WOLF HUNTERS ON THE VIRGINIA FRONTIER, 1776-1818 [bounty lists & certificates from Amherst, Augusta, Bath, Botetourt, Grayson, Greenbrier, Hampshire, Hardy, Mopntgomery, Patrick, Pendleton, Rockbridge, Russell, Shenandoah, Washington, and Wythe counties [dates vary] transcribed & edited by Karen Wagner Treacy. 8 1/2 x 11, vi, 169 pages, full name index.
Locating an ancestor on the Virginia frontier in the late colonial and early republican period can be a daunting task. As the historian and archivist Robert Clay once remarked in a lecture, an individual he was researching in Virginia’s frontier region "appeared in a random document one morning, fully grown, and disappeared the following morning never to be heard from again.”
Oftentimes, early frontiersmen created few records and left little trace of their passing. Nowhere is this more evident than in the rapidly changing frontier west of the Blue Ridge. Starting with a trickle of settlers, there probably were no more than 160 families residing west of the mountains by 1735. By 1776 and the American Revolution, the number of settlers had grown to tens of thousands, attracted by the rich soils and pasture lands of the Shenandoah Valley and beyond, into Kentucky.
As the new government sought to bring order to the region, parent counties like Augusta and Lunenburg, which originally were little more than artificial lines when first drawn by surveyors in the wilderness, underwent division and subdivision into smaller political units to accomodate the new settlers. The trio of counties on Virginia’s frontier in the early 1740s [Frederick, Augusta, Lunenburg] would be divided and further subdivided over the next seven decades into more than sixty political units.
Author Karen Treacy has discovered an enlightening and unexpected record in the bounty system for wolf hunters. Early farmers and herders sought legislative relief from the scourge of wolf packs. The Virginia legislature responded by establishing the bounty system. In a time when an average laborer’s earning was $6-10/month, the $1 to $6 or 100# tobacco from a wolf scalp (depending on the currency and inflation of the time) was an attractive economic draw for every class of frontiersman, even those constantly moving folk mentioned by Clay.
This book is an important record not only for the two and a half thousand individuals cited but also for a valuable historical window into the activities and growth of Virginia’s frontier society.
To view a digital copy (pdf) of the index to this book, visit Index-Bounty Lists
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[WOLF] $34.95
Hampshire County,Virginia 1810 Federal Census: A Transcription with index
John Vogt, 2010, x, 43 pp., 8x10 format, illustrations, maps, full name index. A faithful and accurate transcription of the first surviving census for this Virginia county.
To view a digital copy (pdf) of the index to this book, visit Index-1810-Hamp
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[Hamp10] $11.00 (printed version)
The above title is also available as a digital e-book in PDF format:
[EHamp10] $8.00 (electronic version)
ABSTRACTS OF VIRGINIA's NORTHERN NECK (LAND) WARRANTS & SURVEYS, 1697-1784 (HAMPSHIRE, BERKELEY, LOUDOUN, FAIRFAX, KING GEORGE, WESTMORELAND, RICHMOND, NORTHUMBERLAND AND LANCASTER COUNTIES) by Peggy Shomo Joyner.
1987, xv, 225 pp. Published as the fourth and last volume in a series of Northern Neck Warrants & Surveys, this collection has become a standard reference work for researchers in the period of colonial Virginia history.
Contents:
Hampshire, 1750-1784 (pp. 1-78); Berkeley (1734), 1750-1781 (pp. 79-96); Loudoun, (1729), 1744-1779 (pp. 97-104); Fairfax, (1697), 1739-1779 (pp. 105-120); King George, (1667), 1722-1770 (pp. 121-127); Westmoreland, (1650), 1722-1778 (pp. 129-134); Richmond, (1662), 1697-1778 (pp. 135-140); Northumberland, (1653), 1719-1750 (pp. 141-142); Lancaster, (1664), 1723-1756 (p. 143); Guy Broadwater Surveys, 1749 (pp. 145-150);
Miscellaneous Wills from Land Office Records, 1656-1840 (pp. 151-160); Jonathan Clark Notebook (Improvements in the Northern Neck), 1786 (pp. 161-186); Placename index, name index.
The Northern Neck Proprietary, also called the Fairfax Proprietary, or Fairfax Grant, was a land grant first created by the exiled English King Charles II in 1649 and encompassing all the lands bounded by the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers in colonial Virginia. This constituted up to 5,200,000 acres of Virginia's Northern Neck and a vast area northwest of it.
The grant became actual in 1660 when Charles was restored to the English throne. By 1719, these lands had been inherited by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1693-1781). By that time the question of the boundaries of the designated lands had also become highly contentious. It was decided in 1746 that a line between the sources of the North Branch of the Potomac and the Rappahannock River (the "Fairfax Line") would constitute the western limit of Lord Fairfax's lands. The early 17th century decade was witnessing a wave of pioneer settlement throughout the region.
To obtain land a person purchased a warrant from the proprietor's agent specifying the precise location of the desired land. The warrant was then given to a surveyor, who surveyed the land. The plat, warrant, and any related papers were returned to the proprietor's office, and if the title was clear, a grant was recorded and then issued. At any point after the warrant was purchased the land could be assigned (sold) to another person, and years could elapse between the purchase of the warrant and the issuance of a grant.
The volume is arranged first by county, then alphabetic by grantee. Please note: The index provided at the end of the volume contains only those persons whose reference occurs outside the alphabetic listing in the volume. It is NOT a complete index of names or places.
Surname list
[Nnw4] $27.00
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[ENNW4] $20.00 electronic version; please note: this is a large .pdf file and will be sent as a .zip file.
