Mecklenburg County, Virginia notebook

Content Description

This collection contains a homemade burlap-bound book. It includes five book signatures that appear to be those of a young student in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. The notebook includes copies of legal documents, handwriting practice, mathematical problems, and a cypher, a handwritten reference book of mathematical principles.  Many of the pages are undated, but it appears that they were created between 1787 and 1789.  Several pages are captioned “Thomas Anderson Jones Copy-Book" on their bottom margin and include a corresponding date for their entry. Jones was born in Mecklenburg County in 1772. His signature appears inside the front cover, and his initials appear on many pages of the notebook. However, it is unknown whether Anderson or another owner created the cypher, as it seems to be in a different handwriting. Several copied documents appear in Jones’s copy book, including the will of William Gatewood, a plantation owner in Fluvanna County, who willed his plantation in Fluvanna County to his son and included, by name, ten enslaved individuals and three other enslaved workers willed to his daughter.  Also recorded in this volume is a case of infanticide. There was a discovery of a dead child's body in "a very obscure part of a Gentleman's home in Dunwiddie County." It was supposedly left there by a young woman who was abandoned by her seducer. In addition to the legal records,  there are copies of plantation operation reports and ledgers, mathematical equations with mathematical rules and exercises designed to run a plantation with enslaved workers built into the exercise, and replications of script sentences line by line as a handwriting practice.  

Acquisition Type

Purchase

Provenance

Purchased from Franklin Gilliam Rare Books, 10 September 2025.

Language of Description

English

Script of Description

Latin

Restrictions Apply

No

Access Restrictions

The notebook is very fragile and must be handled carefully.