How big was Virginia?

While reviewing the law passed on 14 April 1759 there is a reference to protecting and encouraging Virginians upon the waters of the Mississippi.

So we wonder, how big was Virginia at various moments?

The Mayflower's original destination was the Hudson River, thought then to be Virginia, but at that moment of 1620 it technically was no longer Virginia above the 40th parallel.

When Sir Walter Raleigh founded the first English settlement on Roanoke Island, there was no Virginia. There was only America.

The English had gradually settled Newfoundland as a fishing community starting in the 1550’s. This island was chartered as a colony in 1585, the same year that Roanoke Island was first settled.

The Spanish had established Saint Augustine, Florida in 1565 as a strategic outpost to protect Spain’s Caribbean empire from English privateers.

Between Newfoundland and Spanish Florida was a vast unsettled territory. That area was called Virginia.

Touch pictures for source and for this quote colored in blue.

Raleigh named this area

Virginia

an honor to

Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen

(7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603),

with whom he sought favors.

For many years thereafter

the vast temperate region of North America

was referred to as Virginia.

Unitl 1620.

This 40th Parallel caused a lot of legal disputes, and overlapping taxing authority.

Touch or click on this map.

So let us look at that 1759 law extending an earlier 1755 law which was set to expire.

Saturday. the 14th of April, 32 Geo. II. 1759.

[32nd year of King George II in power]

The only correction to this map would be the disputed Pittsburgh area until 1780. After the fall of Fort Duquesne, there were references to Virginia controlling what was known later as the Northwest Ordinance area after the 1763 and 1768 lines and later lines preserving Indian territory were ignored.

Click on picture to see dates of counties in Virginia as it evolved.

16th on the list of bills passed by the House of Burgesses, The Executive Council, and the Lt Gov:

16. For further continuing so much of the Act of Assembly, intituled, An Act for the Encouragement and Protection of the Settlers upon the Waters of the Mississippi, as relates to the raising and imposing, collecting and paying the Duties therein mentioned, and for other Purposes therein mentioned.

Source: #154 (p. 128)

The 2 maps below shows the areas claimed by Virginia. A new possible colony, Vandalia was to be carved out of Virginia claimed land.

BTW, our Mercer Co of the Virginia Regiment portrays a company Captained by George Mercer, who was also aide de camp to Colonel George Washington during the French and Indian War and who later had aspirations to be picked as Governor of this new colony, Vandalia.