A Calendar of Legislative Petitions
A Calendar of Legislative Petitions

Author: Virginia State Library

Publisher: General Books

Published: 2012-02

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9781458995339

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Letters of Transmittal Virginia State Library, November 11, 1908. The Library Board of the Virginia State Library: Gentlemen: I have the honor to transmit herewith the special report of the archivist of the Virginia State library for the year ended October 31, 1908. It consists of abstracts of a portion of the legislative petitions filed in the State librarythose from the counties of Accomac, Albemarle, Alexandria, Alle- ghany, Amelia, Amherst, Appomattox, Augusta, Barbour, Bath, and Bedford. The publication of the report will further the purpose of exhibiting to the public the character of work done during the year in the department of archives and history, and of bringing to the attention of students the wealth of historical material deposited in this library. Very respectfully, H. R. McILWAINE, State Librarian. Dr. H. R. Mcilwaine, Librarian. Dear Sir: I beg herewith to submit the special report of the department of archives and history for 1908, which contains a calendar of abstracts of petitions presented to the Legislature, arranged by counties, and including the papers from Accomac to Bedford. Yours very truly, H. J. BCKENRODB, Archivist. chapter{Section 4Report The issue of a calendar of abstracts of the manuscripts in the Virginia State library was one of the first plans made by the department of archives and history when it was regularly formed in 1906. Much preliminary arrangement was necessary before the work of calendar-making could be begun, as it was determined to change the methods of preserving and classifying the manuscripts then in vogue in the library. Some thousands of papers were taken from their boxes, and were pressed and put in filing cases, where they are accessible to the public. In filing this collection of documents, a...

Legislative Petitions of Alexandria
Legislative Petitions of Alexandria

Author: Wesley E. Pippenger

Publisher:

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 9781585493791

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Legislative petitions, a practice which was carried over from British law, were used as a means to seek remedy for grievance for a number of types of actions ranging from divorce to taxation. These lists may prove invaluable in determining neighbors, comrades or kin. Though now widely available to researchers, most of these petitions were abstracted by Hamilton J. Eckenrode and published as "Calendar of Legislative Petitions, Arranged by Counties; Accomac to Bedford," in the Fifth Annual Report of the Library Board of the Virginia State Library, 1907-1908. Mr. Pippenger has used the Eckenrode abstracts as a foundation for the present work, inserted the petitions which had been erroneously omitted, and made notations regarding further documentation or outcome of the petitions. Over 205 petitions which contain signatures of more than 6,000 different petitioners.

Almost Free
Almost Free

Author: Eva Sheppard Wolf

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2012-06-01

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0820343641

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In Almost Free, Eva Sheppard Wolf uses the story of Samuel Johnson, a free black man from Virginia attempting to free his family, to add detail and depth to our understanding of the lives of free blacks in the South. There were several paths to freedom for slaves, each of them difficult. After ten years of elaborate dealings and negotiations, Johnson earned manumission in August 1812. An illiterate “mulatto” who had worked at the tavern in Warrenton as a slave, Johnson as a freeman was an anomaly, since free blacks made up only 3 percent of Virginia’s population. Johnson stayed in Fauquier County and managed to buy his enslaved family, but the law of the time required that they leave Virginia if Johnson freed them. Johnson opted to stay. Because slaves’ marriages had no legal standing, Johnson was not legally married to his enslaved wife, and in the event of his death his family would be sold to new owners. Johnson’s story dramatically illustrates the many harsh realities and cruel ironies faced by blacks in a society hostile to their freedom. Wolf argues that despite the many obstacles Johnson and others faced, race relations were more flexible during the early American republic than is commonly believed. It could actually be easier for a free black man to earn the favor of elite whites than it would be for blacks in general in the post-Reconstruction South. Wolf demonstrates the ways in which race was constructed by individuals in their day-to-day interactions, arguing that racial status was not simply a legal fact but a fluid and changeable condition. Almost Free looks beyond the majority experience, focusing on those at society’s edges to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of freedom in the slaveholding South. A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication