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Monthly Archives: January 2011
What’s In A Name?
26 January 2011
(Editor’s note: Archivists at The Library of Virginia often find people from the past in the collection who are so appropriately named that they seem to be lifted from a Dickens novel. Can Joe Evidence be trusted? Should you marry a man named Singleton Livingood?)
On 22 December 1892, Edmonia DeHaven, 18, and Singleton Livingood, 34, a saloon keeper, were married in Winchester by the Reverend William Harper. Seventeen months later, a woman arrived from Ohio claiming to be Singleton’s “lawful wife.” Soon after this revelation, R. E. Byrd, prosecuting attorney for Frederick County, issued an arrest warrant on the charge of bigamy, but was unable to serve the warrant.
Singleton, either learning of his impending arrest or ready for a change of scenery, slipped town deserting both women. A man with a name like Singleton Livingood was probably meant to stay a bachelor. After waiting for roughly five years, Edmonia sued for and received a divorce. The case of Edmonia Livingood v. Singleton Livingood, 1899, is part of the Frederick County Chancery Court Collection. An early accession of Frederick County chancery causes, 1745-1926, was processed in the 1990s and is available on microfilm. Additional Frederick County chancery causes, 1866-1923, accession 42505, were transferred to the LVA and are presently being processed. This portion, which includes the Singleton Livingood case, will be digitally reformatted … read more »
Posted in Chancery Court Blog Posts
Tags: census, chancery, Chancery Causes, Frederick County, Petersburg
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Tags: census, chancery, Chancery Causes, Frederick County, Petersburg
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CW 150 in Print and on Television.
25 January 2011
In case you missed it the CW 150 Legacy Project ‘s visit to the Campbell County courthouse in Rustburg was featured recently in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and on WSET-TV which covers Lynchburg, Danville, and Roanoke. See the newspaper story here and the video here. Both stories cover the project’s continuing mission to to locate Civil War-era materials held by private citizens, digitize them, and place them online.… read more »
The secession crisis: A Frenchman’s view of the “whirlwind”
19 January 2011
“The indecision and the absence of energy in the convention of Virginia which does not dare proclaim itself either for or against secession have ended by making the situation intolerable for everyone,” wrote Alfred Paul, the French consul in Richmond, in March 1861. “This lack of spontaneity after the inauguration of the new administration destroys the sympathies of the two sections, North and South, toward Virginia.” Paul closed his report of 9 March thusly: “all that the convention has done up to the present can be summed up in three words or in a single word: nothing, nothing, nothing.”
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the secession crisis and the commencement of the Civil War. Among The Library of Virginia’s many collections concerning secession and the war is the Alfred Paul Reports, 8 December 1860-9 March 1861 (Accession 22992). Paul proved to be a keen observer of events in Virginia during the Winter of 1860-1861, providing the French government with valuable analysis of the state’s actions during the secession crisis. [Note: The original reports are written in French; English translations are provided by the Library.]
Southerners, Paul stated, “want secession.” South Carolina seized on the election of Abraham Lincoln to leave the Union, even though Lincoln had been “called to the presidency of the United States…in a general election, regular, legal, constitutional, in … read more »
A Brief History of the Public Privy on Capitol Square
12 January 2011
Editors Note: This post originally appeared in the Virginiana section of Virginia Memory.
When we think of Capitol Square, it conjures up visions of Thomas Jefferson’s venerable Capitol on the hill, Alexander Parris’s elegant Executive Mansion, and Arthur S. Brockenbrough’s public privy. Well, maybe not the latter, but to the ordinary visitor of Capitol Square in the early nineteenth century it was equally important.
The early part of the nineteenth century saw the most significant amount of change to Capitol Square since its formation in the 1780s. In 1816, French architect Maximilian Godefroy was appointed to draw up a plan for the improvement of the “Public Square,” as it was often called. Since Godefroy’s plans do not survive, it is not known whether he first suggested a public privy on the Square. Governor James P. Preston, however, began granting various contracts based on Godefroy’s plan which included landscaping, a cast iron enclosure, a stable, and a public privy. Construction began on the privy, or necessary, in September 1818, when Arthur S. Brockenbrough, Superintendent of the Improvement of the Public Square, contracted William G. Goodson to complete the carpenter’s work and furnish the materials necessary for its construction. Located, appropriately, next to the newly constructed governor’s stable, the public privy was built a few hundred feet south of the Executive Mansion on the southeast corner of … read more »
IRON, WHISKEY, RAILROADS, AND RACE ARE FINDS IN NEWLY PROCESSED CHANCERY COLLECTIONS
5 January 2011
Transcript of Sen. Glasgow’s letter.
(Editor’s Note: The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce that scanning has now been performed on the Craig County and Pulaski County chancery causes. The digital collections are now available online through the Chancery Records Index.)
The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce that processing and indexing of the Craig County and Pulaski County chancery causes is now complete. Each of Virginia’s circuit courts created chancery records that contain considerable historical and genealogical information. Because the records rely so heavily on testimony from witnesses, they offer a unique glimpse into the lives of Virginians from the early 18th century through the First World War. The indexes for both counties have been added to the Library’s online Chancery Records Index and are now available for research.
Craig County chancery covers the years 1853-1942, with the bulk of the cases falling between 1853 and 1912. One suit of particular interest to researchers of African American education is the suit of Paris W. Compton vs. Admr. of Cornelius Compton, 1913-009, in which Paris was suing his father’s administrator to receive his inheritance. In his bill, he states that he and his mother had moved to “Ardmore near the city of Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania, at which place your complainant has been attending school, for the … read more »
