Court Cases
Court cases were a fact of life in any civilized society to prevent anarchy and mayhem. Civil suits were tried by the Chancery Court every quarter when grievances demanded a hearing. The range of suits went from non-payment of debts, to land theft, to the rare divorce. Both plaintiff and defendant were given their right to be heard before the court decided a judgment.
For the most part, these records provide a valuable insight into the occupations, and relationships, of the village inhabitants. This data was taken from the Chancery Records housed in the Loudoun County Archives, located in the Loudoun County Courthouse, Leesburg, VA.
chancery Cases
The Loudoun County Archives has a complete listing of all Chancery (civil & criminal) cases back to 1757, with the original papers. In 2009-2010 Loudoun County Archives participated in a project by the Virginia State Library to put on-line all the Chancery records and documentation from all the Virginia counties.
Click Here to go directly to the Chancery Records page… or type in www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/). To view the cases in the table below, select “Loudoun County” from the drop-down list, then add the name of either the plaintiff or the defendant. The documents are excellent scanned images that are very easy to read.
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Road Cases
Road cases for Unison are part of the Loudoun County Archives. These cases were petitions by landowners to open a new road over private land to assist in travel, business, or opening land to division. The petitioner had to plead a sufficient need before the county board would approve the new road because the petitioner and the surrounding farms and businesses that would benefit from the road were also charged with upkeep and maintenance. Back in the horse and buggy era, it was the local farmers who would scrape and level the roads, so ensuring this very critical issue was fully realized was the major concern of the county board. The court also required inspection, by three local citizens in good standing, of the proposed byway to insure it would not inconvenience any adjoining landowners before the road petition was approved.
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Photos of Road Case documents
Following are images of the Unison road case documents housed in the Loudoun County Courthouse Archives. These images are for informational purposes, and genealogy research material only.
Please click on each link below to see the document(s):
Names listed on the Road Cases
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1817 – Case 224: Landowners: David Handley (Petitioner), John H. Butcher / Road Inspectors: Thomas Miholz, Silus Garrett, Timothy Taylor,
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1819 – Case 246: