GEOGRAPHICAL As the rivers, streams, mountain barriers and natural defences influenced the routes of migration into the wilderness more than anything else, it seems appropriate to base the geographical treatment of the counties upon the grand geological divisions of the State,-the counties in each of these geological divisions being arranged chronologically in accordance with the plan used in Part II-as the best manner in which to show the gradual development of population in each of these sections, and how the ever-restless settler pushed on into the wilderness, as each section of the colony was securely peopled. Disregarding the popular interpretation of "Southside" and "Southwest" and following the geological divisions of the State in a general, though not in a technical, sense, the counties fall into the following groups: (For map illustrating these geological divisions, see frontispiece.) Tidewater (Coastal Plain), extending from the ocean to the fall- Counties here listed....... 39 41 17 75 172 The popular interpretations having been disregarded, it will doubtless not seem so odd to have Hanover and Henrico classified as Tidewater Counties, and to find that Chesterfield, Grayson, Floyd and Carroll have been assigned to the Piedmont section. We believe that an examination of the geology of the State will justify this rather unusual classification. One should not omit to note that the "Southside" has fallen mostly in the geological Piedmont Plateau, while the "Southwest" is given its natural geological position as a portion of the Valley and Trans-Alleghany areas. The maps (# 1 to 9) show the settlement of the Coastal Plain up to 1702; and # 10 shows the drift of population on through the Piedmont Plateau to the Blue Ridge Mountains up to 1729, except that Brunswick and Caroline are not indicated; while # 11 completes the occupation of the present limits of Virginia by county formations up to 1775, except that the following are not indicated: Amherst, Bedford, Botetourt, Buckingham, Charlette, Dinwiddie, Dunmore, Fauquier, Fincastle, Halifax, Loudoun, Mecklenburg, Pittsylvania, Prince Edward, Prince William and Sussex. The text varies from the maps in the following instances: (a) In names, on map # 6 (1634), York appears instead of Charles River, and Warwick appears instead of Warwick River. (b) In dates, reference to the name of any particular county in Part I, Alphabetical Arrangement, will show why the dates in the text vary from those on the maps,-the fact that the maps obviously deal with the counties as of the date of the passage of the Acts authorizing them, while the text deals with them as of the date of actual existence, and the further fact that the fulltext copies of Acts of Assembly in Part VI furnish data which were not available at the time the maps were delineated. The following variations of dates cover the whole series of maps, the black-faced dates following the text, while the dates in parentheses are those which appear on the maps,-the figures following these dates being the numbers of the individual maps on which the variations appear,— *Amelia, 1735 (1734),-# 11. *Brunswick, 1732 (1720),-# 11. **Culpeper, 1749 (1748),-# 11. **Cumberland, 1749 (1748),-# 11. **Goochland, 1728 (1727),—# 10, 11. **Hanover, 1721 (1720),-# 10, 11. Isle of Wight, 1637 (1634),-# 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. *King William, 1702 (1701),-# 9, 10, 11. Warwick, 1642/3 (1634),-# 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. GENEALOGICAL It is but natural that the eight original shires (or counties: Hening 1, 224) and the “original county" of Northumberland (Hening i, 337-8) should be selected as the "immigrant ancestors" of the counties which have resulted from Virginia legislation, with the result that the charts which compose this part of the BULLETIN are numbered 1 to 9,-# 9 having four supplemental charts on account of the large number of counties descended through this line. In preparing these "family trees", it soon developed that the lines often crossed from one chart to another, as in the case of Louisa, which came through the Charles River line and appears on chart # 3, a portion of which was added to Albemarle (Hening vii, 419), a county which came through the Henrico line and appears on chart # 5. Thus, it was obviously difficult to present clearly the data for all the counties on one chart, and show lines connecting every pair of counties which are territorially related. The complexity of such a task will be recognized As stated, the black-faced date is based upon the date of the actual existence of this county, as used in the text, while the date in parentheses is based upon the passage of the Act of Assembly forming this county, as used on the maps. ** The black-faced date is based upon the full-text copies of recently discovered Acts of Assembly, which were not available at the time the maps were delineated, which Acts appear in Part VI, below, and are cited in the notes under Part I. more clearly when one considers the fact that Appomattox, Craig, Doddridge, Fayette and Logan were each initially formed from portions of four counties, one of them (Craig) having as many as five additions to its area, while twenty-six were initially formed from portions of three counties,— to one of which (Giles) there were added six territorial increments. For these reasons, it was decided to give to each of the "immigrant ancestors" a chart of its own, and to have an individual index for this Part of the BULLETIN,-chart 9 having four supplemental charts on account of the large number of counties which descend through the Northumberland line, one hundred and sixteen in number. The number of counties "descended" from each of the "immigrant ancestors" is as follows: The horizontal lines on the charts have no significance other than the adjustment and balance of each individual chart, except, of course, that the earliest county from each parent-county appears at the left, while the vertical lines indicate in an approximately correct degree the chronological descent, the "scale" being uniform on each chart, but not the same for all, and where two or more counties on any chart come into existence in the same year, they appear at the same distance below the parent-county, cr.