Workspace for Appalachia Project - Virginia
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: Virginia Appalachia
Project: Appalachia | Counties of Appalachia
Contents |
Virginia
These workspace pages were created for the Appalachia Project to help Regional Teams coordinate their efforts for a particular state, since the regions cross state borders. Although Virginia's historic timeline crosses almost all of the regions, the Central Appalachia Team and the South Central Appalachia Team cover today's Virginia counties that are in Appalachia.[1]
The workspace pages can also serve as a guide for what category is appropriate, when, for people who lived on land that is included in today's Appalachia (WikiTree's guideline is to "use the their convention, not ours", so someone who died in, say, Kanawha County before 20 June 1863 would be categorized to the Virginia category for that county, not the West Virginia category, since West Virginia was not a state until that date).
- Category Pages: Tables on this page cover space pages. See the Virginia section of Counties of Appalachia for links to category pages of both counties and independent cities in today's Appalachia. The Virginia Project's Virginia Counties and Parishes has a table that shows categories by county below a link for the space page (if there is one). Here's one row from the table as an example:
- Mercer County has two entries, because Virginia had two counties by that name - the first was created in 1785 and was one of the nine counties that became Kentucky in 1792; the second (created in 1837) was one of the 50 counties that became West Virginia in 1863. While there are separate categories for the first and second Mercer Counties in Virginia, they share a single Virginia space page (Space: Mercer County, Virginia).
- Timeline: See the Virginia Project's Virginia Counties and Parishes and Virginia Place Names (especially the Virginia Dates section) for details. Broadly:
- Colony of Virginia to 4 July 1776[2]
- Virginia, USA from 4 July 1776[3]
- Virginia [not USA] from 17 April 1861 to 16 January 1870[4]
Today's Virginia
Of Virginia's 133 counties,[5] 25 are in today's Appalachia - Alleghany, Bath, Bland, Botetourt, Buchanan, Carroll, Craig, Dickenson, Floyd, Giles, Grayson, Henry, Highland, Lee, Montgomery, Patrick, Pulaski, Rockbridge, Russell, Scott, Smyth, Tazewell, Washington, Wise, and Wythe[1] - split between the Central Appalachia Region and the South Central Appalachia Region. The following tables have links to these counties' WikiTree space pages. For links to their category pages, see the Virginia section on WikiTree's Counties of Appalachia page.
| 7 Central Appalachia Virginia County Space Pages | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buchanan | Dickenson | Lee | Montgomery | Scott | Tazewell | Wise |
| 18 South Central Appalachia Virginia County Space Pages | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alleghany | Bath | Bland | Botetourt | Carroll | Craig | |
| Floyd | Giles | Grayson | Henry | Highland | Patrick | |
| Pulaski | Rockbridge | Russell | Smyth | Washington | Wythe | |
Independent Cities
- Virginia's Independent Cities (ICs) are just that - independent of any county, although they are sometimes the county seat. The Appalachian Regional Commission includes Virginia's ICs with "an adjacent or surrounding county for the purposes of data analysis and grant management: Bristol (Washington County), Buena Vista (Rockbridge County), Covington (Alleghany County), Galax (Carroll County), Lexington (Rockbridge County), Martinsville (Henry County), Norton (Wise County), and Radford (Montgomery County)".[1]
- Of the eight Appalachian ICs, Norton is in the Central Appalachian Region; the other seven are in South Central Appalachia. As of 8 July 2022, none of them have a space page (see the table with links to their category pages in the Counties of Appalachia's Virginia section).
