Virginia's Northern Neck

A Book Review by Damon Veach
21 Feb 1993
The Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate; Page 26-mag

The Northern Neck of Virginia comprises all that territory lying between the Potomac and the Rappahannock rivers. From the year 1690, shortly after the proprietorship of the area was acquired by Lord Culpeper, Northern Neck land records were kept separately from Virginia Colony records. Even today, this series of records is maintained by the Virginia State Library as a separate and distinct archive. Not surprisingly, Northern Neck land grants post-1690 were left untouched by Nell Marion Nugent in her Cavaliers and Pioneers, a work that dealt principally with Virginia Colony patents and grants.

The "headright" system, widely employed as a means of acquiring land in Virginia, was never recognized in the Northern Neck, and persons wishing to acquire land there had to purchase a warrant and obtain a survey before they were issued a grant. In two recently published volumes, Gertrude Gray abstracted all the Northern Neck land grants from 1694 to 1775. In the two latest (and final) books - Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants, Volume III: 1775-1800 and Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants, Volume IV: 1800-1862-she completes this monumental work.

The majority of the grants were issued by the Commonwealth of Virginia for tracts of land in Frederick, Shenandoah, Culpeper, Loudoun, and Madison counties in Virginia, and Hampshire, Hardy, and Berkeley counties, now in West Virginia.

The abstracts presented in these two volumes show grant book designation, page number, name of grantee, place of residence (if given), acreage, location of grant, names of adjoining landowners, and date grant was issued. Altogether the two volumes comprise about 10,000 abstracts naming 25,000 Northern Neck residents, all of them conveniently listed in the indexes.

These books sell for $31.50 each, postpaid. They are available from Joe Garonzik, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1001 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, MD 21202-3897.

(The first two volumes were: Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants, Volume I: 1694-1742, $23, postpaid, and Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants, Volume II: 1742-1775, $28, postpaid.)