Remembering: A History of Orange County, Virginia

Frank Walker has combined a love of history with a lifetime of living and working in the Orange County area to produce a comprehensive and well-received county history. The events affecting the county's Native Americans, European Americans and African Americans are chronicled in a work which lends itself to being read not only cover-to-cover, but also in selected specific chapters, subchapters, episodes, and stories. While his book is thoroughly researched, with footnotes, and provides its readers with the detail expected in such a work, Walker relies on his experience as a tour guide to make his presentations interesting as well as informative. Remembering tells us about James Madison and his Montpelier; gold mining; "our" William of Orange; Robert E. Lee; Germanna; the slave Pompey, Shackaconia; the Marquis de Lafayette; the Poor Folks & Preachers Railroad; Barboursville; and much, much more. The reader is rewarded with a chuckle here, a laugh there, and with interesting information everywhere.

(Pub. 2004, Hardcover, 283pp. w/illustrations, footnotes, bibliography, and index.)
ISBN: 1-932547-00-2
$30.00 (10% discount for members of the Orange County Historical Society or the Orange County African-American Historical Society)
[Item W199]

The Short Life and Strange Death of Ambrose Madison

Ambrose Madison (ca. 1696-1732), was the grandfather of President James Madison. Born into an established Tidewater Virginia family, Ambrose Madison began a successful career as a planter, merchant, entrepreneur, and county official before deciding to travel westward to the fertile soils of the Virginia Piedmont frontier. He and his family settled on lands that would become the family's Montpelier Plantation in Orange County. Ambrose was poised to re-launch his career in this new setting when his life was cut short by an early and violent death. Poisoned by slaves, Madison was the first documented murder victim in the region. A careful researcher and an organized writer, Ann Miller has drawn together for the first time the scattered records of that tragedy, and in so doing, she has also brought to light the life and times of the first of the Upland Madisons.

(Pub. 2001, Softcover, 33pp. w/endnotes and six appendices.)
$11.95 + .54 Va. tax [Item No. W200]

A Different Window...a different victory

The Civil War records, diaries, and letters of Z. T. Ross, Captain, Company B, 13th Virginia Infantry Regiment, plus a Civil War history of Company B. The local companies in the 13th Va. included not only Company B (The Culpeper Minute Men), but also three Orange County companies: Company A (The Montpelier Guard), Company C (The Gordonsville Grays), and Company F (The Barboursville Guard). Another Culpeper company and a Louisa company were also in the 13th.Captain Ross' writings, therefore, tell us a great deal about the experiences of young men from Orange County and surrounding areas in one of the most actively involved regiments in Robert E. Lee's army.

(1999 reprint, Softcover, 217pp.)
$17.95 + .80 Va. tax [Item No. W201]

Orange County Land Patents

The second edition of Mr. Joyner's book identifies and locates the original land patents lying within the boundaries of present-day Orange County. Included are patent locator maps and cross-indices. Also included is background information on the Virginia land patent system, a system designed to encourage the settlement and development of the colony's vast uninhabited spaces.

$12.50 + .56 Va. tax [Item No. W202]

The Clerks of Orange County, Virginia

Mr. Joyner, himself the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Orange County from --- to ---, presents brief biographies of all of the clerks who have served from the formation of the county to the present. He also includes miscellaneous data on the evolution of both the Virginia and Orange County judicial systems. As a bonus, he lists of the holders of various other county offices in ---- appendices. Like all of Pete Joyner's books, a wealth of information lies between the covers.

(softcover, 44 pp.)
$6.95 + .31 Va. tax [Item No. W203]

The Octonia Grant: In Orange and Greene Counties

In 1722 eight patentees received a patent to 24,000 acres, a holding that stretched along the Rapidan River from north-central Orange County to beyond Stanardsville in today's Greene County.(Greene was formed from Orange in 1838.) As an historian and a professional engineer, Mr. Grymes meticulously researched and wrote the history of that grant and its people. His field research actually located the last known Octonia boundary stone, carved with a cross atop the number eight.

