Browse Items (196 total)

In 1716, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood led an expedition over the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Shenandoah Valley. The land was claimed for King George I of England, eventually being divided and distributed through land grants.…

Indigenous Virginians and the English colonists conceived landownership in different ways. Tribal members did not "own" land individually, but lived in small communities and hunted, planted, and gathered food or other materials in the larger…

Alexander Spotswood served from 1710 to 1722 as lieutenant governor of Virginia, in the place of the royal governor who never came to the colony. During his tenure Spotswood sought to improve the colony's security and economy and relations with…

Among his many skills, George Washington was a well-respected land surveyor. After the death of his father in 1743, eleven-year-old George Washington did not attend school in England like his older half-brothers, but had private tutors and may have…

A bookplate is a small-sized, decorative label that is adhered to the inside front cover of a book. They are used to identify the owner of a book for personal use or for use in a library. Bookplates are designed to reflect a person’s interests or to…

In January 1754, Virginia's lieutenant governor (acting in place of the absent royal governor), Robert Dinwiddie, sent a small force of Virginia soldiers to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio River, where present-day Pittsburgh now stands. In…

The Fry-Jefferson map was first published in 1753. It was, at the time, the most comprehensive map of 18th century Virginia. Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson were two of the most successful surveyors in the Virginia colony. They collaborated and…

Located amongst the Accomack County court records from 1758 is this advertisement for a fugitive enslaved person named Will. It was placed by prominent Richmond County planter Landon Carter who enslaved hundreds of men, women, and children. The…

This portrait of Mary Willing Byrd (1740–1814) was painted early in the 1770s by artist Matthew Pratt. Born in Philadelphia, she was the daughter of a wealthy merchant and a god-daughter of Benjamin Franklin. In 1761 she married William Byrd…

In May 1773 the British Parliament passed the Tea Act granting the British East India Company a monopoly on importing tea. Intended in part to discourage colonists from buying smuggled tea on which they paid no taxes, the act implicitly acknowledged…