8 Virginia Independent City (IC) Space Pages[1] Bristol, Virginia Buena Vista, Virginia Covington, Virginia Galax, Virginia Lexington, Virginia Martinsville, Virginia Norton, Virginia Radford, Virginia
Mother of States
Virginia was the "Mother of States and Statesmen" - the States being Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin (as listed by the Library of Virginia).[6] The western boundary of colonial Virginia was the Pacific Ocean and included land that later became the Northwest Territory (1787), which "covered all of the modern states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, as well as the northeastern part of Minnesota."[7][8] While these states - and others - include land that was once Virginia, only two "were created directly" from Virginia: Kentucky in 1792 and West Virginia in 1863.[9] Bits and pieces of various Virginia counties within Appalachia were involved in border disputes, but mostly do not impact categorization of profiles for European settlers, who did not reach Appalachia until after the borders had been resolved. The exception is Virginia's southern border, which was disputed with North Carolina, and included a 1779/80 survey of the "Western extension of Virginia boundary".[10][11] That area later became part of Tennessee.[12] Even Pennsylvania has land that was once Virginia: Yohogania County, Virginia was created "from the West Augusta territory in 1776 [and was] ceded to Pennsylvania in 1785."[13] "The county ceased to exist after the border dispute between the two states was resolved in the 1780s."[14]
Future efforts may look to other states with land once claimed by Virginia, but the current focus of this page is the history of Virginia's counties, to include those that broke off to create Kentucky (in 1792) and West Virginia (in 1863).
With borders changing over time and counties of the same name being created at different times, the history of Virginia's counties can get very complicated. The Virginia county formation maps that George W. Durman posted in Rootsweb[13] and the maps that Karl R. Phillips included in his 1999 paper, "How Virginia Got Its Borders", serve to illustrate the complexity of Virginia's geographic history.[9]
Historic Virginia
"Historic Virginia" covers Virginia's pre-USA and extinct counties, which overlaps a bit with the counties that became Kentucky and West Virginia. The Pre-Kentucky and Pre-West Virginia sections below have tables for the nine Virginia counties that became Kentucky in 1792 and the 50 Virginia counties that were admitted to the union on 20 June 1863 (respectively). See also the Virginia Project's County table.
This section will look to identifying extinct and pre-USA counties that may need pages - category, space, or both - created or developed (space pages are for Virginia, whether or not the county was pre-USA).
- Note that Virginia location categories distinguish between USA and pre-USA counties. See the county categories under Category: Virginia Colony (before 4 July 1776) and Category: Virginia (for logistical purposes, such as categorization, WikiTree uses 4 July 1776 as the start date for USA). The 50 counties that became West Virginia on 20 June 1863 have Virginia county categories that should be used before that date. Only two of the nine "pre-Kentucky" counties have a Virginia category (Lincoln and Mercer Counties) - Lincoln was one of three counties created from Virginia's Kentucky County.
- As of September 2023, all of Virginia's modern counties have categories; not all pre-USA and historic Virginia counties have a WikiTree category. If you need help categorizing a profile (to include the need for a category), please post to G2G tagged with at least virginia and categorization.
The major "Historic County" that included land now in today's Appalachia was Augusta County, while today's Category: Augusta County, Virginia is not in Appalachia. Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia) also covered a lot of land before 1776. Additional research is needed, by county, to identify other colonial (pre-USA) and extinct counties that were in Appalachia.
- Category: Augusta County, Virginia Colony: The original Augusta County was a westward-reaching county formed 1738-1745, with much of its territory in Appalachia. Many counties created from it became other states (9 counties became Kentucky in 1792; 50 became West Virginia in 1863).[13] The Virginia Project's space page for the county (Augusta County, Virginia) notes that portions of Augusta "were broken out into Botetourt County, Rockbridge County, Hampshire County, and Bath County."[15] Rockingham County was also formed from Augusta County (in 1778).[13]
- Category: Botetourt County, Virginia Colony: Formed from Augusta County in 1769. Category: Botetourt County, Virginia still exists, but not as originally created - from Virginia County Formation maps:[13]
- Fincastle County formed from Botetourt County in 1772. It ceased to exist in 1776 when it was broken into Kentucky County, Montgomery County, and Washington County.[13]
- Greenbrier County formed from Botetourt and Montgomery Counties in 1777.[13]
- Category: Hampshire County, Virginia Colony, Space: Hampshire County, Virginia: Created in 1754, Hampshire County left Virginia in 1863, becoming Hampshire County, West Virginia
- Bath County formed from Augusta, Botetourt, and Greenbrier Counties in 1790/91.[13]
- Rockbridge County formed from Augusta and Botetourt Counties in 1778.[13]
- Category: Botetourt County, Virginia Colony: Formed from Augusta County in 1769. Category: Botetourt County, Virginia still exists, but not as originally created - from Virginia County Formation maps:[13]
- Category: Berkeley County, Virginia Colony.... [of the 50 counties that became WV, only Berkeley & Hampshire Counties have Virginia Colony categories].
