PUBLIC "-//Colonial Williamsburg Foundation::John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library//TEXT (US::ViWC::viwc00071::Guide to the William Byrd Papers)//EN" "viwc00071.xml" A Guide to the William Byrd Papers, 1728-1729 Byrd, William, Papers, 1728-1729 MS 40.2 Web version of the finding aid funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation © 2002 By the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. All rights reserved.

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 Machine-readable finding aid derived from MS Word 2000, created by Doug Mayo, 12/10/2002 Description is in English Feb 13, 2004 PUBLIC "-//Colonial Williamsburg Foundation::John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library//TEXT (US::ViWC::viwc00071::Guide to the William Byrd Papers)//EN" "viwc00071.xml" converted from EAD 1.0 to 2002 by v1to02.xsl (sy2003-10-15). Feb 26, 2004 converted to conform to eadVIVA.dtd by vivastrict.xsl 2013-11-21 Converted to schema conforming EAD by dtd2schema.vh.xsl. A Guide to the William Byrd Papers, 1728-1729 A Collection in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library MS 40.2

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation 2002 Special Collections staff Web version of the finding aid funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Descriptive Summary John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation William Byrd Papers, 1728-1729. MS 40.2 5 items. English William Byrd, 1674-1744. Administrative Information Access

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 Publication Rights/ Restrictions on Use

Before publishing quotations or excerpts from any materials, permission must be obtained from the Special Collections Librarian/ Associate Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, and the holder of the copyright, if not the Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg.

 Preferred Citation

William Byrd Papers, Manuscript MS 40.2, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

 Acquisition Information

Purchase, 1940.

 Alternative Form

Also available on microfilm M-1553. Some items also available as photostats PH/07.

 Biographical/Historical Information

William Byrd II resided at Westover in Charles City County, Virginia.

 Scope and Content Information

Writings of William Byrd II (1674-1744), of Westover, Charles City County, Va., including a fragmentary rough draft, in his hand, of the November 5-22, 1728, entries in his Secret History of the Dividing Line, which he later revised as the History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina. When Thomas Jefferson sent a contemporary fair copy from Berkeley to the American Philosophical Society in 1817, the text of these pages was missing. Also included is a contemporary transcript of Byrd's entries for October 29 through November 5, 1728, in the History of the Dividing Line.

The collection contains Byrd's letterbook for 1728-1729, including copies of letters to Mrs. Armiger, [Mr?] Bradley [Lord Islay?], Gov. Sir William Gooch, Col. Edward Moseley, Col. [Mann] Page, Micajah Perry, Mr. Spencer, "Cousen" Taylor, and [Sir Charles Wager?]; and a synopsis of Moses's death and Joshua's winning of the Promised Land, in handwriting similar to that of the History, but with interlineations that may be Byrd's.

For the provenance of these papers, see Maude H. Woodfin, "Thomas Jefferson and William Byrd's Manuscript Histories of the Dividing Line," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., I (1944), pp. 363-373; and Maude H. Woodfin, "The Missing Pages of William Byrd's Secret History of the Dividing Line," ibid., II (1945), pp. 63-70. The latter article also prints the 20-22 November section of the Secret History fragment.

 Arrangement

Chronologically arranged.

 Additional Descriptive Data Bibliography

The Secret history and the History are printed in their entirety in Prose works ..., but the Colonial Williamsburg fragments are incorrectly cites as being in the William Blathwayt Papers.

Byrd, William.Prose works; narratives of a colonial Virginian.Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1966.F229.B963 1966 Index Terms Persons: Byrd, William, 1674-1744. Byrd, William, 1674-1744. Histories of the dividing line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina. Gooch, William, Sir, 1681- 1751 Moseley, Edward, 1661-1736 Page, Mann, 1691- 1730 Perry, Micajah, d. 1753. Wager, Charles, Sir. Subjects: Boundary disputes. Geographical Names: North Carolina--Boundaries--Virginia. Virginia--Boundaries-- North Carolina. Virginia--History--Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775. United States-- Politics and government--To 1775. Contents List Rough draft of Secret History of the Dividing Line, 5-22 November 1728. History of the Dividing Line, 29 October-5 November. Letter Book I, [June] 1728-April 1729 . Pages 15-18, 27-32. Letter Book II, [May] 1729-27 June 1729. Pages 8-11, 34-37. Account of Moses' death and Joshua's winning of the Promised Land, n.d.