Fellow List Members: The Virginia chapter of the "Atlas of Historical County Boundaries" is a welcome addition to our arsenal of on line resources for carrying out Virginia history research. The Atlas will no doubt provide good service when used in conjunction with other Virginia County resources such as Martha Hiden's "How Justice Grew" and the on-line county road order files provided by the Virginia Transportation Research Council. Because I am particularly interested in the exact location of the 1772 Botetourt-Fincastle county line, which runs through present-day Montgomery County, I downloaded and examined the 72 megabyte zipped Virginia County file provided on line by the William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture at the Newberry Library in Chicago. By way of illustration, I note that the Virginia County pdf file provides nineteen versions of Montgomery County outline maps, beginning with the county's formation on 31 December 1776 from Fincastle County and concluding in 2000 with the post 1977, 1980, and 1986 annexations of parts of the county by the City of Radford. Interestingly, the authors of the Atlas cite 1994 correspondence with the Radford City Zoning Department in 1994 as authority for their map making decisions in versions 16, 17, and 18, and 2002 correspondence with the Radford City cartographer as authority for their map making decisions in version 19. So doing shows an impressive level of commitment to scholarship. On page 91 of the pdf file, version 2 of the Botetourt County outline map correctly cites Hening Volume 8, pp. 601-602 as the source of the southwestern border of the then Montgomery County. At that citation, which describes the boundaries of Fincastle County, we read in part "…within a line, to run up the east side of New River to the mouth of Culbertson's creek, thence a direct line to the Catawba road, where it crosses the dividing ridge, between the north fork of Roanoke and the waters of New River...." The location of the boundary-defining Culbertson's Creek is not well settled. Mary Kegley (Kegley and Kegley 1980: 22) notes a land grant on Culbertson's Creek that does not mention the Greenbrier River. The Greenbrier River is near the Googlable Culbertson Creek in present-day Greenbrier County, West Virginia. This Greenbrier County Culbertson's Creek does not geographically fit the above language specifying the boundaries of Fincastle County. My present guess is that there was a now-forgotten Culbertson's Creek not too far from the present day Glen Lyn power plant on the New River at the Virginia-West Virginia border. It's just a guess, but it would fit the above cited language. In any event, looking at the map on page 91 of the pdf file one can see the dilemma facing the team of dozens of researchers who put together the nationwide "Atlas of Historical County Boundaries" over a period of more than thirty years: They had to draw the lines, even when their evidence was vague. So congratulations to them for their accomplishment and grateful thanks to them for making their work available under a Creative Commons license. To have completed this job nationwide is a huge undertaking. However, on the basis of the one example I have examined, Virginia users of the data base should be aware that while the Atlas makes reasonable interpretations of historical evidence, the shown county boundaries are just an interpretation, and that for early Virginia the mere availability of lines does not call for suspension of our judgment and appropriate skepticism. Jim Glanville Blacksburg-in-former-Fincastle-County (I think) ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html