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 Report of Archival Accessions lists the creator, title, size, brief description, and accession number of the local, map, private, and state archival collections described and/or received during the time period. Some of the local and state records collections listed may be closed for processing; check with Archives Research Services regarding availability for research use.

Primary Sources lists the latest collections processed, microfilmed, or digitized by the Library. Like its companion publication, Report of Archival Accessions, Primary Sources gives the creator, title, size, and accession number for each collection processed during the previous quarter. It also contains links to published finding aids for each collection.

Current reports are located on the Library of Virginia’s Web site under the ”News and Events” section (linked above). Older reports are located under Library Collection Releases.

Editors Note: This post originally appeared in the Virginiana section of Virginia Memory.

The beautiful maps in the Voorhees collection and those that reside in Special Collections are well known to Library of Virginia researchers. Yet thousands of rough but informative maps exist in the Library’s local government records collection. Often classified as “plats,” these detailed property maps were created and filed as part of county land records, chancery records, or other legal proceedings.

Some of the most interesting local plats are found within criminal papers. Murder trials occasionally required jurors to consider a particular crime scene, and the resulting sketches created for this purpose offer fascinating glimpses into landscapes and violent episodes. One is featured on the Library’s 1997 web exhibit The Common Wealth: Treasures from the Collections of the Library of Virginia. This drawing shows a portion of Manchester, Virginia, in 1869, at the time of a barroom-related shooting, complete with building facades and streets. And in her 2003 book A Murder in Virginia, based on three Commonwealth Causes against Pokey Barnes, Solomon Marable, and Mary Abernathy, historian Suzanne Lebsock drew upon a court-directed plat from Prince Edward County to illustrate the scene of an infamous 1895 crime involving four black defendants.

While processing Henry County’s criminal causes, I came across a number of particularly gruesome plats. The most remarkable one was filed in Commonwealth vs. Wade W. Lester, July 1897. This trial involved a mill owner who allegedly poisoned one of his mill hands with a mixture of liquor and strychnine, a rat poison. After drinking the mixture, the mill hand staggered back to his home and collapsed in the yard in view of his relatives. The court mapped out the man’s final steps, with a dotted line showing the man’s meandering walk towards home to the very “Point at which [he] died,” just 74 ½ yards short of his residence. The plat also shows neighborhood roads, railroad lines, creeks, and buildings.

In another cause, Commonwealth vs. Sam Valentine, April 1893, a plat was drawn to document a shooting. Trouble began one evening when Sam Valentine, an officer of the law, arrived at Alfred Hairston’s house party to serve a warrant on a guest. After Valentine entered and apprehended the accused man, someone in the crowd resisted, and a scuffle broke out. In the midst of the activity, Valentine shot one of the rowdies in the head, and the man eventually died from the wound. At the trial, the inquest committee sketched a floor plan of Hairston’s house, showing the position of the participants, as well as the hearth, stairs, and doors.

An even more elaborate plat was drawn for an arson investigation for Commonwealth vs. Silas Minter, September 1898 and January 1899. This oversized drawing revealed one neighborhood’s roads, houses, and creeks, plus its many barns. The defendant was accused of setting a barn full of oats and wheat on fire, causing $400 in damages. One issue under debate was whether the fire from several nearby stumps had set the barn on fire, so the map dutifully records the spot of the stumps and brush surrounding the barn in question.

Such maps may not match the artistic merit of those in specialized map collections, but for budding forensic historians, their lines can be just as revealing.

-Ryan Smith, Former Local Records Archivist

The Report of Archival Accessions lists the creator, title, size, brief description, and accession number of the local, map, private, and state archival collections described and/or received during the time period. Some of the local and state records collections listed may be closed for processing; check with Archives Research Services regarding availability for research use.

Primary Sources lists the latest collections processed, microfilmed, or digitized by the Library. Like its companion publication, Report of Archival Accessions, Primary Sources gives the creator, title, size, and accession number for each collection processed during the previous quarter. It also contains links to published finding aids for each collection.

Current reports are located on the Library of Virginia’s Web site under the ”News and Events” section (linked above). Older reports are located under Library Collection Releases.

Transcript of Sen. Glasgow’s letter.

(Editor’s Note: The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce that scanning has now been performed on the Craig County and Pulaski County chancery causes. The digital collections are now available online through the Chancery Records Index.)

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce that processing and indexing of the Craig County and Pulaski County chancery causes is now complete.  Each of Virginia’s circuit courts created chancery records that contain considerable historical and genealogical information. Because the records rely so heavily on testimony from witnesses, they offer a unique glimpse into the lives of Virginians from the early 18th century through the First World War. The indexes for both counties have been added to the Library’s online Chancery Records Index and are now available for research.

Craig County chancery covers the years 1853-1942, with the bulk of the cases falling between 1853 and 1912.  One suit of particular interest to researchers of African American education is the suit of Paris W. Compton vs. Admr. of Cornelius Compton, 1913-009, in which Paris was suing his father’s administrator to receive his inheritance.  In his bill, he states that he and his mother had moved to “Ardmore near the city of Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania, at which place your complainant has been attending school, for the reason that persons of his race are afforded approved, better, and more improved educational facilities and advantages than are afforded in his home state of Virginia.” Researchers may also want to take a tour through the whiskey distillery account books of Andrew McCartney and read an 1882 letter from Senator W. A. Glasgow.  The senator replied to McCartney’s complaint against a law that prohibited the sale of small amounts of liquor – less than five gallons – near an iron manufacturing company, a measure devised to stop workers from showing up drunk (see 1908-011, Admr. of Andrew McCartney vs. F. B. McCartney etc).

The majority of the suits concern issues of debt or land partition between heirs.  Through these chancery causes it is also possible to see evidence of the development of the iron ore mining and timber industries as well as hints of a slate and wool industry.  Land development companies such as the Craig City Improvement Company and the New Castle Land and Improvement Company were formed to encourage industrial growth although, as evidenced by the many chancery suits in which they became involved, many fell victim to the economic bust of the mid-1890s. 

The Pulaski County chancery causes document the years 1841-1912. While the majority of cases involve disputes over land ownership and the settlements of debts, many cases detail the area’s industries and the arrival of the Norfolk & Western Railroad. The 1880s saw the development of several iron and mining industries in Pulaski County, and many of those companies – Pulaski Iron Company, Bertha Zinc Works, Radford Iron Company, Dora Furnace – are represented in chancery causes. Researchers interested in railroad history will find several cases involving the Virginia & Tennessee and Norfolk & Western Railroad Companies. For example, in 1859 the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad was sued by a Pulaski contractor for payment for work performed on sections of the railroad.  Another example came in 1884, when Andrew Boyd and James C. Alexander successfully sued the Norfolk & Western Co. for attempting to lay tracks within fifty feet of their homes (See 1859-006, Pryde & Jones vs. Virginia & Tennessee Railroad Co. and 1884-013, Andrew Boyd, etc. vs. Norfolk & Western Railroad Co.). Land development companies, such as the Pulaski Development Co. and the Pulaski Land and Improvement Co., were formed to take advantage of the incoming railroad and the industrial growth it was expected to bring, but several chancery suits show that these companies found themselves in legal trouble when development plans fell through. Researchers may also be interested in the J. Farmer Physician Ledger, 1867-1898, kept by Pulaski physician Jerry Farmer. The ledger details services performed by Farmer and the purchases of medicines by local residents (See 1884-027, Jerry Farmer vs. Heirs of Elbert S. Trinkle).

The Craig and Pulaski County chancery causes are open and available for research at the LVA. Recent reductions to the Library of Virginia’s budget have slowed the pace of the agency’s digital chancery projects. Once funds become available, the chancery causes will be digitally reformatted and made available through the LVA’s Circuit Court Records Preservation Program. Until then the originals are available to researchers.

