Page:A Guide to the Preparation of County Road Histories.pdf/29

 a one. Here, rather than being able to make a positive statement based on solid experience, the author must indulge his feelings. While the Albemarle study in theory spanned some 86 years, records' destruction covering about 35 years (1748-1783) effectively reduced the period to near the half-century mark. With this blank space occurring just in the middle of the study, the author can only say that he thinks, based on his experience, that the fifty-year period from about 1730 to 1780 would have covered most of the really significant road building activity in Albemarle County. He also feels this will prove to be the case with the roads of other areas in Virginia when studies are conducted there.

A period of fifty years would also seem to be well within the realm of possibility when the interlocking nature of road studies is considered, the fact that as more of these studies are completed researchers beginning new histories will find significant portions of their work already completed for them, the road orders published,. because of overlaps in coverage, subsequent subdivisions of counties, or the fact that adjacent counties will already have published road histories available. Each study completed will to some extent serve as seed for the next until the massive picture puzzle of Virginia's early roads will again lie before us completely reassembled.

The limitation of coverage to a finite period calculated to cover most of the early road development will also serve to make possible the handling, collation and indexing for publication of the road orders of a county without excessive effort and expense. The overlapping nature of the whole road history effort should preclude the necessity for publishing as much as fifty years of road orders for all areas, once the first few pioneering studies have been completed and published.

The usefulness of published road orders extends far beyond the history of the roads themselves, into the fields of local history, genealogy, architectural history, sociology, folklore and others still to be enumerated, as new uses continue to be found for them. Road orders are particularly important during the quarter century or so following the initial settlement when the usual paucity of surviving local records makes it so difficult to see exactly what was happening, who was there in residence in the area, and what the problems of trade were.

Early plat coverage will probably not be available for all counties; perhaps not for most of them. Even where the early surveyors’ books have survived it is unlikely that road coverage will equal that of the Albemarle books. Where this does happen an index similar to that done for Albemarle would seem to be a worthy addition to the project and be productive of long-term benefit. – 23 –