Accomack County, Virginia

“ Subsequently he went to Somerset county, Md., where he is supposed to have founded the church in Snow Hill, and thence removed to Virginia, where, through his marriage with Naomi, the daughter of William Anderson, a wealthy merchant of Accomack county, he became possessed of property and engaged in trade with the West Indies, In 1691 he went to England, and, after his return in July, 1692, he was visited by George Keith, who had separated from the Society of Friends and was travelling through the southern provinces to promulgate his views. ”

“ Peter Hack, the second son of Dr. George and Anna Verlett Hack was born at Accomac, Virginia about the year 1653. He was a colonel in the county militia and a member of the House of Burgesses from 1696 to 1712. ”

“ Wicocomoco (Wighcocomoco) , in Northumberland County on the Potomac River, near its entrance into the Chesapeake Bay. Their principal village was on Wicocomico River. Population about 490.
Cuttatawomen, one town by this name was located at the junction of the Corotoman and the Rappahannock Rivers, in what was later known as Lancaster County. Population about 115. The other town was on the Rappahannock at the mouth of Lamb Creek, in what was later King George County. Population about 75. ”

“ In 1690 his name figures in the records of Accomac County, Virginia, where he was engaged in the West India trade, and where in 1692 450 acres of land were granted to him. Here he married Naomi, daughter of William Anderson, a wealthy merchant. ”

“ For the district of Folly Landing shall be appointed a collector, who shall reside at Accomack Courthouse, and whose authority shall extend over all the waters, shores, bays, harbors and inlets of the county of Accomack. ”

“ SOUTH CAROLINA, McCormick County, McCormick, McCormick County Courthouse (McCormick MRA) , Hwy. 28 (12/12/85)
SOUTH CAROLINA, McCormick County, McCormick, McCormick Train Station (McCormick MRA) , Main St. (12/12/85)
SOUTH CAROLINA, McCormick County, McCormick, Sturkey, M. L. B., House (McCormick MRA) , Main and Washington Sts. (12/12/85)
VIRGINIA, Madison County, Orange vicinity, Brampton, VA 671 (12/12/85)
VIRGINIA, Montgomery County, Christiansburg, Cambria Freight Station, 630 Depot St. (12/12/85)
WEST VIRGINIA, Jefferson County, Charles Town vicinity, Hillside, Old Cave Rd. ”

“ His brother, Theodorick Bland, sometime a merchant at Luars, in Spain, came over to Virginia in 1654, where, settling at Westover, upon James River, in Charles City County, he died, in April, 1671, aged forty-five years, and was buried in the chancel of the church, which he built, and gave, together with ten acres of land, a court-house and prison for the county and parish. ”

“ In the counties of Accomac, Augusta, Bedford, Campbell, Elizabeth City, Fairfax, Lee, Loudoun, Hanover, Henrico, Rockingham, Nansemond, Southampton, Pittsylvania, Nelson and Fauquier, in which there are now separate clerks for the county and circuit courts thereof, there shall be elected on Tuesday after the first Monday in November nineteen hundred and three, county clerks for such counties. ”

“ When Attorney General Seymour objected to paying the money, Blair explained that it was the chief purpose of the college to train young men for the ministry, and begged him to consider that they in Virginia had souls to be saved as well as those in England. "Souls! Damn your souls! Make tobacco," snapped Seymour. [30]
Local government was administered by the county courts. Hartwell, Blair, and Chilton wrote: "There is a county court in every county, which consists of eight or ten gentlemen ... to whom the Governor gives a commission during pleasure to be justices of the peace for that county. ”

“ Levy, on Bull Run, 3 miles south of Aldie; Lincoln, 2-1/2 miles southeast of Purcellville, in the heart of the "Quaker Settlement," population 200, 3 merchants and mechanics; Lovettsville, 2-1/2 or 3 miles south of Brunswick, Md., and 7 miles from both Waterford and Harpers Ferry, W. Va., in an industrious and progressive German neighborhood, population 97, 16 merchants and mechanics; Luckets, 5 miles from Point of Rocks, Maryland, and 7 miles from Leesburg, population 50, 8 merchants and mechanics; Lunette, 4 miles south of Arcola, population 10; Mahala, 2 miles from Ashburn, population 15 ”

