"Drifting" counties

[A18]

I'm defining a "drifting" county (an imperfect term, I know) as one that, despite continued existence, now lies entirely outside of an earlier set of boundaries. My question: Are there/have there been any such counties?

I'm fairly confident that no legislature has ever passed a law providing that a county simply "get up and move" (so to speak). But counties have often been split up; and occasionally, a county's territory has been expanded. Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if, by a combination of expansions and contractions, a county's boundaries were so altered.

[Beet]

I believe that Jefferson county, Texas, which originally covered present day Orange and parts of Jasper and Newton, but not any part of present Jefferson, is one such example, and got that way through a process of expansion and then contraction. Also, San Patricio county, Texas and Calhoun county, Florida come close.

[A18]

Hmm... judging by this site, Jefferson County doesn't seem to work.

[Bacon King]

From that site, it looks like Georgia had an old Walton county nowhere near the present one.

[Beet]

Hmm... judging by this site, Jefferson County doesn't seem to work.

Interesting. That site conflicts with this site in the mid-1830s around Jasper, Jefferson, and Liberty.

[WalterMitty]

philip, ol' virginny has done a lot of butchering of counties.

to start the entire western part of the state was fincastle county.  in fact, if im not mistaken, fincastle county extended well outside the current boundaries of the state.

then of course fincastle county gradually got split apart...and even more split apart.

i looked in to this after noticing my gggg grandfather is on the 'fincastle county' pension rolls for his part in  dunmore's war.  he took part in battling the injuns at point pleasant (now home to the moth man) and was compensated $19.13 for his efforts.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Wonder if Paiute county counts?

[bgwah]

I'm defining a "drifting" county (an imperfect term, I know) as one that, despite continued existence, now lies entirely outside of an earlier set of boundaries. My question: Are there/have there been any such counties?

I'm fairly confident that no legislature has ever passed a law providing that a county simply "get up and move" (so to speak). But counties have often been split up; and occasionally, a county's territory has been expanded. Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if, by a combination of expansions and contractions, a county's boundaries were so altered.

Stevens County, Washington comes very close to fitting this description. However, only "close" because I think a small northwestern portion of the county has been in it the entire time. But it's definitely a county that has "drifted" significantly.

Originally, Spokane County contained a huge portion of Eastern Washington (and Idaho and Montana). It's county seat was in Colville.

Stevens County was created (because Colville was "too far away") in north-central Washington out of Spokane County in what is now Okanogan, Ferry, and Chelan counties, and a tiny portion of present-day northwestern Stevens County.

Then, the state temporarily got rid of Spokane County and merged it into Stevens County, greatly enlarging Stevens County to contain most of Eastern Washington. I believe Colville then became the county seat of super-Stevens County. Soon enough the county was split up. Spokane County was re-created in the south of Stevens County, south of Colville and had its county seat in the city of Spokane this time. Colville remained county seat of Stevens, and the original parts of the county became Chelan, Okanogan, and Ferry counties. So, with the exception of that small portion I mentioned earlier (a sparsely populated area I believe), Stevens County definitely did some significant drifting.

[jimrtex]

Hmm... judging by this site, Jefferson County doesn't seem to work.

Interesting. That site conflicts with this site in the mid-1830s around Jasper, Jefferson, and Liberty.

Though the boundaries were not always well defined, and since this was during the period of the Revolution it is not clear who would have had authority to define county boundaries.

It appears that Liberty municipality extended eastward from the San Jacinto River to the United States, with Austin municipality to the west.  Bevil municipality was established east of the Neches River.  Bevil's settlement was in modern Jasper County.  The site above says that Jefferson municipality was established by the provisional government in 1835.  The provisional government was created by the Consultation, and claimed to establish a state government separate from Coahuila under terms of the (Mexican) Constitution of 1824.  It could simply been a matter of the provisional government recognizing delegates from the town of Jefferson (which was near the present site of Orange) as being distinct from those from Bevil.  When the Texas government got around to establishing counties, it included the area to the west of the Neches river in Jefferson County (and extending further west and north than the modern boundaries).  There are other counties along the Sabine, where it is noted that the boundaries shown in earlier maps are those established by law in December 1837.   This area was very lightly populated, even up to the time of Spindletop.  Any communication would likely have been with the settlements along the Sabine and Neches, rather than with Liberty, which is near the Trinity River.

San Patricio County always included the town of San Patricio, which is in the western part of the modern county, on the north bank of the Nueces River.  It appears that the original boundaries may simply have been the area north of the Nueces River and west of Refugio County.  Later, the area between the Nueces and Rio Grande was added, and for a while the county seat was in Corpus Christi before Nueces County was created.  In 1846, when Nueces County was created, San Patricio County was extended eastward to include most of the area in the present county.  The 1850 population was 200.

A possible case could be made for Willacy County.   Kenedy County was originally called Willacy County.  It was renamed to Kenedy County, and the modern Willacy County created, containing only a sliver of the original Willacy County.

[phk]

Fresno County

[CARLHAYDEN]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalawao_County%2C_Hawaii

[??????????]

Florida has had a bunch of counties cut down in size.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Fresno County

No


Rappahannock county Virginia doesn't seem like it was defined to include the current Rappahannock county Virginia, but this is a case of the name being recycled, not a continiously existing county.