-if formed from different parent-counties, at the same distance below the "immigrant ancestor". If they be from the same parent-county, they are in alphabetical order from left to right, as can be seen by reference to chart 9, where it appears that Essex and Richmond were formed from Rappahannock in 1692; that Berkeley and Dunmore were formed from Frederick in 1772; and that Warren and Clarke, formed from different parentcounties in 1836, are on the same chronological line, though not in alphabetical order, for reasons which have been given. In naming the parent-county in cases where portions of several counties were initially utilized to form the new county, only the name of the first county mentioned in the title of the Act has been used, as where Appomattox was formed from Buckingham, Prince Edward, Charlotte and Campbell, in which case the chart (#5) shows only that Appomattox was formed from Buckingham; but in each of these cases an asterisk refers to a note which says, "Initially formed from portions of more than one county, the parent-county here shown being the first one mentioned in the title of the Act of Assembly forming this county: for other counties, portions of which were utilized in the formation of this county, see Part I, Alphabetical Arrangement". Some such arbitrary treatment was necessary in order to evade the alternative of a confused tangle of crossing lines; and the plan adopted gives a direct and unconfused "line of descent" for each of the one hundred and twenty-three counties which were initially formed from but one county (which include the eight original shires; Northumberland, an "original county", which was formed from an indeterminate area called "Chickacoan"; Brunswick, which was formed from an area not named [Prince George]; and Illinois, which was formed from territory "on the western side of the Ohio river" [Augusta], while the twenty-one which were initially formed from portions of two counties, the twenty-three which were initially formed from portions of three counties, and the five which were initially formed from portions of four counties are just as clearly set forth, with an asterisk and the corresponding note which explains that there was more than one parent-county and refers to direct data as to these additional parent-counties. It is a source of the greatest regret to the compiler that the financial condition of the Library prevented the adoption of his suggestion that all these charts be assembled on one chart originating from "Virginia (1607)", which presentation he considered as necessary to a proper exhibition of the relativity of the counties, as is a map of the United States to the same status concerning the several States. ORIGIN OF COUNTY NAMES In the preparation of Part V no account has been taken of conflicting county traditions, nor has any attempt been made to harmonize such traditions with apparently correct interpretations, but an effort has been made to assemble, under an alphabetical arrangement of the county names, the most reliable and concise quotations bearing upon this phase of the subject. Each quotation is immediately followed by a citation of the authority quoted, while additional references,-in alphabetical order,-furnish corroborative and cumulative evidence in support of the quotation actually offered. In cases of widely varying interpretations, these several interpretations have been given,-each with its own citation,-with a view to offering the student the greater scope in connection with this phase of the matter; but where the Acts of Assembly are quoted as to the origin of the name, no corroborative evidence is offered, as there is no appeal from such authority. TEXTS OF ACTS OF ASSEMBLY (CONCERNING COUNTIES) WHICH DO NOT APPEAR IN HENING. On April 20, 1916, Mr. Earl G. Swem, Assistant State Librarian, discovered in the Library a full-text copy of the Acts passed "at a Grand Assembly summoned the 6th Jany. 1639", which Acts appear in Hening (1, 224) only in the most abridged form,-one of which (see chap. i, below) defines the bounds of Isle of Wight, Upper Norfolk and Lower Norfolk counties; while an Act [concerning the bounds of the counties of Nansemond and Isle of Wight], "passed at the sessions of 1643-1646", is quoted from the "Virginia Magazine of History and Biography", xxiii (July, 1915), 254-5. The Library had before been fortunate enough to locate in the Public Record Office in London original manuscript copies of nine Acts of Assembly (forming counties) which do not appear in Hening, copies of which are here printed in full (Chaps. iii to xi, below) for the first time, so far as we have been able to ascertain. Certain it is that those forming the following counties appear in Hening by title only, under the references cited: Prince George, passed August 25, 1702 (Hening iii, 223) while the following are not even mentioned by title in Hening (vols. 5 and 6): Culpeper, passed March 23, 1748; The notes appended to the titles of these Acts (Chaps. iii to xi) carry the references current in the Public Record Office in London. It is hoped that these full-text copies will be of interest to those who are preparing histories of the counties referred to. BIBLIOGRAPHY This bibliography in a way follows the plan of the preface as a whole, in that there is a "general" group, which contains the various official collections of information touching all the counties in a greater or less degree, while there are grouped under the name of each of the counties such additional titles as the Library contains (as of October 1, 1915) which relate to that particular county,-these county groups being based directly upon Assistant State Librarian Earl G. Swem's "Bibliography of Virginia, Part I" (Virginia State Library Bulletin, vol. 8, # 2-3-4, April-July-October, 1915), to which acknowledgment is hereby gratefully made, and to which the student is referred for fuller and more detailed data than are here given. As the Library does not contain separate histories of all the counties resulting from Virginia legislation which are now in other jurisdictions, there have been utilized in those cases such available histories of Kentucky and West Virginia as seem to contain the desired information, although bearing the titles of state histories; and in the case of Yohogania County recourse has been had to a history of Westmoreland County in western Pennsylvania. |