Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

One cannot but be struck by the fact that there are at least fourteen counties in the present State of Virginia of which not a single separate title is now available in the Library; and it is hoped that this presentation of the paucity of such material will stimulate others to add to this alltoo-meagre collection.

Such a compilation,-based, as it is, upon data collected from scattered sources and from various localities,-would, of course, have been an impossibility in so short a time were it not for the liberal assistance of those who were in a position to aid. Hence it is pleasing to make grateful acknowledgment to Dr. H. R. McIlwaine, State Librarian, for generous co-operation (and especially in connection with the maps), and for helpful criticisms to Assistant State Librarian, Earl G. Swem, for his kindly encouragement, ever-constant co-operation, and unstinted suggestions of guidance and value: to Mr. W. W. Scott, State Law Librarian; Mr. William G. Stanard, Secretary of the Virginia Historical Society; Mr. William Clayton Torrence, Secretary of the Valentine Museum, and to Dr. Lyon G. Tyler, President of the College of William and Mary and Editor of the "William and Mary Quarterly", for critical examinations of Part V (Origin of County Names) and for adopted suggestions in connection therewith and to the last of these for generous aid in connection with the introduction: to Dr. Thomas L. Watson, State Geologist, for geological data: to the Hon. John W. Williams, Clerk of the House of Delegates, for correct interpretations of Acts of Assembly forming counties, and the more especially for the assistance afforded by his "Index to Enrolled Bills", without which the completeness of this BULLETIN would have been well-nigh impossible: to Mr. David I. Bushnell, jr., of the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, for data concerning the county names of Indian origin: to the following persons and officials for extracts from and data concerning the records of their several counties, as stated in the respective notes,-Hon. W. C. Burnham, Clerk of Warwick; Hon. M. E. Bristow of Gloucester, for data concerning the records of Middlesex; Mr. James H. Corbitt, of Nansemond; Judge R. T. W. Duke, jr., and Mr. Allan W. Perkins, of Albemarle; Hon. C. W. Eastman, Clerk of Middlesex; Hon. John D. Grant, jr., Clerk of Accomack; Hon. Henry S. Green, State Historian and Archivist of West Virginia, for data concerning the Virginia counties which are now in West Virginia; Hon. George P. Haw, Commonwealth's Attorney of Hanover; Hon. George W. Herring, Clerk of Stafford; the late Mr. William H. Hill and the Hon. Robert Turnbull, of Brunswick; Hon. H. H. Holt, Clerk of Elizabeth City; Hon. T. T. Hudgins, Clerk of York; Miss Sally Jackson, Librarian of the Kentucky State Historical Society, for data concerning the Virginia counties which are now in Kentucky; Hon. B. 0). James, Secretary of the Commonwealth, for data concerning the records of Norfolk County; Mrs. J. O. James, of Petersburg, for a copy of the proceedings of the first court of Brunswick; Hon. A. S. Johnson, Clerk of Isle of Wight; Hon. H. B. McLemore, Clerk of Southampton; Hon. Alvah H. Martin, Clerk of Norfolk County; Mr. Oren F. Morton, of Union, W. Va., for data concerning Virginia counties which are now in West Virginia; Hon. J. B. Raines, Clerk of Rich

* Bland, Buchanan, Carroll, Craig, Dickenson, Floyd, Giles, Greene, Lee, Nelson, Patrick, Pulaski, Rappahannock (1833) and Russell.

mond County; Hon. Thomas B. Robertson, of Northampton, for data concerning the records of Accomack; Judge Frederick W. Sims, of Louisa ; Hon. Harrison Southworth, Clerk of Essex; Hon. W. D. Temple, Clerk of Prince George; Mr. William Clayton Torrence, of Richmond City, for data concerning the origin of Brunswick; Dr. Lyon G. Tyler, of Williamsburg, for data concerning the origin of eight of the earlier counties*; Hon. A. T. Wiatt, Clerk of Gloucester; Hon. W. W. Woodward, of Elizabeth City, for data concerning the records of Middlesex: to Miss Virginia E. Jones, of the Library Staff, for general assistance, and the more especially for the preparation of the Texts (Part VI) and the Bibliography (Part VII): and to Miss Anna M. Bolton and Miss Lucy T. Throckmorton, of the Apprentice Class of the Library, for verifying the references. And, by 20 means least, to the Hon. Armistead C. Gordon, Chairman, and the gentlemen of the Library Board, for furthering the suggestion that the data in the original report to the War Department be used as the basis for a BULLETIN of the Library.

The following abbreviations appear in the text:

A.: Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia for the session indicated.
Brock: R. A. Brock's "Virginia and Virginians".

Collins: Collins's "History of Kentucky" (1878).

E (superior): resulted from Virginia legislation, but now extinct, as shown by accompanying dates.

Green: Green's "Word Book of Virginia Folk Speech" (1912).

H.: Hening's "Statutes at Large".

H. A. I.: "Handbook of American Indians" (Bureau of Ethnology`
Bulletin 30: 1907).

H. B.: "Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1619-1776 (Virginia State
Library 1905-1915).

J.: "Journal of the House" (Burgesses or Delegates, as the case may
be, as interpreted in the note on the subject in the "General"
section of the Preface, p. 12).

K (superior): resulted from Virginia legislation, but now in Kentucky.
Lewis: Virgil A. Lewis's "History of West Virginia" (1889).
Long: Charles M. Long's "Virginia County Names" (1908).
S.: Shepherd's "Statutes at Large" (continuation of Hening).

U. S.: United States Geological Survey, Bulletin 258 (1905).

U. S. Stats.: "United States Statutes at Large".

W (superior): resulted from Virginia legislation, but now in West
Virginia.

MORGAN POITIAUX ROBINSON,

Virginia State Library, Richmond, Va.,

July 1, 1916.

• Charles City, Gloucester, Lancaster, Middlesex, Northumberland, Rappahannock, Surry, and Westmoreland.

[ocr errors]

BEING A RUNNING SKETCH, SETTING FORTH HOW SUNDRY ENGLISHMEN, -TRANSPLANTED INTO THE WILDERNESS OF VIRGINIA AND BRINGING WITH THEM THEIR LAWS, RELIGION, USAGES, CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS,- —GRADUALLY EVOLVED CERTAIN POLITICAL AND CIVIL UNITS, WHICH IN TURN BECAME THE BASES OF THE COUNTIES OF THE PRESENT DAY, AS THE POPULATION INCREASED FROM DECADE TO DECADE. IT IS BASED DIRECTLY UPON THE DETAILED ACCOUNT IN STITH'S "HISTORY OF VIRGINIA", SUPPLEMENTED BY THE SOURCES CITED IN THE BIB

LIOGRAPHY AT THE END OF THIS INTRODUCTION.

On May 13, 1607,-after a voyage of something over four months and a sojourn of several days at Cape Henry after the landing there on Apri 26, the one hundred and five colonists*, who were to found the first permanent English settlement in North America, cast anchor off Jamestown Island, Virginia, in their three vessels,-the ship, Sarah Constant† (one hundred tons), Captain Christopher Newport; the ship, Goodspeed† (forty tons), Captain Bartholomew Gosnold; and the pinnace, Discovery† (twenty tons), Captain John Ratcliffe.

After disembarkation (on the 14th), the first thoughts of the colonists were of gratitude for a safe passage through the terrors of the uncharted ocean, which the witch-craft imagination of the period filled with squirming masses of indescribable monsters; and for this purpose, there was hung from the trees an old sail-cloth, under which the Rev. Robert Hunt led in prayer, and so the thanks of our forefathers at Jamestown first went up to God:

"the awning made of an old sail hung to three or four trees; the seats from unhewn trees; the bar of wood between two of them for a pulpit; later the old rotten tent; and then later still a homely thing like a barn, set with crotchetts, covered with rafts, sedge and earth', and 'yet we had daily common prayer, morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons, and every three months the holy communion, till our minister (the Rev. Mr. [Robert] Hunt) died; but our prayers daily, with homily on Sundays, we continued two or three years, till more preachers came' all make a graphic picture of the first religious exercises in the wilderness".‡

