| Information on the State of Virginia and its counties |
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First settled as early as 10,000 years ago, Virginia was inhabited by Indian tribes belonging to three different families at the beginning of the 17th century. Along the coast lived the Powhatan, of the Angonquian family; the Piedmont was occupied by tribes of the Siouan family; and the Iroquoian family was represented principally by the Susquehanna at the northern end of Chesapeake Bay, by the Cherokee in the southwest, and by the Nottoway in the southeast. (Grolier, Inc. 1996) Mariners Museum - informtion on Native Americans. The European history of Virginia began in 1570 with a short-lived Spanish mission probably located on the York River. (Grolier, Inc. 1996) A very interesting piece of Virginia history was discovered when reading a book "Let Me Lie" by James Branch Cabell (copyright 1947). According to James Cabell, in either 1569 or 1560, a party of Spanish explorers returned to the harbor of Vera Cruz bringing with them the Prince of Ajacan. These Spaniards had entered Chesapeake Bay and sailed some slight distance up the Potomac under the belief that the broad Stream of Swans (Potomac) was also an arm of the ocean. They landed upon its south bank which was inhabited by the Ajacan Indians. The Ajacan Indians entertained them for some two to three weeks and when they were ready to leave, a young chieftain of the Ajacans wished to go with them to become familiar with Christian customs. The Indian Prince was baptized in the Cathedral of the city of Mexico and the Viceroy of New Spain served as godfather and gave him his own name - Luis de Velasco. Apparently Luis de Velasco was quite a liar and told of twenty noble cities and seventy-two main towns of Ajacan, none of which was built wholly of gold because they found metallic architecture to become monotonous. The buildings were said to be varied with sardonyx, ivory, crystal and jasper. Don Luis convinced others that the northern neck of Virginia was an opulent, vast, pagan earthly paradise which might be persuaded to form an alliance with Spain. The Prince was next found near Madrid in the King's private chamber at the Escorial lying to King Phillip II about Ajacan. Don Luis ingratiated himself to such an extent into the good will of Phillip II that he lived at the royal expense during all his stay. The King granted to his cousin of Ajacan the rank of a grandee of Spain with a pension befitting that high estate. He prospered as a well-to-do nobleman in and about the most splendid court in Europe. Some part of his time was spent in Havana, then to Cuba into Florida, during the same year that Pedro Menendez invaded the peninsula. He is reported to have shared in the founding of St. Augustine as the friend and confidant of Menendez. Through the efforts of Menendez, he was sent back into the northern neck of Virginia in the autumn of 1570 at the head of a Spanish colony consisting of two priests, three brothers and three scholastics of the Society of Jesus, as well as four attendants. By the plan of Menendez, these staunch churchmen during the winter months, would subdue the fierce hearts of the native Indians to the mild tenets of Christianity. Then, when spring returned, Menendez would come with enough soldiers and firearms to take care of their bodies and to put ashore new settlers. The Prince accepted this mission with seeming joy now that he was privileged to go back into his native land as a Paul of the Holy Faith to carry the Gospel to Ajacan. His expedition reached Don Luis' former home at the mouth of the Potomac. The caravel left them and returned to Mexico. Don Luis was received with delight and his Spanish friends were greeted with politeness. All Ajacan, after hearing Don Luis' advice, thronged gladly toward Christian instruction. The Jesuits, for their greater comfort, now that winter approached, were removed yet further up the Coan River and then overland to the shores of the Rappahannock. The Indians aided their spiritual fathers in building a trim chapel so that all offices of the Catholic Church might be conducted suitably. The Ajacans were converted by scores and hundreds.
