Transcribed and abstracted by William Lindsay Hopkins. Indexed.

This is the first of the surviving Isle of Wight Deed Books and contains the earliest surviving references to inhabitants of that county.

Isle of Wight County was one of the original shires of Virginia established in 1634. For three years, until 1637 it bore the name Warrosquyoake. Only then did its name first appear as Isle of Wight. As first constituted, the new county bore vague boundary description which was clarified by several Acts (1639/40), 1642/43, and 1647). It included the land south of the James River between Nansemond County on its eastern flank and James City County on the northwest. Nansemond land consisting of the Terrascoe Neck and the Ragged Islands was added to Isle of Wight in 1656. In 1769 land west of Chuckatuck Creek and in 1772 Rascow's Neck were also added to Isle of Wight from Nansemond. Finally, in 1749, the only division of the county occurred when the southern portion of the county was taken to form Southampton County.

William Lindsay Hopkins's transcriptions are the foundation stones for research in this important Southside county!