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...
In a letter to his friend Richard Harlan, John Audubon related the beauty of his surroundings in Louisiana. Audubon followed his passion and sailed up the Mississippi, intent to paint all the birds of North America. The land in Louisiana teemed with life and gave Audubon plenty of subjects to base his paintings off of. Audubon recognized the richness of the terrain in Louisiana, a feature that had...
In a broadside addressing the Memorialists and other members of the Virginia Reframing Convention of 1829, the “Memorial of the non-freeholders and freeholders of the county of Loudoun' beseeched the assembly to reframe or amend the constitution of Virginia so as to allow all free men the right to vote. The invoked images of their forefathers rising up to fight the injustice of taxation...
Dr. Hood was dead wrong. Literally. A man named Owings had fought a Mr. Anderson over an issue of honor and had been stabbed in Bath County, Kentucky in 1830. The doctor had declared that Owings's situation was not life threatening, but this diagnosis proved incorrect as the stabbing victim soon passed away. Owings had asked for trouble. He insulted a woman of Anderson's household, so Anderson...
Albemarle County's residents eagerly looked forward to the popular Miscellaneous Section of Charlottesville's weekly paper, The Virginia Advocate. In this segment readers found many lighthearted topics including a sequence of imaginary situations reflecting both the political and social atmosphere of the era. In addition to jokes about the fancies of women, the life of the theater,...
The proprietors of the Richmond and Baltimore Union Line of Stages and Steamboats by Tappahannock placed a notice in the Richmond Enquirer in October of 1829 with the intent of informing the public of the on-going operation of their line of service. The posting boasted of the best of coaches and horses, the experienced drivers, and the best accommodations. Good roads and no nighttime land travel...
One of the most controversial Acts of its time, the Maysville Road act authorizing the purchase of 50,000 worth of stock in the Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington Turnpike Company, otherwise known as the National, or Cumberland, Road. To begin with, the road itself, or what was actually built of it, was a significant advance in construction technology. The four mile stretch that was constructed...
Virginia was a place that was steeped on deep, rich Southern tradition during the 1830s. Most of the wealthy people who then resided in Fauquier County were plantation owners. They went about their daily lives in a manner that seemed to be lazy and carefree. Virginia was also a place of excitement because many of the nation's prominent men lived in the state of Virginia. One of these men was...
Passed on May 28, 1830, The Indian Removal Act allowed the U.S. federal government to negotiate treaties with American Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River to exchange their current lands for new territories west of the Mississippi in what is now Oklahoma. As the Richmond Enquirer notes on May 25, the Act technically did not require the Indians to relocate and that they were not “to...
On May 14, 1830, after months of anticipation, The Virginia Advocate celebrated the triumph of a grand fair held in aid of the American Colonization Society by the Female Association of Albemarle County. The newspaper proudly proclaimed that it went off with a success, which we believe has far surpassed the most sanguine expectations of its friends. Despite the heat of the day the decorated...