But travel overland was still difficult, and settlement centered along the rivers because transportation and trade there were easier. Settlement pushed substantially inland to the Piedmont from the Tidewater (coastal) area between 1725 and 1750 (Virginia Department of Transportation, 6). "Three primary factors drove the creation of most new counties in Virginia's early colonial period: increasing population, new land for tobacco fields and the difficulty of travel"
(http://essexmuseum.org/history-county.htm).
The population of Virginia in 1730 was 114,000. By 1760, it had nearly tripled, to 340,000 (http://www.virginiahistoryseries.org/linked/unit%206.%20life.growth.development%20of%20va%20colony.slides.pdf).
For much of the colonial period, tobacco was currency: "As gold and silver became scarce, and the use of wampum was terminated because of its complications, the Chesapeake colonies were able to rely on tobacco as a means of currency. Tobacco was the safest and most stable currency that the Chesapeake colonies had or could have, and it always had a value in exchange for gold" (http://archive.tobacco.org/History/colonialtobacco.html; see also Scharf 1879, 273).
The tobacco crops exhausted "minerals and nutrients from the soil. The first Virginia colonists to acquire ownership of land were positioned to gain great wealth, permitting them to abandon old fields and plant in fresh soil that would produce great quantities of the crop" (www.virginiaplaces.org/agriculture/tobacco.html). There was thus a constant demand for uncultivated acreage. Since 500-pound hogsheads of tobacco were often manually rolled to shipping docks in this time, proximal access to navigable waterways was optimum. Prime acreage, with both fertile soil and shipping access, was to be found along the area's navigable waterways.
What also drove development into the Piedmont were the public desire to defend the frontier and substantial incentives for settlement:
The policy of the colonial government at this time was to encourage settlements on the upper waters of the Rappahannock to protect the frontiers of the colony against Indian incursions and from French settlers "to the westward of the high mountains". Lands, therefore, were not only granted freely, but when Spotsylvania County was formed in 1721, money was appropriated to supply the new settlers with arms and ammunition, and they were exempted from taxation for a period of ten years (Groome 1921, 22).The ten-year, tax-exempt period for ten years began May 1, 1721. In addition, 500 pounds were approved for the building of the church, court house, prison, pillory, and stocks, which relieved the imposition of these tax burdens from the Spotsylvania citizens (Hening 1820, 78).
Names and extents of Virginia colonial counties evolved constantly during this period. In 1644, York County covered an large area of the Tidewater and Piedmont areas of Virginia. In 1651, Gloucester was created from York, and in 1654, New Kent was created from York. In 1691, King and Queen was created from part of New Kent. Essex County was created in 1692 from Rappahannock County. In 1721, Spotsylvania County was created from Essex County, King and Queen County, and King William County. In January 1734/35, Orange County was created from Spotsylvania. Orange County originally extended farther westward, including all of present Kentucky and West Virginia. Culpeper County was created from Orange County in 1749.
As one example of how these changes affected particular places, a relatively small area known as the Great Fork of the Rappahannock River, where my ancestor John Read bought property in 1730, was located in eight different counties over a 150-year period--Charles River, York, Lancaster, Rappahannock, Essex, Orange, Spotsylvania, and Culpeper.
Two "wrinkles in time" were corrected in this era. The Julian calendar had drifted by 11 days from the solar calendar, and from the 12th century to 1752, the civil or legal year in England began on March 25th. For a period of 170 years (1582 – 1752), both dating systems were in concurrent use in different parts of Western Europe and its colonies. The conversion caused some days in winter to be noted with two years. While "Old Style" (O.S.) and "New Style" (N.S.) are sometimes added to historical dates to identify which system is being used, and an occasional date is written, for example, 1715/6, dates are somewhat soft as data in this period of time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates).
The primogeniture customs were still in effect in Virginia at this time. Under primogeniture, an eldest son would automatically inherit real property, the land and buildings of an estate, unless otherwise devised in a deceased person's will. No specific mention of title transfers under primogeniture would usually be made in the court records of the estate. If the inherited real property was later sold, for instance, documents would be on record, but the actual inheritance would be invisible, leaving no paper trail (Keim 1968).
Entail or fee tail was a form of restricted ownership of land, where the terms of a legal document, as in a will, could bind property in perpetuity to heirs to restrict conveyance. Entail was different from fee simple property ownership, where property could be sold, mortgaged, or devised without such restrictions. Often the entail was done to protect a surviving wife and children and to keep property in a family's hands. This meant that entailed real property could not be sold, mortgaged, leased, or otherwise devised by will after that without further court or assembly action, also known as docking. In 1705, the Virginia Assembly voted to stop the docking of entails, and they no longer could be converted to fee simple by court action (Keim 1968, 546). Exceptions to this happened, however, by Act of the Assembly. In 1776, fee tail was abolished by statute in Virginia (548-549).
