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The establishment and maintenance of public roads were among the most important functions of the county court during the colonial period in Virginia. Each road was opened and maintained by an overseer (or surveyor) of the highways, who was appointed each year by the Gentlemen Justices. The overseer was usually assigned all the able-bodied men (the "Labouring Male Tithables") living on or near the road. These laborers then furnished their own tools, wagons, and teams and were required to work on the roads for six days each year. County court records relating to roads and transportation are collectively known as "road orders." The Virginia Transportation Research Council's published volumes of road orders and related materials contain not only information on early roads, but also the names of inhabitants who lived and worked along the roadways, plantations, farms, landmarks, landforms, and bodies of water. The road orders contained in this volume cover the period from 1746, when Lunenburg's county government first became operational, through the creation of Halifax in 1752 and Bedford in 1754, down to the creation of Charlotte and Mecklenburg from it in 1765. As such, they are the principal extant evidence concerning the early development of roads over a vast area of Southside Virginia stretching into the very shadows of the Blue Ridge to include Pittsylvania, Henry, Franklin and Patrick, as well as major portions of Appomattox, Bedford and Campbell counties.

Of the many colonial roads constructed during the eighteenth century as settlement moved across Piedmont and Southside Virginia, a few have remained virtually intact and in service as state roads over most of their length. One of the most significant of these is the Three Notch'd or Three Chopt Road, which ran from Richmond to the Valley as a main east-west route from the 1730's to the 1930's, when it was superseded by U.S. Route 250. Probably originally an Indian and game trail, various sections were gradually improved to the status of roads during the 1730's as the settlers moved into the upper Piedmont. Known first as the Mountain Road, or Mountain Ridge Road, it derived its name Three Notch'd Road from a system of marks it had received by 1742 or 1743. As early as 1737 it possessed milestones, or numbered trees, running from west to east along its route as an aid to travellers. Although the road appears on late eighteenth century maps, it can first be specifically located on the maps prepared by the Confederate Engineers, and these indicate it very nearly on its present course from Richmond to the Valley.

The paper describes a unique methodology used in surveying and documenting architecture along eighteenth century road systems in Virginia which could be used as a prototype in other areas. In the method described the historian geographer, and architectural historian collaborate in research in primary sources such as court records, as well as secondary ones including surveying and documenting the formal and vernacular architecture associated with such an early road system up to the twentieth century. Since it includes course work in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, it provides the student with a learning experience in interrelated disciplines outside the classroom and an introduction to the architectural patterns associated with an early road system as opposed to the usual town setting context. The paper also describes the origin of the collaboration, the early roads surveyed, the road order abstract methodology, the architectural survey course methodology and the results, future studies, and some of the developing applications of the process.

With their "popular" orientation, the articles of the series entitled "Backsights" published in the VDH&T Bulletin since December 1972 probably constitute the best comprehensive survey of Virginian transportation history readily available to the public. This bibliography allows ready retrieval of any article published through December 1985.

The road history projects undertaken by the Virginia Transportation Research Council establish the feasibility of studies of early road networks and their use in the environmental review process. These projects, by gathering and publishing the early road orders of the vast parent counties, also lay the foundation for additional research by local groups over a broad area of Virginia. This volume marks the twentieth entry in the Historic Roads of Virginia series, first initiated by the Virginia Transportation Research Council (then the Virginia Highway & Transportation Research Council) in 1973. Amelia County Road Orders 1735-1753 expands the coverage of the early Southside Virginia transportation records begun in the previously published Brunswick County Road Orders 1732-1749 and Lunenburg County Road Orders 1746-1764.

This publication is the result of an effort to write a history of the early road system of Albemarle County which could be used as a prototype for similar histories of other areas. This has involved research in such primary sources as court records, deeds, and plats and, in the secondary, printed materials on the county and state, as well as on-site surveys of road traces and historic sites and their associated architecture. Albemarle County, formed in 1744 from Goochland, had its basic road network laid down between 1725 and 1750. With subsequent additions and improvements, the principal part of this network remains in service today and still constitutes most of the important roads of the county. Along it has flowed the economic, social, and political life of the community each day for the last 250 years. It is the skeleton along which are arranged most of the plantations, mills, battlefields and archaeological sites ranging from Monticello to the Indians' soapstone quarries near Alberene. Designed to serve as an example for local historians executing similar works for other counties, this publication serves to underscore the importance of the preparation of a detailed history of the early roads of each of Virginia's counties.

