During a period of about 30 years the Virginia State Library (previous name
of the Library of Virginia) published three pamphlets containing surviving
records of the committees of six counties for the years 1774-1776. Those
committees were formed in response to a resolution adopted by the First
Continental Congress and for the purpose of enforcing the regulations of
Congress and of the provincial conventions.

In spite of the fact that twentieth-century historians and editors have
sometimes called them committees of safety, that term was never used in the
seventeenth century. They were county (or city, or borough) committees. The
records contain many valuable facts about community affairs and community
leaders on the eve of the American Revolution.

All of the county committee records that were published in those six
pamphlets and also all of the other surviving records (for some counties
very few of the committee records survive, for some there is a little more)
were printed as a part of the American Revolution Bicentennial celebration.
See William J. Van Schreeven, Robert L. Scribner, and Brent Tarter, eds.,
REVOLUTIONARY VIRGINIA; THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE: A DOCUMENTARY RECORD, 7
volumes (Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia for the Virginia
Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1973-1983).

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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