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Preferred Citation

Documents pertaining to Frederick County, Va., 1778-1881, Accession # 10852, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was a gift to the Library from Miss Ann F. Stickley of Strasburg, Virginia, on July 19, 1989.

Scope and Content Information

These four documents, 1778-1881, presumably trace the ownership of land tracts near Cedar Creek in Frederick County, Virginia.

The first item is a parchment land grant from Thomas Lord Fairfax (1693-1781) as proprietor of the Northern Neck of Virginia, October 14, 1778. It conveys to Colonel Isaac Zane of Frederick County 182 acres of "waste and ungranted land on Cedar Creek" provided that Zane, his heirs or attorneys pay to Fairfax, his heirs or attorneys one shilling sterling annually on "the feast day of St. Michael and the Archangel [September 29] per every fifty acres. On the reverse is a notation: "This is to be convay'd to Jacob Fry."

The second item is a January 19, 1819 will of Frederick County resident William Tyler (?--1822). Among its provisions are bequests of various lands and possession to members of his family as well as instructions freeing specific slaves and of the emancipation of others upon their reaching the age of twenty-five; Tyler also stipulates that "should the laws of Virginia be unfavourable to the emancipation of slaves, I enforce it on my executor, in order to insure the freedom of my negroes, as aforesaid, that he remove them to some other state more favourable to liberty and there set them free." According to the 1820 Virginia Census Tyler owned approximately ten slaves; seven free blacks were listed as residing with his family. Additional entries on this document indicate that Tyler was deceased by September 1, 1822.

The last two documents pertain to Simon Fauber of Shenandoah County. In a March 26, 1873 land deed between Fauber and James and Rachel Fry of Shenandoah and Elizabeth Fry of Jefferson County, West Virginia, he purchases two parcels of land encompassing both counties near Cedar Creek for the sum of five hundred dollars. The other deed of land, March 3, 1881, indicates that Fauber purchased land tracts in Shenandoah and Frederick counties (in the periphery of Cedar Creek) from M. A. Richards and his wife Julia for the sum of $1,275.

Also present with the collection is a page of handwritten notes regarding Colonel Isaac Hite and Colonel Isaac Zane regarding Zane's purchase of the Marlboro Iron Works of Pennsylvania in 1767, and mention that Philadelphia Quakers exiled to Winchester, Virginia, during the American Revolution were placed under his custody for the duration of the war.