A Guide to the Accomack County (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1727-1805 (bulk 1769-1805)
A Collection in
the Library of Virginia
Chancery Records Index: Accomack County (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1727-001-1805-005
![[logo]](http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaead/logos/lva.jpg)
Library of Virginia
Contact Information:The Library of Virginia
800 East Broad Street
Richmond, Virginia 23219-8000
USA
Phone: (804) 692-3888 (Archives Reference)
Fax: (804) 692-3556 (Archives Reference)
Email: archdesk@lva.virginia.gov (Archives)
URL: http://www.lva.virginia.gov/
Processed by: Catherine OBrion
2011 By The Library of Virginia. All Rights Reserved.
Administrative Information
Access Restrictions
There are no restrictions.
Use Restrictions
Patrons are to use digital images of Accomack County (Va.) Chancery Causes found on the Chancery Records Index available electronically at the website of the Library of Virginia.
Preferred Citation
Accomack County (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1727-1805 (bulk 1769-1805). (Cite style of suit and chancery index no.). Local Government Records Collection, Accomack County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
Acquisition Information
Digital images were generated by Backstage Library Works through the Library of Virginia's Circuit Court Records Preservation Program.
Historical Information
Accomack County was named for the Accomac Indians, who lived on the Eastern Shore at the time of the first English settlement in Virginia. The word means "on-the-other-side-of-water place" or "across the water." It was one of the original eight shires, or counties, first enumerated in 1634 and spelled Accomac without the k. The county's name was changed to Northampton County in 1643. The present county was formed from Northampton about 1663. In October 1670, the General Assembly temporarily reunited Accomack and Northampton Counties as Northampton County. In November 1673, Accomack County was again separated from Northampton. In early records, the county's name was spelled many ways. In 1940 the General Assembly adopted the present spelling, Accomack. The county gained a small part of the southern end of Smith's Island from Somerset County, Maryland, in 1879, after the United States had approved boundary changes between Virginia and Maryland that had been agreed to in 1877. The county seat is Accomac.
Scope and Content
Accomack County (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1727-1805 (bulk 1769-1805) are indexed into the Chancery Records Index. Cases are identified by style of suit consisting of plaintiff and defendant names. Surnames of others involved in a suit, including secondary plaintiffs and defendants, witnesses, deponents and affiants, and family members with surnames different from the plaintiff or defendant are indexed. Chancery causes often involved the following: divisions of estates or land, disputes over wills, divorces, debt, and business disputes. Predominant documents found in chancery causes include bills (plaintiff's complaint), answers (defendant's response), decrees (court's decision), depositions, affidavits, correspondence, lists of heirs, deeds, wills, slave records, business records or vital statistics, among other items. Plats, if present, are noted, as are wills from localities with an incomplete record of wills or localities other than the one being indexed.
Chancery causes are useful when researching local history, genealogical information, and land or estate divisions. They are a valuable source of local, state, social, and legal history and serve as a primary source for understanding a locality's history.
Arrangement
Organized by case, of which each is assigned a unique index number comprised of the latest year found in case and a sequentially increasing 3-digit number assigned by the processor as cases for that year are found. Arranged chronologically.
Related Material
Additional Accomack County Court Records can be found on microfilm at The Library of Virginia. See A Guide to Virginia County and City Records on Microfilm
See the Chancery Records Index to find the chancery records of additional Virginia localities.
Index Terms
- Accomack County (Va.) Circuit Court.
- African Americans--History
- Business enterprises--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Debt--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Divorce suits--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Equity--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Estates (Law)--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Free African Americans--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Land subdivision--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Slavery (Accomack County, Va.) -- History.
- Accomack County (Va.)--Genealogy.
- Accomack County (Va.)--History.
- Chancery causes--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Deeds--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Judicial records--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Land records--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Local government records--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Plats--Virginia--Accomack County.
- Wills--Virginia--Accomack County.
Corporate Names:
Subjects:
Geographical Names:
Genre and Form Terms:
Adjunct Descriptive Data
Related MaterialAdditional Accomack County Court Records can be found on microfilm at The Library of Virginia. See A Guide to Virginia County and City Records on Microfilm
See the Chancery Records Index to find the chancery records of additional Virginia localities.
Selected Suits of Interest
Bill of complaint describes trip to collect oysters on Cedar Island, discovery of a ship wreck, and gathering of scraps. Plaintffs were charged with theft by Arbuckle, who had already bought rights to the wreck.
Case involves a dispute over a contract to manage cattle grazing on Cedar Island.
Case involves a widow who acquired assets of her own after her husband's death.
Contract dispute. Case contains lengthy depositions about alleged fraud. The plaintiff claims he was held against his will and kept drunk, then swindled from his land.
The case contains a 1777 letter with a reference to the Battle of Brandywine.
Freedom suit. The suit claims he is held illegally in slavery because he was imported illegally from Virginia from Delaware by Robert Foreman, citizen of Delaware, after the Virginia legislature passed a Non-Importation Act in 1778. The only document in the case is the petition, with notes from the court on the reverse indicating Foreman is not available for questioning.
The case involves a dispute over an agreement stipulating Hinman would help Baviere navigate his ship to Philadelphia.
The case involves a vessel that was condemned in Admiralty Court for trading contraband with the enemy during the Revolutionary war.
The plaintiff seeks compensation for her share of inheritance, on the grounds that the slaves she inherited didn't do much work. The case includes a deposition about the division of the estate in which a slave asked "where he and his wife should go."
Contract dispute involving a business deal to ship timber from the Eastern Shore to the West Indies.
Case involves a business partnership to trade in small vessels along the coast.
Plaintiff sues for separate maintenance and alimony to support an unborn child.
Freedom suit. The plaintiff purchased his own freedom. He alleges his former owner illegally sold him after he had purchased his freedom. The case contains depositions in which witnesses describe how the enslaved man London took care of two little girls after their father, his owner, moved away and left them to fend for themselves.
Case contains a letter that describes military action during the Revolutionary War: the march of the 9th Virginia Regiment to Philadelphia in 1777, and small pox.
Case contains an exhibit from a jury trial describing alleged theft of corn by enslaved people.
The case involves a business partnership involving the Schooner Sally, which made several voyages from the West Indies to Baltimore.
The case involves an emancipation of slaves.
Case identifies Joseph Outten as someone who helped Henry Trader repair a vessel, and Smith as owning a counting house in Baltimore.
The case pertains to the sale of a Presbyterian Meeting House in the town of Drummond that was sold under the provisons of disestablishment.
The case documents the sale of a child to satisfy debts on her father's estate.
The case concerns the estate of a person presumed lost at sea in a severe gale of wind, circa 1788.
The suit indicates that the slaves named in the suit had previously sued for their freedom.
Freedom suit filed by a woman claiming freedom on account of her Native American ancestry through her mother, Mall Cook, " one of the native aboriginal Indians of this country."
The case involves a runaway slave.
Significant Places Associated With the Collection
- Accomack County (Va.)--Genealogy.
- Accomack County (Va.)--History.