Collections : [Virginia Historical Society]

Virginia Historical Society

Virginia Historical Society
P.O. Box 7311
428 N Arthur Ashe Blvd
Richmond, VA 23221-0311
Primary Collecting Areas:
The VMHC collects the history of Virginians.
Description:
The VMHC collections consist of a wide range of objects, including books and bound serials, Confederate imprints, sheet music, broadsides, newspapers, family and personal papers, business and organizational records, genealogical materials, maps, paintings, prints, postcards, weapons, militaria, glass plate negatives, and photographs from the nineteenth century to the present.
POC: Laura Stoner
Phone: (804) 342-9662
Phone: (804) 342-9677
Fax: (804) 355-2399
Start Over Repository Virginia Historical Society Level Sub-series
Virginia Historical Society

FitzGerald Bemiss Papers 1952-1988

FitzGerald Bemiss's papers cover his career in the Virginia General Assembly, his work on various government commissions, and other related political activities and interests. Commissions on which he served include the Commission on Public Education (a.k.a. the Gray Commission), the Virginia Outdoor Recreation Study Commission, the irginia Metropolitan Areas Study Commission, and the overnor's Commission on Virginia's Future. His areas of particular interest included educational and environmental issues.
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Virginia Historical Society

Gwathmey Family Papers, 1790-1982

Papers of Joseph Gwathmey (1754-1824), planter, major in the Virginia militia, and deacon of Beulah Baptist Church, consist chiefly of records for his estate. Papers of William Gwathmey (1794-1875), planter and physician, trustee for Beulah Baptist Church, include diaries, 1833- 1874 (20 v.), primarily concerning weather conditions, farming operations, the health of slaves, physician's visits, and church activities (Civil War diaries provide his views on the war and document local events); correspondence, 1819-1875, with family members, many concerning church activities; accounts books, 1825-1875 (3 v.), for farming operations and physician's services (containing also records of family and slave births); loose accounts, 1833-1875; deeds and bonds, 1818-1873; and Beulah Church records, 1829-1872. Papers of Joseph Hardin Gwathmey (1846-1918), planter, insurance agent, and superintendent of King William County schools, include diaries, 1872 and 1910; correspondence, 1885-1918, chiefly with family members; and account books, 1887-1917 (2 v.), concerning farm operations. Papers of John Ryland Gwathmey (1888-1982), planter, include correspondence, 1918- 1982, chiefly with family; account books, 1951-1980, concerning farming operations; accounts, 1919-1982; checks and bank statements; and materials concerning the creation of the Burlington-Gwathmey Memorial Foundation. Papers of Anna Garnett Gwathmey (1879-1979), insurance agent, include correspondence, 1913-1975, with family; account books, accounts, and bank records, 1916-1979; and business records, 1921-1970, documenting her career in New York City and King William County, and include account books and client files. Papers of Mary Burnley Gwathmey (1883-1974), teacher and artist, include correspondence, 1910-1973; accounts, 1930-1974; school notes, artwork, and materials documenting her work with the Virginia 350th Anniversary Commission.
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Virginia Historical Society

William Gray Papers, 1793-1873

Collection contains letters, 1833-1873, written to William Gray as a director of the Bank of Virginia, officer of the Manchester Methodist Episcopal Church, trustee of the town of Manchester, Va., justice of the peace for Chesterfield County, Va., and owner of William Gray & Co. (a tobacco manufacturing and shipping firm). Correspondence in part concerns the tobacco trade and hiring out slaves to Richmond tobacco factories; fugitive slaves and free blacks; and the education of children. Also includes letters, 1833-1874, accounts, banking records, and other business records of William Gray & Co., in part concerning tobacco agents primarily in London, Eng., and New York City, the financial Panic of 1837, the murder of Gray's partner, Joseph H. Harris, by a slave in New Providence, Tenn. (who was subsequently lynched), and European reaction to secession and the American Civil War.
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Virginia Historical Society

