6. WILLIAM AYLETT WINSTON (1827–1894)
Librarian 1882–1886
In strict order of appointment as Librarian, Frederick
Winslow Page should follow William Wertenbaker's last
“tour of duty.” But as Page's first term, 1881–1882, was for
one year only, and as the significant part of his service came
during the twelve years from 1891 to 1903, it is more
consistent with the historical development of the University
Library to list him after Winston and Baker and before
Patton.
It will be recalled that the abrupt termination in 1882
of Page's one year term had a political cause. William
Winston was the Readjuster Librarian. He came in suddenly
and he went out suddenly. His four years' tenure of
the office was without special distinction. But such evidence
as we have would indicate that the duties were performed
with consistent carefulness and fidelity. He was concurrently
Secretary of the Board of Visitors and Secretary of
the Faculty, and the businesslike legibility of his record of
the meetings of those two bodies is likely to elicit favorable
comment from whoever has occasion to pore over the ponderous
volumes of those university archives.
Winston had been a student at the University of Virginia
during the session of 1850–1851. In his matriculation
entry his date of birth is given as 23 November 1827 and his
home as Hanover Court House, Virginia. Winstons had
settled in Hanover County in colonial days, and by midnineteenth
century there were several branches of the
family, occupying such houses as Blenheim, Courtland,
Manheim, Signal Hill, Wilton, and Woodland. Curiously
enough, it has been difficult to establish with what branch
of the family Librarian Winston was connected. Many of
the Hanover County records were destroyed in 1865; and
this William Winston himself has, no doubt quite unintentionally,
been far from helpful. For at his matriculation,
under the heading “Parent or Guardian,” he simply wrote
“Self.” His own name, moreover, was entered merely as
“Wm. A. Winston.” It seems fairly certain, however, that
he was the William Aylett Winston whose father, William
Chamberlayne Winston, is recorded as having been born in
1802 and as having married Sarah Pollard. If so, the Librarian
was of the seventh generation from the pioneer settler,
William Winston.
To the established facts, the date of his birth, his connection
with Hanover County, his one session as a student
in the University, and his four years as University Librarian,
we have from an early alumni record the additional
items that he served in the Confederate Army and that he
was at one time a clerk in the Virginia Legislature. We
know also that not long after he was replaced as Librarian,
he went to Minnesota. Three Winston brothers, who were
cousins of his, had in the late 1870's established in Minneapolis
a firm of railway contractors which was to have a
large part in opening that region to railway communication.
Beginning in 1890 William Winston was for a couple of
years a clerk in that company, and then he became Librarian
of the Minneapolis Central High School. His death,
apparently from cancer, came on 21 January 1894.
