed good governors to look after his interests in the colony, and Sir Francis Wyatt at once took severe measures against the Indians. However, James soon died, but King Charles continued the policy of his father and gave further good govern- ment to the colony by sending as Governor, our old friend, Sir George Yeard- ley, who unfortunately died the following year; and in November, 1627, Captain Francis West was appointed to fill the vacancy.
The general good government of these men is reflected in the fact that many grants issued and the population of the Colony in 1628 was estimated to be three thousand souls ;¿ while the business of the courts had increased to such an extent that the next year the Commissioners of the Monthly Courts were substituted for the Commanders of Plantations as judges, and in February 1631/2, it was "ordered that the mounthlie corts be held and kept in remote parts of this colony : vizt.
ffor the upper parts; for Warwick River; ffor Warrosquyoake; for Elizabeth Citty ; ffor Accawmacke",||-
and it was also provided that "fowre quarter corts shall be held at James- Citty yearlie" ;* from all of which it would seem that the population was fast scattering along the outlying water-fronts, as is further evidenced by the fact that the Assembly of September, 1632, included in its member- ship thirty-nine burgesses, representing twenty-five political units,§ which units must, of course, have had approximately definite metes and bounds and were so inadvertently determining the boundaries of the counties which were later to embrace their respective areas.
"In 1619, these scattered settlements [see note, above] were gathered into four large corporations with a capital city in each. * * *
Each corporation contained one or more boroughs, and each borough was represented by two burgesses in the general assembly, for the first time called in 1619.
This system of corporations did not continue long, because the wealth of water-courses and the cultivation of tobacco provoked separation and isolation, and society became very soon distinctly agricultural and rural. As a consequence, after fifteen years, borough representation was abandoned, and the whole colony was divided into eight counties or shires." (Tyler's "Cradle of the Republic", 1906, p. 197).
Up to 1634, the political units were called hundreds and plantations,- of which twenty-one were represented by thirty-two burgesses in the Assem- bly of February 1632-3,-no list of the burgesses attending the Assembly of August, 1633, being available at present .**
t Ibid., pp. 579-80; "Journals of the House of Burgesses" 1619-1658 /59.
# U. S. Census, 1910, Abstract, p. 567, n.
|| Hening, i, p. 168.
* Hening, i, p. 174.
§ Ibid., pp. 178-9.
** "Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia", 1619-1658 /9, pp. xiv,
xv, xvi.
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"In 1634 [see Hening, i, p. 224]. The country divided into 8 shires,t which are to be governed as shires in England.
The names of these shires are
James City Henrico Charles City Elizabeth Citty
Warwick River Warrosquyoake Charles River Accawmack"
ACCAWMACK, "on the Eastern Shore, over the bay" [the present Counties of Accomac and Northampton] had a population of three hundred and ninety-six persons.
CHARLES CITY, "extending on both sides of the river,-on the south side from Upper Chippokes Creek to Appomattox River, and on the north side from Sandy Point to Turkey Island Creek", was inhabited by five hundred and eleven persons.
CHARLES RIVER, composed of the plantations lying on the modern York River, and subsequently York County, had a population of five hundred and ten.
ELIZABETH CITTY, "extending on both sides of Hampton Roads,-on the south side to Chuckatuck Creek, and on the north side of Newport News, and including a small part thereof", contained (with Warwick River) sixteen hundred and seventy people.
HENRICO, "extending from Charles City County indefinitely westward", con- tained four hundred and nineteen persons.
JAMES CITY, extending on both sides of the river,-on the south side from Lawne's Creek to Upper Chippokes, and on the north side from Skiffes Creek to above Sandy Point", was inhabited by eight hundred and eighty- six persons.
WARROSQUYOAKE, "subsequently, in 1637, Isle of Wight county, extending from Chuckatuck Creek to Lawne's Creek", contained five hundred and twenty-two inhabitants.
WARWICK RIVER, "extending, on the north side, from Elizabeth City county to Skiffes (Keith's) Creek", contained with Elizabeth City, a population, as stated above, of sixteen hundred and seventy.
It will be noted that three of these "original shires" were on both sides of the river; and it appears that the census of 1634 (Bruce's "Social Life", p. 18) credited the Colony with 4,914 persons, while the U. S. Census, 1910, Abstract, p. 567, n, gives the number as 5,119,-the dif- ference being accounted for (in Bruce) by the fact that "after the census was taken a Dutch ship brought in one hundred and forty-five persons from the Bermudas, and an English ship sixty from England".