“ In recent years, most boundary changes for counties have been minor and have not involved substantial shifts of population or land area. The independent cities in Virginia constitute an exception because they occasionally annex territory, as do the incorporated places in many States. Because the territory annexed by a Virginia city no longer is part of the county in which it had been located, changes in the boundaries of these independent cities also affect the boundaries of the adjacent county or counties. In other States, changes to counties occur on a piecemeal basis. ”

“ Now in oldest Virginia the colonial assembly, when instituted in 1619, the earliest legislature of civilized men in the western hemisphere, was patterned after the old English county court, and it was natural that its units should be conceived as hundreds and in some instances called so. Moreover, there are indications that at times the hundred was regarded as a military division, and also as the smallest area for the administration of justice, as in the law passed in 1624 providing that Charles City and Elizabeth City should hold monthly courts. ”

“ The above-noted interim saw a steady influx of the fine old English Cavalier [18] stock, the settlers occupying large tracts of land in the eastern and southern portions of the County or most of the territory extending from the Potomac River southward to Middleburg and from the Catoctin and Bull Run mountains eastward to the eastern border of the County. ”

“ North Fork, 6 miles from Purcellville, population 26; Oatlands, bordering on Catoctin Mountain 7 miles southwest of Leesburg and 5 miles north of Aldie, population 20; Pæonian Springs, 1 mile northwest of Clarke's Gap, population 112, 6 merchants and mechanics; Paxson, an exceptionally healthy community 2 miles east of Bluemont, population 15; Philomont, a Quaker settlement lying 3 miles southeast of Silcott Springs in a fertile and wealthy wheat-growing neighborhood, population 161 ”

“ Thus the county of Warwick, with only one hundred fighting men, has an equal representation with the county of Loudon, which has 1746. So that every man in Warwick has as much influence in the government as 17 men in Loudon. But lest it should be thought that an equal interspersion of small among large counties, through the whole State, may prevent any danger of injury to particular parts of it, we will divide it into districts, and shew the proportions of land, of fighting men, and of representation in each. ”

“ If there were no counties most of the people would have to go long distances to the State capital in order to have important business attended to. County organization brings the advantages of government and the administration of justice nearer the homes of all the people. ”

“ Joseph Ball had inherited his forested lands from his father, William Ball, the founder of the Ball family in Virginia. William came to Virginia, probably as a merchant, in 1650, but he did not settle until about 1663, at which time he purchased land in Lancaster County and established his seat on the east side of the Corotoman River, where it empties into the Rappahannock. ”

“ It is unfortunate that many documents in the county court [Pg 260] houses were destroyed in the Revolution and the War between the States. Yet the records of Surry, York, Essex, Rappahannock, Accomac, Elizabeth City, and other counties have been preserved.
Peter Force (ed.) , Tracts and Other Papers (1836) , has many valuable documents relating to early Virginia history. The accounts of Bacon's Rebellion are of especial interest. Edward Arber (ed.) , The Works of Captain John Smith (1910) , is a main source for the founding and early history of Jamestown. ”

“ The eye travels entirely across the fertile expanse of the latter to where, in the far distance, the Alleghany and North Mountains rear their wooded crests. A few of the summits offer even more extensive prospects. From some nearly all of Loudoun, with a considerable area of Fairfax and Fauquier, is in full view. Other more distant areas within visionary range are portions of Prince William, Rappahannock, and Culpeper counties, in Virginia, Frederick and Montgomery counties, in Maryland, and even some of Prince George County, east of Washington City. ”