Faulkner Family Papers, 1737-1954

Chiefly papers, 1826-1884, of Charles James Faulkner (1806-1884), consisting of correspondence concerning his legal and political career; records of his law practice, including materials concerning the disagreement between Virginia and West Virginia over the counties of Berkeley and Jefferson, and materials concerning the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company; political files relating to his activities in the Whig and Democratic parties and including campaign materials for Virginia elections and for the presidential election of 1856, papers relating to his U.S. ambassadorship to France, 1859-1861, and materials concerning the West Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1872; and miscellaneous items relating to the Martinsburg & Potomac Railroad Company and the Berkeley County Agricultural & Mechanical Association. Also includes papers, 1866-1915, of Charles James Faulkner, Jr. (1847-1920), consisting of correspondence, financial records, and legal documents concerning his law practice and his service in the U.S. Senate, 1887-1899; papers, 1793-1816, of Martinsburg, Va. (now W. Va.), merchant James Faulkner (1776-1817), including records of his service in the Virginia militia during the War of 1812; papers of lawyer Elisha Boyd, including correspondence with Richmond, Va., lawyer John Wickham; and records of Boyd's father-in-law, merchant Andrew Waggener of Berkeley County, Va. (now W. Va.).
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Virginia Historical Society

A Guide to the Page Family Papers, 1819-1876

Series 1 of the collection begins with the papers of Francis Page (1780-1849), consisting of two receipts, one for the digging of a well (1819) and one for his subscription to the National Vaccine Institution (1825).

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Virginia Historical Society

Roller Family Papers 1828-1974

Includes correspondence, account books and loose accounts, commonplace books, and miscellaneous materials documenting the close relationship between members of the Cabell and the related Micklem and Eubank families, especially among the women. Prominently represented are Elizabeth Willis (Eubank) Cabell of "Inglewood," Nelson County, Va., who maintained a large household made up of her immediate family, her husband's sister, children who attended the school run by her son and daughter, and summer boarders; and her daughters, Mary Caroline Cabell, a teacher who ran the school at Inglewood; Lucy Brown (Cabell) Roller, who married John Edwin Roller of Harrisonburg, Va., and had an active domestic and social life; and Margaret Etta (Cabell) Matthews, who married an Anglican missionary and lived with him for several years in Liberia; and Elizabeth Henry (Roller) Bottimore, of Richmond, Va., and Glens Falls, N.Y., daughter of Lucy Brown (Cabell) Roller, who maintained an extensive social correspondence with friends, many of whom lived in or frequently travelled to foreign countries. In general the correspondence concerns domestic activities, including courtship and marriage, the births of children, illnesses and deaths, problems with servants, and the procurement of clothing and other household articles; the running of the Inglewood school and the work of other family members, split between teaching and the law; and social activities in Nelson County, Harrisonburg, and Richmond, Va., among the Cabell and Roller families and a wide network of friends and relations. Also included are the papers of John Edwin Roller, a Harrisonburg, Va., lawyer and active member of the Republican Party, largely concerning his plans to run for the Virginia House of Delegates in 1872 and his relationships with his wife, her daughters, and his daughters from his first marriage.
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Series 10.1.: Correspondence, 1870-1916 Box 15-18

Correspondence of Gen. John Edwin "Ned" Roller, chiefly falling into two periods, 1870-1872, concerning Roller's plans to run for election to the Virginia House of Delegates, and 1895-1916, concerning his marriage in 1896 to Lucy Brown Cabell, and after, concerning his family life. Many correspondents from the earlier period give details of political sentiment on the local level (see William Withers Adams, William B. W. Brooking, Henry B. Harnsberger, Henry Marcellus Keyser, John Marshall McCue, William Merry Perkins, E. D. Pettit, Charles Summerville Rohr, Lawrence Royster, Ezra Eugenius Stickley, William Harrison Triplett, John Richard Wingfield, Charles Junius Woodson, and others). Non-family letters from the later period are typically letters of congratulations on his marriage.
Letters to Lucy Brown Cabell during their courtship discuss the objections of Roller's teenage daughters to their marriage, the age difference between Roller and Lucy, and Lucy's father's objections to the proposed marriage settlement. Letters after their marriage are chiefly exchanged while Roller is traveling on business and during Lucy's annual visits to her family at Inglewood, Nelson co., and discuss their children and domestic issues.
Letters to Roller from daughters Frances Lewis (Roller) Grattan and Margaret Stuart (Roller) Cannady Ogilvie Merryman concern their attendance at Woman's College, Frederick, Md. (now Hood College), in particular social activities and financial needs. Letters from Roller to daughters Elizabeth Henry (Roller) Bottimore, Anne Woolston (Roller) Pyle, and Lucy Cabell Roller contain family news and fatherly advice while they are away visiting Cabell relatives.
Also included is scattered correspondence with Roller's brothers, Oliver Brown Roller, Peter Samuel Roller, Robert Douglas Roller, and William Wirt Roller, largely concerning the financing of their respective educations. Oliver attended the Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Va. Peter attended Augusta Military Academy. Robert attended the Episcopal Theological Seminary of Virginia.

