Virginia's 17th congressional district

Virginia Congressional District 17 is an obsolete congressional district. It was eliminated in 1843 after the 1840 U.S. Census. Its last Congressman was Alexander H. H. Stuart.

Virginia's 17th Congressional District was a congressional district in Virginia first formed in 1792. It consisted of what is today Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William Counties as well as the independent cities within the present boundaries of these counties. The district population was 42,897 in 1790. (Parson, p. 74)

The first member of the house from the 17th district was Richard Bland Lee.

In 1802 the district was redrawn to cover Brunswick, Lunenberg and Mecklenburg Counties in Virginia. To what extent modern Greensville County, Virginia was in the district is disputed between Martis and Parsons et al. To complicate the matter more Parsons et al. argue that Greensville County did not exist in 1803 while Thorndale and Dollarhide show it existing in that year. To confuse us even more Parsons et al. show on their map (p. 128) no Greensville County, while on p. 132 they list Greensville County with a population of over 6,000. The total population of the district was 43,898. (Parson, p. 132)

In 1812 the district was moved again this time to covering Chesterfield, Amelia, Powhatan and Goochland Counties. These included Colonial Heights and some of the southern and western portions of Richmond, Virginia. In the case of Richmond much of this was the area that was once in Manchester, Virginia. The 1810 census reported a population of 38,849 for this district, 61.1% of whom were African-Americans, primarily slaves. (Parsons, p. 206).

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