Chapter Five The Northern Neck
Before completing this study of seventeenth-century land grants, a brief analysis will be made of the nature of the land system in the Northern Neck with some attention given to the major ways in which it differed from the remainder of Virginia. The included area reached from the Potomac River south to the Rappahannock River and from the headwaters of these two streams in the western part of the colony to Chesapeake Bay.
The separate provision for the area went back to the days of exile in France of Charles II following the execution of Charles I in 1649. As a reward to those cavaliers who had been faithful to the Stuart regime, Charles II exercised his royal prerogative by making a grant of the portions of tidewater Virginia that were not seated. In the year of the execution the Northern Neck was granted to the following seven supporters of the King: Lord John Culpeper, Lord Ralph Horton, Lord Henry Jermyn, Sir John Berkeley, Sir William Morton, Sir Dudley Wyatt, and Thomas Culpeper. Efforts of the representatives of this group were frustrated in Virginia by the suspension of royal government, and therefore the proprietary charter was ineffective for a time. It had, however, been recorded in chancery in 1649 and was revived after the restoration of Charles II to the throne. In 1662 and again in 1663 Charles II ordered the Governor and Council of Virginia to assist the proprietors in “settling the plantations and receiving the rents and profits thereof.” But portions of the area had been seated since 1645, and legal obstructions were brought forth by Virginia planters and the Council to defeat the efforts of the proprietors.
A second appeal to the King led to a solution maneuvered in part by the Virginia resident agent in London, Francis Moryson. The original patent of 1649 was surrendered and a new charter was issued on May 8, 1669, to the Earl of St. Albans, Lord John Berkeley, Sir William Morton, and John Trethewy. The new document required the recognition of grants in the Northern Neck made by the Governor and Council prior to September 29, 1661, and it limited the title of the proprietors to that land which would be planted and inhabited within twenty-one years. The political jurisdiction of the area was still under the Virginia government. The laws of the colony were to remain operative, and in effect the grant was “to create a subordinate fief or proprietorship within Virginia.” But considerable confusion prevailed over the retroactive recognition of grants, and many landholders sought confirmation of their ownership. “Besides there are many other grants,” stated Governor William Berkeley, “in that patent inconsistent with the settlednesse of this government which hath no barr to its prosperitie but proprieties on both hands, and therefore is it mightily wounded in this last, nor have I ever observed anything so much move the peoples’ griefe or passion, or which doth more put a stop to theire industry than their uncertainty whether they should make a country for the King or other proprietors.”
The confusion that existed was further confounded by the grant of Charles II on February 25, 1672⁄73, of all of Virginia for thirty-one years to Lord Arlington and to Lord Thomas Culpeper, son of one of the original patentees of the Northern Neck by the same name. These two proprietors of the whole colony were to control all lands, collect rents, including all rents and profits in arrears since 1669, and exercise authority that sprang from grants previously made. Up until 1669 amid all the controversy over control of the Northern Neck, grants were regularly made by the local government on the basis of headrights as revealed in the land patent books. After that date the number decreased; and in March, 1674⁄75, the first land grant of 5,000 acres, later George Washington’s Mount Vernon, was issued to Nicholas Spencer and John Washington of Westmoreland in the name of the proprietors with the common seal being affixed to the grant by Thomas Culpeper and Anthony Trethewy. By this date Thomas Culpeper had obtained from the proprietors of 1669 recognition of one-sixth interest in the Northern Neck for him and his cousin on the basis of their fathers having been original patentees.
Opposition to the proprietary grant of the Northern Neck in Virginia led to efforts of the Assembly, encouraged by Governor William Berkeley, to buy out the rights of the proprietors. Apparently the proprietors were willing to sell and set the price of £400 each for the six shares then held in the charter. Negotiations to complete the transaction were interrupted by the outbreak of Bacon’s Rebellion, and the status of the proprietary grant hung in suspension. Meanwhile, Thomas, Lord Culpeper was appointed Governor of Virginia but did not arrive in the colony until 1680. The next year Culpeper bought up the proprietary rights in Virginia, both the rights of the other proprietors in the Northern Neck and the rights of Lord Arlington for all of Virginia. In 1684, however, he gave up the Arlington charter of 1673 to the crown in return for an annual pension of £600 for twenty-one years.
Lord Culpeper retained the Northern Neck charter and made efforts to encourage settlement of the area. But the terminal date of the twenty-one year period stipulated in the charter of 1669 was approaching, and he appealed for a renewal of the grant on the basis that the amount of land intended by Charles II had not been taken up. Considering the restriction an impracticable one, King James II issued a new charter in 1688 with Lord Culpeper as the sole proprietor and with no time limit specified. Through changes and additions prompted by Culpeper’s knowledge of Virginia’s geography, the area of the grant included in the Northern Neck was substantially enlarged over the boundaries stated in the previous charters of 1649 and 1669, the additions later being interpreted as extending Culpeper’s claim beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains to the foot of the Alleghenies. The area as outlined in 1688 was as follows with the additions to the former descriptions shown in italics:
All that entire tract, territory or parcel of land situate, lying and being in Virginia in America and bounded by and within the first heads or springs of the rivers of Tappanhannocke alias Rappahanocke and Quiriough alias Patawomacke Rivers, the courses of the said rivers, from their said first heads or springs, as they are commonly called and known by the inhabitants and descriptions of those parts, and the Bay of Chesapoyocke, together with the said rivers themselves and all the islands within the outermost banks thereof, and the soil of all and singular the premisses.
Soon after receiving this third charter, Lord Culpeper died on January 27, 1688⁄89. Despite efforts that were again made by the colony to eliminate the proprietary grant, it was confirmed to Culpeper’s survivors and passed by marriage to the Fairfax family.
