University of Virginia Library

Sixth Annual Report of the Archivist, University of Virginia
Library, for the Year 1935-36

IT IS a commonplace observation that we are living in an age of
rapid change. The statement needs no further confirmation; we
meet with countless examples of it in our highly integrated society
which in itself is an accelerating force. We are not surprised to find
that intellectual as well as material movements, however local their beginnings,
quickly become national in interest and scope, and common
problems are solved through regional and national associations. Despite
forebodings in certain quarters, the trend of the times has led us
rather to expect that the state, whether the individual commonwealth
or the federal government, will play an important part in financing or
at least in administering these problems.

While it may be asserted that with archival work the state has always
been directly concerned, economic and social changes in recent
years have broadened our conception of archival functions and given
new emphasis to the problems of collecting, allocating, arranging and
listing historical materials.[1] These critical years of socio-economic discussion
and experiment have so intensified our appreciation of the
source materials of our civilization that an active program along these
lines by the state university, the state historical society, or the state library
is taken for granted. Privately financed institutions, some of
which were pioneers in historical work, have likewise advanced with
the tide; indeed, in their function and service they are seldom differentiated
from state institutions. In the South where ten years ago archival
activity beyond the narrow definition of the word was almost nonexistent
in any organized form, there are few states today without
some program of this kind under way.[2]
It has grown rapidly at Louisiana
State University during the past two years, and at West Virginia
University, where interested faculty members by first promoting
the work on their own initiative were able later to enlist state support.[3]

The problems of manuscript collections are now discussed regularly at
the meetings of the Association of Research Libraries, and the program
of the National Archives, now well under way in the new building, is
of significance to all the states.[4]

While historians and archivists have discussed their common problems
and sponsored national programs for listing documentary materials
though the American Historical Association, and more recently
through the American Library Association, it was the Federal Government
that made possible a truly nation-wide archival project financed
by relief funds under the Works Progress Administration. This is
the Historical Records Survey, headed by Dr. Luther H. Evans and
organized in every state to make a detailed inventory of local archives,
manuscript collections, church records, lodge records, labor union materials,
etc. One can readily appreciate the significance of this project
in Virginia where the University's archival work, then in its sixth year,
was identical in many respects.

Whereas previous attempts to set up such a project on a small scale
with relief funds in Virginia had failed[5] and the progress of the work
was retarded for want of even a small staff of assistants, the Historical
Records Survey allocated enough funds to conduct the inventory in
almost every county and city of Tidewater Virginia and in the Piedmont
north of the James with an average of about seventy workers under
three non-relief district supervisors and the general supervision
of the University archivist. Work in the various localities began early
in March; an office was provided in the state WPA Building in Richmond;
and by the empirical method the project gradually gained momentum
after some weeks of discouragement over government regulations
and the shortcomings of relief workers. A manual of instructions
and a series of form-sheets,[6] supplemented by periodic checking
and advice from the supervisors, aided in establishing a routine procedure
for the workers and in assuring generally satisfactory results.
By concentrating on local archives, church records, and labor materials,
the inventory of these was completed in thirty-four counties and
nine cities in the area mentioned by the end of the summer, and steps
were taken to transfer the project to the Valley, Southside, and southwestern

Virginia. In a number of counties access could not be gained
to the records because of crowded conditions caused by other WPA
projects. While it was inevitable that some of the workers would be
incapable, especially since those with higher education were at a premium,
the net results will undoubtedly demonstrate the intrinsic worth
of the survey. Editorial work has begun to prepare the inventory for
publication, in Virginia under the direction of the archivist co-operating
with the Washington office.

Newspapers were also included in the Historical Records Survey,
but this phase of the inventory had already been completed in Virginia.
The archivist's Virginia Newspapers, 1821-1935: A Bibliography with
Historical Introduction and Notes was published in 1936 as Monograph
22 of the University's Institute for Research in the Social Sciences
(Appleton-Century). This study, together with Dr. Clarence S. Brigham's
Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Part XVIII:
Virginia-West Virginia), published by the American Antiquarian Society,[7]
affords a virtually complete guide to the papers of this state and
to files and scattered issues in all Virginia libraries and in leading research
libraries throughout the United States.[8] The archivist's volume
is published as Part I of the Guide to Virginia Historical Materials
which was projected during the early stages of the Virginia program.[9]

During the past year the University's newspaper collection has been
augmented by additional volumes of the New Market Shenandoah
Valley, making this file complete for 1886-87, 1892-1928; by the Richmond
Christian Advocate, 1881-84; by the Remington News, 1932-33;
by additions to the file of the tri-weekly National Intelligencer, Washington,
D. C., 1820-60, and the daily edition for January-June 1828;
by a bound photostatic set of the Williamsburg Virginia Gazette, 173680,
produced by the Massachusetts Historical Society; and by a number
of rare issues of Richmond papers through the kindness of Mr. F.
Earle Lutz of the Richmond News Leader. The fact that many of
these last named are twentieth century papers demonstrates the ephemeral
nature of a large percentage of journalistic records and reinforces
the argument for photographic reproduction of current as well as older
newspapers. The University has also acquired a large mass of leading
dailies of the United States covering the first quarter of the present

century. When these are sorted and certain files selected for preservation,
they will strengthen the potentialities for research in recent
American history.

