Historic Prince William

Join us, our friends with the Preservation division, and your neighbors at tonight’s walking tour in Nokesville.

Don't forget to join us tonight, Friday July 19th, for our free Walking Tours of Historic Prince William Towns: Nokesville! This tour, led by local Charlotte Beahm Bear with assistance from Gail Williams, leaves at 7 pm from the Renaissance Montessori School parking lot located at 12625 Fitzwater Drive, Nokesville. Questions? Call 703-792-1731.

Museum of Culpeper History Lecture Series
The Importance and Uniqueness of the 1774 Culpeper Resolves: “We will at all times, at the risk of our lives and fortunes, oppose any Act imposing such taxes or duties”

Tuesday July 7, 2024 at 7:00 pm at the Museum of Culpeper History
This lecture program will be held at the museum. Admission is $5 per person but Museum members get in FREE. Save your seat at the following link:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lecture-series-july-tickets-929160322537

I want to thank the Prince William County Resolves Chapter NSDAR, the Prince William County Historical Commission, and the Prince William County Office of Historical Preservation for allowing me to speak at their 250th Resolves Anniversary and historical marker unveiling yesterday in Dumfries. We remembered one of the most important events in Virginia’s history, which few Virginia’s now realize.

In June and July 1774 over 40 of Virginia’s 61 counties produced resolves, statements of how their county’s freeholders and inhabitants felt about the erosion of their colonial rights. These resolves were initiated after the December 16, 1773 Boston Tea Party which the British Parliament reacted decisively passing the Boston Port Act on March 31, 1774, which called for the closing the port of Boston on June 1, 1774. The Port of Boston was the lifeblood for Boston and its local citizens. About May 20th news of the Boston Port Act arrived in Williamsburg at the same time that Virginia’s House of Burgesses were in session. Virginia’s House of Burgesses was the colonies oldest, beginning in 1619, and most powerful colonial legislative body. Each Virginia county was allowed two Burgesses to represent their interest and it was the only voice the masses had concerning the political landscape in Virginia. Angered, House of Burgess members on May 24th passed their resolution setting the first Day of June 1774 as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer, devoutly to implore the divine. Two days later the resolution was appeared in the local Virginia Gazette and immediately Governor Dunmore summoned the burgesses to the council room stating that the resolution was written “in such Terms as reflect highly upon his Majesty and the Parliament of Great Britain; which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you; and you are dissolved accordingly.”

Shocked, most of the then former burgesses, agreed to meet at Raleigh Tavern a few blocks away. At least 89 of the previously assembled 120 Burgesses reconvened into an extra-legal session in the tavern’s Apollo Room. On the following day, May 27, these “former burgesses” agreed to an association, and attacked the Dunmore for taking away the ability of giving their countrymen advice and a free voice, and called for a General Congress of the Colonies. Three days later, May 30th, Peyton Randolph received letters from New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, and Baltimore, reporting to Virginians that they also were asking for a General Colonial Congress. Peyton rounded up 25 former Burgesses who had not left for their homes in which they came up with a more detailed directive for their county leaders fixing an exact date, August 1, for their county representatives to meet in an extra-legal Virginia Convention. They said that they decided on that date, “this distant Day in Hopes of accommodating the Meeting to every Gentleman’s private Affairs, and that they might, in the meantime, “have an Opportunity of collecting the Sense of their respective Counties.” Of Virginia’s 61 counties, Prince William County freeholders. Merchants, and inhabitants were the first to inform Virginians “the Sense of their respective county” on June 6, 1774.

Prince William County inhabitants led the way in including resolves proclaiming the Right to be governed and taxed by themselves and that Parliament acted unconstitutionally. They also called to stop imports from and exports to Great Britain and pledged to support Boston in their suffering for disobeying the unconstitutional act by Parliament. Most of these Resolves were repeated many times by later counties, however there were some unique resolves adopted by Prince William that most counties did not address including calling to stop the Courts of Justice until Repeal of the Boston Port Acts was made and Prince William County did not state that they would submit to the King, while blaming Parliament for the troubles suffered in the colonies, trying to drive a wedge between King George III and Parliament. That division never materialized.