* Arber's "Travels and Works of Captain John Smith", pp. lxx, cxxix. While Purchas' "Pilgrims",, ed. 1705, iv, p. 1625, gives the names as Susan Constant and Godspeed, with no name for the pinnace, to which the name "Discoverer" is often attributed, yet we find that Brown and Neill quote the original official documents which carry the names "Sarah Constant", "Goodspeed" and for the pinnace, "Discovery" (Brown's "Genesis", i, pp. 76, 85; "First Republic", p. 22; Neill's "History of the Virginia Company of London", p. 5), though it must be confessed that Neill's own text (p. 15) follows Purchas, except that he gives the name "Discovery" to the pinnace in spite of the fact that the quotation on p. 5 has it otherwise. See also Tyler's "Cradle of the Republic" (1906), pp. 8-9.

Barton's "Virginia Colonial Decisions", i, p. 77.

Amongst the "Instructions by way of Advice for the intended Voyage to Virginia", were these:*

"When it shall please God to send you to the coast of Virginia, you shall do your best endeavour to find out a safe port in the entrance of some navigable river, making choice of such a one as runneth farthest into the land, and if you happen to discover divers portable rivers, and amongst them any one that hath two main branches, make choice of that which bendeth most toward the sea.

When you have made choice of the river on which you mean to settle, be not hasty in landing your victuals and munitions; but first let Captain Newport discover how far that river may be found navigable,

* *

You must observe if you can, whether the river on which you plant doth spring out of the mountains or out of lakes. If it be out of any lake, the passage to the other sea will be more easy, and [it] is like enough, that out of the same lake you shall find some spring which run[s] the contrary way towards the East India Sea; for the great and famous rivers of Volga, Tan[a]is and Dwina have three heads near joyn[e]d; and yet one falleth into the Caspian Sea, the other into the Euxine Sea, and the third into the Paelonian Sea".

Immediately the work of home and defense were organized, and, in accordance with these instructions, Captain Newport set out from Jamestown on a voyage of discovery on May the 21st, accompanied by five gentlemen,† four mariners,‡ and fourteen sailors,|| explored the Powhatan (James) River to the Falls (14th Street and Mayo's Bridge in the present City of Richmond) and on Whit Sunday, May the 24th (June the 3rd, N. S.)¶ "upon one of the little Isletts at the mouth of the falls he sett up a Crosse with the inscription 'Iacobus Rex 1607' and his owne name below";i on which occasion they named the stream "King's River". Then they started the return trip to Jamestown, rather than displease Powhatan by making an exploration into the country of his enemies, the Monacans

* Arber's "Travels and Works of Captain John Smith", i, pp. xxxiii-xxxv. † George Percy, esq. Captaine Gabriel Archer, Captaine Ihon Smyth, Master Ihon Brookes, Master Thomas Wotton. (Arber's "John Smith", i, xli).

ffrancys Nellson, John Collson, Robert Tyndall, Mathew ffytch. (Ibid.)

|| Ionas Poole, Robert Markham, Iohn Crookdeck, Olyver Browne, Beniamyn White, Rychard Genoway, Thomas Turnbrydge, Thomas Godword, Robert Iackson, Charles Clarke, Stephen, Thomas Skynner, Iremy Deale Danyell. (Ibid.) Charles Campbell's "History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia", 1860, p. 42, erroneously says, "On the day of their arrival, the tenth of June, the party visited the falls, which probably accounts for the fact that this erroneous date of the tenth of June is the more generally accepted one.

"

This error on the part of Campbell seems to have resulted in a queer custom; for, while we celebrate May the 13th (an old Style date) as the anniversary of the landing at Jamestown, yet we also celebrate June the 10th (a new Style date) as the anniversary of the first visit of white men to the Falls of James River,-thus putting these anniversaries twenty-eight days apart, though the actual events were only eleven days apart. This discrepancy of seventeen days is accounted for by Campbell's error of seven days and by the difference of ten days between the Old and the New Style.

tt Arber's "John Smith", i, xlvi, lxix.

>

« VorigeDoorgaan »