“ Sugarland Run, a still smaller stream, rises partly in Loudoun, though its course is chiefly through Fairfax County, and empties into the Potomac at the northeastern angle of the County.
In its southeastern angle several streams rise and pursue a southern and southeastern course, and constitute some of the upper branches of Occoquan River.
Perhaps no county in the State is better watered for all purposes, except manufacturing in times of drought. Many of the farms might be divided into fields of ten acres each and, in ordinary seasons, would have water in each of them. ”

“ The burgesses, still unsatisfied, appointed a committee, of which Colonel John Carter, of Lancaster County, was chairman, to draw up a resolution asserting their powers; and in consonance with their report the burgesses made a declaration of popular sovereignty: that they had in themselves the full power of appointing all officers, until they should receive an order to the contrary from England; that the house was not dissolvable by any power yet extant in Virginia but their own; that all former elections of governor and council should be void ”

“ Settlers had moved into these areas earlier when they were parts of other counties, and in two cases the county organization may have been set up prior to April 1652. The Assembly of July 1653, in addition to authorizing exploration and settlement on the Roanoke and Chowan rivers in present-day North Carolina, and exploration into the Appalachian Mountains, ordered that a county to be called Westmoreland should be set up west of Northumberland County on the Potomac, with boundaries from Machodoc River to the falls of the Potomac above the town of the Anacostan Indians. ”

“ Under the 1962 reapportionment of the House of Delegates, 40.5% of the State's population live in districts electing a majority of the House members. Twenty-seven House districts have more than three times the representation of the people of Fairfax County, 12 districts have twice the representation of Arlington County, and six, twice that of Norfolk.
No adequate political remedy to obtain legislative reapportionment appears to exist in Virginia. [6] No initiative procedure is provided for under Virginia law. ”

“ Augusta County was settled by Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania, (descendants of the Covenanters,) a race respectable for intelligence, energy, morality, and piety.
In compliance with the petition of John Caldwell and others, the synod of Philadelphia (1738) addressed a letter to Governor Gooch, soliciting his favor in behalf of such persons as should remove to Western Virginia, in allowing them "the free enjoyment of their civil and religious liberties;" and the governor gave a favorable answer. ”

“ Westmoreland was the only county that declared that it had no grievances to complain of, and the sincerity of this declaration may well be doubted. Accomac claimed as a reward for her loyalty an exemption from taxation for a period of twenty years. A letter, bearing date December the 27th, 1677, addressed by the king to Jeffreys, informed him that Lord Culpepper had been appointed governor, but that while he (Jeffreys) continued to perform the duties of the office, he should be no loser, and stating the arrangement which had been made as to the payment of their salaries. ”

“ Such names occur commonly in Virginia, West Virginia, and South Carolina, very rarely in Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama, Ohio, and nowhere else in the United States. [9] Their number has diminished from the tendency to omit the phrase "Court House," leaving the name of the county for that of the shire town, as for example in Culpeper, Va. In New England the process of naming has been just the reverse; as in Hartford County, Conn., or Worcester County, Mass., which have taken their names from the shire towns. ”

“ There are thirty-two independent cities: Alexandria, Bristol, Buena Vista, Charlottesville, Clifton Forge, Colonial Heights, Covington, Danville, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, Galax, Hampton (formerly, a second class city; now combined with the town of Phoebus and Elizabeth City County into a first class city since 1952) , Harrisonburg, Hopewell, Lynchburg, Martinsville, Newport News, Norfolk, Norton, Petersburg, Portsmouth, Radford, Richmond, Roanoke, South Boston, South Norfolk, Staunton, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, Waynesboro, Williamsburg and Winchester. ”

“ Whereas several additions of lots contiguous to the town of Alexandria have been laid off by the proprietors of the land in lots of half an acre each extending to the north that range of lots upon the north side of a street called Montgomery; upon the south, to the line of the District of Columbia [this line had been surveyed but Alexandria had not yet been incorporated in the District] upon the west, to a range of lots upon the west side of West street, and upon the east to the river Patowmac ”