Virginia’s agricultural production, as well as its economy, was dominated by tobacco for over three centuries, ever since John Rolfe sent his first shipment of tobacco to England in 1614. Growth of the Virginia colony and extension into the interior meant more soil and larger crops of tobacco. Despite the continuous growth in production, the tobacco trade was plagued by falling prices and decreased quality. By the 1720s, tobacco exports included large quantities of inferior product that even included shipments of “trash” tobacco—shipments that diluted tobacco leaves with foreign substances such as household sweepings. Consequently the price of tobacco sank so low that many planters struggled to recover production costs.

In 1723 Virginia’s General Assembly passed the first of its Tobacco Acts that attempted to control the quantity and quality of tobacco grown in the colony because it was believed that “most of the ffrauds [sic] and mischiefs which have been complained of in the Tobacco Trade” had arisen from the “planting on land not proper for producing good Tobacco” and the production of “greater Crops than the persons employed therein are able duly to tend.” The 1723 act established limits on the number of plants that certain classes of persons could grow with slave owners being allowed fewer plants. Each vestry of every parish had to appoint two people every year to count the number of plants being grown and report the numbers to the clerk of court by the month of August. Any number of plants over the allowed number were to be destroyed by the planter or, if the planter would not, by the counters. The act of 1729 provided various adjustments to and elaborations on the 1723 act. (For full text of the acts see The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Vol. 20, pp.158-178.)

Accomack County (Va.) Census of Tobacco Plants, 1725, 1728-1729, consists of three lists of tobacco plants created to comply with the Tobacco Acts. The 1725 list records the names of tithable persons, half shares, and the number of tobacco plants grown. The precinct is not given although the counters state that this list was drawn up at the order of the vestry at the MiddleChurch. The 1728 list records the names of all tithable persons and how many plants they were growing along with the number of plots or plantations in which the crop was being grown. Slave names are given along with their owners. A total of the number of plants in the county is given at the end of the list. The 1729 list is for the second precinct and records the same information as the 1728 list although without the land information.

The 1723 and 1729 Tobacco Acts led to the passing of the Virginia Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730 that transformed the tobacco trade by regulating the quality of tobacco exports which created increased revenues for Virginia planters.

The Accomack County (Va.) Census of Tobacco Plants, 1725, 1728-1729, (Barcode 1204975) is open for research and available at the Library of Virginia.

-Sarah Nerney, Senior Local Records Archivist

The plaintiff, R. E. Gatewood, filed a civil suit against the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company in James City County Circuit Court on 3 November 1884.  In his statement to the court, Gatewood blamed C&O Railway for a fire that caused extensive damage to his property on 14 October 1884.  Greenwood claimed that a C&O steam locomotive passing through his property did not have a spark arrestor or, if it did, the spark arrestor was not working properly. (A spark arrestor was a wire netting designed to prevent sparks or other tiny flaming debris from escaping the locomotive’s “balloon stack.”)  As a result of the “careless negligence” of the defendant, the plaintiff’s property was set on fire by sparks emitted from the steam locomotive.  Valuable timber including oak, chestnut, walnut, and pine worth $370 were destroyed by the fire as well as chestnut rail fences worth $30.  Gatewood demanded $400 in compensation for the severe injury done to him by the C&O Railway Company.

No rebuttal by C&O Railway Company to Gatewood’s statements was found in the suit.  However, the two oversize exhibits, the plat and the illustration of the engine boiler, were produced by C&O Railway Company perhaps to show a) the extent of damage by the fire was not as much as the plaintiff alleged and b) all C&O steam locomotives were equipped with spark arrestors.  The tiny arrows show how the mixture of cinders and ash flow through the locomotive, up the balloon stack, and into the spark arrestor.  What I found interesting is that the illustration shows some cinder and ash making it past the spark arrestor.  I believe the reason why is that C&O Railway Company wanted to make the point that, while the spark arrestor does a great job preventing most of the cinder and ash from escaping the balloon stack, it does not catch them all.  Consequently, the escaping cinder and ash could start a fire such as the one on Gatewood’s property, but the cause of the fire was accidental and not “careless negligence” on the part of C&O Railway Company.

In its verdict in June 1885, the jury sided with the plaintiff, Gatewood; however, he had to come away from the trial extremely disappointed.  The jury assessed the damages done to his property by C&O Railway Company at $32.55.  Apparently, the two exhibits produced by C&O Railway Company influenced the jury’s decision.  Was C&O Railway and Company responsible for the fire?  Yes.  But was the fire due to “careless negligence” on the part of the railroad company and the damage caused by the fire as extensive as Gatewood claimed?  No.  The only consolation for Gatewood was that he received just enough money to buy new chestnut rail fences.  