(2nd pub. ---, Softcover pp., w/illustrations, maps, and full index.
$14.95 + .67 Va. tax. [Item No. W204]

Antebellum Orange

Before the American Civil War, architecture and the builders, building techniques, and building materials all tended to be more regional than at later times. Antebellum structures thus tend to more closely reflect a region's people and their values than later on. Architectural historian Ann Miller's work identifies, with pictures and extended notations, over 175 Orange County antebellum homes, public buildings, and historic sites and has therefore already become a "must have" classic.

(Pub. 1988, Hardcover, 185pps. w/over 150 illustrations, plus maps and a full index.)
$27.50 + 1.24 Va. tax [Item No. W205]

Orange County Road Orders, 1734-1749

Roads were easily the most important public improvement in a colonial Virginia county. The creation and maintenance of a road involved its adjoining landowners, their tithables, and their lands -- and virtually everything involving them went through the courts system. County road orders are thus not only the most significant identifiers of persons, and properties in a county, they are oftentimes the only sources of such information. The researcher/author of road orders for several Virginia counties, Ann Miller has published two volumes of Orange County road orders that span the years from the county's establishment to the end of the colonial era (1734-1800).

(softcover, 323 pp.
$25.00 + 1.13 Va. tax [Item No. W207]

Orange County Road Orders, 1750-1800

Continuation of the series begun with Orange County Road Orders, 1734-1749.

(softcover, 394 pp.)
$25.00 + 1.13 Va. tax. [Item No. W208]

The Diary of Fannie Page Hume, Orange Virginia, 1861

During the Civil War years, Fannie Hume lived at "Selma," on the Orange Turnpike just east of the settlement of Orange Court House, today's Town of Orange. An educated and entertaining writer, Miss Hume kept diaries during those years, and the Historical Society has published her diaries for 1861 and 1862. During that time, the Rapidan River, just five miles from Orange, became the effective northern border of the Confederacy. Her entries thus describe not only the impact of the war on civilian daily life and her reactions to news from distant places but also the sudden appearance of the war at her very doorstep.
The 1861 Diary was edited by James W. Cortada and the 1862 Diary by J. Randolph Grymes, Jr. The latter publication also features an appendix, a full index, and over 300 footnotes.

(softcover, 91 pp.
$5.00 + .23 Va. tax. [Item No. W209]

The Fanny Hume Diary of 1862: A Year in Wartime Orange, Virginia

The diary of a young woman caught in the midst of the Civil War. This diary is well documented with over 300 footnotes explaining the people and events noted, as well as providing background information on her family and community.

(softcover, 236 pp.)
$14.95 + .67 Va. tax. [Item No. W210]

Orange Virginia: Story of a Courthouse Town

A brief history of the Town of Orange from 1749 (the date of the relocating of the county's court house to the crossroads settlement which became known as "Orange Court House") to the early 20th century. An engaging and entertaining historian, the late Bill Thomas contributed significantly to the historical knowledge of this region, with this very readable book being just one example.

(softcover, 89 pp.)
$7.95 + .27 Va. tax. [Item No. W211]

Orange Courthouse, 1861-1865: Orange in the Civil War

A compilation of official records (OR) regarding Orange County in the Civil War and men who served from the area.

(softcover, 46 pp.)
$4.00 + .18 Va. tax. [Item No. W212]

A Guide to Historical Research in Orange County, Virginia

A guide to county records and research sources for Orange County.

(softcover, 31 pp.)
$4.00 + .18 Va. tax. [Item No. W213]

Occasional Papers #1: A Select Bibliography on Orange County, Virginia

(softcover, 16 pp.)
$3.00 + .14 Va. tax. [Item No. W214]

Occasional Papers #4: The Rapidan Mound Revisited

Archaeological explorations at a pre-historic burial mound.

(softcover 42 pp.)
$3.00 + .14 Va. tax. [Item No. W215]

Probated Wills: Orange County, Virginia, 1861-1865

$4.00+.18 Va. Tax  [Item No. W216]