On this day 250 years ago the people of Pittsylvania County, Virginia met to organize a Committee to enforce the Continental Association’s boycott of trade with Britain. The Committee would become the governing body of Pittsylvania County when the War began. The meeting also adopted the Pittsylvania Resolves:
THE freeholders of the county of Pittsylvania, being duly summoned, convened at the courthouse of the said county, on Thursday the 26th of January, 1775, and then proceeded to make the choice of a committee, agreeable to the direction of the General Congress, for enforcing and putting into execution the association, when the following Gentlemen were chosen members for the same, VIZ. Abraham Shelton, Robert Williams, Thomas Dilliard, William Todd, Abraham Penn, Peter Perkins, Benjamin Lankford, Thomas Terry, Arthur Hopkins, Hugh Challus, Charles L. Adams, James Walker, William Peters Martin, Daniel Shelton, William Ward, Edmund Taylor, Isaac Clements, Gabriel Shelton, Peter Wilson, William Shore, Henry Conway, John Payne, sen. Joseph Roberts, William Witcher, Henry Williams, John Salmon, Rev. Lewis Gwillam, Richard Walden, Peter Saunders, John Wilson, and Crispin Shelton. The committee then proceeded to make choice of Robert Williams for their Chairman, and William Peters Marcin their Clerk. During the time of choosing the said committee, the utmost good order and harmony was observed, and all the inhabitants of the county then present (which was very numerous) seemed determined and resolute in defending their liberties and properties, at the risk of their lives, and, if required, to die by their fellow sufferers (the Bostonians) whose cause they consider as their own; and, it being mentioned in committee, that their county had never contributed their proportionable part towards defraying the expenses of the Delegates, who attended on our behalf at the General Congress, that sum was immediately and cheerfully raised and deposited in the hands of Peter Perkins and Benjamin Lankford, Esquires, the Representatives for the said county, to be transmitted by them, to whom it ought to have been paid; after which the committee rose, and several loyal and patriotick toasts were drank, and the company dispersed, well pleased with the behaviour of those people they had put their confidence in.
Sources: Jim Glanville, The Smithville Review, Vol. XIV (2010) 69 at p. 87 & Appendix B accessed at https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/672b0c83-5d0c-4bed-85f0-57599c7a60b1/content ; https://historymanpodcast.com/the-pittsylvania-va-resolves-january-26-1775/
Today, January 26, 2026, at 2:00 pm the people of Pittsylvania County will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the formation of the Pittsylvania Committee at the Old Callands Courthouse and Gaol on Sago Road in Callands.
On This Day In The Revolution 
One response to “On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — January 26, 1775”
Do they still call it a “Gaol” at Old Callands? I love it! I saw how this spelling was still in use at Colonial Williamsburg. I’m hoping such things cause young minds to question why and perhaps learn more of our history.
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