  1. Series 10.: John Edwin Roller (1844-1918) papers, 1835-1918
Virginia Historical Society

A Guide to the Wickham Family Papers, 1766-1945

Abstract: The collection includes correspondence, 1798-1839, of Richmond, Va., attorney John Wickham, primarily concerning business and legal affairs and politics (correspondents include Stephen Decatur, Edmund Ruffin, and U.S. senator Littleton Waller Tazewell); legal records (including materials concerning the treason trial of Aaron Burr in 1807); records concerning "East Tuckahoe" plantation, Henrico County, Va.; and records concerning the settlement of Wickham's estate. Also, includes correspondence, 1836-1897, of Wickham's son Littleton Waller Tazewell Wickham (1821-1909), New Orleans, La., attorney and planter at "Woodside," Henrico County, Va. (including letters of Thomas Ashby concerning the "Bunker Hill" plantation, Darlington County, S.C., and of Elizabeth Selden Maclurg Wickham of Richmond and while visiting the Virginia springs); accounts; and materials concerning his law practice. Also, includes correspondence, 1864-1895, of Francis Peyre Porcher (1825-1895), physician of Charleston, S.C., with family members, prominent medical practitioners, and business associates; and family and personal correspondence, 1870-1929, of his daughter, Julia Wickham (Porcher) Wickham (1860-1933), especially with French soldiers and widows World War I, along with two autograph albums compiled by Mrs. Wickham featuring signatures and letters of prominent American and English literary, political and scientific figures. Also, includes diaries (36 v.), 1900-1939, correspondence, 1872-1935, and miscellaneous records of Thomas Ashby Wickham (1857-1939), attorney of Sprague, Wash., and Richmond, Va., judge of the Henrico County Court, and while serving in the Virginia Senate; correspondence, 1891-1897, and miscellaneous records of his cousin and law partner, William Fanning Wickham (1860-1900) of Richmond, Va., concerning his law practice, local civic activities, and service with the 1st Cavalry Regiment of Virginia Volunteers; and miscellaneous records of other Wickham family members
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Virginia Historical Society

A Guide to the Wickham Family Papers, 1754-1977

The collection includes correspondence (some copies), 1778-1799, of attorney John Wickham (1763-1839) of Richmond, Va., and extensive materials concerning the settlement of his estate (including wills, correspondence, financial, land and legal records, and trust materials, some involving Robert E. Lee and William Henry Fitzhugh Lee). Also contains papers of William Fanning Wickham (1793-1880) of "Hickory Hill," Hanover County, Va., including diaries (17 v.), 1828-1880, concerning agricultural operations, slave families and runaway slaves, and local events during the Civil War and Reconstruction; family correspondence, 1817-1878; accounts; land records; and materials concerning the emancipation and resettlement in Ohio of slaves belonging to the estate of Samuel Gist. Also contains letterbooks, 1877-1881, of Williams Carter Wickham (1820-1888) as a Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company official and Republican Party State Executive Committee chairman; correspondence, 1862-1888; financial records; "Hickory Hill" farm records; and materials concerning the management of "North Wales," Caroline County, Va., for Dr. Charles Carter of Philadelphia, Pa. Alsoincludes correspondence, 1848-1913, financial records, and estate materials of Lucy Penn (Taylor) Wickham (1830-1913); letterbooks, 1931-1940, scrapbooks, correspondence, 1874-1941, farm records, and Virginia Senate and Democratic Party materials of Henry Taylor Wickham (1849-1943) of "Hickory Hill"; correspondence, accounts, farm records, and Richmond, Va., rental property records of Elise Warwick (Barksdale) Wickham; and miscellaneous records of other members of the Wickham and Fanning families.
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Virginia Historical Society

Keith Family Papers, 1830-1979

Chiefly correspondence and other materials of Robert Taylor Scott (1834-1897) and his wife Fanny Scott (Carter) Scott (1838-1923). R. T. Scott was a lawyer in Warrenton and Prince William and Fairfax counties, a member of the constitutional convention of 1867 and the Virginia General Assembly of 1881-1882, and served as attorney-general of Virginia from 1889 to 1897. At the beginning of the Civil War he organized a company of infantry and served as captain of Company K, Eighth Virginia Regiment, C.S.A., until he was appointed to the staff of General George Edward Pickett. His materials include extensive correspondence, chiefly with his wife, both before and during the Civil War, discussing family and personal matters, legal education, admittance to the bar and practice of law, and the impending conflict. War-time correspondence describes the secession convention of 1861, general camp life, duties as quartermaster, and Union activities in Fauquier County and near Leesburg, Va. Also included are legal records and some records for Company K, Eighth Virginia Regiment. Records of Fanny Scott (Carter) Scott include general correspondence, accounts, land records, miscellany, and materials from her term as president of the Black Horse Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy, at Warrenton, Va.
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Virginia Historical Society

Edwin Fisher Conger Papers, 1900-1979

3 linear feet (165 Folders)
The Edwin Fisher Conger papers focus primarily on several of Conger's business operations, specifically the production of treated telephone and electrical poles. Two of Conger's chief operations, Norfolk Creosoting Company and the Piedmont Wood Preserving Company (later simply the Piedmont Company) figure most heavily in the collection, along with information regarding Conger's first endeavor in this field, E.F. Conger Creosoting Company, his extensive timber holdings near Aiken, South Carolina, and his financial, social, and philanthropic dealings as a wealthy businessman living in Virginia.
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Series 5.1: Hitchcock Woods and related property, Aiken, S.C. 1953-1963 Box-folder

Edwin F. Conger personally retained a large amount of acreage in South Carolina that the success of the Norfolk Creosoting Company had enabled him to purchase. Some of the acreage was eventually sold to local interests for housing projects, some used to support the operations of the School of Forestry at the University of North Carolina (including the establishment of a professorship and scholarships), some set aside to honor Conger's lifelong friend and mentor, Dr. Carl A. Schenck, through the creation of a memorial forest and reforestation program (see also Series 5.2).

  1. Series 5: Edwin F. Conger Personal Files 1916-1967

Series 5.2: Tributes to Dr. Carl A. Schenck, 1950-1957 Box-folder

Edwin F. Conger studied under German forestry specialist Dr. Carl Alwin Schenck (1868-1955) before World War I and considered him a friend and mentor throughout his life. Conger's financial successes allowed him to join with other of his fellow alumni from the Biltmore Forestry School (where Schenck operated his original school on the grounds of the Biltmore estate in North Carolina) in the years immediately preceding his mentor's passing. The files here document some of those activities through a combination of text documents and photographs. One particularly interesting and unusual item is an album (with phonograph records) documenting Dr. Schenck's return visit to America: The Cavalcade of Trees for the Great: Being the Tour of Carl Alwin Schenck in America, 1951, under the Sponsorship of the American Forestry Association and graduates of the Biltmore Forest School.

  1. Series 5: Edwin F. Conger Personal Files 1916-1967

Series 5.3: Personal and Family Papers. 1916-1967 Box-folder

The largest portion of this series of Edwin Conger's papers relates to his family and his personal affairs. These include financial records; files on local philanthropy in Staunton; activities involving his purchase and operation of a resort property in Middlesex County, Va., called Horse Point Estates; vacation trips and other travel; correspondence with, extensive photographs of, and files concerning trusts established for his two daughters and his grandchildren (most notably files on the divorce and remarriages of his eldest daughter, Dorothea Lloyd (Conger) Eager Grand Sverker, and the guardianship of her two surviving children, Howard Lloyd Eager and Edwin F. Eager).

  1. Series 5: Edwin F. Conger Personal Files 1916-1967

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