- Berkeley County formed from Frederick County in 1772.
- Jefferson County formed from Berkeley County in 1801 - a different Jefferson than the one formed from Kentucky County, Vpeirginia in 1780 and which was one of the 9 counties that became Kentucky in 1792.
- Morgan County formed from Berkeley and Hampshire Counties in 1820.
- Alleghany County formed from Bath, Botetourt, and Monroe Counties in 1822.
- ... it gets really complicated. See entries and map changes at https://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/countyformations/virginiaformationmaps.html (blue text indicates future WV counties)
- Kentucky County was created from Fincastle County in 1776 and went extinct in 1780 when it was divided into Fayette, Jefferson, and Lincoln Counties.[13]
| County Space Page (categories) | Created From (Date) | Other Changes | Name Reused? |
| Alleghany (VA) | Bath, Botetourt, and Monroe Counties (1822) | Clifton Forge (IC, incorporated in 1906; rejoined county in 2001)[16] Covington (IC, incorporated in 1952) | not in Virginia, but same/similar names in MD, NY, NC, PA. |
| Bath (VA) | Augusta, Botetourt, and Greenbrier Counties (1791) | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Bland | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Botetourt | Augusta County (7 November 1769) | Fincastle (1772), Greenbrier (+Montgomery, 1777), Rockbridge (+Augusta, 1778), Bath (+Augusta +Greenbrier, 1790), Alleghany (+Bath +Monroe, 1822), Roanoke (1838), Craig (+Giles +Monroe +Roanoke, 1851), Rockbridge ("gained from Botetourt", 1887)[13] | no |
| Buchanan | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Carroll | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Craig | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Dickenson | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Floyd | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Giles | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Grayson | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Henry | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Highland | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Lee | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Montgomery | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Patrick | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Pulaski | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Rockbridge | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Russell | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Scott | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Smyth | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Tazewell | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Washington | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Wise | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Wythe | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
Pre-Kentucky
In 1780, Kentucky County, Virginia was divided into Fayette, Jefferson, & Lincoln Counties, Virginia and Kentucky County ceased to exist. In 1792, nine counties separated from Virginia and became the Commonwealth of Kentucky (Bourbon, Fayette, Jefferson, Lincoln, Madison, Mason, Mercer, Nelson, & Woodford).[13] Also in 1792, Logan County, Kentucky was formed from Lincoln County.[17] Note that a Logan County, Virginia was formed in 1824. It was one of the 50 Virginia counties that became West Virginia in 1863 (this table lists the 50 counties). In 1867, Lincoln County, West Virginia, was formed - in part from Logan County, West Virginia.[13]
| County Space Pages | Created From (Date) | Other Changes | Name Reused? |
| Kentucky County, VA | Fincastle County (1776) | extinct in 1780 (creating Fayette, Jefferson & Lincoln Counties) | no |
| Bourbon (VA, KY) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Fayette (VA, KY) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Jefferson (VA, KY) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Lincoln (VA, KY) | Kentucky (1780) | WV (1867), from parts of Boone, Cabell, Kanawha and Putnam counties (pre-WV counties) | |
| Madison (VA, KY) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Mason (VA, KY) | created | same name county/ies? | |
| Mercer (VA, KY) | 1785 | VA (1837), a pre-WV county | |
| Nelson (VA, KY) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Woodford (VA, KY) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
post-1792
- copy from Space:Virginia_Counties_and_Parishes (25 September 2023)...
