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

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.

The Library of Virginia, in partnership with the Scott County Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, is pleased to announce that digitization of Scott County’s historic chancery causes is now complete. Both the index and images are available to researchers via the Chancery Records Index on the LVA’s Virginia Memory site.

The Scott County chancery collection covers the years 1816 through 1942 (with digital images posted through 1912). The chancery, or equity cases, are a valuable source of local, state, social, and legal history and serve as a primary source for understanding a locality’s history. They often contain correspondence, property lists (including slaves), lists of heirs, and vital statistics that reveal detailed stories that help tell the story of Virginia. Cases contain useful biographical, genealogical, and historical information and document a broad spectrum of citizens—rich and poor, black and white, slave and free.

Chancery Cause 1873-034, Sampson S. Robinett vs. Samuel Babb, etc., helps document post-Civil War relations as it brings to light lingering bitterness between pro-Union and pro-Confederacy residents living together in Scott. In chancery cause 1897-057, Town of Gate City vs. Col. J. B. Richmond, the city attempted to stop a citizen from blocking what it considered a public road. A large map of Gate City was used as an exhibit. Chancery Cause 1901-058 reveals the religious beliefs of the members of the Regular Primitive Baptist Church of Copper Creek who split into two factions over the doctrine of absolute predestination. Cases are often humorous, such as chancery cause 1898-031, a divorce case highlighting a “knocking spirit” – a ghostly disturbance that the defendant’s counsel suggested was used to scare his client.

The Scott County Chancery Causes, 1816-1912, join the growing list of localities whose chancery causes have been preserved and made available through the Library’s innovative Circuit Court Records Preservation Program (CCRP). The CCRP, funded through a $1.50 of the clerk’s recordation fee, is committed to efforts, like the Scott County chancery causes digitization project, that preserve and make accessible permanent circuit court records. Unfortunately, the downturn in the real estate market and the General Assembly’s diversion of CCRP funds have negatively impacted the CCRP’s budget in recent years and slowed the pace of digital chancery projects. The projects remain a high priority for the agency and it is hoped that the initiative can be resumed in full when the economy and the agency’s budget situation improve.

-Sam Walters, Local Records Archivist

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce that digital images for Lee County Chancery Causes, 1857-1912, are now available on the Chancery Records Index. Because they rely so heavily on the testimony of witnesses, chancery causes contain a wealth of historical and genealogical information and are especially useful when researching local, state, social, and legal history. The Lee County chancery collection offers a glimpse of life in Lee County during the 19^th and early-20^th centuries by documenting the African American experience, women’s history, Southern business and labor history, and the impact the railroad’s arrival had on a region. Following are a few suits of interest found in the collection.

Lee County chancery causes contain several suits illustrating the experiences of women in the westernmost part of the commonwealth. In Mary V. Pennington by etc. vs. M. C. Parsons, etc., 1887-019, Mary Pennington sought to gain control over land gifted to her by her father. The land was being sold by her husband, William Pennington, who had become “indebted and greatly embarrassed.” In 1907, Elizabeth Smith faced a similar dilemma. Elizabeth R. Smith vs. J. K. P. Legg, etc., 1907-045, protested the sale of Smith’s land sold for a set of blacksmith tools. Elizabeth Smith did not agree to the sale, but her husband, Samuel L. Smith, “commenced to abuse her and threatened to beat her, and to kill her father B. W. Barker if she did not sign the deed,” forcing her to agree to the sale. Both suits were dismissed by the court.

The arrival of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad had significant impact on the region with suits filed by and against the company appearing several times in the chancery collection. In Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. vs. Nimrod Noe, 1891-012, the railroad attempted to halt payments Nimrod Noe received in a condemnation proceeding by claiming that Noe falsely represented the damages and losses done to his property by the arrival of the railroad. In the Petition of A. L. Loyd, Administrator, 1902-003, a settlement is sought for B. H. Loyd’s family after his death in a railroad accident. B. H. Loyd, an engineer with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, was killed after losing control of his locomotive and colliding with another train on a foggy night.