- Bari Helms, Local Records Archivist & Sarah Nerney, Senior Local Records Archivist

The Report of Archival Accessions lists the creator, title, size, brief description, and accession number of the local, map, private, and state archival collections described and/or received during the time period.  Some of the local and state records collections listed may be closed for processing; check with Archives Research Services regarding availability for research use.

Primary Sources lists the latest collections processed, microfilmed, or digitized by the Library.  Like its companion publication, Report of Archival Accessions, Primary Sources gives the creator, title, size, and accession number for each collection processed during the previous quarter.  It also contains links to published finding aids for each collection.  Notable collections processed between July and September 2010 include:  Charlotte County Chancery Causes, 1765-1912 (bulk 1784-1912);  Robert S. Bloxom Papers, 1978-2003; and Governor Timothy M. Kaine, Counselor’s Office, 2001-2009 (bulk 2006-2009).

Current reports are located on the Library of Virginia’s Web site under the ”News and Events” section (linked above). Older reports are located under Library Collection Releases.

Love and respect for one remarkable woman drew Civil War veterans from across the United States to Richmond during the summer of 1896. The occasion was a reunion of soldiers who spent time in the care of Captain Sally Tompkins and the staff at the Robertson Hospital.

The hospital reunion register, recently cataloged here at the Library of Virginia, records the names, signatures and, occasionally, military units of former soldiers who attended a patient reunion during the Grand Confederate Reunion of 1896. Some wives’ names are also listed. The attendees came from at least nine states, from as far away as New York and Texas, further testimony to the respect and love that soldiers on both sides felt for the care Tompkins bestowed on all. Their admiration was not one-sided; Tompkins paid for the party herself, renting a house and providing food and drink for the entire company.

Tompkins was the only female commissioned officer in the Confederate army. She was born 9 November 1833 in Poplar Grove, Mathews County, Virginia. She moved to Richmond following the death of her father before the Civil War and used her considerable inheritance to open a private hospital at the outbreak of the war in April 1861. It stood at the corner of 3^rd and Main Streets at the home of Judge John Robertson, thus giving the facility its name. Tompkins expected her patients to be treated as guests and she made the hospital as much like a private home as possible by providing excellent meals and keeping out as many hospital trappings as feasible.

In all, the hospital treated 1,333 soldiers from its opening until the last patients were discharged on 13 June 1865. Only 73 deaths were recorded at Robertson Hospital during its existence, a figure often attributed to Tompkins’s tireless work ethic and strict standards of cleanliness.

The popular story is that when orders were given to the effect that all military hospitals must be run only by military personnel, Jefferson Davis appointed Tompkins a captain of cavalry to ensure that she continued to run the hospital. However, she received her commission on 9 September 1861; the Confederate government began its innovative hospital reorganization program and closed most private hospitals in Richmond to relieve overcrowding in the city after that time. Secondary sources are not all in agreement about the exact details of these events.

Sally Tompkins was buried in Mathews County with full military honors after her death on 25 July 1916, in Richmond. The Robertson Hospital Reunion Register is available for viewing on microfilm [Mathews County (Va.) Reel 56].

 -Autumn Reinhardt Simpson, Local Records Archival Assistant

Ghio Transcript Fisch Transcript Adams Transcript

On November 3, a naturalization ceremony will be held at the Library of Virginia.  A group of people from various nations will take an oath declaring their allegiance to the United States.  The coming ceremony prompted me to investigate the extent of naturalization records in the Local Records collection.  We have naturalization records for approximately 30 localities.  You would expect to find naturalization records in some localities such as  Newport News, Portsmouth, and Norfolk County because of their location along the coast.  However, LVA has naturalization records for western localities as well including Roanoke County, Russell County, and Rockingham County.  The bulk of the records are dated before 1906. The reason being that prior to 1906, the naturalization process was the responsibility of local and state courts. 

