Essex County, Virginia Order Book 29, 1773 to 1783 (The Revolutionary Era)

This work presents a verbatim transcript of Essex County, Virginia Order Book 29 as it has been reconstructed by adding pertinent pages from Order Book 21 and Order Book 22. The dates cover court term June 21, 1773 through December 15, 1783. In addition to regular content found in an order book, this one covers appointments of local militia men, shows family relationships to soldiers, and presents claims for reimbursement (public claims) for those who provided items to the military during the Revolutionary War.

An order book contains a variety of items that document the daily business of the county court. Entries include: adjudgements for age of negroes, slaves or servants; appointment of officials (including constable, sheriff, road overseer, or vestryman, etc.); appointments of estate administrators; apprenticeships; exemptions from levy; guardians (may be chosen by ward at age 14); ordinary licenses; periodic orders or county expenses for buildings, roads, repairs, salaries, etc.; presentments by churchwardens of drunkards, those not frequenting their parish church as the law required, swearing, or even women claimed to have produced a bastard child; probates of wills; status of court cases (civil and criminal); tithables; and more. In addition, one will find claims for taking up 50 acres of land, or "importation rights," which indicates the likelihood of a foreign birth for those claimed - at least outside of Virginia. There is much activity about suits for debt, as the absence of banks left the court as the arena for settlement of many financial disputes.

Order book entries often provide detail not found in any other record. Oftentimes the age of a person can be estimated based on what the law allowed them to do. With little exception, one would be an adult to sue, receive power of attorney, buy and sell land, witness documents, or administer an estate, etc. Copies of ordinary licenses granted are generally found in deed books, but the order book entry may provide additional details. Keep in mind that the name of the ordinary (or tavern) didn't necessarily track to the name of the person granted the license.

Of interest is that the entries here frequently refer to Chancery court cases, but only 20 case files survive for the period 1773 to 1783 covered here. An index to full-names, places and subjects adds to the value of this work.