Histories

Histories

From Page B7

provides a really handy inventory of territory to hand out to worthy cronies. Land grants of nearly incomprehensible areas were given to English lords with names like Culpeper whose descendents, in turn, inherited these tracts. Of great significance locally were the Barbour and Northern Neck or Fairfax Tracts (Lord Thomas Fairfax was a bachelor descendant of Culpeper). James Barbour actually acquired his tracts by purchasing or manipulating the purchase of great chunks of the Fairfax land. These two truly vast ‘parcels’, included most of the area that is now Rappahannock County. Ah, but despite their infallibility, kings can be ambiguous in their gifts of real property in a far off land. The boundaries of the Barbour, Fairfax and other similar parcels were sometimes confused and overlapped, especially in the Blue Ridge region. Without going into all the details it is probably easy to see that a number of ‘subdivisions’got sold, patented, or otherwise disposed of more than once with later dire consequences. Combine 300 years of these types of transactions, add a bevy of lawyers to the mix, and well, you get the picture. One name that should not be forgotten in this mix is that of Francis Thornton, who lived in Spotsylvania County, but who acquired significant portions of what is now Rappahannock during the early 1700s. Thornton built the distinctive Montpelier mansion in F.T. Valley for his son and many local landmarks carry his name.