Because the historical fusion of church and state still prevailed in this era, Virginia counties were organized into parishes. Church attendance was mandatory, taxes were collected by the churches, and "[e]very male inhabitant over sixteen was tithable" (Clark 1908, 28). Under order of the courts, individual parishes determined and collected tithes, taxes from individuals, to support the parish. Levies of tithes were based on property ownership and agricultural production, particularly of tobacco. During this time, tobacco was also used as a form of currency in Virginia.
Virginia legislation "required each man in the colony to work on the roads a given number of days each year" (Virginia Department of Transportation 2006, 5) or to have someone work on the roads in his place, unless aged or disabled.
Processioning was also a requirement mandated by the courts through the parishes. Surveys laying the initial property boundaries were often incorrect or contested. Once every four years within a range of dates, properties were to be walked by adjacent landowners in order to clarify boundaries between the properties and to avoid litigation. This was to be supervised by two freeholders who saw and reported on the processioning. Conflicts were to be resolved by two surveyors. Once processioned three times, boundaries were deemed to be fixed in perpetuity (http://www.genfiles.com/legal/Processioning.htm).
Members of new parish vestries were elected by parish-wide votes, but the vestry members chose later replacements on the vestry council. They were most often wealthy men, who wielded the power to set the local parish levies annually. In regard to the taxes levied by the individual counties, if "county residents thought that the county levy was set too high, they had little recourse other than to move away . . . That tax increase could generate resentment among the large number of taxpayers who paid the levy" (http://www.virginiaplaces.org/taxes/taxcolonial.html).
Land patents were one basis of land acquisition in Virginia. A person could claim responsibility, called headrights, for sponsoring Virginia immigrants, and receive a per land grant, generally 50 acres per capita, of available land (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/opac/lonnabout.htm). There could be a requirement that granted property be seated, settled and planted, within three years or the land patent would be voided (e.g., Hening 1823, 313-314). The record of these acquisitions could also appear in later public records such as wills or deeds when the property changed hands. Manipulation of the headright system, including fraud, was common. The system fell into disuse sometime after 1732 (http://genealogytrails.com/vir/land_patents_book15.html).
In 1649, an area of 5,282,000 acres, including the Northern Neck, was granted in its entirety as the Northern Neck Proprietary by the exiled King Charles II to some of his loyal supporters. This countermanded the authority of the Virginia colonial government, which had continued to issue its own land grants, throwing the status of preexisting land patents in the Northern Neck into confusion. Despite the king's grant, however, patents continued to be issued in the Northern Neck by the Colony of Virginia. The Northern Neck Proprietary became actuality after Charles II was restored to the throne, and King James II eventually reissued the grant. Thomas Lord Culpeper eventually acquired a majority interest in the title to the proprietary. After Lord Culpeper's death, Culpeper's interest passed to his heirs, including his daughter, Katherine, and son-in-law, Thomas Lord Fairfax, who subsequently initiated land grants in that Northern Neck area. The status of the original patents made by the Colony of Virginia was ultimately reaffirmed (Groome 1921, 19–20).
With the advent of the Fairfax grants, neither seating nor headrights were required for land grants in the Northern Neck.
References
Clark, W. M., ed. 1908. Colonial Churches in the Original Colony of Virginia. 2nd ed. Richmond, VA: Southern Churchman. Accessed September 28, 2013. http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924005835842/cu31924005835842_djvu.txt.
Groome, H. C. 1921. Northern Neck Lands. In Bulletin, Fauquier Historical Society, 1:7-65. Warrenton, VA / Richmond, VA: Fauquier Historical Society / Old Dominion Press. Accessed September 29, 2013. http://archive.org/details/bulletin00vagoog.
Hening, William Waller. 1820. The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619. Vol. 4. Richmond, VA: Samuel Pleasants, Junior, Printer. Accessed September 29, 2013. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009714930.
Keim, C. Ray. 1968. Primogeniture and Entail in Colonial Virginia. William and Mary Quarterly 25, no. 4 (October):545-586. Accessed November 3, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1916798.
Scharf, J. Thomas. 1879. History of Maryland: From the Earliest Period to the Present Day. Vol. 1. Baltimore, MD: John B. Piet. Accessed September 25, 2013. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001874049.
Virginia Department of Transportation. 2006. A History of the Roads in Virginia: "The Most Convenient Wayes." Accessed September 24, 2013. http://www.virginiadot.org/about/resources/historyofrds.pdf.
