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 the first digital images, covering the years 1816-1857, from the Scott County chancery causes digitization project have been added to the Chancery Records Index. The Scott County chancery index covers the years 1816 through 1942 (bulk 1816-1912). The records will be scanned through 1912.

The following are a few suits of interest found in the newly added Scott County chancery digital images. In suits 1828-001, Madison Hill vs. Heirs of Joseph Johnson, and 1830-017, Joseph Jones & wife vs. Thomas M. Carter, one will find references to confrontations between Native Americans and the early settlers of Scott  County. Chancery causes 1831-009, 1832-009, 1837-001, and 1852-004 concern a free African American mother’s determined effort to liberate her two children from slavery.

Additional Scott County chancery images will be available in the coming months. Stay tuned for future Out of the Box posts on this valuable and interesting collection of historic Virginia court records.

The Circuit Court Records Preservation Program (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.

During the months of October and November, Local Records archivists delivered presentations on chancery suits to the Tazewell County Public Library, the Scott County Rotary Club, the Beautiful Older People in Dinwiddie County, and the Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society. They shared with the attendees what chancery causes are and how they are useful not only for genealogy research but for learning local history as well.

The archivists offered numerous chancery suits as examples such as a Dinwiddie County case that involved the descendants of a free African-American doctor who also owned slaves; Tazewell County suits that referenced conflicts between the first settlers of Tazewell County and Native Americans; post-Civil War era Scott County suits that brought to light lingering bitterness between pro-Union and anti-Confederacy residents; and Middlesex County suits that showed slaves suing for their freedom. The archivists informed the attendees how they could access their locality’s chancery causes through the Chancery Records Index. The response to the presentations by attendees was very positive. Laurie Roberts, the director of the Tazewell County Public Library, commented: “You gave our audience an appreciation of the reflection of our social history we can find in this treasure trove of material and inspired us to delve into the records.”

If you are interested in scheduling a presentation by one of the Library’s Local Records archivists, please contact Greg Crawford, gregory.crawford@lva.virginia.gov or 804-371-2127.

In 1896, Virginia Anderson, nicknamed Jennie, filed for divorce from her husband, Epps G. Anderson, in the Scott County Circuit Court. He was in his seventies, she in her fifties, and both had grown children from previous marriages. Like many other divorce cases, Virginia and Epps accused each other of a variety of shortcomings including abuse, abandonment, property mismanagement, and infidelity. Having come across cases like this before, I was not expecting it when half way through his deposition Epps stated that “after July the 4, 1896 there had been a knocking spirit down at Doc. Kyle’s. Jennie said she would go down there …when she came back said she heard it and seen it act and it knocked on her… and she said before she started she was going to bring it up here and run me off or scare me.” Epps went on to describe a two-hour episode occurring in the night, with chairs being knocked to the floor, doors blowing open, ghostly footsteps, and a spirit that answered questions by knocking on the walls.

Epps’ daughter, Mollie Edens, also testified in the divorce case and described an encounter with the entity in which Virginia asked the spirit if it was the good spirit or the evil one and told it to “knock three licks if the evil spirit, then [it] knocked three. She [Virginia] says if I have done anything to old Eps [sic] to quarrel on me. If I have knock three licks. If I have not don’t knock narry [sic] one. There was narry [sic] lick knocked, then directly she said they was something under her bed went like a chicken fluttering from the floor up against the bed.”

Ghosts who spoke with the living through rappings and knockings were not unique to the state of Virginia but were commonly known throughout the United States during the nineteenth century. Perhaps the most famous example included the séances performed by sisters Margaret and Kate Fox, who displayed their ability to summon a spirit and have it communicate through a series of raps in front of audiences in the United States and abroad. However, by the late 1880s, the sisters admitted that their exhibitions and medium abilities were faked. 

So, did the incidents in the Andersons’ home really take place as the result of a paranormal visitor? At least one occurrence definitely did not. In his deposition, Henry M. Bryant admitted that with the consent of Virginia, he and his brother Charley staged an encounter with the spirit to frighten Epps, who at the time was nearly blind. The other episodes, well, the case files do not definitively say one way or another – they may have just been an angry wife’s attempt to chase her husband away or there could have been a ghost looking to communicate from beyond the grave. In the end, the judge presiding over this suit decided that neither party had presented any evidence to justify a divorce, and in 1898 dismissed the case from the docket.

Virginia Anderson vs. Epps G. Anderson (1898-031) and other Scott County chancery causes are currently being processed and digitally reformatted. An index of the Scott County causes is available for viewing on the Chancery Records Index found at Virginia Memory.

-Sam Walters, Local Records Archivist

Welcome-Nugget-IJ

The California Gold Rush began in 1848 with the discovery of gold at John A. Sutter’s sawmill in Coloma, California.  During the next seven years, hundreds of thousands of people moved to California in an attempt to strike it rich.  One of those people was Jonathan Ramey of Scott County, Virginia.  As he stated in the bill of an 1878 chancery suit filed against his brother Jeremiah’s estate, “….upon consideration of the difficulties which would surround him here he concluded to try to improve his condition by visiting the Eldorado, that at that time was opening to fervid minds visions of wealth as dazzling as those described in Eastern story, and which upon near approach in many instances proved as unsubstantial as Aladdin’s palace and like it vanished into viewless air….”

 In 1854, Jonathan sent $200 to his brother Jeremiah by means of a check which was later filed with the chancery suit papers.  Drawn on the Adams & Co. Express and Banking Office in Columbia, California, the check features a pictorial engraving of several groups of miners panning for gold, with a man driving a wagon and a collection of wooden buildings in the background.  At the bottom center of the check is an engraving of an early version of the California state seal with the state motto, Eureka, (Greek for “I have found it”) across the top.

 Adams & Co. was a subsidiary company of the Adams Express Company of Baltimore, a shipping company established in 1839.  Organized in 1850 in California, its failure in 1854 due to poor management caused a financial panic in that state.  The Adams Express Co. still exists today as a publicly-traded diversified equity fund based in Baltimore and is one of the oldest companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

The chancery cause, Jonathan Ramey Sr. by etc. vs. Admx of Jeremiah Ramey etc., 1878, is part of the Scott County Chancery Causes, 1816-1942. The collection is unavailable due to processing and is scheduled to be digitized.

-Sarah Nerney, Senior Local Records Archivist

(The T.C. Williams Co. tobacco label and many other  labels and prints from the collection are available at The Virginia Shop.)