Record Book C, 1651-1656
Lower Norfolk County was established in 1637. It was the parent county of Norfolk and Princess Anne counties, which today have been superseded by the metropolises Chesapeake City and Virginia Beach. This book is a complete documentation of the activities of the county court, encompassing wills, deeds, court minutes, and court orders. Included are the usual tales of drunkenness and cruelty, of voyages to parts beyond the seas, of servants' attempts to escape their masters, and of a number of accounts of inhabitants "who had enjoyed the benefits of marriage with their partners before the fact of the sacrament itself."Besides the records themselves, Mr. Brayton provides a key to handwriting peculiarities of the era, a list of abbreviations and their meanings, and two indexes--the first a name index to the roughly 5,000 individuals mentioned in the documents, and the second an index to all places, vessels, and slaves contained therein.
John Anderson Brayton
836-9710