- Several Virginia counties were created with the same names after those nine counties had become Kentucky. And several of those counties later became West Virginia.[18]
- Fayette, Jefferson, Mason, and Mercer counties existed as Virginia counties prior to 1792, and they existed (again, in a different location) as Virginia counties prior to 1863, when they were among the 50 Virginia counties that became West Virginia. So we now have several more Virginia counties with the same name in two different locations, in addition to the two Rappahannock Counties that were not the same location (pre-USA, often seen as "Old Rappahannock" is Category:Rappahannock County, Virginia Colony and post-USA, which exists today, is Category:Rappahannock County, Virginia).
- To be technically accurate, there should also be more than one Virginia category for these other counties that had their names reused after they were no longer a Virginia county:[18]
- "pre-KY" - those that are now Kentucky
- "post-KY" - those "second of the name" counties, some of which are now West Virginia[18]
- Because the time period covered is relatively brief, there are not two separate Virginia categories for the "pre-KY" & "pre-WV" counties of Fayette, Jefferson, or Mason. However, there are two for Mercer County, the pre-KY one is Mercer County, Virginia (1785-1792) and the pre-WV one is Mercer County, Virginia (1837-1863).[18][19]
- Background: When WikiTree's USA location categories were created (a massive undertaking, much appreciated!), they were created for existing counties. Subsequently, categories for extinct counties have been created, and as noted in the table, many counties have both "Virginia Colony" and just "Virginia" (post-USA) categories. Among the historic Virginia categories created were those for all 50 counties that became West Virginia in 1863. Work was underway to create Virginia categories for those that became Kentucky in 1792, but hit a snag because Virginia reused some of the names, causing confusion. Work is now proceeding to add the nine counties that became Kentucky to the county table and to create a table showing the Virginia and Kentucky categories with a column showing if Virginia re-used the name.
Pre-West Virginia
All 55 of today's West Virginia counties are in Appalachia. They include the following 50 Virginia counties that seceded from Virginia and were admitted to the union on 20 June 1863 (listed by region):[20]
- Northern Appalachia Region: Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, and Ohio.
- North Central Appalachia Region: Barbour, Berkeley, Braxton, Cabell, Calhoun, Clay, Doddridge, Fayette, Gilmer, Greenbrier, Hampshire, Hardy, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Kanawha, Lewis, Marion, Mason, Mercer, Monongalia, Monroe, Morgan, Nicholas, Pendleton, Pleasants, Pocahontas, Preston, Putnam, Raleigh, Randolph, Ritchie, Roane, Taylor, Tucker, Tyler, Upshur, Webster, Wetzel, Wirt, and Wood.
- Central Appalachia Region: Boone, Logan, McDowell, Wayne, and Wyoming.
The Virginia Project's Counties and Parishes page includes a list of the 50 counties that became West Virginia, with links to both their Virginia and West Virginia category pages. Most of those Virginia categories do not have corresponding space pages (VA in the Pre-West Virginia table indicate that there is not a Virginia space page). Similar to the Virginia space pages that include pre-USA information, the West Virginia space pages generally include pre-West Virginia information.
| County Space Pages | Created From (Date) | Other Changes | Name Reused? |
| Barbour (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Berkeley (Colony, VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Boone (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Braxton (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Brooke (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Cabell (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Calhoun (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Clay (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Doddridge (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Fayette (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Gilmer (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Greenbrier (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Hampshire (Colony, VA, WV) | Hampshire (1754) | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Hancock (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Hardy (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Harrison (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Jackson (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Jefferson (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Kanawha (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Lewis (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Logan (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Marion (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Marshall (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Mason (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| McDowell (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Mercer (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Monongalia (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Monroe (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Morgan (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Nicholas (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Ohio (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Pendleton (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Pleasants (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Pocahontas (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Preston (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Putnam (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Raleigh (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Randolph (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Ritchie (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Roane (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Taylor (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Tucker (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Tyler (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Upshur (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Wayne (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Webster (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Wetzel (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Wirt (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Wood (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
| Wyoming (VA, WV) | created | other changes | same name county/ies? |
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 As listed by the Appalachian Regional Commission (here) as of 30 June 2022.
