HOW JUSTICE GREW

Virginia Counties: An Abstract
of Their Formation

By
Martha W. Hiden
Member of Executive Board of
Virginia Historical Society

Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation
Williamsburg, Virginia
1957

COPYRIGHT©, 1957 BY
VIRGINIA 350TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
CORPORATION, WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

Jamestown 350th Anniversary
Historical Booklet, Number 19

HOW JUSTICE GREW

Virginia Counties: An Abstract
of Their Formation

In addition to their human cargo, the poultry and fruit acquired in the West Indies, the clothing, household gear, and other possessions of the passengers, the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery had a large though imponderable cargo of English laws, customs and religion. The colonists had left England, neither driven out nor seeking escape, but to found a new England in a new world.

Though the seat of government was at "King James His Towne," the natural curiosity to explore and the economic necessity for means of livelihood caused settlements to spring up farther and farther away. Despite the fact that the colonists were in a region where rivers and numerous streams afforded easy transportation interrupted only for short periods by ice in winter, attendance at court in Jamestown was burdensome.

The Four Corporations

By 17 June 1617, Governor Samuel Argall had established the four great divisions of the colony, namely: "the incorporations and parishes of James City, Charles City, Henrico and Kikotan" (later Elizabeth City). The Eastern Shore settlements were not included in this division.

Each of the incorporations mentioned above and the Eastern Shore contained one or more boroughs or settlements. Eleven of the settlements in the four incorporations were represented by two Burgesses each, in the first General Assembly. This, the first legislative assembly of English speaking people in the Western hemisphere, convened on 30 July 1619 in the church at Jamestown. Itself based on the English Parliament as a model, it became the model followed by all succeeding British colonies including Australia. The colonial assembly next in age to Virginia's is that of Bermuda established in 1620. In the Journals of the House of Burgesses, the names of the Burgesses for the 1619 Assembly are arranged by the cities and plantations they represented. In the Journal of the second Assembly that is extant, 1623/24, for the first and only time, the plantations are grouped under the corporations of which they were a part, except Eastern Shore, which, as has been noted, was a separate entity.

In 1621, a charter from the Company confirmed former grants and provided "that the Governor should call the General Assembly once a year, and initiate the policy of the form of government, laws, customs, manner of trial and other administration of justice used in England." Governor Wyatt at the same time was ordered to make arrangements for "dividing the colony into cities, boroughs, etc., ... and to appoint proper times for administration ... and law suits." William Stith in his History of Virginia states: "Inferior courts were therefore in the beginning of the year 1621 appointed in convenient places to relieve the Governor and Council of the vast burthen of business and to render justice more cheap and accessible. This was the original and foundation of our County Courts, although the country was not yet laid off in counties."

The General Assembly of 1623/24 provided "that there shall be courts kept once a month in the corporations of Charles City and Elizabeth City for the deciding of suits and controversies not exceeding the value of one hundred pounds of tobacco and for punishing of petty offenses." As a consequence of this act, the question of the metes and bounds of these corporations, Charles City, Henrico, Elizabeth City and James City, became important, since suits must perforce be instituted in the court having jurisdiction over that particular area. Mr. Nathaniel C. Hale, in his interesting book on William Claiborne called Virginia Venturer, shows that William Claiborne in 1621, was appointed a surveyor for the colony and comments that heretofore boundaries of land had been located with ungraduated mariners' compasses and described by careless references to natural limits.

Apparently the Jamestown Court with those of Charles City and Elizabeth City was adequate for several years, but in February 1631/32 the Assembly passed an act adding five more as follows: "for the upper parts"; "for Warwick River; for Warrosquyoake; for Elizabeth City; for Accawmacke." Presumably, since the order had been that the new courts were to be held "in remote parts of the colony," the phrase "upper parts" would mean the most western part of Henrico Corporation, and the Elizabeth City Court would be for the south side of Hampton Roads. This seems logical since the north side had been settled first, was more populous and was not remote from Jamestown.

The Eight Original Shires

But the colony was growing too fast for this arrangement to continue adequate for long. With a population of about 5,000 persons, the time for division into shires or counties was at hand. It may be noted that, though these units were designated as shires in the Act of the General Assembly creating them, they were, after that, always called counties. Their functions were the same as those of their English prototypes, but conditions here required two changes which will be mentioned later.

The names of the four corporations, Charles City, Henrico, James City and Elizabeth City were kept for four of the newly created counties, but their areas were lessened. The four new divisions were: Warwick River, later called Warwick; Warrosquyoake, later Isle of Wight; Charles River, later changed to York, and Accomack which embraced all the settlements on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

The tender feeling for the homeland is evidenced by the fact that six out of the "eight original shires," as they are generally called, bore names reminiscent of England. Henrico perpetuated Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I whose early death made even more difficult the first years of the Colony. Charles City honored his brother Charles, later Charles I, who combined, to his undoing, the charm and obstinacy of the Stuarts. Elizabeth City and the river of the same name derive from Princess Elizabeth, the oldest sister of Henry and Charles. She married Frederick, for a time King of Bohemia, but later overthrown and exiled. Though her life was bitter and tragic, her descendants since 1714 have occupied the throne of Britain. James City was, of course, for King James I, of whom it was said that his instructors had given him an abundance of knowledge but had been unable to give him sense. Warwick's name was for Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, leader of one of the factions of the Virginia Company, who had founded and cared for the colony. He belonged to the "Court Party" which wished to continue martial law in the colony and opposed the liberal views of Sir Edwin Sandys and the Earl of Southampton. For awhile the Sandys faction was in control and the "Great Charter