History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia | Page 4

250 miles and an average width of about 25
miles, and varying in altitude from 300 to 1,200 feet, lies just east of
the Blue Ridge Mountains, and comprises the counties of Loudoun,
Fauquier, Culpeper, Rappahannock, Madison, Greene, Orange,
Albemarle, Nelson, Amherst, Bedford, Franklin, Henry, and Patrick. It
is a portion of the belt that begins in New England and stretches thence
southward to Georgia and Alabama.]
The particular geographic location of Loudoun has been most
accurately reckoned by Yardley Taylor, who in 1853 made a
governmental survey of the county. He placed it "between the latitudes
of 38° 52-1/2" and 39° 21" north latitude, making 28-1/2" of latitude, or
33 statute miles, and between 20" and 53-1/2" of longitude west from
Washington, being 33-1/2" of longitude, or very near 35 statute miles."
Loudoun was originally a part of the six million acres which, in 1661,
were granted by Charles II, King of England, to Lord Hopton, Earl of
St. Albans, Lord Culpeper, Lord Berkeley, Sir William Morton, Sir
Dudley Wyatt, and Thomas Culpeper. All the territory lying between
the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers to their sources was included in
this grant, afterwards known as the "Fairfax Patent," and still later as
the "Northern Neck of Virginia."
"The only conditions attached to the conveyance of this domain, the
equivalent of a principality, were that one-fifth of all the gold and
one-tenth of all the silver discovered within its limits should be
reserved for the royal use, and that a nominal rent of a few pounds
sterling should be paid into the treasury at Jamestown each year. In
1669 the letters patent were surrendered by the existing holders and in
their stead new ones were issued.... The terms of these letters required
that the whole area included in this magnificent gift should be planted

and inhabited by the end of twenty-one years, but in 1688 this
provision was revoked by the King as imposing an impracticable
condition."[2]
[Footnote 2: Bruce's Economic History of Virginia.]
The patentees, some years afterward, sold the grant to the second Lord
Culpeper, to whom it was confirmed by letters patent of King James II,
in 1688. From Culpeper the rights and privileges conferred by the
original grant descended through his daughter, Catherine, to her son,
Lord Thomas Fairfax, Baron of Cameron--a princely heritage for a
young man of 20 years.
BOUNDARIES.
The original boundaries of Loudoun County were changed by the
following act of the General Assembly, passed January 3, 1798, and
entitled "An Act for adding part of the county of Loudoun to the county
of Fairfax, and altering the place of holding courts in Fairfax County."
1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That all that part of the
county of Loudoun lying between the lower boundary thereof, and a
line to be drawn from the mouth of Sugar Land run, to Carter's mill, on
Bull run, shall be, and is hereby added to and made part of the county
of Fairfax: Provided always, That it shall be lawful for the sheriff of the
said county of Loudoun to collect and make distress for any public dues
or officers fees, which shall remain unpaid by the inhabitants of that
part of the said county hereby added to the county of Fairfax, and shall
be accountable for the same in like manner as if this act had not been
made.
2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for a majority of the
acting justices of the peace for the said county of Fairfax, together with
the justices of the county of Loudoun included within the part thus
added to the said county of Fairfax, and they are hereby required at a
court to be held in the month of April or May next, to fix on a place for
holding courts therein at or as near the center thereof (having regard to
that part of the county of Loudoun hereby added to the said county of

Fairfax) as the situation and convenience will admit of; and thenceforth
proceed to erect the necessary public buildings at such place, and until
such buildings be completed, to appoint any place for holding courts as
they shall think proper.
3. This act shall commence and be in force from and after the passing
thereof.
As at present bounded, the old channel at the mouth of Sugar Land run,
at Lowe's Island,[3] is "the commencement of the line that separates
Loudoun from Fairfax County and runs directly across the country to a
point on the Bull Run branch of Occoquan River, about three eighths of
a mile above Sudley Springs, in Prince William County." The Bull Run
then forms the boundary between Loudoun and Prince William to its
highest spring head in the Bull Run mountain, just