The James City County/Williamsburg Judgments, 1877-1891, are open for research and available at the Library of Virginia.

-Greg Crawford, Local Records Services Coordinator

On 17 April 1875, Anna Williams of 313 Canal Street in Richmond heard a noise and went outside to investigate only to discover a plank pulled off of her hen house and a man “breaking chicken necks.”   Emmet W. Ruffin, a neighbor enlisted to assist her, later testified as to what happened next., “I jumped back and drew my knife and waited for him to come out…. Just then the man jumped out of the chicken house and threw a handful of sand or dirt in my eyes…. As soon as I got the sand out of my eyes, I went after him… and struck him with the knife as he was going over the fence.”  The thief dropped some of the chickens inside the yard, but Ruffin continued to follow him.  Shortly, a chase ensued, with people joining in and crying “murder” and “thief.”   Some members of the group began throwing stones.  One struck the thief on the side of his head knocking him to the ground.  The chicken thief, later identified as Robert Bland, never got back up.

The Richmond coroner’s statement reveals that the chicken thief came to his death from a stab wound, inflicted by Emmet W. Ruffin, received while engaged in stealing chickens. The jury was of the opinion that Ruffin “[deserved] the thanks of the community for his action under the circumstances.”

The testimony and investigation into the death of Robert Bland, dated 18 April 1875, can be found in the Richmond Coroners’ Inquisitions. The collection is available at the Library of Virginia but is currently closed for processing.

In April 2013, almost 138 years later, chickens are again making headlines in the city of Richmond.  City Council will be considering an ordinance that would allow residents to have chickens, and will vote on it on 8 April. A pro-hen group, Chickunz, along with other local chicken advocates, is helping spearhead this effort. 

As far as stealing hens goes, as Robert Bland discovered chickens do come home to roost. 

-Mary Dean Carter, Local Records Archival Assistant

While watching the February 2012 episode of NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? featuring actor and Petersburg native Blair Underwood investigating his family history, Library of Virginia staff could not help but notice that one of the original volumes displayed on the show was not in great shape.  The Amherst County Register of Free Negroes, 1822-1864, was used on the show to prove that one of Underwood’s ancestors had been a free person prior to the Civil War.  The front and back covers of the volume had become detached from the spine, pages were loose, and overall it did not look like the book could withstand much handling without sustaining further damage to its fragile pages.  This led to a reevaluation of the existing conservation priority for the 30 free Negro registers in the Library’s holdings.  Previously it was thought that since all of the free Negro registers were microfilmed, the original volumes would not be handled by the public any longer, thus conservation money would be better spent on other items.  However, the resurgence of interest in African American genealogy, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and related issues, and interest in the registers for display in exhibits clearly indicated that a change was necessary.  A conservation inventory was done for all of the volumes and the ones that require treatment will receive it over time and as funds allow.

So what is a free Negro register and why do they exist?  In 1803 the Virginia General Assembly passed an act that required every free Negro or mulatto to be registered and numbered in a book to be kept by the county clerk. The register listed the age, name, color, stature, marks or scars, and in what court the person was emancipated or whether the person was born free. A free person was required to carry a copy of this register on them in order to prove their free status.  It was a criminal offense to not be registered, and a free person could be sold into slavery if they were unable to produce sufficient proof of their status.  Enforcement of these laws was done locally and could be inconsistent.  Times of great societal fear about a locality’s black population would often result in an increase in both registrations and prosecutions for being unregistered—for example, following Nat Turner’s uprising.  The free Negro registers were thus both instruments of control over the free black population of the state but also a safeguard of an individual’s free status should it ever be challenged.  The registers provide wonderful physical descriptions of free people that give the researcher a real idea of what someone looked like, information often hard to come by for other groups of the pre-Civil War era.  They are extremely important records for genealogists and have been used by historians for a variety of avenues of inquiry.

