Culpeper County probably was name for Catherine Culpeper, or for her mother, Margaret Lady Culpeper, or for Thomas Culpeper, second baron Culpeper of Thoresway, governor of Virginia from 1677 to 1683, or for their family, which long held proprietary right in the Northern Neck. It was formed from Orange County in 1749.

These records were returned by mail to the Culpeper County Courthouse on December 13, 1965 by Miss Agnes Morewood of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The details of how Miss Morewood came to hold these records is unknown. Her great-uncle, Herman Melville, and his brother, Alan, had come to Virginia in the spring of 1864 on the eve of the Wilderness Campaign and, amongst other activities, joined a scouting party in search of Confederate partisan John Mosby in nearby Loudoun County. One theory holds that Melville or his brother acquired the records as souvenirs. See NAGARA Clearinghouse, 2008, vol 24 no 3, p. 18 for additional information on the documents.