This county court usually met as often as once a month in some convenient spot answering to the shire town of England or New England. More often than not the place originally consisted of the court-house and very little else, and was named accordingly from the name of the county, as Hanover Court House or Fairfax Court House; and the small shire towns that have grown up in such spots often retain these names to the present day. Such names occur commonly in Virginia, West Virginia, and South Carolina, very rarely in Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama, Ohio, and nowhere else in the United States.[9] Their number has diminished from the tendency to omit the phrase "Court House," leaving the name of the county for that of the shire town, as for example in Culpeper, Va. In New England the process of naming has been just the reverse; as in Hartford County, Conn., or Worcester County, Mass., which have taken their names from the shire towns. In this, as in so many cases, whole chapters of history are wrapped up in geographical names.[10] [Footnote 9: In Mitchell's Atlas, 1883, the number of cases is in Va. 38, W. Va. 13, S. C. 16, N. C. 2, Ala. 1, Ky. 1, Ohio, 1.] [Footnote 10: A few of the oldest Virginia counties, organized as such in 1634, had arisen from the spreading and thinning of single settlements originally intended to be cities and named accordingly. Hence the curious names (at first sight unintelligible) of "James City County," and "Charles City County."] [Sidenote: Powers of the court] The county court in Virginia had jurisdiction in criminal actions not involving peril of life or limb, and in civil suits where the sum at stake exceeded twenty-five shillings. Smaller suits could be tried by a single justice. The court also had charge of the probate and administration of wills. The court appointed its own clerk, who kept the county records. It superintended the construction and repair of bridges and highways, and for this purpose divided the county into "precincts," and appointed annually for each precinct a highway surveyor. The court also seems to have appointed constables, one for each precinct. The justices could themselves act as coroners, but annually two or more coroners for each parish were appointed by the governor. As we have seen that the parish taxes--so much for salaries of minister and clerk, so much for care of church buildings, so much for relief of the poor, etc.--were computed and assessed by the vestry; so the county taxes, for care of court-house and jail, roads and bridges, coroner's fees, and allowances to the representatives sent to the colonial legislature, were computed and assessed by the county court. The general taxes for the colony were estimated by a committee of the legislature, as well as the county's share of the colony tax.