The Virginia legislature passed an act on 27 February 1866 to legalize the marriages of former slaves who had been cohabiting as of that date. See Virginia Acts of Assembly, 1866-1867, Chapter 18, An act to amend and re-enact the 14th section of chapter 108 of the Code of Virginia for 1860, in regard to registers of marriage; and to legalize the marriages of colored persons now cohabiting as husband and wife.

The federal Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands directed the Assistant Superintendents of the states to order the county clerks to make a registry of such cohabiting couples. See Circular No. 11, dated 19 March 1866, in Orders, Circulars, Circular Letters, and Letters of Instruction, vol. 2 (1866). Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Virginia, 1865-1869. Miscellaneous reel 3880, Library of Virginia. National Archives microfilm M1048 (reel 41), Record Group 105.

An act of the General Assembly passed 1867 April 29 instructed the clerks of the county courts of Virginia to receive United States Registers of Marriages of Colored Persons and safely keep the same for future reference.

Powhatan County was named for the paramount chief of the Powhatan Indians in the tidewater of Virginia in the late sixteenth and early years of the seventeenth century. It was formed from Cumberland County in 1777, and part of Chesterfield County was added in 1850. The county seat is Powhatan.