In Tidewater Virginia, as in Rockingham County, some county clerks hid their records for safekeeping, and some sent their records to Richmond for safekeeping. The ones sent to Richmond were placed in the safe new state courthouse at the southeast corner of Capitol Square. The state courthouse burned in April 1865 in the fire that Richmond authorities and Confederates set with an intention of destroying supplies and valuable cotton and tobacco in the city's warehouses. That fire also destroyed almost all of the judicial records of the colonial and commonwealth appellate courts from the 1610s through the middle of the 1860s. It was the one worst disaster to befall the archival records of Virginia at any time, and it was the result of an unanticipated spreading of a fire that Virginians set. Brent Tarter The Library of Virginia [log in to unmask] Visit the Library of Virginia's web site at http://www.lva.lib.va.us To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html