CHAP. 237.—An ACT to provide for opening, working, and changing the public
roads in Rappahannock county and building and repairing bridges therein.

Approved March 15, 1904.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That James H.
eee of Piedmont township, in Rappahannock county; C. C. East-
ham, of Wakefield township, in said county, and R. E. Miller, of Stone-
wall 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 May, nineteen hun-
dred and four, and who shall qualify on or before that day by taking the
usual oath of office before the judge of the circuit court, either in term
time or the clerk thereof in vacation; and their successors shall be ap-
pointed by the said court or by the judge thereof in vacation.

2. The said commissioners shall each have personal charge of two town-
ships of the county, in one of which he shall be a resident, and the three
shall be known as and constitute the “road board of Rappahannock
county,” and by such name shall have the power to contract and be con-
tracted with, sue and be sued, but no judgment against said board shall
bind the members thereof personally.

3. The said road board shall have exclusive charge and control of the
public roads and bridges of the county of Rappahannock, and shall meet
at the call of the chairman after one week’s notice of the time and place
of meeting has been published in a newspaper published in the county.

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

5. 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 an-
num; the aforesaid sums to be paid by the treasurer on warrant of the
board of supervisors of the county.

6. It shall be the duty of said road board, immediately upon its organi-
zation, 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 in-
terested, as far as practicable, in the working of the section to which he is
appointed.

%. 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 contingent ex-
penses, and at the beginning of every year thereafter shall set aside an
amount equal to one-tenth of the road levy of the district, 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 hereinafter provided.

8. Said board shall apportion the road fund of each magisterial dis-
trict among the overseers of the different sections of the district in pro-
portion to the travel over the several sections of the district; one-half of
the money proportioned to the different sections of the different town-
ships shall be spent in the workings of the roads between the fifteenth of
August and the fifteenth of October of each year, and the other half shall
be expended in workings of the roads between the fifteenth of April and
the fifteenth of June of each year.

9. It shall be the duty of the clerk of the board to make out an account
of the amount drawn out of the treasury of the county for the expenses of
working the different sections of the several townships of the county, and
also the expenses of building bridges, and lay it before the board of super-
visors at their last meeting before the end of the road year, together with
an itemized account of how same is spent.

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 respec-
tive sections, and the said fund to be drawn out by an order on the treas-
urer 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 working the roads in the county shall be
between the ages of eighteen and fifty years, and for each day’s work
seventy-five cents shall be paid, and for each plow team and plowman two
dollars per diem shall be paid, and the same for every wagon, team, and
teamster per diem. The overseers of the different sections of the public
roads shall issue to the laborers on said roads an order for the work per-
formed 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 presented to him. And it shall be the duty of the chairman of the
road board to attend on court day the circuit court held for the county of
Rappahannock, in the months of April and June, August and October of
each year.

11. C. C. Eastham, and his successor, shall supervise the roads of
Wakefield and Jackson township; James H. Fletcher, and his succes-
sor, shall supervise the roads of Hampton and Piedmont townships,
and R. E. Miller, and his successor, shall supervise the roads of Haw-
thorne 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 per
diem for every day that he works six hands or more, and every day in
which he works less than six hands he shall receive one dollar per diem,
and shall be paid by drawing his order on the treasurer, countersigned
by the chairman of the road board.

13. Each overseer appointed under the provision of this act shall
make out an account against the treasurer of the county for the work
dome bv each laborer, stating the number of days such laborer was em-
ploved, 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 it only to be used be-
tween the fifteenth of October and the fifteenth of April; and the fif-
teenth 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 for the respective townships.

15. It shall be the duty of the road board to have posted in each
postoffice 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 postoffice is situated, and the amount of the road fund appor-
tioned to each section and the amount of the contingent fund of that dis-
trict.

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
application and to open the proposed road, to build bridges, or to make
the change asked for, if a majority of its members shall deem it ex-
pedient 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 pro-
posed road or change, shall employ a competent engineer or surveyor, at a
salary of not less than two nor more than three dollars per diem, to make
the necessary surveys in changing or opening new roads, and the expense
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 the public road, or in re-
fusing to open any road, or making any changes, or in assessing the
damages for the taking of any propertv for the public use, such party
or varties shall be entitled to an appeal from the action ‘of the road
board to the circuit court of the county of Rappahannock, which court
shall direct a trial of issue made upon the appeal to be tried by jury.

19. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act are herebv re-

ed

20. The necessity existing for carrying out the provisions of this act
produce an emergency, therefore this act shall be in force from its passage.