Fincastle County, Virginia, was created by act of the Virginia General Assembly April 8, 1772 from Botetourt County.Pendleton, William C. (1920)
''History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia: 1748-1920''
pp. 255-57. W. C. Hill Printing Company. As the colonial government considered Virginia's western extent to be the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

, that became Fincastle's western limit. Its eastern boundary was essentially the New River (Wood's River at the time, including what is today the

Kanawha River The Kanawha River ( ) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its watershed has been a significant industrial region of th ...

), thus dividing Botetourt County from north to south. The new county encompassed all of present-day Kentucky, plus southwestern West Virginia and a slice of Virginia's western "tail". Although no

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

was designated by the act creating the county, the colonial governor ordered it to be placed at the "Lead Mines" of present-day Wythe County; the community of Austinville later developed there. The governor of Virginia Colony, John Murray,

Earl of Dunmore Earl of Dunmore is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. The title Earl of Dunmore was created in 1686 for Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore, Lord Charles Murray, son of John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl. The title passed down through genera ...

and Viscount of Fincastle, had succeeded Lord Botetourt, the namesake of Fincastle's "parent" county, upon the latter's death in 1770. Botetourt County was established that same year, and two years later, the newly laid out town of Fincastle was chosen as its county seat. Fincastle County's name, like the town's, may have been selected to honor George, Lord Fincastle, the eldest son of Lord Dunmore. The county was the site of

Lord Dunmore's War Lord Dunmore's War, also known as Dunmore's War, was a brief conflict in the fall of 1774 between the British Colony of Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo in the trans-Appalachia region of the colony south of the Ohio River. Broadly, the war incl ...

against the

Ohio country The Ohio Country (Ohio Territory, Ohio Valley) was a name used for a loosely defined region of colonial North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and south of Lake Erie. Control of the territory and the region's fur trade was disputed i ...

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

concluded by Virginia's victory at the

Battle of Point Pleasant The Battle of Point Pleasant, also known as the Battle of Kanawha and the Battle of Great Kanawha, was the only major action of Dunmore's War. It was fought on October 10, 1774, between the Virginia militia and Shawnee and Mingo warriors. Along ...

in Oct. 1774. This resulted in the ''de facto'' resetting of the boundary between Indian and colonial lands decreed in the

Royal Proclamation of 1763 The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by British King George III on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The ...

: south of Ohio lands were now colonial lands, though conflicts reignited later, in the Cherokee-American wars. Initially, land claims in the county were pursuant to warrants for service in the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...

; later preemption claims were allowed. Many of the earliest settlements in Kentucky, including its first town, Harrod's Town, Boonesborough, Logan's Station, and Lexington were founded when it was known as part of Fincastle County. Attempts at organized settlement, ultimately unsuccessful, included the '' Indiana Grant'' (including part of southwestern PA),

Vandalia Colony Vandalia was the name in the late 1700s of a proposed British colony in North America. The colony would have been located south of the Ohio River, primarily in what are now West Virginia and northeastern Kentucky. Vandalia was never approved b ...

and Transylvania Colony. That the county was named for a loyalist was reason for the American rebels to change its name in 1776. Lord Dunmore ''in absentia'' led the military opposition to the rebels in Virginia. He had already issued

Dunmore's Proclamation Dunmore's Proclamation is a historical document signed on November 7, 1775, by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, Colonial government in the Thirteen Colonies, royal governor of the British colony of Virginia. The proclamation declared martial law ...

, offering freedom to any of the rebels' slaves who fled their Virginia masters and joined the British forces, which was much resented by the rebel planters and slaveholders. In December 1776, the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, and the first elected legislative assembly in the New World. It was established on July 30, ...

abolished Fincastle County and organized three new counties from it: Montgomery,

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

, and

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. In 1792, the successor counties established from Kentucky County were collectively

admitted to the Union Admission to the Union is provided by the Admissions Clause of the United States Constitution in Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1, which authorizes the United States Congress to admit new states into the Union beyond the thirteen states that a ...

as the 15th

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

, the

Commonwealth of Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. The name ''Fincastle'', originally a Glen in Scotland, lives on in, among other places, towns of the same name in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

and

See also

References

Further reading