When winter closed in and there remained no chance of a Spanish ship's reaching Ajacan until late in the following spring, Don Luis commanded his people to scalp and disembowel the white men. The remnants were buried courteously before Don Luis set fire to the chapel. When the Spaniards sent provisions and reinforcements in the spring of 1571, they could not find any trace of the Jesuits or Don Luis because he had withdrawn his people out of the northern neck going up into the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond reach of the Spaniards' anger. After hanging the few available Indians, Menendez sailed southward. Spain gave up the notion of settling that territory which is now Virginia and did not renew the attempt after this setback. But for Don Luis de Velasco, the Spanish reinforcements would have landed unopposed in the spring of 1571 and yet further military forces and more settlers would have followed them during the summer as was planned. Virginia and the entire Atlantic seaboard between the Potomac and Florida would have become a Spanish province. Let Me Lie - by James Branch Cabell Mariners Museum has more information on Don Luis and the Ajacan Indians. The Spanish Jesuit Mission in Virginia, 1570-1572 - Letter of Luis de Quirós and Juan Baptista de Segura
In 1584, Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained from Queen Elizabeth to colonize all of North America not occupied by the Spanish or French. The first expedition of the vast new territory, named Virginia in honor of the Queen, was sent out the same year by Sir Walter Raleigh and arrived at Roanoke Island in 1585. More settlers came 2 years later, but by 1591 - their supplies having been interrupted by England's war with Spain - all the colonists had died or disappeared.
Sir Walter Raleigh gave the name Virginia to this large slice of North America to honor his Virgin Queen, Elizabeth. But the two colonies Raleigh sent over did not reach what is now Virginia. They stopped at Roanoke Island, at the confluence of Abermarle and Pamlico sounds, on the coast of North Carolina. The first group stayed less than a year (1585-86), and then returned to England with Sir Francis Drake. The second Roanoke colony (1587-91) disappeared mysteriously while its governor, John White, the artist and map maker, was in England obtaining supplies.
The real beginning of English settlement came in 1606 when James I gave a businesslike charter to two cooperating groups of merchant investors: the Virginia Company of London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth. Each company had rights to plant colonies and exploit inland resources along a broad tip of the Atlantic coast. The First Charter of Virginia; April 10, 1606 In 1606, King James granted a joint charter to two companies to settle Virginia. One of the original investors in the London Company, which was authorized to settle southern Virginia, was Sir John Levison (Livingston).
After a few false starts, on December 20, 1606, the London Company, established by Shakespeare's patron, Henry Wriothesley, 3d earl of Southampton, sent out three ships - Susan Constant, Discovery and Godspeed - carrying 143 adventurers, most of them, according to the 18th century Virginia writer, William Byrd, "reprobates of good families".
April 26, 1607: Arrival of English at Cape Henry (southern entrance to Chesapeake Bay). Settlement of Jamestown, named in honor of the king, was established by May 14, 1607.
The colonization of the North American continent in modern times began with the arrival of three boatloads of English immigrants in May, 1607, on the northeast shore of the James River in Virginia, on the site of present day Jamestown. Mariners Museum - Jamestown
On April 26, 1607, the colonists landed on a point of land they called Cape Henry, opposite another point they named Cape Charles, honoring two sons of their king. An indication of future trouble came toward evening when a band of Indians arrived 'creeping upon all foures from the Hills, like Beares, with their Bowes in their mouthes'. The adventurers ascended the river and landed at a place they named 'James Towne to honor the king himself'.
Leadership aboard the three little boats left much to be desired; the men had quarreled grievously among themselves; malaria lurked in the marshy lands; and supplies were insufficient. John Smith, the most able man in the company and the one fitted for almost any emergency by a life of incredible adventure, was in chains when the little band reached Virginia. Fortunately, however, the opening of the sealed orders of the king named him a member of the council along with Edward Maria Wingfield, Christopher Newport, Bartholomew Gosnold, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and George Kendall.
The incompetent Wingfield was made president of the council. Smith demanded trial for the charges that had been preferred against him, was released, and by force of personality became the acknowledged leader. On June 22, Newport sailed for England, leaving in Virginia 100 men, more than half of whom were 'gentlemen' unfit for the tasks involved in making a wilderness habitable. Bickering was the order of the day. In September Wingfield was deposed; and Ratcliffe, who subsequently proved himself unequal to the responsibility, was elected president of the council. Whether or not credence can be given to the story of Pocahontas's saving John Smith's life, there is no doubt that Smith became the hero of Jamestown, exploring the new land, wheedling supplies from the Indians, and effectively using the strong arm in emergencies.
One of the leaders was Captain John Smith, a daring adventurous fellow with an inquisitive mind who had been in many tight situations on the outskirts of civilization. With a score of companions, he sailed into several of the many bays and river openings along the zigzagging east coast, and thus became acquainted with the lay of the land. Having done nothing to provide food for the winter, more than half of the colony succumbed from illness and lack of nourishing food.
