Template:On this day/December 31
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- 1744 – Albemarle County was organized. Between 1744 and 1762, Scott’s Landing, later to be known as Scottsville, served as the county seat before the General Assembly divided up the county and relocated its county seat to a Charlottesville.
- 1789 – Claudius Crozet, a civil engineer best known for his work blasting tunnels through the Blue Ridge Mountains, was born in France. The village of Crozet in Albemarle County is his namesake.
- 1793 – Thomas Jefferson, United States Secretary of State, resigned after becoming disillusioned with the Washington administration.
- 1888 – On West Main Street, City Policeman George T. Seal was shot and killed while in the act of arresting William Muscoe for a misdemeanor.
- 1909 – On this New Years Eve at about 7 p.m., J.S. Goodwin, a veteran Civil War artilleryman who had a store on Court Square, fired one of the cannons in front of the Albemarle County Courthouse. While there was no cannon ball, the amount of gunpowder used was sufficient to cause significant damage and alarm in the area.