Target Completion Date: October 30, 2021 Environment, Planning, and Economics
Eighteenth century transportation-related court records (“road orders”) for inpidual Virginia counties constitute the primary evidence for early road development and outline early settlement and transportation corridors. This project will identify and transcribe the "road orders" from the Fauquier County court order books for the period 1784-1800 and develop a comprehensive new index for them. This study will continue and extend VTRC’s research on the early transportation records for much of the northern third of Virginia published in the Historic Roads of Virginia series. By the last half of the 18th century, Fauquier County contained important east-west and north-south transportation routes. The county’s early transportation records provide significant information relating not only to transportation connections with neighboring counties and other portions of Virginia, but also with Washington D.C. and the nearby states of Maryland and what is now West Virginia. This transportation network would later be important in the Civil War.
Last updated: July 5, 2023