The predominant documents found in the naturalization records are the declarations of intent.  An immigrant seeking U.S. citizenship would first file this document in which the applicant declared his or her intent to become a citizen and renounced allegiance to a foreign government.  Information found in the declaration included name of applicant, place of birth, date of birth, age, and name of the ruler to which he or she renounced allegiance.  A person could declare intent to become a citizen at any time and in any place after arriving in the United States. After three additional years, a person could apply to become a citizen. These two steps did not have to take place in the same court, which is why one will find in the naturalization records collection declarations of intent from other states such as Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

The collection also includes reports for naturalization filed in the local courts.  They were similar to declarations of intent in that the applicant made known his or her intent to become a citizen of the United States.  However, the reports were commonly written in a narrative style as opposed to a standard form and therefore contain more detailed information regarding the applicant’s journey to citizenship.  In his report to the Norfolk County Court filed in 1835, Samuel Ghio of Sardinia explains that he came to Virginia in 1825 after his ship, the brig Betsey, sank near Cape Henry.  William Adams of Great Britain references his service in the Civil War as part of his report filed in Norfolk County Court in 1885.  Adams wrote that he arrived in the United States in October 1864 and in the same month was mustered into the “Maine Volunteers.”  He was honorably discharged on 15 June 1865.  There are many more stories of immigrants’ quests for citizenship found in the naturalization records at the Library of Virginia, stories to which those who are becoming citizens of the United States tomorrow probably can relate.

-Greg Crawford, Local Records Coordinator

Library of Virginia (LVA) staff, partners, and dignitaries gathered at the Goochland County courthouse Thursday to celebrate a milestone in a project that aims to put Virginia’s historic chancery court documents online.

The Goochland County Chancery Causes include the five millionth chancery image scanned by the Library of Virginia’s innovative Circuit Court Records Preservation Program. The records are the latest local records to be processed, indexed and digitally reformatted. “It’s an opportunity to celebrate what we’ve accomplished as a team,” said Carl Childs, Local Records Services Director. “It really is a team effort. It takes many different areas of the LVA working closely with the staff at the courthouses to complete these projects.”

The chancery digitization project began in 2005 with a pilot program in Fauquier County and now includes collections from 47 Virginia localities. Each of Virginia’s circuit courts created chancery records that contain considerable historical and genealogical information. Because these records rely so heavily on testimony from witnesses, they offer a unique glimpse into the lives of Virginians from the early 18th century to the eve of the First World War. A broad spectrum of citizens—rich and poor, black and white, slave and free—appear in the records. Chancery cases are a valuable source of local, state, social, and legal history and serve as a primary source for understanding local history.  They show the growth of business and industry in a locality, from taverns and churches to mines and creameries. Childs hopes that the improved access will allow researchers to begin comparative studies of different localities within Virginia.

Among the 119,000 images scanned from the Goochland collection are ones related to disputes over land, wills, divorces, debts, and business issues. The names of slaves suing for their freedom, of the descendants of the Huguenot settlers of Manakin-Towne, of planters, millers, coal miners, church leaders, and ordinary citizens appear in the records. Carefully-drawn plats sometimes illustrate cases involving disputed property lines and mining rights. Ornate marriage certificates and licenses accompany some divorce suits. Broadsides advertise the auction of farms and businesses describing the land and its features or the business and its equipment. This wealth of information is available from any Internet connected computer.

Childs said digitization has many advantages for users compared to microfilm including accommodating multiple users simultaneously, the power to instantly deliver images to users both nationally and internationally, and the ability to capture color — especially useful with plats and maps. “It’s not just genealogists and historians using these records,” Childs said. “There’s title research going on and lawyers using them. There’s a present-day business use going on and we felt like we needed a better product.”

Visit the Chancery Records Index to view the Goochland County collection and those of other available Virginia localities.