Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/597

 beside Jamestown was adopted in 1623, when the Assembly provided for the erection of courts in Charles City and Elizabeth City. In what year it was required to enter a deed of record in the counties, it is now difficult to say, but it was probably contemporaneous with the creation of the County Courts. In the earliest of the county records, copies of conveyances are to be discovered.

It became a settled principle in later times, that no estate was to pass unless the deed had been acknowledged before the Governor and Council, or the justices of the county in which the land to be conveyed was situated. One of the principal objects had in view in the adoption of this regulation was to protect the interests of creditors from the operation of a secret transfer of title. It was provided that the deed should be entered before the end of six weeks following its delivery, and it remained without validity for four months after it had been properly acknowledged.