The colonists, as was most natural, gave to four of these shires the names by which these respective areas had been known from the time of the first General Assembly and for some while before,-thus attesting their loyalty to the house of Stuart,-while two were named after the Indian tribes to which the areas in those shires had belonged, one after Robert Rich, the Earl of Warwick,-and oddly enough, although Yorke was repre- sented in the Assembly of 1632/3, yet we find that in 1634 the name Charles River was given to the area approximately embracing the former political unit called Yorke, and later again named York in 1642/3.
t The only place we find this use of the word.
# Tyler's "Cradle of the Republic", 1906, p. 198, gives the bounds and Bruce's "Economic History of Virginia", i, pp. 319-20, gives the population (Bruce's "Social History", p. 18, says, "In 1634 alone twelve hundred [colo- nists] arrived") of these shires as follows:
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The year 1636 gave us New Norfolk, probably named after Norfolk County in England, which was formed from that portion of Elizabeth City Shire which was on the southern side of the river; and the following year there were formed Lower Norfolk and Upper Norfolk,-from the lower and upper portions of New Norfolk, respectively,-and Isle of Wight,-another English name substituting the original Indian name.
The estimated population had increased to 7,466 in 1640, at which time there were ten counties, after allowing for New Norfolk and Warros- quyoake which had become extinct; and the next few years brought an adjustment in the names of four other counties, when Upper Norfolk became Nansemond, Accawmack became Northampton, Charles River became York and Warwick River became Warwick, although in 1648 there were only eleven actually existing counties of the seventeen which had been formed and named, at which time the population was estimated at 15,000,* not including three hundred slaves then owned in the Colony. The forma- tion of Rappahannock, half a century after the settlement at Jamestown, gave the Colony a total of seventeen existing counties,-seven of which originally had other names,-and an estimated population of 30,000, in 1659 .*
As the rivers had naturally influenced the drift of the population more than anything else, it was but natural that all these counties should fall well within the Tidewater Section of the colony, 'though one is rather startled when he is brought to a realization of the fact that as early as 1664, the hardy colonists had established and formally organized the County of Stafford,-approximately two hundred miles by water from the seat of government and actually falling within the geological Piedmont Plateau.
With a population estimated at 40,000 in 1671,* and at 50,000 in 1675,t the colony in 1673 formed its twenty-sixth county, of which six had at that time ceased to exist under their original names; while the close of the 17th Century credited the colony with a population of about 80,000,; distributed through twenty-three existing counties, of which eight had originally been formed under other names. There was now a lull in county- forming for something like two decades, during which interim Spotswood and his "Knights of the Horseshoe"" crossed the mountains and visited the Valley in 1716. This was the first trip ever made to that region in the one hundred and nine years of the Colony, although Smith in his trip to the Falls of the Patomack in 1608 was within some fifty miles of the crest of the Blue Ridge. The object of this trip, as Spotswood states, was to pre-êmpt the title to the West against the menace of French colonization,
T U. S. Census, 1910, Abstract, p. 567, n; Bruce's "Social Life", p. 18.
* U. S. Census, 1910, Abstract, p. 567, n.
' t Bruce' "Social Life of Virginia", p. 20.
# Ibid., pp. 20-1.
Il The popular and unquestionably erroneous "Knights of the GOLDEN Horseshoe" seems to have arisen from the fact that each of the members of the party received as a souvenir of the trip a small golden horseshoe, which was engraved "Sic Juvat [not 'Jurat'] transcendere Montes": "So it delights one [not 'they swore'] to cross the mountains",-and this in spite of Dr. W. A. Caruthers' "Knights of the Horseshoe", 1845; and of chap. xii of W. W. Scott's "History of Orange County, Virginia", 1907, which bears the same title.
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though it is evident that the estimated population of 100,000* in 1717 also demanded expansion in that direction. But whatever the cause, we know that there followed a period of county-forming, with the result that in 1754 an estimated population of 284,000* was living in fifty existing counties, eight of which were formed under other names, while all the Tidewater units, except Greensville and Mathews, had been formed; the Piedmont Plateau was getting pretty well filled by county organizations, the Valley contained at least two organized counties, and the Trans-Alleghany Section had one.