The Lee County chancery causes are also not without their share of scandal. F. E. Parsons sued her late husband’s heirs seeking dower rights to land inherited by her husband in F. E. Parsons, widow vs. Ellen Jessee, etc., 1897-006. The heirs claimed that F. E. Parsons, nineteen at the time of her marriage, only married their sixty-year-old father to gain ownership of his property. The widow accused her husband’s children of attempting to intimidate her by circulating “false and scandalous charges,” including accusing her of having an abortion before the marriage.  In the divorce suit Lilly C. Turner vs. Richard M. Turner, 1894-082, Lilly Turner describes her husband as “living in open adultery for some time” and taking “pleasure in writing [her] about his filthy conduct.” Filed as an exhibit in the case is an 1893 letter Richard Turner sent to his wife describing the women he was having affairs with.

Lee County joins fifty-seven counties and cities whose chancery causes have been digitally reformatted and made available through the Library’s innovative Circuit Court Records Preservation Program, which seeks to preserve the historic records of Virginia’s Circuit Courts. 

-Bari Helms, Local Records Archivist

The Virginia Circuit Court Records Preservation Program (CCRP) is celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year. Part of the Library of Virginia’s Local Records Services branch, the program was created in 1992 to address the preservation needs of some of the most important records in the state – the records of Virginia’s 120 circuit courts. The CCRP continues to not only preserve, digitize, and microfilm historic records from around the commonwealth but also to reach out to circuit court clerks in each locality, offering them consultative services and financial assistance through its grant program. Since its creation twenty years ago, the program has awarded over 1100 grants, totaling nearly $16 million, to Virginia circuit court clerks to help address the preservation needs of records stored in their localities.

Twenty years later, access to Virginia’s historic court records has never been wider with more than 7 million digital chancery court images from fifty-seven counties and cities now available online through the Chancery Records Index (CRI), created to increase access to Virginia’s historic equity cases. In celebration of this important milestone, we’ve created this video celebrating the twenty year history of this innovative program that has helped ensure the preservation and accessibility of records that are a treasure trove of state and local history.

-Bari Helms, Local Records Archivist

*Updated 16 October 2012*
On 16 October 2012, the Richmond Times-Dispatch published an Op/Ed by Cynthia P. Morrison, Clerk of the Portsmouth Circuit Court and Frank D. Hargrove, Jr., Clerk of the Hanover Circuit Court, commemorating the 20th anniversary.

The Circuit Court Records Preservation Program (CCRP) Grant Review Board met on May 25, 2011, at the Library of Virginia to consider records preservation grant requests from 46 circuit courts across the commonwealth. A total of 54 applications were submitted with requests totaling over $424,000. After careful evaluation and discussion of all applications, the board approved 47 grant projects for $375,859.32.

The CCRP is a part of the Library of Virginia’s Local Records Services Branch. Funded through a $1.50 of the court clerk’s recordation fee, the CCRP provides resources to help preserve and make accessible permanent circuit court records. The program awards grants to the commonwealth’s circuit court clerks to help address the preservation needs of the records housed in their localities. Since 1992, the CCRP has awarded over 1100 preservation grants for more than $15 million dollars. For a full listing of awarded grants, please see the meeting minutes here.

The board is comprised of five members: three circuit court clerks, appointed annually by the president of the Virginia Court Clerks’ Association, and two staff members from the Library of Virginia, currently the State Archivist and the Local Records Program Manager. The review board convenes regularly to evaluate grant applications to award grant funds for processing, conserving, securing, and increasing access to circuit court records. Clerk members of this year’s board were Judy Worthington of Chesterfield County, Mark “Bo” Taylor of Scott County, and Terry Whittle of the City of Winchester. Library members were Sandy Treadway as State Archivist and Gregory Crawford as Local Records Program Manager. Carl Childs, Director of Local Records Services served as grants coordinator and moderated the meeting.

-Carl Childs, Local Records Director

 

In 1996, Samuel Cooper, circuit court clerk of Accomack County, contacted the Library of Virginia about a large amount of county records he found in the attic of the clerk’s office.  He requested assistance from LVA to determine their value, with the possibility of transferring them to LVA.  A team of archivists travelled to Accomack County expecting to examine only a few boxes of old court papers.  After climbing through the narrow opening of the office ceiling, they discovered a treasure trove of court records dating from the late 1600s to the early 1700s.  Unfortunately, due to the poor environmental and storage conditions the records were in extremely fragile condition. Approximately 50 cubic feet of county records were transferred to the Library of Virginia where they were stabilized.