Among the manuscript accessions by gift or purchase during the past
year, the most important single item is doubtless an original map of
the Virginia-North Carolina boundary showing the extension of the
Byrd survey of 1728 from Peter's Creek to Steep Rock Creek by
Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson in 1749. The legend on the map[10] is
very probably in the handwriting of Peter Jefferson and, without much
doubt, it was drawn by him ca. 1750. Since no other original map of
the line of 1749 is known to be extant, this is undoubtedly a unique
document.[11] Among other individual manuscripts of special interest
are two letters of Thomas Jefferson to Philip L. Grymes, 1800 and
1802; a pardon issued to John Henry of Charlotte County and signed
by President Andrew Johnson, 1865; and a bill of "Mr. Cary Seldon
to George Washington Esqr., President of the United States," for the
breeding of certain mares by "Knight of Malta" and "Compound",
and for pasturage. The bill, dated July 20, 1794, was written and
signed by William Pearce, manager of the Mount Vernon farms during
1793-96. This manuscript has further historical interest because written
on it in pencil is a letter which shows that it was sent from Virginia
to Wisconsin in the spring of 1862 by a Union soldier from that
state.[12] After three-quarters of a century the manuscript was returned
to Virginia through the courtesy of Professor A. H. Sanford
of the Wisconsin State Teachers College, La Crosse.

A large collection of manuscripts acquired recently is that of the

Morris Family of Hanover and Louisa counties. Chiefly letters received
by three succeeding generations of the family, especially by
Colonel Richard, Dr. James M., and Richard O. Morris, they deal with
business and politics (including a few Henry Clay letters) and with
general social conditions during the period 1770-1900. The Davis-Terrell
collection from Albemarle County numbers some thirty letters
written by Dabney C. Terrell and his sisters on social affairs in the
community and in Lexington and Winchester during 1796 and 1810-26.
Included also are letters of Dabney Carr and of J. A. G. Davis (18021840),
first law professor of the University of Virginia, discussing
some early problems of the institution; two communications from Albert
Gallatin in Paris to Dabney C. Terrell while a student at the University
of Geneva; and two John R. Thompson letters of 1870. In
connection with Professor Davis should be mentioned a "Commonplace
Book" (183—?) of memoranda kept by him and notes on his law
course made by Benjamin B. Minor (1818-1905), later law professor
and editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Two incomplete diaries
of Major James M. Glassell, U. S. A. (d. 1838) are on file: one
of his tour in England and Paris in 1825-26; the other in the nature of
official memoranda kept while on military duty in the Western Department
in Louisiana, 1837-38, until his last illness. Of interest to the
student of education are the lecture notes of Launcelot M. Blackford
(1837-1914), graduate of the University of Virginia, used while associate
principal of the Norwood School in Nelson County, Virginia,
ca. 1868-70.

In the field of economic history are miscellaneous papers (bills, accounts,
and inventories) of a succession of Scotch-American merchant
firms operating out of Fredericksburg as early as 1759—Scott & Gray,
Gray & Mitchell, Mitchell, Gray & Coates—and continuing, with several
gaps in the record, well into the nineteenth century. The functions
of foreign exchange, wholesale and retail trade in Virginia, and
banking were intermingled, in customary fashion, with the pursuit of
agriculture. From southwestern Virginia come a few volumes of account
books of the Abingdon Democrat, founded and edited by Leonidas
Baugh during 1849-53.[13] As postmaster during the "fifties he also
acted as agent for newspapers and periodicals both in and outside the
state; his book containing the list of subscribers to each paper and
terms of payment, 1853-58, throws considerable light upon the reading
population of Washington County. The business correspondence

of the hotels at Sweet Chalybeate Springs, Va., and Sweet Springs, W.
Va., in the Alleghanies, for the years 1895-96 and 1914-15 have been
presented to the University; few records of this kind of economic enterprise,
it may be asserted positively, have gravitated to any library.
A shoemaker's account book from Albemarle County, 1859-60, has
been added to the large collection of tradesmen's and merchants' original
records. Through the co-operation of the clerks in a number of
Virginia counties original state capitation tax lists for the past three
years (or longer in a few cases) have been received from ten localities,
and poll tax lists from fourteen.[14]

