The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington Digital Collections

The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington holds one of the world’s largest collections of materials related to George Washington and his family. Much of these materials have been digitized. Standouts include both the George Washington Manuscripts and the Martha Washington Manuscripts. Other Washington Family collections are available, including the Bushrod Washington Manuscripts, the Harriot Washington Manuscripts, the John Augustine Washington Manuscripts, the Lund Washington Manuscripts, the Robert Lewis Manuscripts, and a collection on George Washington’s Nephews. Martha Washington’s Custis descendants are also represented, such as the Eleanor (Nelly) Parke Custis Lewis Manuscripts, the George Washington Parke Custis Manuscripts, and the Mary Eliza Angela Lewis Conrad Manuscripts. Other family materials can be found in the Chapin Collection of Washington and Custis Family Papers and the Elswyth Thane Beebe Collection of Washington Family Papers. Material on George Washington’s finances and properties, as well as the management of Mount Vernon, are available in the Early Records of the MVLA, the Estate Settlement Documents Collection, the Financial, Real Estate, and Legal Documents, George Washington’s Surveys, the Mount Vernon Farm Reports and Plantation Records, and the Tobias Lear Manuscripts. Other digital collections include the Elizabeth Willing Powel Manuscripts, the Historic Manuscript Collection, the Lafayette Manuscripts Collection, the Newspaper Collection, the Papers of Lily Macalester Berghmans Laughton, the Peter Family Papers, and the Richard H. Brown Revolutionary War Map Collection.

Virginia Memory

Virginia Memory is the digital repository for the Library of Virginia. Its Digital Collections are quite vast and provide online access to millions of digitized images from the Library’s diverse holdings. Early Virginia is well represented. Materials from the Revolutionary Era include Dunmore’s War Payroll and Service Claims, Governors’ Letters Received, 1776-1784, the Governor Patrick Henry Executive Papers Digital Collection, 1776-1779, the Governor Thomas Jefferson Executive Papers Digital Collection, 1779-1781, the Revolutionary War Bounty Land Claims, and the Revolutionary War Virginia State Pensions. Early Republic and Antebellum materials consist of the Benjamin Henry Latrobe Collection, the Broadside Collection, the Chancery Records Index, the Custis-Lee-Mason Family Papers, the Electoral College Digital Collection, the Legislative Petitions Digital Collection, the Lewis and Clark Collection, the Mutual Assurance Society Policies for Richmond and Henrico County, 1796-1867, and the War of 1812 Bicentennial Collection. There are also some Civil War and Reconstruction materials, such as the Cohabitation Registers, Confederate Disability Applications, the Confederate Pension Applications, the James I. Robertson Civil War Sesquicentennial Legacy Collection, the Robert E. Lee Camp Confederate Solders’ Home Applications. Thousands of African American materials can be found in Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative. Hundreds of early Virginia newspapers held by the Library of Virginia can be in Virginia Chronicle. Some of the collections consist of 19th century photographs, such as the Fairfax County Public Library Historical Photographs, the Michael Miley Studio Collection, the Stereograph Collection, the Virginia Historical Inventory, and the Virginia Legislature Photograph Collection. Several Map Collections are also available, including the Alan M. Voorhees Map Collection, the Board of Public Works Maps, the Civil War Map Project, the Fry-Jefferson Maps, Surveys, and Derivatives, and Maps of the District of Columbia. Other early Virginia collections include the Lost Records Localities Digital Collection, the Rare Books Collection, the State Artwork Collection, and Virginia Land Patents and Grants.

Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives Online

This collection features digitized materials from Virginia Tech’s Special Collections and University Archives. It features a few Manuscript Collections related to early Virginia, including the Jacob Cassel Papers and the Landon Duncan Letters. Several Regional History and the Appalachian South collections are available, such as the Huff-Hylton Families Papers, the J. Hoge Tyler Family Collection, the James E. Yates Account Book, the Nelson Family Papers, the Smithfield Preston Foundation Papers, and the Squire Bosworth Papers. There are also over two dozen individual collections on The American Civil War. Some standouts include the Alexandria and Fairfax Counties Civil War Correspondence, the Benjamin Franklin Butler Notebook, three Civil War Diaries, the James Francis Heizer & Phoebe Anne McCormick Heizer Collection, and the Robert Taylor Preston Papers.

William & Mary Digital Archive

The William & Mary Libraries provides online access to many of its collections. Much of this digital material comes from the Earl Gregg Swem Library’s Special Collections. Early Virginia is well represented in these digitized collections, including the papers of prominent statesmen, slaveholders, and women. Papers of former presidents are featured in the James Monroe Project, the Thomas Jefferson Project, and the Tyler Family Papers Project. A large selection of St. George Tucker Almanacs offers a glimpse at early Virginia’s print culture and the histories of agriculture and science. Similarly, there are hundreds of volumes of The Southern Planter available. There is also a sizeable collection of correspondence to be found in the Ann Cary Randolph Morris Letters.