Amherst County (Va.) Judgments, circa 1770-1950

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:

Collection is open to research.

Terms of access:

There are no restrictions.

Preferred citation:

Amherst County (Va.) Judgments, circa 1770-1950 [insert series or volume title]. Local government records collection, Amherst County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va.

Summary

Extent:
28.3 cubic feet (58 boxes); 2 volumes>
Creator:
Amherst County (Va.) Circuit Court
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

Amherst County (Va.) Judgments, circa 1770-1950 [insert series or volume title]. Local government records collection, Amherst County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va.

Background

Scope and content:

Amherst County (Va.) Judgments, circa 1770-1950, consist of civil cases in which justice was administered on the strictly formulated rules of common law. The majority of cases in this record group relate to matters of debt. The county and circuit court judgments have undergone minimal processing. A small section of records remain completely unprocessed.

Contains judgments related to free and enslaved people.

This series has undergone minimal processing. This has allowed for the documentation of specific record types and various trends found in this set of records. All records remain tri-folded and may be fragile.

All records in this record series are unprocessed and remain tri-folded within their original bundles; the bundles also include other court records, such as commonwealth causes, road and bridge records, tax and fiscal records, Overseers of the Poor, etc. Not all record types will be found in every bundle of papers. The contents of the boxes are not arranged in any particular order and dates may overlap between boxes. Some records may be fragile.

The court in which these records belong has not been identified.

The court in which these volumes were used has not been identified.

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:Amherst County was named for Major General Jeffery Amherst, British commander in North America during the latter part of the French and Indian War and governor of Virginia from 1759 to 1768. It was formed from Albemarle County in 1761. Islands in the Fluvanna (now the James) River were added in 1770. The county seat is Amherst.

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 1919 and the recordation function was transferred to the circuit court.

The Superior Court of Law was created in 1808. It met twice a year in each county, presided over by a circuit-riding General Court judge. Records were filed with the County Court. It had civil and criminal jurisdiction. The court ceased to exist in 1831.

The Circuit Court was authorized by the Constitution of 1851 and established by an act of the General Assembly passed in May 1852. Courts were held twice yearly in each county, presided over by 21 judges who rode circuits in the area of their jurisdiction. The records were filed with County Court records. These courts were granted original jurisdiction concurrent with that of the County Courts, as well as appellate jurisdiction in all civil cases of more than fifty dollars and criminal cases not "expressly cognizable in some other court," including those involving loss of life.

Acquisition information:
These records came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from Amherst County in 2022 in accession number 53740 as well as 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.

The county and circuit court judgments were minimally processed by C. Collins and J. Taylor in 2024-2025.

Encoded by J. Taylor: June 2026.

Arrangement:

This collection is arranged into three series:

  • Series I: Judgments, 1849-1864, relating to free and enslaved Black and Multiracial individuals
  • Series II: Minimally Processed Judgments, 1831-1874
  • Series III: Unprocessed Judgments, 1770-1950 circa
  • Series IV: Judgment Volumes, 1818-1853

Physical location:
Library of Virginia