Northampton County (Va.) Judgments, 1655-1916

Access and use

Location of collection:
Library of Virginia
The Library of Virginia
800 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Archives Reference Services
Phone: (804) 692-3888
Restrictions:

There are no restrictions.

Terms of access:

There are no restrictions.

Preferred citation:

Northampton County (Va.) Judgments, 1655-1916. [insert series or volume title]. Local government records collection, Northampton County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia 23219.

Summary

Extent:
56.9 cubic feet (126 boxes)
Creator:
Northampton County (Va.) Circuit Court.
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

Northampton County (Va.) Judgments, 1655-1916. [insert series or volume title]. Local government records collection, Northampton County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia 23219.

Background

Scope and content:

Northampton County (Va.) Judgments, 1655-1916, consist of civil suits in which justice was administered on the strictly formulated rules of common law. The majority of the cases relate to matters of debt. These records consist of processed, loose records.

Biographical / historical:

Context for Record Type: Judgments are identified as civil suits, often involving debt, heard by a jury on the "law" side of the court as opposed to the "chancery" (or equity) side. Should the defendant not have funds to repay the debt, the court ordered their property (including enslaved people) to be seized and sold to repay the debt owed to the plaintiff. Judgments also contain suits brought by enslaved people seeking to gain their freedom.

In Judgments, an assumpsit or declaration (sometimes referred to as a narratio) lays out the plaintiff's grievance as a petition acted as a formal application to the court requesting judicial action. Judgment suits also generally included record types like subpoenas, summons, and exhibit. Judgments may also include additional documentations such as executions, bonds, and various kinds of writs.

Judgment suits make up a large quantity of a locality's records; consequently, they provide a great deal of information concerning the activities and interests of the people who lived in the locality. Since the vast majority of judgment suits relate to financial matters, they are a valuable resource in studying the economic and social history of Virginia localities and are the impotence for many chancery suits.

Locality History: Northampton County was named probably for the English county, of which Obedience Robins, a prominent early resident of the Eastern Shore, was a native. The county, which originally included all of the peninsula south of Maryland and which was one of the eight shires, or counties, first enumerated in 1634, was first called Accomack. The General Assembly changed the name to Northampton County in 1643. Accomack County was created from Northampton County about 1663, but in October 1670, the General Assembly temporarily reunited the two counties as Northampton County. In November 1673, Accomack County was again separated from Northampton. The county seat is Eastville.

Acquisition information:
These items came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from the circuit court of Northampton County in an undated accession.
Processing information:

Prior to 2026, the judgement descriptive records were not standardized in their inclusion of contextual information or content lists. Local Records staff reviewed this record and have updated to current standards as of 2026.

Encoded by G. Crawford: 2013; updated by J. Taylor: July 2026.

Arrangement:

This collection is arranged into two series:

  • Series I: Judgments, 1655-1816
  • Series II: Unprocessed Judgments, 1851-1916

Physical location:
State Records Center