Colonial Buckingham: Origins
Fry-Jefferson Map of Virginia, 1755.
When Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson made their famous map, Buckingham County was still part of Albemarle County. The circles are plantations, and “Buckingham” has this designation. The triangles are courthouses. Note that Old Albemarle Courthouse is directly across the river from Peter Jefferson’s plantation, Snowden.
As many of you know, in 2011, Buckingham County celebrated its 250th anniversary. In 1761, it and its “twin” county, Amherst, were cut from a vast Albemarle County.
In March 1761, the Virginia House of Burgesses voted to divide the vast Albemarle County into three distinct parts, establishing a new county to the west and one to the south. The goal was to ease the “many inconveniences” the citizens of Albemarle experienced getting to the courthouse at Scott’s Landing, on the Fluvanna River. From the first day of May 1761, the new Virginia statute announced, all that part of Albemarle “which lies on the south side of the Fluvanna river shall be one distinct county, and called and known by the name of Buckingham.”
Cindi, The Fry-Jefferson Map is widely reproduced. Reproductions are available here:
http://www.rare-maps.com/reproductionsDetail.cfm?pid=2137
and here:
http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/72662/.
You can learn more about it here: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefflife.html
Where did you get the map, please?