On 24 June 1779 the Virginia General Assembly appointed Turner Southall, Archibald Cary, Robert Goode, James Buchanan, and Robert Carter Nicholas to be the 5. directors of the public buildings at Richmond (JHD description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia description ends [May–June 1779 sess.], 72). A writ of ad quod damnum (writ of a.q.d.) directs “the sheriff to inquire of jurors under oath to what damage a grant (as of a fair, market, liberty, or other franchise) would be to various people” if a court made it (Black’s Law Dictionary description begins Bryan A. Garner and others, eds., Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th ed., 1999 description ends ).

On 12 June 1780 the General Assembly passed “An Act for locating the Publick Squares, to enlarge the Town of Richmond, and for other purposes.” The statute added TJ and three other directors to the original five and instructed them to lay off 200. additional lots (JHD description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia description ends [May–July 1780 sess.], 44; Acts of Assembly description begins Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia (cited by session; title varies over time) description ends [May–July 1780 sess.], 40). John James Beckley was clerk of the Virginia House of Delegates (h. of d.), 1779–88 (Leonard, General Assembly description begins Cynthia Miller Leonard, comp., The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 1619–January 11, 1978: A Bicentennial Register of Members, 1978 description ends , xvi).

Randolph reported to the General Assembly on 28 Feb. 1822 that, after an initial search had determined “that all testimony of record had completely failed” and when he was just about to apply to the attorney general (a. gl) “to provide all the supplementary testimony of possession, general fame and notoriety, which the case might admit,” the deputy clerk of the Richmond City Court had discovered, “among some long neglected and abandoned papers in that office, to which they had been by mistake returned,” twenty-three writs issued by the Henrico County Court. Based on these papers Randolph concluded that “no doubt now remains, that the right and property of the lawful owners and tenants of all the lots of land, and other land in question, has been legally divested and transferred to the commonwealth, in full and absolute dominion, want of consent or disability to consent, in the parties concerned, notwithstanding: and the several sums at which the rights of the said owners and tenants were valued, have been paid by the treasurer, on warrant from the auditors of that period” (JHD description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia description ends [1821–22 sess.], 207).