During the course of several years we examined these records to determine what they were and whether they could be recovered through conservation.  The examination revealed that the records were primarily wills, deeds, fiduciary records, judgments, and chancery suits dated from the colonial era of Accomack County.  Regrettably, the vast majority of these records are unsalvageable.  Victims of heat, humidity, and insects, they can never be recovered. (images above)  Fortunately we were able to identify a few gems that could be restored.  They include tobacco plant censuses, 1728-1729, tithable lists, 1738-1769, and oaths of allegiance, 1757-1758.  All have been expertly repaired by LVA’s in-house conservation lab with funding from the Circuit Court Records Preservation (CCRP) program.  Additional Accomack County court records recovered from the attic will be conserved in the near future.

This extraordinary conservation effort is made possible by funding provided through the CCRP, a part of the Library of Virginia’s Local Records Services Branch.  Since 1992, nearly 1000 records preservation grants totaling more than $15 million have been awarded to Virginia’s circuit court clerks’ offices. CCRP made possible the processing  and preservation of more than 16,000 boxes of Virginia’s local records, the posting of more than 5,000,000 digital images online, and the creation and storage of  more than 350,000 reels of security microfilm in the LVA vault.

 -Greg Crawford, Local Records Manager, and Carl Childs, Local Records Director

Local Records archivists recently travelled to the Middlesex County Circuit Court Clerk’s office to transfer their pre-1913 chancery causes to the Library of Virginia as well as identify a large number of volumes stored in a small room separate from the main records room. While one group pulled the boxes of chancery causes, another group conducted an inventory of the volumes. They identified permanent records such as court minute books, bond books, business records, election records, and fiduciary records that dated from the 1790s to mid-1900s.

 The archivists also located two boxes of early 1800s chancery causes that had been pulled from their original drawers in 1938 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as part of its inventorying of courthouses. This was a significant discovery given that much of Middlesex County’s loose records were destroyed during the Civil War.  They were transferred to LVA along with the aforementioned pre-1913 chancery causes to be processed and indexed.  Budget permitting, they will be digitally scanned and the images will be added to the Middlesex County chancery presently found in the Chancery Records Index.

 The archivists also identified records that are nonpermanent, mainly printed material, of which the circuit court clerk can dispose. Moreover, the archivists identified volumes in need of conservation treatment including the county’s Free Negro Register, a record of great historical importance to African American history and genealogists across the United States.  The clerk’s office will be able to use this information to apply for future conservation grants through the Circuit Court Records Preservation Program (CCRP).

The Library of Virginia is able to provide these services to Virginia’s Circuit Court Clerks thanks to the CCRP which provides resources to help preserve and make accessible permanent circuit court records.  The program awards grants to the commonwealth’s circuit court clerks to help them address the needs of the records housed in their localities. 

The CCRP also provides resources needed to process and house the circuit court records that are transferred to the State Archives for safekeeping and increased access; as well as track, duplicate and maintain circuit court microfilm stored in the Library’s media vault.

 -Greg Crawford, Local Records Coordinator

Virginia’s historic records have always existed under the threat of floods, hurricanes, fire, and war. Sometimes the records were saved. Sometimes they were lost.

 When the Botetourt County courthouse was gutted by a fire on 15 December 1970 no one at the time could foresee that such a horrible loss would spur the creation of legislation five years later that created a uniform system for records management in Virginia. The Virginia Public Records Act, passed in 1975, set in motion an effort not only to manage all the state’s records but also to preserve and copy vital historic records contained in local courthouses.

Preservation and duplication efforts continue today with The Library of Virginia’s (LVA) records managers and archivists. The Circuit Court Records Program (CCRP), which began in 1991, continues to not only preserve, digitize, and microfilm historic records from around the state but also to reach out to circuit court clerks in each locality, offering them professional support and financial assistance in the form of grants. To date, the CCRP has funded nearly 1,000 projects worth more than $15 million to preserve records in the circuit court clerks’ offices. Nineteen years later, access to Virginia’s historic records has never been wider with more than 5 million chancery court images now available online. Clerks also have the option of sending historic record collections to the archives which is housed in the Library of Virginia building in Richmond and the state-of-the-art State Records Center in Henrico County. Both buildings provide modern protections and temperature- and humidity-controlled environments. More than 75,000 cubic feet of records from the state, local records, and private papers collections reside in the state’s archive as do nearly 350,000 microforms in a specially-designed vault.

 Fortunately the records stored in the Botetourt County courthouse vault survived, though with water damage as a result of the firefighting efforts. The Virginia Public Records Act follows the admonition of Thomas Jefferson who in 1791 wrote “…let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.”

  -Dale Dulaney, Local Records Archival Assistant