The London Company, with stockholders looking toward gains that might be derived from the findings of a passage to the South Sea and from the discovery of precious metals in the New World, was guilty of inadequate stewardship. The 'First Supply brought by Newport on January 2, 1607, (January 12, 1608, N.S.), contained insufficient provisions and 70 new colonists. Likewise Newport's 'Second Supply', arriving in September of the same year, bringing again some 70 settlers, added little to the welfare of the colony. Then it was that John Smith, having been chosen president of the council, composed the letter known as 'Smith's Rude Answer', in which he replied to the London Company's demand that the colonists send commodities sufficient to pay the cost of the voyage, a lump of gold, assurance that they had found the South Sea, and one member of the lost Roanoke Colony. He wrote: 'When you send againe I entreat you rather send but thirty Carpenters, husbandmen, gardiners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons and diggers up of trees, roots, well provided; than a thousand of such awe have: for except wee be able both to lodge them and feed them, the most will consume with want of necessaries before they can be made good for anything'.
The summer of 1608 brought them new supplies from England and 120 more immigrants. In the fall of 1608, the colony of 130 or 140 persons was augmented by the arrival of 70 more immigrants in the third expedition to Virginia.
At the beginning of the winter of 1609, the colony consisted of 490 persons. When the spring of 1610 arrived, there were only 60 persons left in the colony.
Determined to return to England, the group embarked. The ship was coming out of the mouth of the James River when Virginia bound ships under the command of Lord Delaware came in sight. Against their own judgment, the disgruntled colonists were persuaded to return to their abandoned homes. Early in 1610, more food and additional colonists arrived from England.
Chiefly because of Smith's leadership, most of the 200 settlers survived the winter and in the spring set about planting and building cheerfully enough. In August seven of the nine ships that had left England with Sir Thomas Gates landed their colonists at Jamestown. In October John Smith, having been severely injured, returned to England for medical treatment, and the settlers faced the long and terrible winter capable of intimidating or cajoling the Indians; the water was unfit for drinking; 'sicknesse' took its ghastly toll. In May when Gates, whose ship had been wrecked on the Bermudas, reached Jamestown as first governor, he found only a few wretched survivors. Five hundred strong at the beginning of winter, the colonists - numbering but 65 pitiable creatures - started back to England on June 7, 1610. They had reached Mulberry Island, 14 miles distant, when Lord De la Warre arrived - with supplies and new settlers. All turned back, weary but determined to carry on. The kindly De la Warre, returning to England in the spring of 1611, left as deputy governor George Percy, succeeded soon by Sir Thomas Dale, whose absolutism the colonists found difficult to endure. Meanwhile, by two clever strokes, John Rolfe became the saviour of Virginia; in 1612 he introduced the cultivation of tobacco, ending the futile search for gold; and in 1614 he married Pocahontas, effecting a convenient alliance with the Powhatan confederacy. George Yeardley, who became deputy governor in 1616, set up the first windmill in America, imported a herd of blooded cattle, turned his attention to the fertilization of the soil, and encouraged the cultivation of tobacco. Did Pocahontas save John Smith's life?
1612: Virginia, explained Captain John Smith, "is a Country in America, that lyeth betweene the degrees of 34 and 44 of the north latitude (from South Carolina to the middle of Maine). The bounds thereof on the East side are the great Ocean. On the South lyeth Florida; on the North, Nova Francia. As for the West thereof, the limits are unknowne".
After 1614, when the first shipment of Virginia tobacco reached England, the success of this colony was assured. The company encouraged its wealthy members to bring over laborers and operate plantations for private profit; these large landholdings were called "hundreds", an old English administrative term for districts smaller than a county.
Sir Samuel Argall, appointed in May 1617, virtually reduced the colonists to the status of slaves until his flagrant misconduct caused his removal. By April 1619 the colony under Sir George Yeardley, now governor, had apparently achieved a degree of stability that augured wen for continued prosperity. Plantations had been established eastward and westward on both sides of the James River. A few women had crossed the Atlantic to convert the wilderness into a home, and plans were afoot for the sending of 150 maids, who arrived in 1621 to become wives of the settlers. From a Dutch man-of-war were obtained in 1619 the first Negroes landed in Virginia, who were received as indentured servants and not as slaves for life.
