A history of Caroline county, Virginia :: :: University of Virginia Library

The earliest groups in Colonial Virginia were known as
Plantations, Congregations, Hundreds and Cities. These several
names signified very nearly the same thing. As to the origin of
these first divisions, or groups, but little is known, save that
the hostility of the Indians made it safer for the colonists to
maintain such local organizations for purposes of defense, and
the social and religious life of the people was better served by
such grouping, which gave to every settlement its own house of
worship. The civil and political life also functioned through
these divisions, each group having representation in the General
Assembly. As early as 1619, burgesses were sent to the General
Assembly from "James City," "Captain Ward's Plantation,"
"Stanley Hundred," and other units of the colony, eleven places
all told.

In "The List of the Living on February 16, 1623," as
preserved in the Colonial Records of Virginia, we learn that the
colony contained twenty-four settlements after the fearful massacre
of 1622. The list of burgesses elected to the Assembly of 1629,
discloses the fact that each of the twenty-four settlements had
representation in that body. Immediately after 1629, the Plantations
began to consolidate, and in the next General Assembly
only thirteen groups or Plantations were represented.

LATER DIVISIONS

The Parish, County, and Precinct, succeeded the Plantation,
Congregation, Hundred and City. In the list of burgesses of
1631, the word "parish" first occurs as referring to a politico-ecclesiastical
division of the colony, it being used here in connection
with the localities of Waters Creek and Elizabeth City
and the return of a burgess from "Upper Parish of Elizabeth
City."

As early as 1618, the Governor and Council had been ordered
to divide the colony into Counties (see Hening's Statutes at Large),
but, for some reason, this was not done until 1634, in which
year the colony was "divided into eight shires (Counties) which
were to be governed as the shires in England, with lieutenants
appointed as in England, and in a more especial manner to take
care of the war against the Indians; Sheriffs were to be elected
as in England, to have the same powers as there, and Sergeants
and Bailiffs where need required." (Hening Vol. I, p. 224.)

The county was a territorial division, in which justice was
administered by eight, or more, men sitting as a county court,
and in which the citizens were members of one body of county
militia, commanded by the county lieutenant.

THE COUNTY LIEUTENANT

The County Lieutenant corresponded to the Lord Lieutenant
of England, and was one of the most important men in the county.
He received his appointment from the Governor and the Council,
commanded the county militia, and was empowered to place
all male, white, persons, above the age of eighteen, in the militia,
and under such captains as he wished to appoint. He could order
private drills whenever and wherever he pleased, and was under
compulsion to hold four general musters annually. W. W. Scott,
in his History of Orange, says: "These musters constituted a
distinctly social feature * * * * The companies had their
places of assembly for drill, and the contrast between the
flamboyant and gorgeous uniforms of the officers and the homespun
drab of the privates was very striking. The officers would
be assembled for `training' for several days prior to each General
Muster, and when the great occasion came the people flocked
to see it as they do now to a circus. The appearance of the field
and staff mounted on prancing steeds was a triumphal pageant,

and when the music struck up the martial spirit became intense,
and the maneuvres much involved." The County Lieutenant also
presided over courts martial and exercises much authority in
time of war.

THE MONTHLY COURT

In 1623, the Governor and Council ordered that courts of
record be kept monthly in each corporate unit of the colony,
and that the commanders of these places, and such others as the
Governor and Council might appoint should be the Judges, with
reservation of appeal after sentence to the Governor and Council.
"The commanders were to be of the quorum and sentence was to
be given by the major parties." (Hening, Vol. I.) The quorum
consisted of a select number of justices of the peace, chosen for
their superior knowledge and discretion, one or two of whom had
to be included in the number of justices necessary to constitute
a court. The commissioners of the Monthly Court had jurisdiction
over all civil cases not involving more than ten pounds, and one
member of the Council had to sit with such commissioner at all
hearings.

THE COUNTY COURT

An enactment of 1642, provided that the Monthly Court
be reduced to six courts annually, and that these be called County
Courts, instead of Monthly, and that the commissioners be styled
Commissioners of County Courts. (Hening, Vol. I). These bimonthly
courts were held for about twenty-five years, or till 1769,
after which time they were held monthly. The County Court
consisted of eight or more citizens of the county who were commissioned
by the Governor and Council and called justices of
the peace. Four justices, if one were of the quorum, constituted
a court. These courts had jurisdiction over all cases in common
law, or in chancery, provided the amount involved was over
twenty-five shillings, and the penalty for the alleged crime less
than loss of life or outlawry. Matters under twenty-five shillings
were adjusted by a single justice, while all greater crimes were
adjudicated by the Governor and Council in the General Court.

