Warren County (Va.) County Court Judgments, 1836-1969

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

Summary

Creator:
Warren County ( Va.) Circuit Court
Language:
English

Background

Scope and content:

Warren County (Va.) Judgments, 1836-1969 contains civil cases in which justice was administered on the strictly formulated rules of common law. The majority of these cases in this record series relate to matters of debt. The records consist of various levels of processed loose records and volumes.

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: Warren County was named for Joseph Warren, of Massachusetts, the Revolutionary patriot who sent Paul Revere and William Dawes on their famous rides and who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The county was formed from Shenandoah and Frederick Counties in 1836. The county seat is Front Royal.

Types of Courts

The County Court was the original colonial court of adjudication and recordation, and it was the principal tribunal for the administration of local justice. The individual justices could act on small claims matters as well as criminal matters where imminent bodily harm was a possibility, there being an appeal to the full County Court, which met monthly. This court ceased to exist in 1904 and the recordation function was transferred to the circuit court.

Acquisition information:
These items came to the Library of Virginia in shipments of court papers from Warren County in accession Number 37019 in 1999 as well as under an undated accession.
Arrangement:

This collection is arranged into two series:

  • Series I: Unprocessed Judgments, 1836-1969
  • Series II: Judgment Volumes, 1843-1916

Physical location:
State Records Center-Archives Annex, Library of Virginia
Physical description:
16 cu. ft. (16 boxes); 7 volumes