The Virginia Company, meeting in a Quarter Court held on 18 November 1618, passed a body of laws called Orders and Constitutions which came to be considered "the Great Charter of privileges, orders and laws" of the colony.
By 1619, Virginia had been divided into four districts called plantations: James City, the City of Henrico, Charles City and Elizabeth City. Each plantation included a central settlement plus some surrounding settlements, some of which were called hundreds (because they included 100 men). This year of 1619 was extremely important because of four important events: a governing assembly of representatives from the plantations started meeting, black slaves were brought in, the indentured-servant system was inaugurated (a white laborer's passage to Virginia was paid in exchange for 4-5 years of service), and there was the arrival of 1261 persons including families, 100 apprentices, and 90 young women (all of whom were promptly married), bringing the total population to about 2,500. The headright system also increased the number of immigrants. Under it, anyone who paid for his, his family's and his servants' passages to Virginia received 50 acres per person.
On March 22, 1622, a coordinated series of attacks were made by the Indians on settlers all along the James River, over 350 deaths and much property loss resulting. Jamestown, having been warned by a friendly native, was able to repel the raiders. Numerous retaliatory expeditions against the Indians were launched. The Indians were slain, their villages were burned, and their stores and crops were destroyed.
A 'deadly stroake' was dealt the southern colony in 1622 when the Indians attempted by wholesale butchery to rid the country of white invaders. From the marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas in 1614 till the death of Powhatan in 1618 a state of comparative peace had emboldened the colonists to spread their plantations along both banks of the James River and to neglect their stockades. But the implacable Opechancanough, who had succeeded Powhatan as chief of the Indian confederacy, was scheming with diabolical cleverness. On March 22, 1622, at precisely the same hour the Indians struck along a 140-mile front. Three hundred and forty-seven colonists were killed instantly and 18 died later, reducing the settlement by more than a third. Jamestown suffered less, however, than the outlying plantations, for Chanco, a converted Indian, working at the plantation of Richard Pace across the river, informed his master of the plot. Thought the surviving settlers did not desert Virginia and though others arrived almost at once, it was many years before the colony recovered from the disaster. Plans were abandoned for the East India School and the university, which were to be established to Christianize and educate the Indians.
The days of the Virginia Company of London were numbered. The widening breach between the liberals and the king had been rfeflected in James's denunciation of Sir Edwyn Sandys. In answer to the king's command in 1620, 'Choose the devil if you will, but not Sir Edwin Sandys' as company treasurer, Sandys stepped aside in favor of his friend, the Earl of Southampton, whom the king found equally unacceptable. It was Sandys, however, who drew up the liberal instrument known as the Virginia Constitution of 1621. In 1622 the king granted the London Company a monopoly of the sale of tobacco in England. The condition that 40,000 pounds of Spanish tobacco be also imported was not satisfactory to Spain, whose favor James sought as he looked toward an alliance between his son and the Infanta. Through the scheming of the wily Count of Gondomar, Spanish ambassador, an investigation was ordered of the London Company both in England and Virginia. When the commission returned from the colony in June 1624 with an unfavorable report, only partially true, the King's Bench revoked the charter of the London Company and Virginia became a royal colony, extending from modern Pennsylvania to Florida and indefinitely westward. John Smith - General History - 1624 Smith's map of the Chesapeake region
In 1622-4, the king dissolved the Virginia (London) Company, and the settlements became a Crown Colony, with a somewhat weakened General Assembly meeting irregularly. In the years following, further settlement took place as colonists pushed up the James and York Rivers, occupied the banks of Chesapeake Bay, and built primitive roads into the forests. The General Assembly in 1634 divided Virginia into eight shires (counties). County courts were set up, and commissioners, clerks, sheriffs, constables, justices of the peace and coroners were designated. Appeals of county court cases could be made to the newly-established General Court or to the General Assembly (which was elected by all freemen).
