BILLY SHIELDS: In the Library of Virginia, in an upstairs reading room lies one of the many old documents the state preserves.

But this document has a secret.

AMANDA PHOL: We know that the document was in a lot of places.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-BRUSSE: This is a document with frequent flier miles.

I'm not kidding.

It has appeared and it has disappeared.

So now you see it, now you don't.

BILLY SHIELDS: But before we get to that, let's talk about what this is.

It's the charter of Chesterfield County.

It's a document signed by King George II authorizing William Gooch to set up the county's court system.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-BRUSSE: What is it?

It is the birth certificate of Chesterfield County.

BILLY SHIELDS: In effect, it's the foundational document of the county.

It was signed in 1749, making it older than the Declaration of Independence.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-BRUSSE: Because the people in Chesterfield were going with... today Chesterfield, were moving further and further west.

But for every single thing in life they had to go to the courthouse.

Whether it was for marriages, deaths, deeds, wills, anything.

And the nearest courthouse was in Varina, on the opposite side of the James River.

LESLIE COURTOIS: And during the Revolutionary War, someone took the time to remove it from the courthouse and hide it, as well as all the other documents that were in that courthouse, to prevent it from being damaged or stolen or what have you.

BILLY SHIELDS: But fast forward to the Civil War.

Liess van der Linden-Brusse says the county administrators were again worried about losing valuable court documents.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-BRUSSE: So they take everything out of the courthouse.

Now, it's 80 years of records, those very, very large, big books.

And they forget one thing.

And that is this document is left hanging on the wall.

BILLY SHIELDS: Around the time of the Siege of Petersburg, a lone Union soldier walked into the original Chesterfield County Courthouse.

LIESS VAN DER LINDED-BRUSSE: And he sees this document on the wall, and he reads it, and he sees he has an ancestors name in there.

So he thinks that's nice and he takes it off the wall, folds it into various quarters and pops it in his backpack.

BILLY SHILDS: That's when the fold marks showed up on the document.

And then the charter disappeared.

LESLIE COURTOIS: Well, it's missing for almost 100 years at that point.

But that's not the last time it disappears.

BILLY SHIELDS: People in the county were aware it existed, but they had no idea where it had gotten off to until the county asked a local author, Francis Earle Lutz, to write a history of the county in the 1950s.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-BRUSSE: And he knows of the existence of the Commission of the Peace.

But he cannot find it.

He asks everybody that he can possibly think of in the county government.

Nobody knows.

LESLIE COURTOIS: So he finally finishes writing the book, decides to take a vacation up to Oneida, New York with his family.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-BRUSSE: There's a secondhand bookstore, and in the window is a small sign which says, “Chesterfield County, Virginia Commission of the Peace for sale.” BILLY SHIELDS: $43.60 later, Lutz was on his way back to the county with the charter he just bought, and called his publisher to say he needed to add a passage to the book.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-BRUSSE: At that point, it is hung in the Office of the Clerk of the Court where it's supposed to be.

BILLY SHIELDS: The Clerk of the Court then was Lewis Vaden.

When he left office in 1962 it was here, then he was elected again in the 70s.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-VRUSSE: But by the time he came back in 74, 1974, it was no longer hanging in the Clerk of the Court's office.

BILLY SHIELDS: No one seems to know how such a sought after and celebrated document simply vanished from the courthouse again, and it was gone for 43 years until Liess van der Linden-Brusse started going through old newspapers at the Chesterfield Historical Society.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-BRUSSE: And at that point, I just sat down.

BILLY SHIELDS: And she found it, in her own office, stuffed at the bottom of a box of old newspapers.

After being restored with special Japanese fabric the charter will once again return to the courthouse.

AMANDA POHL: They will put it in a custom made frame that we will, you know, have here [to] protect it from all the elements.

We will store it in a very secure location in the Circuit Court Clerk's office with other records.

BILLY SHIELDS: The public will be able to view a detailed copy.

But where will the original live?

AMANDA POHL: I don't know that I want to tell you.

(laughter) BILLY SHIELDS: We can only hope that county officials make sure the charter doesn't get lost again.

For VPM News, I'm Billy Shields.