Caroline County, Virginia Land Books, 1828-1830, District A

A comprehensive treatment of land transactions in Caroline, compiled and abstracted by Ray Campbell. Covers St. Mary's Parish and St. Asaph's [Drysdale] Parish. Indexed.

As the Revolutionary War was winding down and peace negotiations were being held in Paris, the states began to look at their economic prospects and the results of the war. Colonial buying power had dropped by half since 1775 and specie was in extremely short supply. Virginia, like its sister states, was casting in search of permanent sources of revenue for the operation of government.

In 1782 the General Assembly of Virginia enacted a major revision of the tax laws of the commonwealth. The act provided for statewide enumeration on the county level of land and certain personal property. The early land tax law required the tax commissioner in each district to record in “a fair alphabetical list” the names of persons owning land or town lots, the quantity of land owned, the value of the land or lots, and the amount of tax owed. Each tract or lot owned by an individual was to be entered separately.

During the American Revolution, the Committee of Safety for Caroline County divided the county into two districts for defense purposes. District One or A was the area northeast of the Mattapony River (St. Mary’s Parish, formerly Essex County) & Drysdale Parish, (formerly King & Queen County). Additionally, St Asaph’s Parish was created from the upper end of Drysdale in the year, 1781. District Two or B was the area southwest of the Mattapony River (St. Margaret’s Parish, previously King William County, which was a part of King & Queen before its formation). After the American Revolution, the tax rolls for the county carry these designations.

Apparently, the early Commissioners of the Revenue were primarily interested in the total amount of property held, the assessed value and the amount of tax which was due. When additional property was obtained, the Commissioner listed that in a section called the Alterations, which would appear in the year after the transfer occurred. The new acreage was simply added to the old to obtain a total of the proprietor’s holdings. No effort was made to identify the properties in relation to each other. They may have been adjacent to each other, near each other or even miles apart as long as they were in the same district. The author has identified the source for each parcel. His notations carry each parcel individually numbered with a notation as to who sold the parcel (grantor) to the land holder (grantee) as well as the year in which it was sold. When acreage was sold by the land holder, he has subtracted the amount from the total and noted to whom it was sold. Sometimes parcels are sold which contain the same acreage as a tract which was obtained and although it is tempting to assume the acreage is the identical property, there is no way to definitively prove this without some further corroboration. Additional to tracking each parcel, the author has alphabetized the land holders as best available due to the lack of standardized spellings.

AN EXPLANATION of HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

This series was compiled from the microfilm records at the Library of Virginia, Archives Division. Some of the films are of poor quality and others are fine. The original script is fine in some instances and very difficult to decipher in others. Lists of the land owners were made in the following format:

1) The proprietor (owner’s) name has been listed as best as can be determined by the author. Additional notes are sometimes present in brackets [ ] to hopefully clarify points of confusion. Place names are also listed and may be updated in future editions as this work progresses.
2) The year that appears on the original record.
3) Place of residence of the land owner.
4) The type of estate held: Fee simple (owned outright without encumbrances); Life estate (the individual had rights for her or his lifetime and title to the property would pass to another owner upon death of the holder of the life estate); Dower (under English Common Law, the widow of a man who died would receive a life estate in one third of all his property and at her death the property would pass to the dead man’s children in fee simple); Curtsey (under English Common Law, the husband acquired rights to the wife’s property upon the birth of a child capable of inheriting the property; the husband could mortgage or sell the property to satisfy his debts).
5) Number of town lots held.
6) Name of town PR for Port Royal in District A but Oxford was practically defunct by 1813.
[this column was used to insert parcel numbers 1}, 2} for acres received and A}, B}, for acres sold. It was wasted space for all parcels except those in the Town of Port Royal, which could easily share the column.]
7) Acres acquired or sold in a single transaction.
8) To whom property was sold or from whom property was purchased.
9) Description of the buyer or seller of the acres listed in the transaction.
10) Distance and direction from the Court House (From at least 1813 forward the current location of the Circuit Court in the Town of Bowling Green). [Distances and direction vary in some cases. The eight cardinal points of the compass (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) were the only directions used. No allowance was made for minor directional points (NNE, ENE, ESE, SSE, SSW, WSW, WNW, NNW) therefore the researcher may find multiple parcels with the same direction and same distance, but actually be quite some distance apart.]
11) Comments for year property was acquired and connection to a previous owner [added by author] “adjoining or near” from original record.
12) None of the taxation amounts were transcribed. This information, while available, is of little value historically or genealogically. Any statistical historians are welcome to perform continued research in this field.