Fairfax proprietary

=The Proprietary=

In September 1649, King Charles II of England granted to seven Englishmen all Virginia between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers as a proprietary. The Northern Neck Proprietary during the colonial period. The extent of the grant was hardly recognized by either the King or the grantees because most of it had never even been mapped. The proprietors thought little of their grant since Charles II, due to political struggles in England, was a king without a kingdom. [Artemel, Hickin, Netherton, Reed, and Sweig, Donald. "Fairfax County, Virginia: A History". 1992, p.5. Virginia.] In the mid seventeenth century, control of the Proprietary had come to one man, the fifth lord Thomas Fairfax who also inherited a new patent issued by King James II in 1688. While some of the original proprietors' rights had been lost, the collecting of taxes from settlers had been established through the efforts of their agents in Virginia and through Lord Fairfax himself to ensure that the proprietors received their income from their property. After Lord Fairfax died in January 1710, his son Thomas inherited the title and his five-sixths shares in the Northern Neck. In May, his grandmother died leaving the new Lord Fairfax her one-sixth share. Because he was only sixteen years old at the time, the affairs of the Proprietary fell to his mother, Lady Fairfax. When she died in 1729, the sixth Lord Fairfax came to control all six shares of the proprietary. [http://etext.virginia.edu/users/berkeley/#Northern%20Neck. (sources)] As the Virginia government at Jamestown were losing control over a significant portion of Virginia, which was held by Lord Fairfax, the feud between them was significant. The specific issue at this time was the southern and western boundaries of the proprietary. Therefore, in 1735 lord of Fairfax came to Virginia to see about a survey to settle the matter. The survey was duly made, and in 1737 Lord Fairfax returned to England to argue his case before the Privy Council. Before leaving, he rode over much of his domain, and set aside for himself a tract of 12,588 acres near Great Falls, in what was to become Fairfax County. In 1745, Lord Fairfax came back to Virginia, having won his claim to the most extensive boundaries for the proprietary in exchange for certain land concessions to the Virginia authorities. Virginia had won political control over the proprietary and its habitants in the seventeenth century. When Lord Fairfax died in 1781 in Virginia, the proprietary effectively ceased to exist. All the land which had been granted by Lord Fairfax remained in the hands of the grantees; the remainder of ungranted land came under the control of the new Commonwealth of Virginia. [Artemel, Hickin, Netherton, Reed, and Sweig, Donald. "Fairfax County, Virginia: A History". 1992, p.6. Virginia.]

Fairfax County

Prior to 1649, the entire Northern Neck had been designated by the Assembly as one large county called Northumberland.In 1653, the majority of the northern portion of Northumberland was named Westmoreland County. In 1664, Stafford County was created from the northern portion of Westmoreland. What is now Fairfax was first in Northumberland, then Westmoreland, and from 1664 to 1730, Stafford.In 1730, there was a new procedure in which, to create a new county, the Assembly would first create a new parish and then a new county whose boundaries were coterminous with those of the parish. In this manner, Hamilton Parish became Prince William County, Truro Parish became Fairfax County, and Cameron Parish developed into Loudoun County. The County of Fairfax was created by legislation introduced in May 1742, effective the following December. It was most likely named for Thomas, sixth Lord Fairfax. The dividing line was a line up Occoquan River and Bull Run, and from the head of the main branch of Bull Run, by a straight course to Ashby’s Gap in the Blue Ridge. The decision was approved by the council and governor, and it became law 19 June 1742.The original [http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/histmap/welcome.htm Fairfax County] did not exist long. In 1757, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed an act cutting off from it the County of Loudoun. The dividing line between the two counties stood for 41 years, and then in 1798, the General Assembly of Virginia passed an act that provided a new dividing line, one which has remained to the present day as the boundary between Fairfax and Loudoun Counties. [Geddes, Jean. "FairfaxCounty: Historical Highlights from 1607". 1967, p.9. Denlinger Book. Virginia.]

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