Chap. 411.—An ACT to provide for working roads in Rappahannock county.

Approved February 24, 1896.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That Charles
Green, of Hampton township, in Rappahannock county; C. C.
Eastham, of Wakefield township, in said county, and R. E. Miller,
of Stonewall township, in said county, be, and they are hereby,
appointed road commissioners for the county of Rappahannock, who
shall hold office for the term of four years, beginning on the first
day of, August, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, and shall qualify
on or before that day by taking the usual oath of office before the
judge of the county court of Rappahannock county, either in term
time or in vacation.

2. The successors of the above named road commissioners shall
be elected by the general assembly of Virginia, but should any
vacancy occur in the office of road commissioners in the said county
during the recess of the general assembly, then the same shall be
filled by the board of supervisors of Rappahannock county at their
first meeting after the vacancy, the appointee to serve until the elec-
tion of his successor by the general assembly.

3. The said commissioners shall each represent two townships,
and shall be known and constitute the road board of Rappahannock
county, and by such name shall have the power to contract and be
contracted with, sue and be sued, but no judgment against said board
shall bind the members thereof personally. It shall be paid by the
treasurer out of the county road fund.

4. The said road board shall have exclusive charge and control of
the public roads and bridges of the county of Rappahannock.

5. The said board shall organize by the election of a chairman,
who shall be ex officio clerk of said board.

6. Each member of said board shall receive for his services two
dollars per day, but he shall not receive more than fifty dollars per
annum, and the clerk of the board’shall receive in addition twenty
dollars per annum; the aforesaid sums to be paid by the treasurer
on warrant of the board of supervisors of the county.

7. It shall be the duty of said road board, immediately upon its
organization, to lay off the public roads of each magisterial district
of the county into sections of such length as shall seem to them
best, and the said board shall appoint for each section so laid off an
overseer locally interested in the working of the section to which he
is appointed.

8. The said road board shall set aside, out of the road fund for
each district, the first year, ten per centum of said fund for contin-
gent expenses, and at the beginning of every year thereafter shall
set aside an amount equal to one-tenth of the road levy of the dis-
trict, including what may be left of the contingent fund at the end
of the year preceding in each district; the other nine-tenths of said
road fund shall be expended by the said board in the manner here-
inafter provided.
9. The said board shall apportion the road fund of each magiste-
rial district among the overseers of the different sections of the dis-
trict in proportion to the travel over the several sections of the dis-
trict; one-half of the money proportioned to the different sections
of the different townships shall be spent in the working of the roads
between the fifteenth of August and the fifteenth of October of each
year, and the other half shall be expended in the working of the
roads between the fifteenth of April and the fifteenth of June of each
year.

10. The chairman of the road board shall keep an account with the
overseers of the different sections of each district of the county, and
place to the credit of each the amount proportioned to be spent in
their respective sections, and the said fund to be drawn out by an
order on the treasurer of the county, countersigned by the chairman
of the road board in the manner herein provided; that ten hours
shall constitute a day’s work; that the laborers employed in work-
ing the roads of the county shall be between the ages of eighteen
and fifty, and for each day’s work seventy-five cents shall be paid,
and for each plow team and plowman two dollars per day shall be
paid, and the same for every wagon team and teamster per day. The
overseers of the different sections of the public roads shall issue to
the laborers on said roads an order for the work performed by them
within ten days after the work is completed, and the chairman of
the road board shall act on said orders whenever the same are pre-
sented to him. And it shall be the duty of the chairman of the road
board to attend on court day the county courts held for the county
, of Rappahannock in the months of May and June, September and
October of each year.

11. C. C. Eastham, and his successor, shall supervise the roads of
Wakefield and Jackson townships; Charles Green, and his successor,
shall supervise the roads of Hampton and Piedmant townships; and
R. E. Miller, and his successor, shall supervise the roads of Hawlin
and Stonewall townships, and each of them shall inspect all of the
roads that are worked by taxation in their respective townships in
the months of November and June of each year.

12. Each overseer shall receive one dollar and twenty-five cents a
day for every day that he works five hands or more, and every day in
which he works less than five hands he shall receive one dollar per
day, and shall be paid by drawing his order on the treasurer, coun-
tersigned by the chairman of the road board.

13. Each overseer appointed under the provisions of this act shall
make out an account against the treasurer of the county for the
work done by each laborer, stating the number of days such laborer
was employed, the price paid for each day or part of a day, which
account, when countersigned by the chairman of the road board,
shall be paid by the treasurer of the county whenever there are any
township road funds in his hands to the credit of the township from
which the account is rendered.

14. The contingent fund herein provided for is only to be used
between the fifteenth of October and the fifteenth of April, and the
fifteenth of June and the fifteenth of August of each year, and then
Only in the township for which the same was set aside and by order
of the member of the road board for the respective townships.

15. It shall be the duty of the road board to kave posted in each
post-office of the county, on or before the fifteenth day of August in
each year, the names of the overseers of each section of the district
in which the post-office is situated, and the amount of the road fund
apportioned to each section, and the amount of the contingent fund
of that district.

16. All applications for the opening of new roads, the building of
bridges, and changes and alterations in the public roads, shall be
made to the road board of the county, whose duty it shall be to
examine the applications and to open the proposed road, to build
bridges, or to make the change asked for if a majority of ite mem-
bers shall deem it expedient so to do.

17. The road board of the county shall, upon agreeing to open or
change any road in the said county, after giving ten days’ written
notice to:the land holder or land holders whose land is to be effected
by the proposed road or change, shall employ a competent surveyor,
at a price not to exceed two dollars and fifty cents per day, to make
the necessary surveys in changing or opening new roads; and the
expenses of opening said roads shall be paid by a warrant issued by
the chairman of the road board on the treasurer of the county, and
shall be paid out of the county road fund.

18. If any party feels aggrieved by the action of the road board
in opening any road or making any change in a public road, or in
refusing to open any road or making any changes, or in assessing
the damages for the taking of any property for the public use, such
party or parties shall be entitled to an appeal from the action of the
road board to the county court of the county of Rappahannock,
which court shall direct a trial of the issue made upon the appeal,
to be tried by a jury.

19. This law shall not be so construed in any way to conflict with
the act to improve the main thoroughfares of Rappahannock county,
approved February twenty-second, eighteen hundred and ninety-four.

20. All acts or parts of acts of the general road law of the state in
conflict with this law is hereby repealed so far as it is applicable to
the county of Rappahannock.