The County Court had, in addition to its judicial functions,
the authority to erect and repair the county court-house, to
contract for the construction of roads and bridges, or, in the
absence of such contract, to procure labour for the construction

of the same by drafting all able-bodied, tithable males, to perform
a certain amount of work under the direction of a surveyor.
These courts also had the authority to clear the rivers of obstructions,
to beat the bounds of parishes, to license taverns, to
recommend inspectors of tobacco, to designate places for tobacco
warehouses, to designate "landings," to appoint constables, and
to nominate for sheriff three of its own members, one of whom
the Governor invariably appointed for the ensuing year.

THE SHERIFF

The sheriffs were the ministerial officers of the County Court,
and performed the duties pertaining to that office as they were
understood in England, so far as applicable to Virginia; they
collected the "quit rents," the public and county levies, the
parish levy, and also held the election for burgesses, and summoned
the juries for both County and General Courts. Trial by jury
was given the colony in 1621, and was confirmed and established
by the Act of 1642. The juries which tried capital offenses in the
General Court were summoned from the county in which the
crime was alleged to have been committed, but no juror could
serve if challenged by the accused.

THE CONSTABLE

The sheriffs were assisted by officers, called constables, who
were appointed by the County Courts and set over certain bounds,
within the county, termed precincts. Their authority was, to a
great extent, co-ordinate with the sheriffs, but in many cases
they had certain authority peculiarly their own. They collected
fines for small offenses, whipped criminals, arrested violators of
the revenue laws, accompanied those who searched places suspected
of containing smuggled goods, and had sole charge of
runaway sailors, servants and slaves. To these were added the
duties of visiting tobacco fields and destroying all inferior growths,
such as "seconds" or "suckers," the killing of stray dogs, and
superfluous dogs about the "quarters," and the execution of the
game laws. The constable's fees, like the fees of many other
officers of that period, were paid in tobacco. For serving a
warrant he received ten pounds of tobacco, for summoning a
witness, five; for summoning coroner's jury and witnesses, fifty;
for putting person in the stocks, ten; for whipping a person, ten;
and for removing from the parish any person suspected of becoming

a public charge, two pounds for every mile traveled going
and returning. He also received one pound of tobacco out of
the county levy for each tithable in his precinct, and was exempt
from payment of taxes, and from jury service, while in office.

THE PARISH

The parish was a politico-ecclesiastical division of the colony,
which was coexistent with the county, as a rule, but not always
coterminous. Some counties contained several parishes, and
some parishes embraced more than one county. The law required
that Churches be so situated that all inhabitants might
attend them without any great inconvenience, and as a result
Churches were to be found on an average of from ten to fifteen
miles apart, according to density of population.

As the population moved upward from the "lower counties"
new Churches were erected to accommodate the people, and new
parishes were formed on the heads of the old, by the General
Assembly, and thus the number of parishes grew in proportion
to the number of new counties. Indeed it frequently happened
that the parish preceded the county, and Churches were built in
new sections before the county court-house or the jail.

THE VESTRY

The parish vestry consisted of twelve of the most prominent
and substantial men of the parish, and divided with the court
the responsibility for the public welfare of their respective communities.
They exercised considerable civil authority, such as
processioning the bounds, or beating the bounds, of all farms and
plantations, and the making levies for the support of paupers
and unfortunate children. Every fourth year the vestry divided
the parish into precincts and appointed two honest and intelligent
freeholders of each precinct to see that the bounds of each farm
or plantation were processioned, and that the reports of such
surveying, or processioning, were registered with the parish clerk.
This was the only method of recording land titles in Virginia
before the war of the Revolution.

Each year the vestry laid the parish levy of a certain number
of pounds of tobacco upon each "tithable"—that is, every male
white person, and every negro or Indian servant above sixteen
years of age, the taxes of the family, and of the servants being
paid by the master, or head of the household. From these levies

the vestry paid for the building and repairing of Churches, the
purchase of glebes, salaries of ministers, salaries of sextons, and
support of indigent persons and illegitimate children.

Thus the county government of colonial Virginia was divided
into five branches—namely, executive, legislative, judicial,
ecclesiastical and military. The Governor, or executive, was
appointed by the Crown; the General Assembly, or legislative,
was elected by the people; the justices of the peace constituting
the County Court, or judicial, were appointed by the Governor;
the twelve men constituting the vestry, or ecclesiastical, were
appointed by their predecessors (a close corporation); and the
county lieutenant, or military, was appointed by the Governor.

It frequently happened that the county lieutenant, and the
justices of the peace were also members of the vestry, thus
centering all local authority in the hands of twelve men, none
of whom were elected by the people. Thus it was that the common
people, except when casting a ballot for a member of the House
of Burgesses, frequently found themselves as powerless to correct
irregularities of the local government under which they lived, as
the subjects of an absolute monarchy.