Elizabeth City County was originally known as the Plantation of Kecoughtan. By 1618, the name had been changed to the Burrough of Kecoughtan and two Burgesses were sent to the first General Assembly (1619). A petition was put before the Assembly to change the name of the Burrough. On 17 May 1620, it received the name of Elizabeth City after his Majesty’s [James I] most vertuous and renowned daughter. At this time, Elizabeth City occupied all of the lower peninsula between the James and York rivers south of James City, as well as the territories on the southern shores of Hampton Roads. Over the following years, the boundaries changed several times. In 1952, Elizabeth City County became extinct when it was incorporated in the independent city of Hampton, Virginia.

All court records of Elizabeth City County prior to 1688 have been lost, except for a very few loose papers; records from 1700 until after the Civil War are incomplete. In 1933, what remained of the first extant book of court records was restored and it was from this volume that the present abstracts were made. Due to the frailty of the original records, the abstracts herein are given quite fully so that the researcher will have little reason to check the originals (although each abstract does contain a citation to the original record). An index to full-names and locations enhances the value of this work.
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