On this day 250 years ago, in Staunton, Virginia, the freeholders of Augusta County met to select delegates to the Second Virginia Convention and

thought proper to refer the choice of their delegates to the judgment of the committee, who, thus authorized by the general voice of the people, met at the courthouse . . . and unanimously chose Mr. Thomas Lewis and captain Samuel M’Dowell to represent them in the ensuing convention.Instructions were then ordered to be drawn up by the reverend Alexander Balmain, Mr. Sampson Matthews, captain Alexander M’Clenachan, Mr. Michael Bowyer, Mr. William Lewis, and captain George Matthews,

“The Augusta Resolves” instructed Delegates Thomas Lewis and Samuel McDowell that King George’s

title to the imperial crown of Great Britain rests on no other foundation than the liberty, and whose glory is inseparable from the happiness, of all his subjects. . . . Many of us and our forefathers left their native land, explored this once savage wilderness, to enjoy the free exercise of the rights of conscience, and of human nature. These rights we are fully resolved, with our lives and fortunes, inviolably to preserve, nor will we surrender such inestimable blessings, the purchase of toil and danger, to any minister, to any parliament, or any body of men upon earth, by whom we are not represented, and in whose decisions therefore we have no voice.

. . .

as we are determined to maintain unimpaired that liberty which is the gift of Heaven to the subjects ofBritain’s empire, we will most cordially join our countrymen in such measures as may be deemed wise and necessary to secure and perpetuate the ancient, just, and legal rights of this colony, and all British America.

Source: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/672b0c83-5d0c-4bed-85f0-57599c7a60b1/content Appendix C

Today, February 22, 2025 at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton there will be a panel discussion about the significance of the Augusta Resolves and Augusta County’s role in the Revolution to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Augusta Resolves.. https://visitstaunton.com/event/augusta-resolves/

An original copy of the Augusta Resolves broadside will later be on display at the Augusta County Circuit Courthouse Record Room from February 24-28, 2025. https://rocktownnow.com/news/218812-original-augusta-county-resolves-to-be-displayed-in-courthouse/