"it has been represented to this present General Assembly, that the Vestries of the parish of Antrim, in the County of Halifax; of the parish of Cameron in the County of Loudoun; of the parish of Bath, in the County of Dinwiddie; and of the parish of Saint-Patrick, in the County of Prince Edward, have been guilty of arbitrary and illegal practices to the great oppression of the inhabitants of said parishes ... and the inhabitants of said parishes have respectively petitioned this Assembly that the said vestries may be dissolved;"[88]
the Legislature thereupon dissolved the vestries named, their future acts were "declared utterly void to all intents and purposes whatsoever" and the freeholders and housekeepers of the respective parishes authorized to meet, on notice, and "elect twelve of the most able & discreet persons of the said parishes respectively to be vestrymen of the same." So far was the Legislature willing to go; but the orthodox rulers of Virginia did not for a moment propose to turn over control of the vestries in the dissatisfied parishes to a dissenting element; there was a further provision that should any vestrymen dissent from the communion of the Church of England and join "themselves to a dissenting congregation, and yet continue to act as vestrymen" they should be displaced.
During the ensuing ten years Loudoun's population grew rapidly and a parish extending from Difficult Run to the Blue Ridge covered so much territory that it made it difficult for a vestry, chosen from different parts of the parish, to assemble frequently for business. The project of dividing Cameron was the subject of a petition to the Legislature in 1769 but because of opposition and disagreement the division was not made until June, 1770, when an act was passed creating a new parish beyond Goose Creek and running to the Blue Ridge.[89] It was given the name of Shelburne in compliment to the British statesman William Petty-FitzMaurice, Lord Shelburne.
This contemplated division of Cameron had repercussions in the relations between that parish and its mother parish Truro. The new Shelburne would take from Cameron many of its tithables or taxpayers and suggested intensive study of its remaining economic resources. In November, 1766, or twenty-eight years after the creation of Cameron, the Legislature passed an act empowering Truro's vestry to sell its parish Glebe and church plate and divide the proceeds between Truro and Cameron; while three years later, in the act creating Shelburne, it was provided that as the Cameron Glebe was then located inconveniently, the latter's vestry was authorized to sell it and use the proceeds "toward purchasing a more convenient glebe, and erecting buildings thereon, for the use and benefit of the minister of the said parish of Cameron, for the time being, forever."[90]
