IV. MIXUTK I'.OOK OV rill". \IK{;iNIA COURT lli;i,l) 

 FOR VOHOC.AXIA COUNTW I'lKST AT AUGUSTA 

 TOWN (NOW WASHINGTON, FA.), AND AFTER- 

 WARDS ON THE ANDRIAV HEATH FARM 

 NEAR WEST ELIZABETH; 1776-1780. 



EmiKi) p.v l>()vi) Crumrixk, ok Washington, Pa. 



iNlKODrcroRV. 



The minutes of this court, as well as those of the old Fort Dunmore 

 court printed with an introductory sketch in Vol. I., pp. 505-568 of 

 these Annals, are preserved in several old manuscript volumes of 

 unruled paper, legal -cap size. The entries in these order books were 

 evidently written hastily by the official clerks during the sessions of the 

 court, accounting for the misspelling of many proper names and other 

 words, and for frequent illegibility. They may have been intended 

 to be copied out at length in the more formal records of the court 

 proceedings ; but it is possible that, as the courts themselves as well 

 as the Virginia territorial jurisdictions ceased to exist after the final 

 running of the .southern and western boundary lines, no other and 

 more regular transcript of the orders was ever made, and that the 

 records now published are the only ones in existence containing the 

 judicial business of these ancient courts. 



These records are accurately copied, when at all legible, as spelled 

 and capitalized in the original ; even the punctuation is unchanged 

 except now and then when thought to be absolutely necessary for in- 

 telligibility. For it is believed that when the details of local history 

 are given, for the subse([uent use of the general historian, this literal- 

 ness of transcription gives color and strength to local incidents. So 

 when one meets in old records with the name James Swolevan, he is 

 interested in determining that the name must have been that of plain 

 James Sullivan. And shall we say that the name " Worshington " 

 was not ' ' Washington ' ' ? 



71 



