by Larry Chowning (Author), Archie Soucek (Editor), Pat DePina (Illustrator)
 
Signatures in Time, A Living History of Middlesex County, Virginia, is the compelling story of the family of Middlesex County as it grew up over the span of four challenging centuries.  It is a sweeping, and yet careful, account of building a place to call home, of struggling and overcoming, and of making a difference count in a young nation finding its own place in a larger world community.  And, it is a living history of a people learning to face tomorrow together.  
Just 35 years after Jamestown was settled in 1642, English adventurers shoved, paddled and rowed in small skiffs across the Piankatank River to settle a place that would one day be called Middlesex County, Virginia, named after Middlesex, England.  The county was officially established as a county of the English colony of Virginia in 1668, and over the next 344 years of its existence, there would not be a chronological history written for it – until now.  Middlesex history is a microcosm of Virginia life, heritage, and culture which has played such a remarkable role in the development of these United States of America.