SUNLIGHT ON THE SOUTHSIDE Transcribed by Thomas Walter Duda Part 2 Contents of Files ----------------- sun001.txt - (Part 1) Background history, explanation of tithes, etc. sun002.txt - (Part 2) 1748 Tithe List sun003.txt - (Part 3) 1749 Tithe List sun004.txt - (Part 4) 1750 Tithe List sun005.txt - (Part 5) 1751 Tithe List sun006.txt - (Part 6) 1752 Tithe List sun007.txt - (Part 7) 1764 Tithe List sun008.txt - (Part 8) 1769 Tithe List sun009.txt - (Part 9) 1772 Tithe List sun010.txt - (Part 10) 1773 Tithe List sun011.txt - (Part 11) 1774 Tithe List sun012.txt - (Part 12) 1775 Tithe List sun013.txt - (Part 13) 1776 Tithe List sun014.txt - (Part 14) 1783 Tithe List Transcriber's Note: Apart from identifying misspelled words in Part 1, the transcriber has not altered the text. Any comments not clearly marked as being those of the transcriber are either those of the author or of a work cited by the author. The names in the tithe lists have been rendered precisely as found in the published text. It must be stressed that any suggestions as to alternative spellings or questioning that occur within the tithe lists are those of the author. The full text is presented in this transcription with the exception of the index. Each year is contained in its own file. Footnotes are rendered in brackets; page numbers are rendered in braces. Any parenthetical text has been rendered using the brackets or parentheses that appear in the published text. Between pp. 58 and 59 of the published text there appears a fold-out map of Lunenburg County as it existed in 1748, overlaid with the tithe subdivisions and the counties that were created from the original territory of Lunenburg county. A textual representation of the map, together with explanatory text, appears in Part 2 at the end of page 58, but prior to the start of the list of tithes. No copyright notice was printed in the published text. {page 57} CHAPTER TWO LIST OF TITHES, LUNENBURG COUNTY, VIRGINIA 1748, 1749, 1750, 1751 The lists of tithes for the years 1748, 1749, 1750 and 1751 embrace the entire area of ancient Lunenburg or the whole of the County, before it suffered any loss of territory, by the subdivision of its area into other counties. In other words, these lists embrace the census of tithables of the area which is now embraced in whole or in part in eleven counties. These counties are Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Charlotte, Halifax, Pittsylvania, Henry, Patrick, Franklin, Campbell, Bedford and Appomattox. Campbell and Bedford Counties embrace a little territory not originally within Lunenburg, while only about a fourth of the area of Appomattox is from territory originally within Lunenburg County. It is believed that all the lists for all these years except 1751 have been found, and are embraced herein. Only four lists for 1751 have been discovered. There were almost certainly four, and very probably five other lists for this year, which have not been found. A map of the County as it was when organized in 1746, and as it stood in 1748, is herewith presented. It is laid off into precincts for the taking of tithes that year. The boundaries of these precincts cannot be drawn with exact certainty, but from a study of the map and the brief description of the orders designating the territory within which each justice should take the lists, an approximation of the boundaries of the precincts has been attempted. It is felt they are, at least, accurate enough to serve a useful purpose. The designation of these precincts indicates that the most thickly populated area of Lunenburg County at that time was that section north of Roanoke River westward to Falling Creek, {page 58} and that probably the most thickly settled part of that territory was that lying upon the watershed of Meherrin River. The site of John Phelps' precinct from Falling River westward indicates that this was sparsely settled; and this was true in greater degree of the precinct of Cornelius Cargill. Theoretically his precinct embraced, presumably, all the territory from Butcher's Creek westward, and in the Forks of Roanoke (and Dan) rivers, and from the North Carolina line northward to the boundaries of other precincts, and westward to the limits of the County. But probably such inhabitants as were then in the area were clustered in and about "the fork" of the river. There were probably but few persons then resident in what is now Patrick, Henry, Franklin and a considerable part of Halifax Counties. By reference to this map, the designation of precincts in later years, and to the list of Tithables of the several precincts in these later years, one can appreciate the extent of the influx of population into this section. There was an enormous surge of immigration from the valley of the James, from the eastward; in fact, from all the older parts of Virginia, as well as from Maryland and Pennsylvania. The waves of this tide of immigrants flowed in and filled the land, many making but a temporary pause. As already pointed out, these pioneers and their children by countless thousands passed on into North Carolina, and into the territory that is now Kentucky; they helped to populate South Carolina and Georgia; they furnished a large percentage of the inhabitants of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois; and more recently still all of the newer parts of the United States. more to follow later