After the 1669 charter, the proprietors opened an office in the colony and an agent was designated to handle land grants and collect fees. The scant records that survive indicate that from 1670 to 1673, Thomas Kirton was agent in the land office in Northumberland; from 1673 to 1677, William Aretkin was appointed the proprietor’s “agent in Virginia”; and from 1677 to 1689, Daniel Parke and Nicholas Spencer were agents in the land office in Westmoreland.
Beginning in 1690 land patents in the Northern Neck were entered separately and the grant books that have survived give a good account of the land policy under the proprietors. Philip Ludwell served as agent from 1690 to 1693 and began an orderly handling of the proprietor’s interest at the land office in Westmoreland. Throughout his term as agent he used a form for land grants in establishing his authority which reviewed a part of the checkered history of the Northern Neck. The introductory portion of this form was as follows:
Whereas King Charles the Seacond of ever blessed memory by his letters pattents under the broad seale of England beareing date at Westminister the eighth day of May in the one and twentyeth yeare of his reigne Annoqe Dom. 1669, His Matie was gratiously pleased to give graunt and confirme unto Henry then Earle of St. Albons, John Lord Berkley, Sir William Morton, Knt., & John Trethewy, Esqr., there heires & assignes all that intire tract territory or parcell of land lyinge & being betweene the two rivers of Rapah. and Patomack and the courses of the said rivers and the Bay of Chesapeake, as by the said graunts, recourse beinge had there unto, will more at large appeare, and
Whereas all the rite and title of in and to the said lands & premisses is by deed enrold and other suffentient conveyance in law conveyed and made over to Thomas Lord Culpeper, eldest sonn & heire of John late Lord Culpeper, his heires & assignes for ever, who is thereby become sole owner and propriator of the said land in fee symple, and
Whereas Kinge James the Seacond hath beene gratiously pleased by his letters pattents bearinge date at Westminister the 27th day of September 1688, and in the fourth yeare of his Maties. reigne, to confirme the said graunt for the said tract or parcell of land to the said Thomas Lord Culpeper his heires & assignes for ever, as by the said graunt, relation beinge there unto had, will more at large appeare
And the said Thomas Lord Culpeper he beinge since deceased all the rite title and interest of in and to the said tract of land lawfully desendinge on the Honorble. Mrs. Katherine Culpeper sole daughter and heire of the said Thomas late Lord Culpeper, and Allexander Culpeper Esqr. who cometh in part propriator by lawfull conveyance from Thomas late Lord Culpeper, and confirmed by the said Mrs. Katherine Culpeper, who are thereby now become the true and lawfull propriators of the said tract or territory, and
Whereas the said propriators have thought fitt under there hands & seales to depute me Phillip Ludwell Esqr. with full power and authority to act in the prmisses. persuant to the powers granted by there said Maties. as fully & amply to all intents & purposes as they the said propriators them selves might or could doe if they were personally present,
NOW KNOW YEE therefore....
The provisions in the fourth paragraph above designating Mrs. Katherine Culpeper and Alexander Culpeper as “the true and lawfull propriators” were obsolete after the former married Lord Fairfax while Ludwell was still agent. By law the husband also became a proprietor and should have been added to the list. This omission was corrected by George Brent and William Fitzhugh, the two agents who succeeded Ludwell in 1693 and continued to serve during the 1690’s in the land office at Woodstock in Stafford County. In a much simplified form, Brent and Fitzhugh merely listed the proprietors including the husband as follows:
Margarett Lady Culpeper, Thomas Lord Fairfax, Katherine his wife and Alexander Culpeper Esquire, proprietors of the Northern Neck of Virginia....
The grants made by the various agents of the proprietors in the Northern Neck were not substantially different in nature from those held under a Virginia land patent. Both tenures reflected the feudal law of the manor. The proprietors held their land in free and common socage, and the planters in the Northern Neck paid quitrents and fees to the proprietors rather than to the crown.
While the nature of the tenure was similar, there was a marked difference in the methods of obtaining a grant. Instead of the headright which we have seen was the basis for Virginia land grants during most of the seventeenth century, the proprietors turned to what they considered the more practical procedure—acquisition of title by purchase, or the “treasury right.” To obtain title to land the individual paid a “composition” which was established at a uniform rate. For each 100 acres in grants less than 600, the price was five shillings; for 100 acres in grants more than 600, the price was increased to ten shillings. Payment was permitted in tobacco which was valued at the rate of six shillings for every 100 pounds in 1690. Such a provision could permit the acquisition of large holdings without the manipulations that were practiced under the headright system.
In the provision for quitrents, the two areas were similar. The amount of the quitrent in the Northern Neck was the same as elsewhere in Virginia—two shillings annually for 100 acres. Under agents Brent and Fitzhugh one exception occurred with the attempt in 1694 to double the quitrent and thereby maintain the same scale as was customary in Maryland at the time. But few grants have been found to indicate the agents succeeded to any extent in establishing the higher rate.
Relative to requirements for seating to validate the claim, the two areas followed a different course as the seventeenth century progressed. We have previously noted the three-year “seating and planting” requirement for other Virginia patents. Similar provisions were included in the first proprietary grants as revealed in the earliest patent in 1675. But beginning with the grant for Brent Town in 1687, the seating requirement was omitted and this precedent was followed for all subsequent proprietary grants in the Northern Neck in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
For the seventeenth century under consideration in this study, there was considerable private and public animosity displayed toward the principles of the proprietary system. There was a distrust of the grants that were issued, and there was criticism of the proprietary system as it differed from the remainder of Virginia. Demand for land in the area was not as great; and with the exception of large holdings such as that of William Fitzhugh, most of the patents were small. It was not until the eighteenth century that public antipathy toward the proprietors was for the most part dispelled and that demands on the Northern Neck land offices increased to equal other areas in Virginia.