Hampshire Co. 1815 Directory of Landowners
by Roger G. Ward. 2005. 58 pages, map, 5 1/2X8 1/2.
For a full description of the 1815 LAND DIRECTORY Records and a listing of available counties, see combined volume below
[Vd37] $11.00
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[EVd37] $8.00 (electronic version)
1815 DIRECTORY OF VIRGINIA LANDOWNERS & GAZETTEER, vol. Northwest Region
(Includes the counties of Berkeley, Brooke, Cabell, Hampshire, Hardy, Harrison, Jefferson, Kanawha, Mason, Monongalia, Ohio, Pendleton, Randolph, Tyler, and Wood ) abstracted by Roger G. Ward. 1997, vi, 232 pages, indices, maps.
In 1782 the General Assembly of Virginia enacted new tax laws which
created within each county an enumeration of land and certain personal property. These
early land tax laws required a tax commissioner in each district of a county to record a
list of the names of persons owning land or town lots, the quantity of land owned and its
value, and the amount of tax owed. By 1813, a brief geographic description (usually
citing an adjacent stream, road, or other landmark) was required; in 1814, the distance
and direction from the courthouse for each parcel was also added to the tax rolls.
The present work is an alphabetical listing of all 1815 landowners found in
each county, as well as the accompanying description of the location of the said property.
We have not included the number of acres, taxes assessed, or any transactions between
landowners which may have been noted on the tax rolls; also, in many cases the
geographic location was provided as "adjacent to John Smith", etc. and, while useful many
times to a genealogist, was considered to be beyond the objectives of this project. The
reader is encouraged to consider the information here-in as an "outline" of early
landowners in Virginia rather than a "text" due to the year-to-year variation in
information provided to the clerk (or recorded by the clerk), omissions, lack of
"identifiers" to determine if "same name" was also "same person" within a district or
across districts, marginal quality/clarity (in a few cases) of the microfilm copy, and, not
least, errors on the part of either the original clerks or the current author while
transcribing.
Some of the approaches to utilizing the 1815 landowner information include:-
observe distinct clusters of the same surname within a county in order to clarify
the common surnames such as "Smith", "Anderson", etc;
- identify non-resident landowners and their county (or state) of residence (these
people often being former residents of the current county);
- determine neighbors with different surnames (often being relatives);
- use the 1815 information as a "bridge" from the 18th and 19th century deed/will
books to the 17th and 18th century land grants/patents in the county;
- evaluate the 1810 to 1840 census information which generally grouped
neighbors;
- substitute this information for missing deed/will books in the "burned" counties;
and, clarify/enhance vague deed/will information in the counties with more complete
records.
FORMAT OF PRESENTATION: Each entry is listed as: Surname,
name,
personal identifiers (if any); location/place-name of land; miles/direction from the 1815
courthouse. If multiple owners are listed for a property, the listing is duplicated under
each of the owner's surnames (i.e "Smith and Brown" is also listed as "Brown, --see
Smith"); when multiple owners share a common surname, the property is only listed
once. When a landowner had land at more than one location/place-name, the
miles/direction listing for each parcel is in the same sequence as the location listing (i.e.
James RV, Slate CK; 12N, 5SW.). In the few cases where a landowner had "many"
parcels, the miles/direction notation is attached to the location listing (i.e. Sandy RV-
5NE, Willow CK-7S, etc.)
[Vdl6] $32.00 (paper version)
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[EVDL-6] $20.00 (electronic version)
Hampshire Co. Revolutionary Public Claims
transcribed by Janice L. Abercrombie and Richard Slatten.. 2005. 37 pages, 5 1/2X8 1/2.
For a full description of the Virginia Revolutionary Public Claims and a listing of available counties, see:
Revolutionary "Publick" Claims series
To view a digital copy (pdf) of the index to this book, visit Index-Hamp
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[Pc30] $6.00 (printed version)
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[EPc30] $3.50 (electronic version)
For records pertaining to Hampshire COUNTY, VIRGINIA see:
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Settlers had come to the region of the future county about 1735 and by 1740 there already were small settlements along the south branch of the Potomac. Hampshire County was formed in 1754 from parts of Augusta and Frederick counties. It is the oldest county in the present state of West Virginia and probably was named for the English shire. Although the enabling legislation for the new county dates from 1754, the border unrest of the French and Indian War delayed the formal organization of the county until 1757.
In its original configuration, the new county included the present counties of Hardy, Mineral, and Grant, and portions of Morgan and Pendleton. In 1777 Augusta gave additional lands to Hampshire. In 1785 Hardy County was created from Hampshire land, but two years later, part of Hardy was returned to Hampshire's administration. In 1820 Morgan County was formed in part from Hampshire territory. Mineral County was wholly formed from Hampshire in 1866, and Mineral received additional lands from its parent county in 1868 (Mill Creek Township). This 1868 addition was repealed in 1872 and the lines returned to their 1866 position.
Although the new county was set to convene its first court in May, 1754, the opening battles of the French and Indian War, with General Braddock's disastrous defeat the following year, delayed Hampshire's courts. Most of the populace fled eastward to Frederick County as the Indian depredations increased. It was not until 1757 that the county began to function uninterrupted. By 1762 the court had been moved from its original site at Piersall's Flats to the new neighboring town of Romney, which became the county seat.
Hampshire suffered a severe records loss during the Civil War as the courthouse was occupied by Union cavalry and used as a stable, and some of the records evacuated earlier by wagon to Frederick County for safekeeping were scattered or lost.