A re-capitulation, omitting the twenty-six counties in Hening i and ii, shows the following situation:

Disregarding the seventy-six instances of the use of the word "dividing" in the title of the Acts, since the word refers only to the parent-county (as the "Act for dividing the County of Goochland" (H. v, 266), resulted in the formation of Albemarle County, although the name of the child-county does not appear in the title of the Act), we find that the word “forming" first appeared in 1778 (H. ix, 420) and appears with approximate uniformity until the early part of 1860 (A (1859-0), 151).

In the texts of the Acts, it seems that the phrase "shall form" [one distinct county] is in a large majority, while the next closest competitor is almost a synonym,-"shall be" [one distinct county].

In the marginal notes, it appears that Hening and Shepherd almost uniformly used the word "form", while the editors of the following Acts of Assembly were even more uniform in the use of the word "create", which first appeared in 1831 (A (1830-1), 134),-though it seems to have disappeared after 1856.

These facts, in addition to the further fact that it seems to be less technical than the other words, although one of the others seems to be etymologically more in harmony with the English Common and Statute Law,have resulted in the choice of the word "form" as the caption for the datecolumns.

In all the arrangements, the date of the origin of the county, as given in black-faced type, is the year when the county came into actual existence,— when it became a place of record,-reference to the text of the Act giving the month and the day. The date of the final passage of the Act forming the county follows each of these dates in parentheses, the letter “J”* in these parentheses referring to the "Journal of the House" (Burgesses, or Delegates, as the case may be) of the date indicated: nor does this close discrimination seem unwarranted, when one recalls the fact that forty-sevent of the counties came into actual existence during the year following the passage of the Acts authorizing the formation of these counties, while Augusta

* This "J", from 1619 to 1775, refers to the "Journals of the House of Burgesses", published, by the Virginia State Library, 1905-1915; from 1776 to 1790, to the 1828 re-prints of the Journals of those sessions, and from 1791 to 1879-80, to the Journals as printed after the close of each session of the General Assembly.

and Frederick, authorized in 1738, were not organized until 1745 and 1743 respectively; and Brunswick, although authorized in 1720, was not finally organized until 1732,-nearly twelve years later.

Thus, following the precedents of Hening (from p. 412 of vol. xii), Shepherd and the Acts of Assembly, the date of the signing of the bill has been disregarded as perfunctory and formal routine: and so it is that the investigator has the year from which he can expect to find records at any · county seat,-fire, accident and the public enemy excepted,-while those tracing the course of legislation are afforded a starting-point.

Each county is set forth as formed from some named area, while the authority on which the statement is based is to be found in the column to the extreme right; and, if any more territory has been added to the county, the addition is noted and the source of information given. If references intervene, or have no statements for which they seem to stand sponsor, it shows that some portion of that county has been cut off and added to another county, under which other county will be found a statement as to the item added, with the same authority cited; or the reference may be to an Act which defines, establishes, adjusts, confirms, marks, or otherwise involves the boundaries, and therefore the tertorial area of the county under consideration,-in which latter case, the same reference, of course, appears under all the counties affected by this Act relating to the boundaries. references under each county are in chronological order.

All

Thus, Albemarle is formed from Goochland (H. v, 266); then comes the reference, H. vi, 441, which takes "parts of Albemarle and Lunenburg" and adds them to Bedford, and this same reference, of course, appears under Lunenburg in its proper chronological order while Bedford shows the additions and the reference; next we see that a "part of Louisa" is added to Albemarle by H. vii, 419, with the same reference appearing in its proper sequence under Louisa, from which the area was taken.

In this way there are under each county references to every piece of legislation which we have been able to locate, which in any wise involves the territorial area of that county, with the result that the references under each county are as near as may be a complete compendium of references to the legislation upon which that county bases its claim to its present metes and bounds.

All dates are those of the English calendar of the date cited, unless otherwise stated; and an attempt has been made to preserve the then current orthography, but no effort has been made to set forth the promoting causes which resulted in the formation of the various counties, for the reason that the necessary data are not at present available.

Where a county has been initially formed from parts of several different counties, the order in which the names of the parent-counties are mentioned in the title of the Act has been most scrupulously preserved throughout the BULLETIN, for the reasons set forth in the "Genealogical" portion of this Preface.

The notes are serial throughout the whole of the BULLETIN, (except in several cases, where an asterisk seems to simplify matters), but are assembled in full-text form at the end of Part I, the Alphabetical Arrangement; while under each recurring appearance of the same county a note

refers back to the full-text note under the Alphabetical Arrangement. Thus there is but one presentation of the text of the notes, some of which are quite lengthy and cumbersome, as is the case with those under Accomack, Brunswick, Augusta and Kentucky. And we count ourselves particularly lucky in that we have secured for these notes reliable statements setting forth the efforts which have been made, especially during the War between the States, to save the records of Albemarle, Brunswick, Elizabeth City, Hanover, Henrico, Louisa and Middlesex; but have been no little disappointed that we were unable to secure similar data concerning such efforts as may have been made in other counties.

ALPHABETICAL

The Alphabetical Arrangement needs no comment other than the statement 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 terri-
tory 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 honoring 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.

CHRONOLOGICAL

In the Chronological Arrangement, the date of the operation of the Act of Assembly has, of course, been the guide, but when several Acts became operative in the same year, the dates of the final passage of these Acts decide the chronology; while resort has been had to alphabetizing the names where two or more counties came into actual existence in the same year as the result of Acts finally passed on the same date. Striking illustrations of this appear under the years 1777, 1778 and 1786. Kentucky, Montgomery and Washington came into actual existence in 1777 as the result of an Act passed Dec. 7, 1776. Hence these counties appear under this date in the order named. Fluvanna and Powhatan came into actual existence in 1777 as the result of two acts finally passed on June 3, 1777, and therefore appear in alphabetical order under the latter date. Henry, however, is the first of those listed under 1777, because it came into actual existence that year, and the Act forming it was passed earlier than the other three.