- ↑ See pre-1625 details on the timeline posted here (on WikiTree's Virginia Place Names page, posted by the Virginia Project; accessed 23 September 2023).
- ↑ Virginia Project's Virginia Place Names: Space:Virginia_Place_Names#Virginia_Dates (accessed 23 September 2023).
- ↑ Virginia seceded on 17 April 1861 and joined the Confederate States of America on 7 May 1861. The CSA's Army of the Potomac surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on 9 April 1865. Virginia was readmitted to the union on 16 January 1870. See secession/readmission dates on this WikiTree Resource Page. See also the National Park Service's Appomattox Court House National Park and Wikipedia's table "Reconstruction state-by-state – significant dates" (deleted from the live page on Reconstruction because that page was too long).
- ↑ Virginia Counties by Population, accessed 23 September 2023.
- ↑ Library of Virginia FAQ: Questions about Virginia (accessed 22 September 2023).
- ↑ Wikipedia: Northwest Territory (accessed 22 September 2023).
- ↑ See also Wikipedia's article on Ohio Country, which included the following (as of 25 September 2023):
- "After being defeated by Britain, France ceded their claims to the entire Ohio Country in the 1763 Treaty of Paris. They had done so, however, without consulting their Native American allies who—in many cases—continued the fight against the colonial frontiersmen. Colonies such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, and Connecticut claimed some of the westward lands as had been granted by their original charters. The area, however, was officially closed to European settlement by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, an attempt to preserve the western lands as territory exclusively set aside for use by Native American peoples. By enacting the treaty, the British Crown no longer recognized prior claims that the colonies made on this territory. On June 22, 1774, Parliament in England passed the Quebec Act, which annexed the region to the Province of Quebec. Colonists in the Thirteen Colonies considered this one of the Intolerable Acts that contributed to the call for American Revolution the following year, which began in earnest the following year, in 1775."
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Karl R. Phillips, How Virginia Got Its Boundaries, 1999.
- ↑ North Carolina Formation Maps, posted in Rootsweb by George W. Durman (accessed 22 September 2023).
- ↑ See also the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker, "North Carolina - Virginia", M-14 (accessed 27 September 2023).
- ↑ See WikiTree's "Petition of the Inhabitants of Washington District" and Space: Tennessee History Timeline to 1796 Statehood. See also the "succeeded by" categories following Category: Watauga Association.
- ↑ 13.00 13.01 13.02 13.03 13.04 13.05 13.06 13.07 13.08 13.09 13.10 13.11 13.12 Virginia Formation Maps, posted in Rootsweb by George W. Durman (accessed 30 June 2022).
- ↑ Wikipedia: Yohogania County, Virginia (accessed 24 September 2023).
- ↑ See the Virginia Project's space pages:
- ↑ Wikipedia: Clifton Forge, Virginia (accessed 24 September 2023).
- ↑ Kentucky County Formation Maps, posted in Rootsweb by George W. Durman (accessed 24 September 2023).
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 Six of the nine names were reused. The "new" Madison and Nelson counties (created 1792 and 1807, respectively) continue today as Virginia counties. Four "second of the name" counties - Fayette, Jefferson, Mason and Mercer - were among those that became West Virginia. Virginia did not reuse Lincoln, but West Virginia created a Lincoln County in 1867 from parts of Boone, Cabell, Kanawha and Putnam counties (which had previously been Virginia counties). See the Rootsweb formation maps for Virginia for locations. That page is currently not available at Rootsweb, but a non-animated version is accessible through archive.org's Wayback Machine.
- ↑ The date given for West Virginia's creation varies from 1861 to 1865 (the year Virginia seceded to the end of the War); 1863 was the year West Virginia was admitted to the Union.
- ↑ Listed on other project pages, including Counties of Appalachia, along with the five additional counties: Grant, Lincoln, Mineral, Mingo, and Summers.
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