1801.047: Petition for New County from parts of Berkeley and Hampshire.
Published: 1801
Full Title: To the honourable the General Assembly of Virginia: the petition of ... the inhabitants of ... Berkeley and Hampshire ... state, that a respectable county may be laid off and taken from the said two counties ... and that the town of Bath may be declared by law, to be the place for holding courts ...
Author: Sundry Inhabitants of Berkeley and Hampshire Counties.
Place Issued: Virginia
Issuing Press: Uncertain
Description: 1 sheet [1 pg.]; 35 cm. x 21 cm. (broadside).
Notes
Petition asks for formation of a new county from lands in western Berkeley and northeastern Hampshire counties to the west of the Sleepy Creek ridge; the county seat mentioned is also known today as Berkeley Springs. Submitted December 18, 1801, the petition was ultimately rejected by the Assembly on January 8, 1802, despite a recommendation by the Committee on Propositions and Grievances; this region eventually became Morgan County in 1820. Sheet lacks colophon; given the petition's focus on the area just west of Martinsburg, this item likely issued there; but the solitary Martinsburg press then was a Federalist one, while the proposed county was a Republican area, meaning that the possibility of the item's origin in Winchester cannot be excluded, so the indeterminate origin reported here.