December 12, 1840

ALBEMARLE, Virginia

Economy, Government, Politics

As the year of 1840 drew to an end, the residents of Albemarle County prayed that the new year would finally bring relief and economic stability to the nation still recovering from the Panic of 1837. President Martin Van Buren echoed these sentiments in his speech to the second session of the Twenty-sixth Congress concerning the general state of the nation. As almost half of the speech discussed...

October 23, 1842 to 1842

ALBEMARLE, Virginia

Church/Religious-Activity, Politics, Women

On October 23, 1842, Eugene Davis wrote a draft of a speech advocating temperance in Albemarle County. While in the North many cities had embraced the temperance movement, in the South, country counties like Albemarle led the way for social and moral reform. Evangelical congregations and women in particular expected the temperance movement to solve common social vices and fashion a society rooted...

August 26, 1844 to October 30, 1844

ALBEMARLE, Virginia

Migration/Transportation, Women

During the late summer and fall of 1844, B. Johnson Barbour and Caroline H. Watson had little else on their minds than what the next post would bring as they anticipated November 7 - the day when they would finally be united as husband and wife. The distance that separated the young couple heightened their anticipation, for Caroline lived in Richmond while Barbour lived in the rural county of Albemarle,...

July 17, 1847

ALBEMARLE, Virginia

War

As the Mexican War continued through 1847, Americans expressed a growing amount of opposition to a war that originally promised as an easy victory was growing into a drawn-out costly endeavor. In July 1847, former Whig Senator William Cabell Rives spoke at the University of Virginia against the war. He emphasized that the US had no right to “interfere with the institutions of other countries'...