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LAYING OFF THE COUNTIES.

CHAPTER XIV.

LAYING OFF THE COUNTIES.

The two counties of Frederick and Augusta were laid off at the same session of the colonial legislature, in the year 1738, and included all the vast region of country west of the Blue Ridge. Previous to that time the county of Orange included all the territory west of the mountains. Orange was taken from Spottsylvania in the year 1734, Spottsylvania having previously crossed the Blue Ridge, and took in a considerable part of what is now the county of Page. Previous to laying off the county of Orange, the territory west of the Blue Bidge, except the small part which lay in Spottsylvania, does not appear to have been included in any county. Spottsylvania was laid off in the year 1720; the act for which is worded as follows:

PREAMBLE. That the frontier towards the high mountains are exposed to danger from the Indians, and the late settlements of the French to the westward of the said mountains: ENACTED, Spottsylvania county, bounded upon Snow Creek up to the mill; thence by a southwest line to the River North Ann; thence up the said River as far as convenient, and thence by a line to be run over the high mountains to the river on the northwest side thereof,* so as to include the northern passage, through the said mountains; thence down to the said river until it comes against the head of the Rappahannock River; thence by a line to the head of the Rappahannock River, and down that River to the mouth of Snow Creek; which tract of land, from the first of May, 1721, shall become a county, by the name of Spottsylvania county.

Thus it appears that a little more than one hundred years ago Spottsylvania was a frontier county, and that the vast region west of the Blue Ridge, with its millions of people, has been settled and improved from an entire wilderness. The country for more than a thousand miles to the west has been within this short period rescued from a state of natural barbarism, and is now the seat of the fine arts and sciences, of countless millions of wealth, and the abode of freedom, both religious and political. Judging from the past, what an immense prospect opens itself to our view for the future. Within