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

On 16 December 1895, 12-year-old Mamie M. Yates wrote a letter to Santa Claus. It read:

Dear Santa Claus,

I will write to you to tell you what I want you to bring me. I want a sled and Robinson Crusoe and a pair of nice gloves and some ribbon for my hair and a writing tablet and some candy, oranges, nuts, raisins, banannas [sic] and caramels and apples and a cap for my doll.

Your little girl,

Mamie M. Yates

The letter did not make it to the North Pole. It somehow ended up in the Lunenburg County courthouse filed in the clerk’s records and became part of the Lunenburg County (Va.) Clerk’s Records of John L. Yates, 1878-1934 circa (Barcode 1046171). John L. Yates, Mamie’s father, was the circuit court clerk for Lunenburg County at the time the letter was written. Although the letter did not reach its destination, I’m sure Santa had a good idea about what to bring Mamie for Christmas.

-Greg Crawford, Local Records Coordinator

On 13 November 1860, J.S. Moore of Indiana wrote a letter to his Virginia relative Doctor Thomas Moore. Much of the letter has to do with health matters and the vibrant Indiana economy. The “Indiana Moore” then turned his attention to the recent 1860 presidential election. He provides “Virginia Moore” his thoughts on Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and who was responsible for the secession crisis pervading the nation at the time.

“I suppose Lincoln is elected President and report says the result has created a consternation in the South and an effort is being made to adopt a plan for secession. It does appear to me that it is folly and madness on their part to attempt resistance at all events until Lincoln or his party is guilty of an overt act that would justify such a procedure if justifiable it could be. I know that Mr. Lincoln holds today principles that you and I use to battle for under the leadership of Henry Clay.

And I do say when the Republican Party is assailed the assault is not made on their principles but a misrepresentation of those principles and I hold the Democratic Party responsible for the ill feeling engendered both North and South. They persist in saying here at home that the Republican Party proposes to make war on the Institutions of the South. In a word that it is the fixed purpose of Lincoln to abolish slavery in the States when they know he stands pledged against any thing of the kind and would frown down such a movement let it come from whatever source it may. The Democratic Party has depended for success on lieing [sic] and misrepresentation for the last Twenty years and their lies and slanders have recoiled on their own heads. And they can now have the melancholy pleasure of reviewing their past course and see the ‘Rock upon which they Split.’

If the Negroes of the South looked for assistance from the North simultaneously with the election of Lincoln they gathered it from the speeches and movements of such men as Keit, Rhett, Gist, Yancy, Wigfall, and your own citizen Henry A. Wise. And those men will live to see that they by given credence and utterance to slanders started in the North have done more to excite servile insurrection among the Slaves than any other set of published articles purporting to have been copied from the New York tribune & Cincinnati Gazette that were pronounced by these papers base slanders and forgeries and I knew them to be such as I am a somewhat careful reader of those papers.

I think the conservative men both North & South should counsel moderation and thereby allay the bitter strife that has convulsd [sic] the country the last six years. I will go ‘Old Abes’ security that he will do right  and I hope he will make those corrupt officials ‘scamper’ like the money changers of old for they have almost perverted the Government. Enough on this subject.”

The letter continued as J.S. Moore proceeded to get Dr. Moore up to date on various Moore family members and his upcoming marriage.

The J.S. Moore to Dr. Thomas Moore letter, along with other Civil War era correspondence found in the Rockbridge County court records, is available at the Library of Virginia.

-Greg Crawford, Local Records Coordinator

This year marks the 200^th anniversary of the War of 1812. A conflict associated with the War of 1812 was the Creek War, fought mainly in Alabama which at the time was part of the Mississippi Territory. Recently, I came across a letter dated 9 April 1814 used as an exhibit in Lynchburg Chancery Cause 1815-002, Peter Detto vs. Heirs of Caleb Tait, etc. It referenced the last and most famous battle of the Creek War, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, fought only a couple of weeks before the letter was written. Waddy Tate, a recent Virginia emigrant to the Mississippi Territory, wrote the letter to his uncle Caleb Tate to clarify a misunderstanding concerning a deed to a lot of land in Lynchburg that was the source of the dispute in the chancery cause. Caleb believed his nephew had recorded the deed but Waddy informed his uncle that he had not because “our Judicial proceedings were all for a time suspended” because of the “Indian War.” But now that the “brave Genl. [Andrew] Jackson” had arrived, the courts were back in session and he would be sure to record the deed soon. Waddy concluded his letter by describing in a florid style General Andrew Jackson’s victory over the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend:

“General Jackson on the 27^th last month attacked one [of] the strongest fortifications in the Indian Nation. He attempted to batter down their barrackcading [sic] with his cannon but it proved invulnerable. He was compelled to resort to the desperate means of storming the fort. His success is without a parallel. Loss on the part of the Enemy in killed 750. Prisoners women & children only. From 3 to 400. Our loss whites 15 killed Cherokees & friendly Creeks 25. Making in all killed on our part 40. Wounded 106.”

