Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

For Cumberland Township Board Minutes, use microfilm, New Kent County (Va.) Reel 21.

Preferred Citation

New Kent County (Va.) Township Records, 1870-1875. Local government records collection, New Kent County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia 23219.

Acquisition Information

These items came to the Library of Virginia in transfers of court papers from New Kent County. Cumberland Township Board Minutes came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from New Kent County under the accession number 42127.

Historical Information

The 1870 Virginia Constitution required that each county in the state be divided into no less than three townships (see Article VII, section 2). Based on the New England administrative organization of a county, each township would elect the administration officials for the offices of supervisor, clerk, assessor, collector, commissioner of the roads, overseer of the poor, justice of the peace, and constable. The supervisors of each township would comprise the board of supervisors for the county, and would be responsible for auditing the county accounts, examining the assessors' books, regulating property valuation, and fixing the county levies. The Acts of Assembly provided that each township be divided into school and electoral districts (see Acts of Assembly 1869-1870, Chapter 39). A constitutional amendment in 1874 changed the townships into magisterial districts and each district elected one supervisor, three justices of the peace, one constable, and one overseer of the poor. The supervisors of the districts made up the county board of supervisors whose duties were identical as those set out in 1870. The published Acts of Assembly appended a list of township names by county following the acts for every year that townships existed in Virginia.

New Kent County may have been named either for the English county of Kent or for Kent Island, in the upper waters of the Chesapeake Bay. William Claiborne, a native of Kent who had been driven from Kent Island by Lord Baltimore, was a prominent resident of the New Kent area about 1654 when the county was formed from York County. Part of James City County was added in 1767. The county seat is New Kent.

Records were destroyed when John Posey set fire to the courthouse on 15 July 1787. Many records were lost when the courthouse was partially destroyed by fire during Civil War hostilities in 1862. Additional records were burned in Richmond on 3 April 1865, where they had been moved for safekeeping during the Civil War.

Scope and Content

New Kent County (Va.) Township Records, 1870-1875, consist of one volume and 2 pages of loose minutes relating to the administrative functions of the township boards of the county.

Statement of costs for dividing the county of New Kent into townships, 1870, gives the names of the commissioners involved in the division and how much each of them were owed by the county for their services.

Cumberland Township Board Minutes, 1872-1875, is a volume consisting of minutes and accounts. Information recorded includes orders of stationery and books for use of township officials, establishment of tax and levy rates, division of the township into road districts, appointment of road overseers, establishment of rates allowed for road work, accounts allowed against the township board including name of person paid and what service was performed, appointment of election judges, reports by the township collector, reports from township clerk, reports from road overseers, and orders for election of road overseers.

Following the board minutes in the same volume is an alphabetical listing of chancery suits, 1882-1892. The list begins on p. 17 and is in alphabetical order by plaintiff.

Related Material

Additional New Kent County Court Records can be found on microfilm at The Library of Virginia. Consult "A Guide to Virginia County and City Records on Microfilm."

New Kent County is one of Virginia's Lost Records Localities. Additional New Kent County Records may be found in the Virginia Lost Records Localities Collection at the Library of Virginia. Search the Lost Records Localities Digital Collection available at Virginia Memory.

For more information and a listing of lost records localities see Lost Records research note .

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

• New Kent County (Va.). Circuit Court.

Subjects:

• County government -- Records and correspondence -- Virginia -- New Kent County.
• Local finance -- Virginia -- New Kent County.
• Local government -- Virginia -- New Kent County.
• Public records -- Virginia -- New Kent County.

Geographical Names:

• New Kent County (Va.) -- History -- 19th century.

Genre and Form Terms:

• Accounts -- Virginia -- New Kent County.
• Chancery causes -- Virginia -- New Kent County.
• Judicial records -- Virginia -- New Kent County.
• Local government records -- Virginia -- New Kent County.
• Minute books -- Virginia -- New Kent County.
• Township records -- Virginia -- New Kent County.

Added Entry - Corporate Name:

• Township of Cumberland (New Kent County, VA)

Adjunct Descriptive Data