Albemarle Parish, a lineal descendant of the earliest parish in Virginia, has claim to distinction. James City Parish, when first laid out, included land on both sides of the James River; soon new parishes were organized on the south side, one of them in Surry County, which then stretched southward to the North Carolina line. Even though the influx of settlers made it impossible to govern sush a large tract with one council and Sussex County was created from the southern half of Surry. Practically all of Albemarle Parish lay within the confines of the new county and a judicious alternation of boundary lines shaped the parish to fit into Sussex; small fringes of land on the north that had belonged to the parish were clipped off and abundant compensation provided by the addition of more fertile acres to the southward. There are approximately 5,000 baptisms between 1739 and 1778 of individuals.