Transcript Creek War letter

For more on the War of 1812 check out the Library of Virginia’s War of 1812 Bicentennial Digital Collection on Virginia Memory. City of Lynchburg chancery records are currently only available for research in their original form at the Library of Virginia. Because of reductions to the Library of Virginia’s budget in recent years, the pace of the agency’s digital chancery projects will necessarily proceed more slowly. Please know these projects remain a very 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. Please see the Chancery Records Index for a listing of the available locality chancery collections.

-Greg Crawford, Local Records Coordinator

The wool of Merino sheep was highly prized and for centuries the flocks were not allowed to be exported from their home in Spain. One of the few individuals to get Merinos into the United States was U.S. minister to Spain David Humphreys, who imported twenty-five rams and seventy-five ewes to his home in Connecticut in 1802. The Library of Virginia has a copy of Humphreys’s 1804 book The miscellaneous works of David Humphreys, late minister plenipotentiary —to the court of Madrid, which contains an essay on Merino sheep. Thomas Jefferson was also particularly interested in the improvements of sheep herds and by 1810 had acquired his own herd of Merino sheep. The demand for Merinos soon reached manic proportions, a bubble was created, and like all bubbles there was a crash. (For more on this subject see Monticello’s article on sheep.)

Amongst the Cowling Papers found in the City of Richmond records is a letter dated 14 August 1827 from William DuVal (1748-1842), a Virginia lawyer, legislator, and planter, to Willis Cowling (1788-1828), a Richmond cabinetmaker. Enclosed in the letter is a sample of Merino wool. DuVal wrote to ask Cowling if he would sell two hundred pounds of Merino wool to buy material for slave clothing. Cowling was a good choice for carrying out DuVal’s request as he regularly dealt with merchants in New York and Philadelphia for mahogany and furniture hardware. He also had experience in selling Virginia coal in New York. (For more on Cowling see “Willis Cowling, Richmond Cabinetmaker “in the Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winter 2001, Vol. XXVII, No.2)

-Chris Kolbe, Archives Reference Coordinator

The transcribed letter below is found in the Richmond City Clerk’s Correspondence that includes both personal and court related material for 1801-1866 (Barcode 1117043).

Buckingham August 14 1827

Dear Sir,

     I have about 200 lb. of Marino Wool of the full Blooded Marino’s which I would sell at 45 Cents pr lb. or exchange for cotton and Wool Winter Cloathing for my Negroes 40 Yards for Men and Boys & sixty yards of single Wove Cotton Wool striped for women and children to be warm & well wove. The balance in white domestic Cotton Shirting from 10 Cents to 12 per Yard. The Wool will make excellent super Fine Broad Cloath. It is not washed and is free from Sheep Burs and Spanish Needles.

     I send enclosed a sample of the Wool I expect your Correspondents in Philadelphia or New York would buy it or exchange it for the above Articles or perhaps you may exchange it for the above Articles in Richmond. Inform Mr. Richard Adams that this Fall shall send him Three Marinoses. I have sold 21 more of them.

     Write me by Mail & I can send the wool to Richmond. My love to your Lady self & Family and to Mr.Ritter & Lady

I am

Your obliged Friend

William DuVal

The latest images from the Augusta County Chancery Causes are now available on the Chancery Records Index. With this addition, one hundred boxes of Augusta County chancery covering the time period from 1867 to 1879 can be viewed online.

Following are a few suits of interest found in this latest addition. Augusta County Chancery Cause 1876-058 includes a letter (image# 252-253) written by one of the plaintiffs when he was a soldier in the 25^th Virginia Infantry during the Civil War. In Augusta County Chancery Cause 1876-072 (image# 20), a liquor manufacturer sued the city of Staunton claiming the city had no right to tax its liquor. Augusta County Chancery Cause 1877-029 (image #11-15) involves a dispute between a group of former slaves and the executor of the estate of their former master. A genealogical chart of the Dull family can be found in Augusta County Chancery Cause 1879-042 (image#1765). 

Transcript of John J. Rusmisel letter to George Rusmisel

Transcript of Staunton City Treasurer letter to L. Bumgardner & Co.

Transcript of Sampson Pelter’s will

These cases are representative of the over ten thousand found in the Augusta County Chancery Causes collection that document the  rich heritage of Augusta County and western Virginia.  This project is made possible by a partnership betweeen the LVA’s Circuit Court Records Preservation Program and Augusta County Circuit Court Clerk’s office and with generous support from National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

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