Returning to Hardy County, we learn that it was named for Samuel Hardy formerly of Isle of Wight County "one of the number who signed the Deed of Cession which transferred the Northwest Territory to the General Government."
Virginia's claim to territory was of long standing, her charters of 1609 and 1612 giving her dominion to the Pacific Ocean, but no exploration beyond the Mississippi had been attempted. Her claim of dominion to the Mississippi, however, was of more substantial character. In 1778 with a picked force of 180 Virginia riflemen, George Rogers Clark captured the great Northwest Territory from the English "in one of the most amazing exploits in American history." This territory Virginia organized as "the county of Illinois." "But for Clark's conquest the treaty of 1783 might well have fixed the nation's western boundary at the Alleghanies instead of at the Mississippi." Almost all the Ohio Valley and parts of Wisconsin and Michigan were included in this voluntary gift that Virginia made in 1783 to the weak confederated colonies. In 1785 Congress passed a Land Ordinance providing for the sale of this land. "Thus this cession provided the infant republic with its only sure source of revenue" since at that time "Congress had neither the power to impose nor the machinery to collect any taxes."
The other three counties formed in 1786 lie now in Kentucky which, in 1792, was "organized as a state out of Virginia territory with her consent." These divisions are Mercer and Madison, created out of Lincoln, and Bourbon out of Fayette. Mercer honored General Hugh Mercer of the Revolution; Madison, James Madison, later known as the "Father of the Constitution," and Bourbon, the French reigning family, particularly Louis XVI who had given aid in the Revolution.
The next county, Russell, was taken from Washington. Its bounds are: "all that part of the said county lying within a line to be run along the Clinch mountain to the Carolina line; thence with that line to the Cumberland mountain, and the extent of country between the Cumberland mountain, Clinch mountain and the line of Montgomery county shall be one distinct county and called and known by the name of Russell." The name was selected as a tribute to General William Russell "who distinguished himself at the Battle of King's mountain." Russell remains a Virginia county.