From slavery in the 1800s to freedom in the 1950s, Black America Series: Around Surry County traces the footsteps of African Americans through their transition from house servants and field hands to land owners, farmers, and successful small business proprietors. This detailed pictorial history celebrates and honors the strong faith, courage, and determination of the Surry County area's black community.
Founded in 1771 from parts of Rowan County, Surry County possesses a special charm and an engaging history in the northwest corner of the Tar Heel Statea heritage famous for rolling hills, autumn festivals, and the birthplace of Mayberry, which attracts countless tourists and visitors each season to the countys 15 townships. This volume, containing over 200 black-and-white images, transports readers into the Surry County of yesteryear, a time when the countys unpaved roads echoed with a cadence of noisy wagons matched with the sounds of early automobiles. Through these historic photographs, readers will explore the landscape of a bygone era, from the 1880s through the 1930s, and travel through each of the countys townships: Franklin, Bryan, Elkin, Marsh, Dobson, Stewarts Creek, Mount Airy, Eldora, Rockford, Siloam, Shoals, Pilot, Long Hill, Westfield, and South Westfield. Surry County uncovers the personal side of the countys history by touching upon many elements of everyday life, from family gatherings, church services, various occupations, daily work on the farm, early rural schoolhouses, and people at play. These scenes serve as fitting testimony to Surry Countians sheer will and determination to carve successful and lasting communities into this beautiful setting.
Just a 20-minute ferry ride from the place of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown on the southern banks of the James River begins 306 square miles of ravines and level lands, fresh water streams and creeks, and scenic views of Virginia's longest river. Surry was formed in 1652 and was most likely named by early colonists in honor of the English county of Surrey and in recognition of its location, as it lay across the Thames from London, as did Surry from Jamestown. For more than 350 years, Surry has depended on an agriculture economy and small businesses that developed around the meat processing industry, lumber harvesting, and farming. Residents, state officials, and now this photographic collection help to preserve this wonderful slice of American history.
Marriages of Surry County contains abstracts of all extant marriage bonds and licenses for the period 1779 until 1868 when bonds, as prerequisites for licenses, were discontinued. The data in this volume are arranged throughout in alphabetical order by the surname of the groom, and each entry provides the name of the bride, the date of the marriage bond, and the names of the bondsmen, clergymen, and justices of the peace. Altogether the text bears reference to approximately 16,000 persons.
Reprints. Lists originally published in the Magazine of Virginia genealogy, February 1984-August 1986; Interpreting headrights in Colonial-Virginia patents: uses and abuses originally published September 1987 in National Genealogical Society quarterly.
Deriving from two volumes of court order books--the oldest extant records of Surry County--this work consists of abstracts of court proceedings and legal transactions and includes recordings of deeds, inventories, coroners' inquests, powers of attorney, and bills of sale. In short, this work encompasses all the public records of the newly created county, doubtless embracing references to some 6,000 persons listed in the index.
Based on recorded wills and original wills at the North Carolina State Archives as well as "Loose Estate Papers" of intestates, these abstracts cover not only wills but powers of attorney, bonds, inventories, bills of sale, etc. Significantly, Surry County lay within the Granville Proprietary at its formation, and after Lord Granville's death in 1763 until 1778, the Proprietary land office did not reopen, making it very difficult--but for these will abstracts--for the present-day researcher to establish the residence of many individuals during that time period. What is more, as there are no extant marriage bonds for Surry County for the period 1771 to 1780, these will abstracts assume an importance out of all proportion to their customary value.
This reference book provides information on 24,000 Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, captured or missing at the Battle of Gettysburg. Casualties are listed by state and unit, in many cases with specifics regarding wounds, circumstances of casualty, military service, genealogy and physical descriptions. Detailed casualty statistics are given in tables for each company, battalion and regiment, along with brief organizational information for many units. Appendices cover Confederate and Union hospitals that treated Southern wounded and Federal prisons where captured Confederates were interned after the battle. Original burial locations are provided for many Confederate dead, along with a record of disinterments in 1871 and burial locations in three of the larger cemeteries where remains were reinterred. A complete name index is included.