The first four volumes chosen for conservation were completed and returned to the Library of Virginia from Etherington Conservation Services in March 2013.  Included among them is the Amherst County register from Who Do You Think You Are?  The pages have been cleaned, mended, and deacidified.  The original boards of the cover have been retained because they were still in good shape although they got a restorative touch-up with watercolor and pencil.  The old leather bindings have been replaced with new leather.  The other volumes are three registers from Amelia County that date from 1804-1835, 1835-1855, and 1855-1865.  These registers all had broken bindings, loose or completely separated covers, and loose pages.  As the pictures show, the conservators completely replaced all of the covers and bindings on the Amelia registers.  The new bindings and board cover patterns were matched as closely as possible to the originals.  All of the pages of the volumes have been cleaned, mended, deacidified, and resewn into their new bindings.  The Amherst and Amelia free Negro registers are now ready for their Hollywood close-ups!  These registers still will not be available to the general researcher since copies exist on microfilm, but their conservation will ensure that these important volumes are preserved for future generations, and, when they are needed for a special display purpose, that they are in a physical state to withstand such handling and exhibition.

Conservation of archival records, maps, and books is expensive and takes time to do properly.  Treatment done right extends the life of the record by slowing down or reversing damage to paper, bindings, and leather while at the same time being reversible and not a permanent alteration to an item.  Stay tuned for future conservation updates about free Negro registers and other interesting records within the Library of Virginia’s holdings.

The Library of Virginia welcomes donations to our general conservation fund in any amount.  Interested in sponsoring a particular book or item?  See suggestions on the Adopt Virginia History page.

-Sarah Nerney, Senior Local Records Archivist

The Lost Records Localities Digital Collection consists of copies of records from counties or incorporated cities that have suffered significant record loss due to intense military activity (predominantly during the Civil War), courthouse fires, theft, vandalism, water damage, pest damage, and/or natural disasters. Copies are made from surviving records such as wills and deeds found in the court records of other localities as part of chancery and other circuit court records processing projects. The “lost” documents are digitally scanned and the images and pertinent information are added to the Lost Records Localities Digital Collection available on Virginia Memory.

The Lost Records Localities project has been an ongoing one for the Library of Virginia for decades. During the mid-1910’s, Virginia’s first state archivist Morgan P. Robinson sent a letter to all clerks inquiring about the state of the records in their courthouses.  Many responded saying the records were destroyed during the American Revolution, Civil War, courthouse fire, etc. The coming of the Circuit Court Records Preservation Program in the early 1990’s continued this project and enabled the hiring of additional archival staff to process circuit court records, mainly chancery causes. While processing chancery, archivists identify documents from localities that suffered loss of records–a Will of Matthew Koon, 1731, recorded in Stafford County and used as an exhibit in a Fauquier County chancery cause or an 1800 Hanover County deed used as an exhibit in an Isle of Wight County chancery cause. The “lost” documents are scanned, identified, indexed, and placed into an artificial digital collection that is now known as the Lost Records Localities Collection. 

Digital images and catalog records for items in the collection are uploaded to the Lost Records Digital Collection and made available for patrons to search. Recently, a new search feature was added to enable patrons to search by name of person, record type, and locality. Additional records will be added to the digital collection periodically as our archivists continue to identify “lost” documents in the records they process. Please check back as this is an ongoing project.

For more information and a listing of lost records localities, see the Lost Records Research Note.

-Greg Crawford, Local Records Coordinator

In 1879, Charles C. Curtis was working at the retail store of Wingo, Ellett, and Crump at 1000 Main Street in Richmond.  A customer, a young lady named Isabel Cottrell, visited the store to try on a pair of shoes, and found Mr. Curtis’s behavior “exceedingly offensive.” Instead of allowing her to put the shoes on, he insisted on holding the shoe for her to put her foot in and on buttoning the shoe after she had “begged him” to let her do it herself.  She encountered Mr. Curtis on a second visit to pick up a pair of shoes she had ordered, and he insisted that she try them on in the store. Cottrell instead took the shoes home.

On a third visit, she took both pairs of shoes back to the store “with the purpose of leaving one pair of shoes and having the heels of the other plated.”  Cotrell claimed Curtis opened the bundle of shoes and remarked, in a rather impertinent way, “what a pretty little shoe, I certainly would like to put them on you.  I don’t see how you can walk with such a foot.”  Ms. Cottrell “was very much provoked, and told him he would oblige [her] by not commenting on [her] foot.”  She was further annoyed when Curtis accompanied her to the phaeton, where a friend was waiting. He “gave my arm a very severe grip,” Cottrell remarked to her friend and claimed that she would never go into the store again as long as he was employed there.  She considered Curtis “not only unrefined, but insulting.” She then told her “intimate acquaintance,” John E. Poindexter, of these circumstances, and he “seemed very angry” and declared that he would “have to horsewhip the fellow.” 

Later, John Poindexter got his brother and went to the shoe store to confront Curtis.  After being sure that Curtis was the man he was looking for, he “pulled out a riding whip and struck Curtis eight or ten times.” Poindexter accused him of “insulting a lady,” and Curtis claimed to “have no knowledge of it, but if he had, he begged her pardon.”  After another salesman in the store intervened, the brothers left the store.

After the confrontation, Curtis decided to seek the advice of friends upon this “point of honor.”  After explaining the incident, Tazewell Ellet told him “the proper thing to do is…to go and kill him.”  But another friend, Francis McGuire, replied that he “cannot do that, his character as a Christian and member of the church prevents it.”  After Curtis acknowledged that he could not kill Poindexter, McGuire told him, “you must see him at once and demand a full and immediate apology, and if not given…beat him.”  McGuire then offered to accompany him “to stand by [him] and see fair play.”  They both went to Poindexter’s place of business to confront him on 3 March 1879.  Curtis, carrying a stick, walked toward Poindexter and demanded an apology.  Poindexter replied, “If you strike me with that stick, I will shoot you.”  Curtis said, “I am unarmed.”  McGuire then urged Curtis on by saying, “hit him, hit him, knock him in the head, or kill him, kill him…”  As Curtis advanced on Poindexter and struck him with the stick, Poindexter began firing until Curtis fell.  At which point, Poindexter said “I didn’t want to shoot him…let’s try and do something for the man.” 

Charles C. Curtis died of the effects of pistol shot wounds on 4 March 1879. The testimony and investigation into his death can be found in the Richmond Coroners’ Inquisitions, dated 4 March 1879. The collection is available at the Library of Virginia but is currently closed for processing.

We were not alone here at the Library of Virginia in finding this story intriguing. Reporter Herbert T. Ezekiel also remarked on the story in his The Recollections of a Virginia Newspaper Man, published in 1920. Ezekiel found the story noteworthy because Poindexter’s whipping of Curtis was the last instance of cowhiding, or horsewhipping, on record in the state of Virginia before the State Legislature passed a law making it a felony.

-Mary Dean Carter, Local Records Archival Assistant

In November of 1860, executor William F. Smith was in a pickle.  Charged with settling the estate of Elizabeth P. Via of Augusta County, he had recently been a defendant in both a chancery and a judgment suit from seven of Via’s heirs that challenged the validity of her will.  The heirs objected to the provisions that Via made for her slaves, namely that they all be emancipated.  Additionally, she left $4,000 to transport them to a free state and set them up in homes there.  The remainder of her estate was to be distributed amongst Via’s heirs who were not pleased by this and thought it in their best interest to have the will invalidated so that they could get everything, including the slaves that were left at Via’s death.  The will was upheld, however, and then it was time for executor Smith to get on with the business of carrying out Via’s wishes.  But there were some questions that he struggled to answer about his job as executor.

At issue were several points.  Did children born since Via’s death have an interest in the money left to the slaves?  What should happen to the residue of the $4,000 after the will’s provisions were carried out?  How should title to any house or land purchased for the emancipated slaves be done?  The slaves had been hired out since 1859 due to the dispute over the will, so did the money earned by their hire belong now to them or to the estate?  Smith sought the court’s guidance on how to answer these thorny questions and fulfill his duties as executor.  He then filed accounts with the chancery suit to prove that he had properly carried out his tasks.

Included in the accounts is a two-page document written by Smith titled “Account for removing and settling slaves in a free state.”  Beginning 28 January 1861, and ending 7 February of the same year, this master account reads like a travel journal of Smith’s trip to Columbus, Ohio, with his assistant, Mr. Larew, and Via’s 18 newly emancipated slaves.  Line by line, one can follow the party as they get train tickets and meals in Staunton, look at land in Franklin County, Ohio, buy the land and have it surveyed, purchase livestock and household goods, and finally return home to Staunton via train and omnibus.  Accompanying this master account are individual vouchers for goods or services provided that reveal more details about the items purchased to set up the farm and housekeeping in Ohio.  Included in other accounts are receipts for registering Via’s former slaves as free negroes in Augusta County prior to their departure for Ohio.  One of the final items on the master account is $14.00 for “cash paid negroes,” Via’s final bequest for their new life of freedom.

Through the lens of estate accounts, this chancery suit offers a rare glimpse of what followed emancipation.  It is common enough to find evidence of slaves freed in deeds and wills, but what happened after that is usually a mystery, especially if the freed persons then left the state.  The Franklin County, Ohio, Recorder’s Office has digitized their early deeds, and the deed for the sale of 110 4/10 acres of land from Edwin W. Warren to Elizabeth Jane and others (Elizabeth P. Via’s negroes) can be uncovered easily enough.  What happened to these eighteen people after 1861?  Did they stay together on their new land in Ohio?  Did they drift apart to other parts of Ohio or the country?  Did any of them return to Virginia after the Civil War?  This the records do not show.

Read the entire chancery suits that are filed together on the Chancery Records Index as Augusta County 1860-016, James W. Bishop, etc. vs. Administrator of Elizabeth P. Via, etc. and Executor of Elizabeth P. Via vs. James W. Bishop.  The judgment that decided Via’s will, James W. Bishop, etc. vs. William F. Smith, Exr. of Elizabeth P. Via, ended June 1860, is at the Augusta County courthouse; although a copy of the final order was used as evidence in the chancery suit.

-Sarah Nerney, Senior Local Records Archivist

Lura Royall was a Lunenburg County girl. Her relatives remember her as a pretty woman who never married—a retired school teacher full of life well into old age. But there was a part of her life that remained a secret from her living relatives. It was a secret recently revealed in 97 letters and postcards, written across a span of 21 years, to her from a Russian émigré, Vladimir Sournin, her fiancé.

These letters, part of several cubic feet of papers left in the old courthouse by former Lunenburg County clerk John L. Yates, were stashed among bills, statements, and personal business correspondence. How the letters ended up in Yates’ file cabinets is uncertain, but they reveal an on-again-off-again relationship between Vladimir and Lura that started in 1898 and lasted until at least 1925.

Vladimir Sournin’s life is a little known historical footnote now, but he was no ordinary man. Ambitious and talented, his career and interests led him to three continents where his path intersected with major world events and some of the most well-known people of his day.  His letters reveal him to be supremely confident in his abilities and fearless in attempts to achieve his goals. This same persistence is evident in his effort to woo Lura Royall.

Sournin was born in 1875 into a military family in Mstislavl, Russia. In St. Petersburg, Russia, he became an expert chess player, sharpening his game under a world champion. While continuing his education in Paris, he became enamored of the American cause during the Spanish-American War and volunteered for the U. S. Army infantry. Afterwards he stayed in Washington, D.C., and began a career with the U.S. Geological Survey as a cartographer, eventually being recognized as one of the country’s best draftsmen. He completed a well regarded survey of the Panama Canal Zone, then under construction, and was awarded a presidential medal for his work there. Several of Vladimir’s letters from 1908 were sent from the Canal Zone.

Sournin toured as a lecturer speaking about the Canal across Europe and the United States, but his triumphant tour seemed to hit a dead end in Russia. In a letter dated 15 September 1912, he wrote to Lura asking for money to help buy a ticket back to the United States after an absence of two years. He claimed that a hospital stay after an illness left him nearly destitute, his lectures were being suppressed, and his motiograph, a hand-cranked picture projector, was confiscated. He wrote, “O Miss Lura…I can tell you… Russia is not the place for an ambitious man.” It was not the last time he would ask Lura for money.

It is unclear if he left Russia in 1912, but there is a second letter to Lura from Vladimir in Russia dated March 1915 when World War I was raging across Europe. He wrote, “Now, Miss Lura, in the most bitter moment in my life – I pray [sic] you help me! The condition of this horrible war is indescribable… it’s awful….” In this letter he again asks her for money for the fare back to the United States adding that he sustained minor wounds. Given his family background, Vladimir most likely served as an officer in the Russian army in some capacity. The circumstances of his escape from Russia are unclear. Did he desert the Russian Army? Was he in Russia during the Russian Revolution of 1917? The next correspondence to Lura was, of all things, a postcard from Hawaii dated 24 January 1918. Later, in March of that year, he writes to express his joy at being back in the United States and promising to repay her the $10 he owed her as soon as he got a new federal mapmaking job.

After World War I, Vladimir collaborated with General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, leader of the American Expeditionary Force in The Great War, to create a map identifying Native Americans’ contributions to the war effort. Famed American Indian photographer Joseph K. Dixon personally supervised the map project and department store magnate Rodman Wannamaker, the Sam Walton of his day, funded the effort. Vladimir proudly sent Lura some of his own correspondence with Dixon which remains in the collection.

Also during this time, Vladimir made his mark in the American chess community. Considered to be a near-master player, he defeated a reigning world champion in 1908 and was a five-time Washington, D. C., Capital City Chess Club champion in the 1920s and 1930s. He often wrote to Lura between matches, and several letters in the collection bear the letterhead of hotels where he played tournaments.

Lura led an unconventional life also. Though she was popular with men she never married. Her teaching career in Lunenburg County gave her an income and allowed her to travel in the summer. Her brother, Lucius, and his wife ran a boarding house in Washington, D.C. A relative remembers her as a social butterfly who loved taking part in all that Washington had to offer. Her dancing shoes from those days, surely well-used, remain in family hands.

One can glean from Vladimir’s letters that the weight of family responsibilities weighed heavily on Lura. She felt responsible for her elderly mother, who died in 1922, and for her sister, Betty Sue, whose once pretty face was deformed by an operation. The letters mention Betty Sue pulling through bouts of serious illness.

Lura’s independence must have attracted Vladimir but seemed to also worry him. He asked her to marry him in a letter dated 20 September 1924. At this point she was 45-years-old and Vladimir was 49. Their intermittent relationship began when he was in his early twenties and she was 19. After their engagement his letters are riddled with references, joking and otherwise, for the need for her to obey him once they were married and the necessity of her leaving her teaching career to keep house.

It is unclear how Lura’s health played into this period of her life. She died in 1980 at 101 in a nursing home in Blackstone. In her obituary a nephew stated that she contracted tuberculosis in 1924 and was forced to retire from Lunenburg County schools after a 21-year career. Two letters from Vladimir in that year are addressed to Lura at the Catawba Sanatorium near Roanoke, including the one in which he proposes marriage. Was Lura more likely to accept Vladimir’s proposal after losing her career and livelihood? She regained her health but the disease seemed to have little effect on her relationship with Vladimir.

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Given his flair for the dramatic, it is not surprising that Vladimir began a singing career in the 1920s as “Vladimir Sournin, The Russian Baritone”—the title that adorned the letterhead of most of his correspondence in those years. He wrote to Lura with a detailed business plan showing how his singing would fund their eventual marriage.

What may be the last letter between the two had to literally be pieced together. In it, Vladimir asks her for $50 immediately while promising to pay other debts he owes her, writing that it will be the last time he borrows money from her “till we marry.” Then, after professing his love for her, he writes in uncharacteristically poor English, “You see Dear, your sister (Bettie Sue) is ill, look not well, for she is OLD Maide, and that will be same thing with you, my dear, so you better be my wife [sic].” After this he drew a picture of a sock with an arrow pointing to it and intimated that she, like all old maids, had money hidden away and should not be stingy. Lura ripped the letter to shreds.

This cruelty was probably the last straw for Lura. Though the letter was undated it was similar in physical form to others written in 1925. It seems certain from a few of the letters that at least some of Lura’s brothers, including Lucius, did not like Vladimir. The intense and charming Russian was probably popular with women, and he included in many of his letters to Lura correspondence from another woman still pursuing him, Mrs. Virginia Kennedy, a widow from St. Mary’s County, Maryland.

Lura asked Vladimir to keep their engagement a secret from her family and even asked him to burn her letters, most likely because Vladimir would not have had complete privacy in his boarding house room.

Neither Vladimir nor Lura ever married. He died in 1942 in Baltimore and is buried in Baltimore National Cemetery. He is still known in chess circles for his skills, and his matches are still studied. Lura is buried in the Tussekiah Baptist Church Cemetery in Lunenburg County and is fondly remembered by relatives who knew her. Without these letters the memory of Lura Royall’s relationship with Vladimir Sournin would have died with her in 1980. How they ended up in the courthouse is a mystery. Did she or a relative consider a breach-of-promise lawsuit against Vladimir and deposit the letters there? Or did Lura, who may have worked briefly for the clerk, put the letters where she thought they would be safe from prying eyes? Whatever the answer may be, it is fortunate that this intensely personal glimpse into two lives survives.

The Lura Royall and Vladimir Sournin Correspondence, 1904-1925, is open for research and available at the Library of Virginia.

-Dale Dulaney, Former Local Records Archival Assistant

The fortieth anniversary of the 1963 Danville civil rights demonstrations passed earlier this year [2003] with merely a brief mention in the press.  In the summer of 1963, violence erupted in Danville, Virginia, as the Danville establishment led by Police Chief Eugene G. McCain struggled to keep Jim Crow order during a series of civil rights demonstrations led by local and national black leaders.  Of the 45 demonstrators arrested in front of the city jail on 10 June, nearly all required medical attention at the hospital for injuries that some defendants testified were the result of being pistol-whipped or struck with nightsticks.  As evidenced in the Civil Rights Demonstrations Cases legal files on microfilm and audio compact discs at the Library of Virginia, sporadic demonstrations continued until late August 1963 despite the violence.

In the late summer of 1999, the Danville Circuit Clerk of Court transferred the legal files of the Civil Rights Demonstration Cases to the Library of Virginia for processing due to security concerns and preservation issues.  Jay Gaidmore, the archivist charged with organizing and describing the collection, wrote in his Spring 2001 Delimiter article that the collection spanned the years 1963–1973 and included “bills of particulars, bond records, correspondence, court dockets, court orders, Dictabelts, evidence, judgments, petitions, photographs, receipts, subpoenas, and transcripts of testimony that document the legal aspects of the civil rights demonstrations from the Danville Corporation Court to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.”  After processing had been completed, a grant secured from the Virginia Circuit Court Records Preservation Program allowed for the subsequent microfilming of these court files.  By early spring 2001, the microfilm collection had opened to patrons and students of the Civil Rights Movement.

While this new visual civil rights resource now was open to researchers, archival efforts to preserve the audio contents on the collection’s 130 Dictabelts were only in the initial stages.  During the Danville Corporation Court civil rights trials, a Dictaphone machine operated constantly (even in closed judge’s chambers) and the resulting Dictabelts contained a full account of the court proceedings heard from 13 December 1966 to 6 April 1967.  Prevalent in courtrooms and insurance offices in the 1960s, the Dictabelt was the acetate-based medium for the once-popular Dictaphone machine, a groove and stylus-type recording device introduced in 1947 but virtually non-extant and rarely used by the late 1970s.  After inserting a Dictabelt into the machine, a pair of mandrels rotated the belt-shaped medium while a lead screw guided a stylus across the belt.  The stylus, driven by the amplified signal from a microphone, cut a groove in the belt and thus stored a signal that could then be played back on the same machine.  While this method produced fairly high-quality recordings of the court proceedings, a Dictaphone machine in good working condition is a particularly rare find today.  The Library and the Clerk’s office recognized that if action were not taken to convert these antiquated sound files, the audio testimony might be lost forever.  A grant from the Virginia Circuit Court Records Preservation Program enabled the Library to convert the dictabelts to compact discs.  Completed in July 2003, the compact discs provide over 85 hours of powerful testimony of Virginia’s civil rights struggle, which could have been lost to history.

Some of the compact discs are mundane recordings of court docket readings and other typical trial procedures, but a careful listening reveals the truth behind the violent demonstrations and the reasons for the demonstrators’ participation.  In one trial, defense attorney Ruth L. Harvey questioned 46-year-old demonstrator Paul Price, who testified he was beaten with a nightstick as he walked away from a demonstration in front of the Danville City Jail on 10 June.  During cross examination Danville city attorney James A. H. Ferguson implies that Price’s injuries may have been caused when he struck a light pole as he ran from police.  In another trial Emmett Lee Banks and Clyde L. Banks, brothers residing in Chatham in Pittsylvania County, state that they came down to Danville to demonstrate as a protest against the exclusion of a black member from the local school board.  In a similar statement, Leonard Winston Chase, minister at High Street Baptist Church in Danville, asserted that he encouraged the demonstrations due to his frustration stemming from the Danville Police Department’s refusal to hire a black police officer.

Listen to Prosecutor’s cross-examination

Listen to Ruth Harvey’s examination

Listen to Prosecutor’s cross-examination

This new audio resource includes a finding aid containing a list of the audio contents on each compact disc.  By utilizing this finding aid to locate attorney arguments and specific witness and defendant testimony, students of the Civil Rights Movement now will be able to hear first-hand voice accounts given by the demonstrators and police and the tactics used by the attorneys to defend and prosecute the demonstrators.  Patrons may access the media in the Archives and Manuscripts Reading Room at the Library of Virginia, where a compact disc player with headphones is available.

-Alex Lorch, former Personal Papers Archivist.  Lorch is now Program Officer for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

In August 1999, the city of Danville’s Circuit Court Clerk approached Glenn Smith, Grants Administrator of the Virginia Circuit Court Records Preservation Program, with a dilemma.  The city possessed a box of heavily used materials relating to the 1963 Danville civil rights demonstrations.  Concerned about both the preservation and security of the collection due to high volume usage, the clerk agreed to have the material transferred to LVA for processing and organization so that it could be microfilmed.  Though a local records collection, I was assigned the task of processing the material because of my past research on John W. Carter, a former Danville city councilman who aided the Commonwealth’s Attorney in prosecuting the civil rights demonstrators.  I interviewed Carter for my thesis on the Virginia Conservative Party on several occasions.  This was a segregationist third political party formed in 1965 to oppose Mills Godwin’s campaign for governor.  Godwin had angered many by supporting Lyndon B. Johnson during the 1964 Presidential campaign, and Johnson in turn had angered segregationists with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Carter was a founding member of the party and a candidate for Attorney-General and United States Senator on the party’s ticket.  During these interviews, he spoke in detail about his role in the Danville saga.  Due to my interest in the topic, I gladly accepted the task of processing this collection and being part of an effort to preserve materials that document such an important chapter in Virginia’s history.

When images of the civil rights movement come to mind, most individuals picture African American demonstrators being attacked by police dogs, or assaulted with fire hoses and nightsticks in cities like Selma and Birmingham, Alabama, and in Mississippi.  Virginia is not often associated with the violence that plagued much of the southeastern U.S. during the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.  In fact, while Virginia did experience sit-ins and demonstrations in Lynchburg, Richmond, Petersburg, Farmville, and other cities, the protests never deteriorated into violence.  In the summer of 1963, however, Danville proved the exception.

On 31 May 1963, civil rights demonstrations began peacefully in Danville and ended without incident, the police making no arrests and the local press ignoring the demonstration.  However, on 5 June, the demonstrations became more unruly as participants sat down on Main Street in order to impede traffic.  The police quickly summoned Judge Archibald M. Aiken, judge of the Danville Corporation Court, to the scene, and he ordered the demonstrators to disperse.  The demonstrators, however, refused, prompting Aiken to issue a temporary injunction the next day ordering the demonstrators to desist from assembling in an unlawful manner, interfering with traffic and business, obstructing entrances to businesses and public buildings, participating in and inciting mob violence, and using loud language that disrupts the peace.  In addition to the foregoing injunction, Aiken convened a special grand jury, which indicted the demonstration leaders under a slavery-era law known as “John Brown’s Law” that made inciting the black population to “acts of violence or war against the white population” illegal.  Also, the Danville City Council, under the leadership of attorney and staunch segregationist John W. Carter, adopted two ordinances limiting the size, place, and time of demonstrations and requiring a permit to parade.  Despite Aiken’s and the city council’s attempts, the demonstrations continued.  Civil rights activists from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) soon arrived in Danville to participate in the demonstrations.

On 10 June, after a full day of protests, the police, with nightsticks and fire hoses, attacked the demonstrators picketing the city jail.  Forty-seven of the 50 demonstrators required medical attention for their resulting injuries.  Despite the violence, the demonstrations continued and by mid-July over 250 people had been arrested on charges of contempt, trespassing, disorderly conduct, assault, parading without a permit, and resisting arrest.  Danville police resorted to arresting the parents of jailed demonstrators when they arrived at the jail to post bail for their sons and daughters.  The mothers and fathers were charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors by not providing adequate parental supervision.

The collection contains court papers and legal files spanning the years 1963-1973 and includes bills of particulars, bond records, correspondence, court dockets, court orders, dictabelts, evidence, judgments, petitions, photographs, receipts, subpoenas, and transcripts of testimony that document the legal aspects of the civil rights demonstrations from the Danville Corporation Court to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

In addition, the collection included 130 dictabelts, plastic belts about 3.5 inches wide and 12 inches around, mechanically recorded using an engraving process and replayed with a stylus similar to that of a record player.  These dictabelts are an antiquated recording medium with very few machines available for replay.  The clerk was concerned that the contents of these dictabelts would be lost forever if they were not converted to a modern recording medium.  A grant from the Virginia Circuit Court Records Preservation Program enabled the Library to microfilm the records and to convert the dictabelts to compact discs.

The 1963 Danville Civil Rights Case Files are available for research at the Library of Virginia and should prove to be an important source for those interested in of the civil rights movement in Virginia.  The finding aid for this collection can be viewed here.

-Jay Gaidmore, formerly Private Papers Program Manager at the Library of Virginia.  Jay is currently the University Archivist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He is a contributor to the UNC blog,  For the Record:  News and and Perspectives from University Archives and Records Management Services.