In 1720, the Assembly passed an act to be effective in 1721, creating Spotsylvania County as has been mentioned. At the same time, there was an act to form a county from the southern part of Prince George County and name it Brunswick for the Duchy of Brunswick which was then a possession of the Electorate of Hanover. The description is as follows: that Brunswick County should begin "on the south side of the River Roanoke at the place where the line lately run for ascertaining the uncontroverted bounds of this colony towards North Carolina intersects the said river Roanoke and to be bounded by the direction of the governor with consent of council so as to include the southern pass." No steps were taken for carrying out this act because of the small number of settlers in the area, until May 1732, when it was enacted that the earlier legislation become effective the first of January ensuing. Setting up the county government had been made possible by adding parts of Surry and Isle of Wight, thus increasing the number of tithables and lessening the amount of taxes each would pay. The preamble to the act expresses this thought in more precise phrase when it says "whereas by reason of the small number of tithables in the county of Brunswick the poll taxes must necessarily be very grievous and burthensome to them, which by an addition of parts of the counties of Surry and Isle of Wight would be remedied, and divers of the inhabitants of the two last mentioned counties would thereby also be freed from hardships and inconveniences which at present they labour under." The reference to the line lately run "between Virginia and North Carolina" is the famous survey made by Col. William Byrd, Major William Mayo, John Irvine and others which forms the subject of _The History of the Dividing Line_ written by Colonel Byrd. The Mayo River in Patrick and Henry Counties perpetuates the name of Major Mayo, the skilled surveyor in the party. The entire boundary was not surveyed then, in fact it was a good many years later before it was necessary to have a clear limit between the two colonies for the entire area. [Illustration: Virginia State Chamber of Commerce Lancaster County Clerk's Office, Lancaster, Virginia] [Illustration: Virginia State Chamber of Commerce Essex County Clerk's Office, Tappahannock, Virginia] [Illustration: Virginia State Chamber of Commerce Richmond County Clerk's Office, Warsaw, Virginia]