Editing Lawrenceville, Virginia (section)

===1700s===

Explorers left Fort Henry (Petersburg) to follow the Occoneechee trail on an expedition for trading with the Indians to the south. By 1714 the area was known well enough that it was selected by Governor Alexander Spotswood as the site of Fort Christanna, which was largely a trading depot. Officials also ran a school for Indian children.

In 1720 the General Assembly passed an act for “erecting the Counties of Spotsylvania and Brunswick”, which directed “That five hundred pounds…be paid by the Treasurer to Nathaniel Harrison, esq., Jonathan Allen, Henry Harrison, and William Edwards, gentlemen… for a church, courthouse, prison, pillory and stocks, where they shall think fit.”

The first courthouse was constructed ''circa'' 1732 on a site near Cochran. Moved to the east in 1746, the county seat was moved again in 1783 to be established at the present site. A wood-frame courthouse, described by a visitor in 1835 as “a very handsome building”, was built in 1784. It has been replaced on this site by  the Brunswick County Museum.