AnSTKACTS OF Ol.D \'lRf;iXIA WlI.l.S. 325 



received by the editor have disclosed that these records have excited 

 much interest both north and south of Mason and Dixon's Line. 

 Their existence seems to have hitherto been wholly unknown to many 

 of the historians of old \'irginia. Our work, however, should be sup- 

 plemented by a small addition. 



It is only of late that the full significance of a portion of the con- 

 tents of one of the deed books in the recorder's ofifice for Washington 

 County, Pennsylvania, has been understood. It is apparent that when 

 Col. James Marshel, the first recorder of deeds for ^V^ashington County, 

 had filled his first volume, marked Deed Book A, vol. i, with deeds 

 acknowledged before Washington County officials and recorded from 

 January i, 1782, to November 20, 1784, utilized for his next volume 

 a book in which had been recorded a number of last wills that had 

 been admitted to probate before the County courts of the District of West 

 Augusta and Yohogania County, Virginia. These wills, with their 

 probate, were first recorded in a manuscript volume, and the balance 

 remaining blank was utilized by Colonel Marshel as his second volume, 

 marked Deed Book B, vol. i, by simply beginning his ^\'ashington 

 County records with a deed recorded on November 20, 1784, and 

 proceeding 410 pages until his last deed was recorded on April 25, 

 1786, when he struck the wills which had been recorded by Dorsey 

 Pentecost, the Clerk of the old Virginia C'ourts, many years before. 



It will be remembered that at the session of the County Court for 

 the District of West Augusta, held on September 18, 1776, at Augusta 

 Town (now Washington, Pa.), Dorsey Pentecost, who then lived on 

 the East Branch of Chartiers Creek, in what is now North Strabane 

 Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, was appointed Clerk 

 of Court in the stead of John Madison, and on December 23, 1776, 

 he was reappointed, and a demand was made by the Court upon John 

 ISIadison, Jr., Deputy of John Madison, to turn over to his successor 

 the records then in his possession, which demand was refused, and 

 process awarded to compel compliance : \'ol. I of these Annals, jip. 

 567, 568 ; Vol. II, pp. 79, 81. On the organization of Washington 

 County, Pennsylvania, Dorsey Pentecost, theretofore an ardent Vir- 

 ginian, became an ardent Pennsylvanian and a prominent official of 

 that jurisdiction. 



On account of the genealogical interest in the old wills referred 

 to, brief abstracts of them will now* be presented as a final instalment 

 of these papers. 