The Navigation Act of 1660 imposed real hardship upon Virginia planters by requiring all trade with Virginia to pass through English ports with payment of high duties. Governor Berkeley traveled to England in 1661 to make personal protests against the obnoxious regulation that was reducing the price of Virginia tobacco, and in 1664 he endeavored to obtain the cooperation of Carolina and Maryland in concerted restrictions of tobacco planting. The governor also had a hand in the general assembly's inauguration of a works program, by means of which factories were established both to provide employment and to furnish the colonists with needed commodities.
Charles II's grant of the Northern Neck - the area lying between the Potomac and the Rappahannock from the Chesapeake back to the headwaters of both rivers - to four royal favorites in 1669 was deeply resented by Virginians.
From the time Virginia became a royal colony in 1624 until 1776, when it announced its independence, it was in almost constant trouble with the Crown or its representatives. Mainly, the colonists objected to the arbitrary action of the colony officials and their ruthless demands. Every month in the year, with the exception of the winter months, saw boatloads of new immigrants arriving. More and more settlements were established, some as far north as the Potomac River. In 1628, the population of Virginia was estimated at about 3,000. In 1629, Carolina was carved from Virginia and granted to Sir Robert Heath. In 1632, Maryland was carved from Virginia and granted to Lord Baltimore.
June 3, 1633: King James granted 1/5 of marsh of Sir Henry Watton and Sir Edward Dymock to Sir John Livingstone. In 1634, the first eight counties were formed (first called shires). The following county information was derived from "Virginia Genealogical Research by George K. Schweitzer, Ph.D., Sc.D.
Accawmack County, formed in 1634, one of the 8 original shires (counties), originally made up of the entire Eastern Shore, name changed to Northampton County in 1642. Gloucester County, formed in 1651 from York County - most records destroyed by fires in 1821 and 1865. New Kent County, formed in 1654 from York County and later James City Counties - most records destroyed by fires in 1787 and 1865. Old Rappahannock County, formed in 1656 from Lancaster County, became extinct in 1692 when it split into Essex and Richmond Counties. King and Queen County, formed in 1691 from New Kent County - many records destroyed by fires in 1825 and 1865. Essex County, formed in 1692 from Old Rappahannock County. Spotsylvania County, formed in 1721 from Essex, King William and King & Queen Counties.
By 1700, there were more than 60,000 persons living in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Twenty thousand more had come by 1717. During the next 37 years, the population increased by almost two hundred percent, reaching 284,000 by 1754. As early as 1730, there was a heavy immigration from Pennsylvania into Virginia of Scotch-Irish, Welsh and Germans, most of whom settled in the upper valleys. Naturally, therefore, the Welsh Baptist Church, the English Quakers and the Scotch Presbyterians flourished in that section. Methodist churches were established about 1800. Virginia was well settled by 1775. By 1800, it had upwards of 90 counties and a population of nearly a million. Nine other states preceded Virginia into the Union when she entered in June 1788. In the first three U.S. Census reports, 1790, 1800 and 1810, Virginia registered the highest population in the nation. In 1820, she was second to New York. In 1830, she was surpassed by New York and Pennsylvania.
Until 1786, the Anglican Church was the State Church of Virginia. Following English custom and law, as an agency of the government, the Church was responsible for maintaining a system of Parish Registers recording vital statistics. Very few such registers have survived. Photocopies of most of those that exist are in the Virginia State Library. All but one has been transcribed and published.
The Quit Rent list is used as a census report or schedule. In 1704, all Virginia landowners, except those in Lancaster, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Richmond and Stafford Counties, had to pay the King a Quit Rent of one shilling for each fifty acres bought.
Since the 1790 to 1860 Federal Census records were destroyed in a fire, Fothergill and Naugle in "Taxpayers of Virginia" have tried to augment similar lists gathered from other counties by the government. In the 1790 to 1860 Federal Census schedules for Virginia will be found 50 counties now in West Virginia. These counties withdrew from Virginia in 1861 and in 1863 became our thirty-fifth state.
The Archives Division, Virginia State Library, Richmond, Virginia 23219, has copies of all existing Virginia birth, death, and marriage records prior to 1896. These records are available on microfilm for use by the public and there is no charge for viewing the records. Generally for most areas of the State, records are available for the period 1853-1896. Any "Marriage Bonds" prior to 1853 that are still in existence would also be in the Virginia State Library, as would war records prior to and including the Civil War, deeds, wills, and other court records.
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