<< What would a vestry have to do with this? >> Before the Revolution, there was not yet separation of church and state in Virginia. The Anglican church was the official state church and as such had many responsibilities we now associate with civil government, such as taxation, care of the poor and sick, guardianship of orphans, road maintenance, etc. The Vestry was a group of church leaders [men], chosen for life or until resignation, which administered all this civil business in addition to the purely church business [paying clergy, building churches, maintaining the glebe [the main church property in the parish] etc]. Indeed, the parish was, I think, a far more important governing entity in the everyday lives of people then than was the county. Does this help?