The most revealing item with the resolves produced in Virginia’s 1774 Summer of Discontent was the unanimity of action displayed by inhabitants of Virginia that summer. As previously mentioned at least 45 of Virginia’s 61 counties penned resolves in June and July 1774. None of Virginia’s ten frontier counties produced resolves that summer with good reasons. The counties on Virginia’s frontier were vast with a poor road network and the largest reason for not gathering was the Native American uprising in the summer of 1774, which produced what became known as Dunmore’s War. If one takes those Virginia counties out of the equation, 45 of Virginia’s 51 non-frontier counties produced resolves, and that number is probably higher. On August 4, Clementina Rind’s Williamsburg Virginia Gazette stated, “The Northumberland, Orange, King George, Amelia, Frederick, Lancaster, Mecklenburg, Lunenburg, Accomack, King William, Warwick, and a few other resolves, we have received, but could not possibly insert them. They profess the great loyalty and affection towards his majesty, but at the same time, are spirited and determined in the pursuit of their just rights and privileges.” Likewise, on the same day Alexander Purdie and John Dixon’s Williamsburg Virginia Gazette stated, “The Resolves of the Counties of Fairfax, Mecklenburg, Prince Edward, Brunswick, Lancaster, Sussex, Accomack, and Charles City, are come to Hand; which we should with much Pleasure have inserted in our Gazette, had it been possible. We had neither Time, nor Room enough, for them.” It is highly likely that five of the six counties with no known resolves of Northampton, Southampton, Cumberland, Goochland, and Louisa penned resolves as those counties had representatives who signed the 89 former-burgesses association document at Raleigh’s Tavern. None of the other produced anywhere close to the number of percentage of county resolves as were produced in Virginia.

At least 75 percent and possibly as high as 95 percent of Virginia’s non-frontier counties produced resolves in June and July 1774. Led by Prince William County on June 6, practically every one of Virginia’s thirty-three surviving resolves begin with something similar to, “At a meeting of the freeholder and other inhabitants of the county.” Virginia’s local leaders turned the power over to their citizens for both resolve and instruction, as they prepared for the First Virginia Convention. This democratic action was Virginia’s first step to declaring independence two years later. In doing so, the county freeholders bought into the upcoming struggle while producing a purely democratic set of documents which show a united clarity of purpose. Their collective local actions and their statements, county by county, have rarely, if ever, been duplicated. In the end, Dunmore was the only Royal Governor to dissolve a sitting colonial legislative body during the period of 1774-1776. The result was that the counties of Virginia produced the most comprehensive set of resolves leading up to the Revolutionary War. Virginians’ resolves fortified their commitment to the ever-strengthening common cause of America. Governor Dunmore, during the 1774 summer of discontent, unified Virginians for war, something that Massachusetts and the other colonies needed in the following years.

Route 1 through Dumfries may be crowded today but the surface sure is better than it was a little over 100 years ago. Read about the car, the building, and the photographer who took great pictures of muddy roads through Dumfries in 1919.

Muddy Roads Through Dumfries Muddy roads in Dumfries, Virginia with photograghs of a Satandard Steel Car Company Standard Eight taken by J. K. Hillers in 1919 for the Bureau of Public Roads.

Everyone needs a haircut once in a while, even mother nature. Happy Earth Day from White Hall cemetery on Aden Road near Nokesville.

We’re delighted to be a part of Prince William County Office of Historic Preservation’s 9th Annual History Symposium. Our very own board-member Earnie Porta presented a terrific talk about Hurricane Agnes. His new book “Hurricane Agnes in Virginia” will be available for purchase locally at the Manassas Museum or online beginning April 1! Go check it out: https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/products/9781467156486

These pictures were used in the Potomac News newspaper. An employee saved them from the trashcan years ago and provided them to us so they could be scanned and shared. The labels are what the newspaper wrote on them or the headline that went with them. These are the Manassas area pictures from the set.