The Northern Neck Proprietary – also called the Northern Neck land grant, Fairfax Proprietary, or Fairfax Grant – was a

land grant A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...

first contrived by the exiled English King Charles II in 1649 and encompassing all the lands bounded by the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers in colonial Virginia. This constituted up to of Virginia's Northern Neck and a vast area northwest of it. The grant became actual in 1660 when Charles was restored to the English throne. By 1719, these lands had been inherited by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1693-1781). By that time the question of the boundaries of the designated lands had also become highly contentious. It was decided in 1746 that a line between the sources of the North Branch of the Potomac and the Rappahannock River (the "

Fairfax Line The Fairfax Line was a surveyor's line run in 1746 to establish the limits of the " Northern Neck land grant" (also known as the "Fairfax Grant") in colonial Virginia. The land grant, first contrived in 1649, encompassed all lands bounded by the ...

") would constitute the western limit of Lord Fairfax's lands. The unsettled portions of his domain were finally confiscated during the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

by the Virginia Act of 1779 and when he died in 1781 the Proprietary effectively ceased to exist. A portion of this estate, however, was later the subject of the landmark

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

case ''

Martin v. Hunter's Lessee ''Martin v. Hunter's Lessee'', 14 U.S. (1 Wheat.) 304 (1816), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States decided on March 20, 1816. It was the first case to assert ultimate Supreme Court authority over state courts in civil ...

'' (1816).

History

In September 1649, King Charles II of England granted to seven Englishmen all of Virginia between the Rappahannock and

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...

s as a

Proprietary {{Short pages monitor