Some of the manuscript collections already on loan deposit have been
enlarged by the transfer of additional material. Correspondence, legal
papers, and maps have been added to the Anderson collection[15] from
Rockbridge County; they provide detailed information on natural
resources and attempts at industrial development in that section of the
Valley of Virginia during the latter decades of the nineteenth century.
The James Barbour Family papers[16] in the Library have doubled in
quantity by an additional deposit from Barboursville." The Berkeley
Family, beginning with a small deposit of seventeenth and eighteenth
papers, have steadily increased it during the past three years until it
contains several thousand manuscripts spanning almost three centuries
of this Virginia family from the first Edmund Berkeley. The Latané
Family have placed on deposit some rare documents (1700-49) concerning
the life of Parson Lewis Latané of Essex County,[17] including
a letter to the vestry of South Farnham Parish from Alexander Spotswood
(1716) rebuking them for their presumption in suspending the
parson on their own authority. Two pocket diaries of Robert Larimer,
Ohio Volunteer Infantry, kept during the Civil War, one on the Carolina
coast in 1863 and the other in Richmond and vicinity in 1865, have
been deposited along with a few miscellaneous papers concerning him.

Photographic work with the Leica camera has expanded almost too
rapidly for present facilities, and the technique of operation has been
steadily perfected by Mr. John Cook Wyllie who is in charge. So
vast are the potentialities of photographic reproduction in library

work and so numerous the experiments for improving and standardizing
the technique that the American Library Association devoted a
full day to the discussion of microphotography at its annual conference
in Richmond last May.[18] The University Library now has a complete
printing equipment in connection with the Leica camera. Even at low
cost to faculty members, visiting and corresponding scholars, and occasional
students, the photographic service is able to meet a large share
of its expense. Most of the Library's own film copy is not printed
since a projector, to be acquired in the near future, will be less expensive
and equally satisfactory for most purposes.

A number of manuscript records which were photographed deserve
special mention. The four-volume diary of Captain Philip Slaughter
(1758-1849), father of the minister and historian of the same name,
is a unique, almost day by day commentary on farm life and business
in Culpeper County with remarks about political and social events as
they touched his own affairs during the period 1796-1848.[19] Since
the volumes are scattered among three of his descendants, the University's
complete photographic copy is especially valuable. The first
Minute Book of Mount Edd Baptist Church of Batesville, Albemarle
County, tells of its founding in December 1823 and carries the record
to 1843, with lists of white and colored members. The Council Minutes
of Falmouth, Va., 1727-ca. 1870, include the only extant colonial
record of this historic one-time port. An account book of "Carter's
Grove" near Williamsburg, 1736-46 and 1773-78, is an interesting plantation
record. A seven-volume set of Burwell store and farm account
books, 1789-1870, from Millwood in Clarke County have been photographed
for their value as a long-time record of business affected by
trade with Maryland and Pennsylvania. A schoolmaster's account
book from Sussex County reveals pointedly the dearth of cash at the
end of the eighteenth century. The Library has also acquired photostatic
copies of materials in other institutions or in private hands: Sir
William Berkeley letters and documents, 1661-90, from the British
Public Record Office through the courtesy of Dr. William E. Dodd,
American Ambassador to Germany; a few pages from a Peter Jefferson
account book in the Henry E. Huntington Library; Mary Washington's
will, 1782, from the original in the clerk's office, Fredericksburg.
Several unpublished histories of local Virginia churches have

been copied; and among printed records photographed the Ordinances
of the town of Suffolk, Va., 1858, should be mentioned.

The Virginia Room and the Bureau of Public Administration of the
University are co-operating in the preservation of Virginia state, city
and county documents of all kinds, the older and rarer imprints being
filed in the former collection; both departments have profited by exchanges
with other institutions. It may not be inappropriate in this report
to commend the fine work of the Bureau of Public Administration
in obtaining the documents of other states, thereby improving the
facilities for research in all the social sciences.

It was the University's good fortune to secure again the services of
Mr. W. Edwin Hemphill as acting archivist during the summer of
1936. He was also acting assistant state supervisor of the Historical
Records Survey project under the WPA. He carried on the work with
that thoroughness and understanding which we have come to anticipate
in all that he undertakes. The Appendix to the present Annual Report,
continuing the policy of publishing each year a list of original records
of some Virginia agency or institution, as a cross-section of historical
sources in the State, was prepared by Mr. Hemphill.

Many generous and genuinely interested persons have contributed
to the accomplishments of the past year and in expressing his appreciation
the archivist is deeply conscious of the co-operative spirit so
essential to the progress of this phase of the University's research program.
This spirit is equally real within the University, especially between
the Library and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences,
as indicated in Director Wilson Gee's brochure, A Decade of Organized
Social Science Research at the University of Virginia, published
just before the present report went to press. The archivist is especially
indebted to Miss Elizabeth B. Parker of the Historical Records
Survey, upon whom have fallen many of the burdens of the Richmond
office in addition to her work as district supervisor. In conclusion, it
is always a pleasure to express sincere thanks to Mr. Harry Clemons
and the Library staff for their many favors.

A postscript, dated September 15, is in order: news of the grant
from the Public Works Administration which makes possible the Alderman
Memorial Library of the University, ground to be broken this
autumn. The University Library faces a new era of development.