On July 15 1828, Virginians gathered in Charlottesville to discuss the question of whether the State of Virginia shall herself make her own Internal Improvements, or resign that duty, with all its important political and pecuniary interests to a foreign Corporation. The specific concern those in meeting grappled with was the fact that in March 1827 the General Assembly provided a charter for corporation...
B.L. Lear administrated a large fund for the education of slaves that had been established by General Thaddeus Kosciusko, a famous Polish hero in the American Revolution. Upon Kosciusko's death in 1817, he had left the fund to his longtime acquaintance and fellow son of liberty, Thomas Jefferson. In September 1825, B.L. Lear wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, grandson of Jefferson and...
In the beginning of the 1820s, Albemarle County merchants advertised all year round of large stocks of staples they had for sale at Reasonable Prices, Bacon, cured in the manner for family use, nice white corn meal, and Barrels Brown sugar different quantities are just a few examples. By 1826, a new kind of merchant had come to town. John Cochran & Co. took up occupancy in a well-known building...
John Scott III of Scottsville was the grandson of the man on whose land the first Albemarle County seat was located when the county's was created in 1744. Edward Scott had offered his land to build the first courthouse, in the hopes that commerce would develop nearby and increase the value of his large patent. The proximity of the site to a section of the James River especially conducive to crossing...
On consecutive weekends in October 1821, two companies of Albemarle militia held their yearly musters. On the first Saturday of the month, a company of artillery headed by Captain F.B. Dyers gathered at an old field in the countryside. This muster was the first ever of Dyer's troop. At the session, matters of moment pertaining to the company as a whole were submitted to the men. A week later, at...
By the waning sunlight, a fairly young merchant by the name of James Brady poured his eyes over a financial document. It was proof that his business relations with an associate, William Tompkins, Sr., had finally bore fruit. Mr. Tompkins waited over three years to pay James Brady for debts dating back to May 1829. The large quantities of bacon, corn, nails, and planks had accumulated into a bill...
On November 26, 1829, Thomas Goode Tucker, a student at the University of Virginia, was alerted of a very dangerous situation on grounds. In a letter to his father, approximately a month later, he recounted how some students set fire to an outhouse. Tucker heard of the fire, and as soon as word reached him, he ran to the scene where a large group of people were gathered, almost all of them gasping...
Joseph Bishop owned a mill on the Rivanna River from 1805 to the late 1820?s. He worked in the mill along with the family's two male slaves, and possibly with occasional help from his five sons. Bishop's mill supported his main economic activity, which was tanning leather. But Bishop sometimes allowed the use of his facilities to grind nearby farmers' grain, typically for free. Over the years Bishop...
Thomas Jefferson- the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, and father of the University of Virginia- died at 12:50 p.m. on July 4, 1826 at the age of 83 in his beloved home of Monticello. Newspapers were filled with remembrances of that special day in American history, and Jefferson’s role in it, making this day a memorial to the man even before...