The establishment and maintenance of public roads were among the most important functions of the county court during the colonial period in Virginia. Each road was opened and maintained by an overseer (or surveyor) of the highways, who was appointed each year by the Gentlemen Justices. The overseer was usually assigned all the able-bodied men (the "Labouring Male Tithables") living on or near the road. These laborers then furnished their own tools, wagons, and teams and were required to work on the roads for six days each year. County court records relating to roads and transportation are collectively known as "road orders." The Virginia Transportation Research Council's published volumes of road orders and related materials contain not only information on early roads, but also the names of inhabitants who lived and worked along the roadways, plantations, farms, landmarks, landforms, and bodies of water. The road orders contained in this volume cover the period from Spotsylvania's creation to the creation of Orange County in 1734. As such, they are the principal extant evidence concerning the early road development of a major proportion of the northern Virginia Piedmont.

The establishment and maintenance of public roads were among the most important functions of the county court during the colonial period in Virginia. Each road was opened and maintained by an overseer (or surveyor) of the highways, who was appointed each year by the Gentlemen Justices. The overseer was usually assigned all the able-bodied men (the "Labouring Male Tithables") living on or near the road. These laborers then furnished their own tools, wagons, and teams and were required to work on the roads for six days each year. County court records relating to roads and transportation are collectively known as "road orders." The Virginia Transportation Research Council's published volumes of road orders and related materials contain not only information on early roads, but also the names of inhabitants who lived and worked along the roadways, plantations, farms, landmarks, landforms, and bodies of water. From 1732 to 1746 Brunswick was a giant parent county; by the end of this time, it had shrunk to very nearly its present size. The scale of the county as originally conceived made administration unwieldy, and like other large frontier counties created as a response to continued westward movement. Brunswick lost the majority of its terrioroty within about twenty-five years of its creation. The road orders contained in this volume cover the period from 1732, when Brunswick's county government first became operational, through the creation of Lunenburg County in 1746. As such they are the principal extant evidence concerning the early development of a vast area of Southside Virginia stretching as far as the Blue Ridge.

The establishment and maintenance of public roads were among the most important functions of the county court during the colonial period in Virginia. Each road was opened and maintained by an overseer (or surveyor) of the highways, who was appointed each year by the Gentlemen Justices. The overseer was usually assigned all the able-bodied men (the "Labouring Male Tithables") living on or near the road. These laborers then furnished their own tools, wagons, and teams and were required to work on the roads for six days each year. County court records relating to roads and transportation are collectively known as "road orders." The Virginia Transportation Research Council's published volumes of road orders and related materials contain not only information on early roads, but also the names of inhabitants who lived and worked along the roadways, plantations, farms, landmarks, landforms, and bodies of water. This volume is the nineteenth entry in the Historic Roads of Virginia series, initiated by the Virginia Transportation Research Council (then the Virginia Highway & Transportation Research Council) in 1973. Augusta County Road Orders 1745-1769 is also the first volume of published road orders to be concerned wholly with territory west of the Blue Ridge, although portions of the Shenandoah Valley were covered by a previous publication, Orange County Road Orders 1734-1749, which included the period the territory was part of Orange County, prior to 1745.

Albemarle County, formed from Goochland in 1744, is fortunate in having preserved in its records three volumes of surveys made by the surveyors of the county between 1744 and 1853. In a sense, Albemarle County's good fortune extends to several other counties in central Virginia for they were at one time partially or wholly within the confines of the county. These additional counties and their periods of inclusion in these books are: Amherst 1744-1761; Appomattox (portions) 1744-1761; Bedford (portions) 1744-1754; Buckingham 1744-1761; Campbell (portions) 1744-1754; Fluvanna 1744-1777; Nelson 1744-1761. Although indexed by names of patentees for whom the surveys were made, these books contain a great deal of information not readily apparent from a perusal of the index. Owners of adjacent land, locations of patents and grants, and locations and names of roads of the colonial and early national period are apparent on many of them. This index lists these roads named as well as those still unidentified, and the county within which they are presently located.

During the early stages of the pilot study of Albemarle County it was necessary to examine and extract all the road orders for the counties from which Albemarle was formed, as well as the orders for Albemarle when it still contained the counties of Amherst, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Nelson, and a part of Appomattox. The broad applicability of the orders for Goochland, Louisa, and early Albemarle, and the opinions of various authorities throughout the state who examined them, indicated that they should have separate publication in order to make them generally available to individual scholars through libraries and educational institutions.

This volume consists of what was originally intended as the introductory chapters of the Albemarle road history. Since most readers are probably unfamiliar with the history of roads in Virginia, it was thought proper to devote the first section of that work to a sketch of the development of road transportation here up to the coming of the period of intense railroad development in the nineteenth century. At the suggestion of several of the people who read the first draft, and in-the interest of increasing the utility of this particular section, a separate publication was decided upon. The author hopes that this brief sketch will help to place development of the roads of Albemarle, as well as those of the other counties, within the larger context of the development of Virginia's roads, and that it will simultaneously provide some understanding of the varied and often conflicting forces which shaped transportation policy at the colonial and state levels.