The Piedmont Plateau securely peopled, the ever-restless settlers now rapidly pushed the van of civilization over the Blue Ridge into the Valley, only to ascend the higher ridges of the Alleghanies and penetrate deeper into the wilderness; while, with an estimated population of 550,000 in 1775,* the opening year of the Revolution found Virginia with sixty-one exist- ing counties, of which eight had been formed under other names: and thus at the time of the Declaration of Independence, we find that the loyalty of the colonists to the Mother Country is strikingly reflected by the fact that of these seventy-two counties, the sources of their names seem to have been (for names of the counties in each group, see Part V, "Origin of County Names") :
Reigning houses of England, and members thereof 25;
Localities,-former English homes of the colonists, 19;
Governors appointed by the Crown, .. 12:
Englishmen of prominence, who had befriended the Colony 8; Indian tribes which had owned the areas of these counties 8;
Counties named by the Colony, 72.
The close of the 18th Century credited Virginia with a population of 880,200,1 and ninety-nine actually existing counties, although thirteen had become extinct through changes of names and nine had passed into Kentucky, when that State was admitted to the Union in 1792.
In 1860, a population of 1,596,318; was distributed through the one hundred and forty-eight then Virginia counties, while Bland, formed in 1861, was named after Richard Bland, of Revolutionary fame: but the admission of West Virginia to the Union in 1863 left but ninety-nine counties in the Old Dominion, and the last county resulting from Virginia legis- lation was Dickenson, formed in 1880 and named after the Hon. William J. Dickenson, of Russell County, a prominent member of the Re-adjuster Legis- lature which passed the Act of Assembly forming this county, and thus rounded off the one hundred counties which are to-day in the State.
* U. S. Census, 1910, Abstract, p. 567, n.
t U. S. Census.
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Of these one hundred counties, the sources of their names seem to have been,-(for names of counties in each group, see Part V, below, "Origin of County Names")-
Soldiers (chiefly Revolutionary), 23.
Governors, .
19.
Revolutionary patriots, statesmen, etc., 14.
Indian tribes and personages, 14.
Virginians of prominence (jurists, senators, officials, etc. ), 11.
Presidents of the United States, 5.
Natural features 3.
American statesmen, 3.
Frontiersmen and hunters, 2.
Englishmen of prominence, once connected with colonial affairs,. 2.
English queen, 1.
Land-owner's family 1.
Re-adjuster legislator, 1.
. Royal family of France 1.
Counties named by the State, 100.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
(of Introduction).
Arber, Edward. Travels and Works of Captain John Smith. 2 vols. London, 1910.
Barton, R. T. Virginia Colonial Decisions. 2 vols. Boston, Mass., 1909. Brown, Alexander. The First Republic in America. Boston and New York, 1898.
Brown, Alexander. The Genesis of the United States. 2 vols. Boston and
New York, 1890.
Bruce, Philip Alexander. The Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century. Richmond, Va., 1907.
Bruce, Philip Alexander. Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century. 2 vols. New York and London, 1896.
Hening, William Waller. Statutes at Large of Virginia. . 13 vols. Second edition. New York, 1823.
Long, Charles M. Virginia County Names. New York and Washington, 1908. Stith, William. The History of Virginia. Sabin Reprint, New York, 1865.
Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. The Cradle of the Republic. Second edition. Rich- mond, Va., 1906.
Yonge, Samuel H. The Site of Old "James Towne". Tercentenary Edition. Richmond, Va., 1907.
U. S. Census Reports.
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PART I. ALPHABETICAL ARRANGEMENT
The Notes in full text are assembled in series at the end of this Part.
The Alphabetical Arrangement needs no comment other than the state- ment that, in the several instances in which there are two counties of the same name (Accomack, Fayette, Jefferson, Madison, Mason, Mercer, Nelson and Rappahannock), the arrangement is chronological under each of these pairs of names. Of course, no two counties of the same name existed in Virginia at the same time, as will be seen below :
Accawmack of 1634 having been changed to Northampton in 1642/3, Accomack of the present day was formed in 1663 .*
Rappahannock of 1656 ** having become extinct in 1692, when its territory was formed into Essex and Richmond, Rappahannock of the present day was formed in 1833.
Fayette of 1780, Jefferson of 1780, Nelson of 1785, Madison of 1786, Mercer of 1786 and Mason of 1789, all passed into the new State, when Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792.
Virginia, ever-mindful of her ideals, again formed Madison of 1793, Jefferson of 1801, Mason of 1804, Nelson of 1808, Fayette of 1831 and Mercer of 1837; but the formation of West Virginia in 1863 carried all of these out of the jurisdiction of Virginia, except Madison and Nelson,-and thus it happens that, after twice honouring Jefferson, La Fayette, Mason and Mercer in this manner, the Old Dominion has at the present time no county of one of these names within her borders.
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