Colonial Virginia – The UncommonWealth

“The Coat and Breeches that I am now Wearing.”

Around the year 1826, the Virginia State Library and Archives (now Library of Virginia) began collecting transcriptions of original papers in the Public Records Office…

Amanda MorrellNovember 4, 2024

Archives Highlights

Records of the Virginia Revolutionary Conventions, 1774-1776 Now Online.

The first set of records from the Virginia Revolutionary Conventions, 1774-1776 collection are now available on the Library of Virginia’s Digital Collections Discovery site. The…

Greg CrawfordFebruary 7, 2024

Doctor, Poisoner, Governor, Rebel: John Pott, America’s “Founding Physician”

From the earliest days of America’s founding, we as a nation have sought heroes to help tell our story. Whether iconic leaders like Washington and…

Guest ContributorNovember 1, 2023

Thomas/in Hall: Subverting the Gender Binary in Colonial Virginia

Among Virginia’s earliest records is a court case describing the first known intersex person in British North America. In 1629, a servant known as Thomas…

Rebecca SchneiderApril 17, 2023

Newspapers

There Be Great Witches Among Them: Witchcraft and the Devil in Colonial Virginia

Salem witch trials are among the most well-known instances of witchcraft in colonial America, but belief in witches was not limited to New England. The colonists…

Olin JohnsonOctober 26, 2017

Newspapers

A Much Obliged and Humble Servant: Clementina Rind’s Virginia Gazette

It was out of necessity that Clementina Rind became Virginia’s first woman newspaper publisher. After the death of her husband, William, in 1773, she had…

Kelley EwingMarch 15, 2017