Page:A Guide to the Preparation of County Road Histories.pdf/8

 The evolution of the county road systems of Virginia is in many ways inseparable from the social, political and technological developments that form the history of the Commonwealth. Despite this, few serious works exist on the history of roads in Virginia. Those which have been produced tend to focus on internal improvements and turnpike development at the state level before the War Between the States. Little has been done on the period from Reconstruction through the creation of the system of state highways in the earlier part of this century, while the early road systems of the individual counties have at most received treatment of from a few paragraphs to several pages in local histories. Accordingly, it was decided to investigate the development of the roads of Albemarle County during the period 1725-1816 as a pilot project, and, using this experience, to produce a history of Albemarle County roads and a handbook on procedure to aid others in writing similar road histories.

Before continuing further it might be helpful to briefly summarise the English system of road administration as it evolved in Virginia. The establishment and maintenance of public roads were important functions of the County Court during most of the colonial period in Virginia. Each road was opened and maintained by an Overseer or Surveyor of the Roads charged with this responsibility and appointed by the Gentlemen Justices. He was usually assigned for this purpose all of the "Labouring Male Titheables" living on or near the road. Major projects, such as bridges over rivers, demanding considerable expenditures were usually executed by Commissioners appointed by the Court to select the site and contract with workmen for the construction. Where bridges connected two counties, a commission was appointed by each and they cooperated in executing the work. Each order for a road, as well as those for bridges, was entered by the Clerk in the order book of the County Court.

During the early stages of the Albemarle project it was necessary to examine and extract all the road orders for the counties from which Albemarle was formed as well as the Orders for Albemarle when it still contained the Counties of Amherst, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Nelson, and a part of Appomattox. The broad applicability of those orders from Goochland, Louisa and early Albemarle, as well as the opinions of various authorities throughout the state who examined them, indicated that they should have separate publication in order to make them generally available to individual scholars through libraries and educational institutions. These orders made up the first three publications in the series "Historic Roads of Virginia".

In December 1974, while these were being prepared, a request was received from James A. Bear, Jr., Resident Director and Curator of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation at Monticello. Mr. Bear, engaged in editing Thomas Jefferson's account books for publication, wanted to know the original route of the Three Notch'd Road between Richmond and the Valley.

The report prepared for him elicited so much interest that it was gradually expanded to include a folding map, the results of a reconnaissance by two Council members, an appendix of the pertinent information from the Order Books of Louisa, Goochland, Albemarle and Orange Counties, citations – 2 –