St. ThomasΓ Parish in Virginia was formed from St. MarkΓ s Parish in 1740. The new parish encompassed present-day Orange, Greene, and a strip of southern Madison counties. Based on an extensive examination of primary sources, the work at hand is the first accurate description of the formation of St. ThomasΓ Parish, its member churches, its ministers, and others who played a significant part in its colonial history. In the absence of surviving vestry books for St. ThomasΓ Parish, or even an accurate map of the parish, the author was able to extract valuable information pertaining to St. ThomasΓ Parish from the surviving vestry books of the neighboring parishes of St. MarkΓ s and St. GeorgeΓ s. However, as Mrs. Papageorgiou explains in her Preface, Spotsylvania and Orange County road orders comprise the backbone of her study. The road orders for the construction and maintenance of roads, as recorded in county court order books, provide evidence to the existence of churches and chapels throughout the parish. The road ordersΓ value to the genealogist is that they identify the overseers and work crews assigned to maintain the road and any bridges along it. So, for example, the road orders tell us that, between November 1, 1726, and April 2, 1734, John Rucker, Thomas Jackson, Joseph Hawkins, Abraham Bledsoe, Henry Downes, John Davis, and George Eastham all served as overseers of roads near Southwest Mountain Chapel in St. ThomasΓ Parish. This work is an excellent example of historical reconstruction. The Introduction explains how, when, and why St. ThomasΓ was established from its parent and grandparent parishes, St. MarkΓ s and St. GeorgeΓ s. Next, the author uses the road orders and other sources to pinpoint the timing and location of each of the following places of worship: Germana Church, Southwest Mountain Chapel, Southwest Mountain Church, Upper Chapel, St. ThomasΓ Parish, Upper Church, Middle (Brick) Church, Pine Stake Church, and New (Orange) Church. (Mrs. Papageorgiou has also appended a number of important court orders at the back of the volume.) The third chapter gives the tenure of every parish minister and his family members. The final chapter recounts how previous writers--notably Bishop William Meade and Philip Slaughter--have recorded the history of St. ThomasΓ Parish and where, more often than not, they went astray. Students of Virginia church history will welcome the comprehensive bibliography that follows the appendices.

No one played a more important role in the settlement of Clark County than Capt. William "Billy" Bush. Born in Orange County, Virginia, Billy came out with Daniel Boone in 1775, resided for a time at Fort Boonesborough, then spent the rest of his life living a few miles from the fort. He thus became one of the first permanent settlers in Kentucky. Billy was also a key figure in establishing Providence Baptist Church, the first church in Clark County. Their place of worship-the Old Stone Church-is now the oldest church on Kentucky soil. Billy Bush laid claim to thousands of acres of land between Winchester and the Kentucky River, and Daniel Boone ran the surveys for him. This land became the foundation of the Bush Settlement.

In 1781, Virginia was invaded by formidable British forces that sought to subdue the Old Dominion. Lieutenant General Charles, Lord Cornwallis, led thousands of enemy troops from Norfolk to Charlottesville, burning and pillaging. Many of Virginia's famed Patriots--including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Nathanael Greene'struggled to defend the commonwealth. Only by concentrating a small band of troops under energetic French general the Marquis de Lafayette were American forces able to resist British operations. With strained support from Governor Jefferson's administration, Lafayette fought a campaign against the veteran soldiers of Lord Cornwallis that eventually led to the famed showdown at Yorktown. Historian John R. Maass traces this often overlooked Revolutionary struggle for Virginia and details each step on the road to Yorktown.

Philip Pendleton Barbour in Jacksonian America is the definitive biography of a Virginia legislator and jurist whose life and career mirror the transformational decades of US history between the War of 1812 and the end of the Mexican American War in 1848.

Excerpt from A History of Orange County, Virginia: From Its Formation in 1734 (O. S.) To the End of Reconstruction in 1870; Compiled Mainly From Original Records; With a Brief Sketch of the Beginnings of Virginia, a Summary of Local Evets to 1907, and a Map I have undertaken to write this book because I thought that the history of Orange was notable enough to deserve preservation. It is much to be regretted that some competent person did not do this work long ago; for in the lapse of time and the neglect of opportunity many things that ought to have been preserved can not now be narrated with confidence as history, hardly as tradition. Though much has perished, much remains. I have read with diligence the minute books of the county court from its organization in 1734 down to 1870; and can assert with complete candor that no known resource which I thought might afford information as to the past has been neglected. Name after name of places and people once locally historic has passed into oblivion and beyond the reach of the investigator. Regret is vain, and can not restore what is lost; my effort has been to save what is left, and to perpetuate it for posterity. Fortunately the county records are in excellent preservation, and the order books of the county court contain the history of the county, in the main, so far as it may now be written. I have been advised by judicious and well meaning friends to omit some of the more shocking details, such as the burning of Eve at the stake, the beheading of Peter, the cutting off. Of ears, burning in the hands, etc. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In this book, John Nelson reconstructs everyday Anglican religious practice and experience in Virginia from the end of the seventeenth century to the start of the American Revolution. Challenging previous characterizations of the colonial Anglican establishment as weak, he reveals the fundamental role the church played in the political, social, and economic as well as the spiritual lives of its parishioners. Drawing on extensive research in parish and county records and other primary sources, Nelson describes Anglican Virginia's parish system, its parsons, its rituals of worship and rites of passage, and its parishioners' varied relationships to the church. All colonial Virginians--men and women, rich and poor, young and old, planters and merchants, servants and slaves, dissenters and freethinkers--belonged to a parish. As such, they were subject to its levies, its authority over marriage, and other social and economic dictates. In addition to its religious functions, the parish provided essential care for the poor, collaborated with the courts to handle civil disputes, and exerted its influence over many other aspects of community life. A Blessed Company demonstrates that, by creatively adapting Anglican parish organization and the language, forms, and modes of Anglican spirituality to the Chesapeake's distinctive environmental and human conditions, colonial Virginians sustained a remarkably effective and faithful Anglican church in the Old Dominion.

With our American Philosophy and Religion series, Applewood reissues many primary sources published throughout American history. Through these books, scholars, interpreters, students, and non-academics alike can see the thoughts and beliefs of Americans who came before us.