Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Browse Items (64 total)

  • MS1939.6.pdf

    Cookbook dated 1836 containing a variety of different recipes for beverages, jellies, puddings, cakes, breads, sweets, and one possibly medicinal tonic for sweetening the blood. Finishes with a method for rendering tallow. Table of contents on the first page lists only recipes up to page 24 out of 40. Several people are mentioned as sources of recipes, though without enough to the name to identify them. Origins unknown. Across the bottom of the pages marked 37 and 38, upside down to the rest of the text, is a semi-legible heading to begin a ledger. It appears to read: By Gff Battakey m____y with Robt Hill Carter by 1835 Jan 12 back 1000
  • ms1938-7_vol. 1, page 001.jpg

    Anonymous 18th-century manuscript cookbook and book of medical formulas. The medical formulas are drawn from several sources including the works of Richard Mead (1673-1754), a famous English medical practitioner of his day. Mead's cures for the bite of a mad dog are included. Also included is Joanna Stephens' (d. 1774) cure for the stone and gravel. This was first printed in 1739 and earned Stephens an award of £5,000 from the British Parliament. This occured despite the objections of many respected medical practitioners who believed the only cure for stones involved surgery. Parliament was convinced of the value of the medicine by David Hartley who published the testimonials of patients claiming to be cured by the formula. Hartley also conducted experiments proving the ability of the formula to reduce stones. The manuscript also contains a cure for heartburn attributed to Dr. Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) the famous Dutch botanist, physician and medical instructor.

    Also included are numerous recipes for foods and beverages some attributed to a Miss Bathurst and S. Bathurst, Mrs. Beck, Lady Englefield and others.

  • D2023-COPY-0719-0015.jpg

  • MS1932-07-001.jpg

    Benjamin Waller writes to Meriwether Skelton concerning interest on the debt owed Waller by Skelton. Waller laments that many men have repaid his loans made to them in hard currency with devalued paper money by which he has lost a considerable fortune.
  • MS1996-11_001.jpg

    Medical record book prepared by a Barwick Bruce, a plantation doctor of Barbados.  A contemporary title added to the front cover reads: "Barwick Bruce's Day Book Commencing March 17, 1791." Most entries are signed by either John Austin or William Tull. Each entry lists a date, the name of the person examined, and the treatment prescribed. Plantations mentioned include Edge Hill, Grome Hall, and Bay Plantation. A majority of the entries concern treatments prescribed for illnesses or injuries suffered by enslaved persons. James Bruce is listed as the master of many of the slaves treated. In addition, some entries concern prescriptions given to treat planters and their family members. The entries provide insight into care provided by plantation owners for their enslaved laborers and family members and into different remedies prescribed for ailments, such as bleeding, purging, pills, and ointments.

  • MS2000-52-001.jpg

  • D2020-JBC-1009-0006.jpg

    Ledger of accounts for a store, possibly kept by Andrew Shepherd of Orange County, Virginia. A great variety of goods were sold to people in Orange, Culpeper, Albemarle, and Augusta counties, and the communities of Fredericksburg and Staunton. Customers included Isaac Allen, Captain William Daingerfield, Ambrose Madison, James Madison Jr., Hugh Mercer, Barnet Moore, John Strather, Mrs. William Taliaferro and George Weedon.

    Andrew Shepherd's name appears on a page of calculations near the end of the volume.

  • D2011-COPY-0712-1095.jpg

    Estate inventory of Hannah Robinson of Westmoreland County, Virginia. The inventory includes an extensive list of clothing including shifts, cloaks, stockings, calico and silk gowns, hats, stays etc. Also included are household goods and ten enslaved persons listed by name. Robinson left her estate to her sister Apphia Dangerfield and her nephew John Pettit. Beckwith Butler and John Pettit served as executors. There are no values associated with the inventory.
  • MS1999-09-001.jpg

    Estate appraisal of the property of William Smith of Westmoreland County, Virginia. The appraisal was conducted on December 7, 1782 and is signed by James Muse, Anthony Peyton and Thomas Muse. The estate was valued at £1498..5..3. The bulk of the estate's value was in the more than twenty five enslaved persons listed at the top of the appraisal. The appraisal also lists livestock in the form of horses, cattle and hogs. Among the household furniture is listed a desk, chairs, tables and bed furniture. Spinning and flax wheels as well as cards and a loom are listed in the appraisal. Kitchen implements listed in the appraisal include knives, pots, pans, a tea kettle, china plates, pewter plates a delft bowl and a salt cellar. A looking glass and brass candlesticks, box heater and snuffers are listed. Three books, the Bible, a dictionary and a "Bray book" are the only reading materials listed. Farming equipment listed in the appraisal includes hoes, axes, plows, saddles, wedge and froe, a beehive and drawing knife.

  • MS1929-02-001.jpg

    Following the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed the Boston Port Act which authorized the closing of that town’s port on June 1, 1774. When news of the Boston Port Act reached Virginia, the General Assembly was sitting in Williamsburg. It responded to the news by passing a resolution setting aside June 1st as a “Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer …” The resolution demonstrated the Burgesses support for the people of Boston linking their cause with the rights of all Americans. Governor Dunmore responded to the resolution by dissolving the Burgesses on May 26. The following day, the former Burgesses met in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern where they adopted an Association calling for a Boycott of East India Company goods and the meeting of a general congress.

    The Association is signed in print by eighty-nine of the former Burgesses known to have attended that body's most recent session. The document also bears the names of twenty-one men from the Williamsburg area who joined the Association following its adoption by the former Burgesses.

    The broadside was most likely printed by Clementina Rind.

  • D2010-COPY-0504-1084.jpg

    Manuscript amulet, or precept, containing a prayer for deliverance from witchcraft for the wearer.
  • MS2000-08-001.jpg

    Copy of an amendment to Governor Francis Fauquier's estate inventory, enclosed in his son Francis Fauquier, Esquire's letter sent from England to George Wythe, dated June 21, 1773. The inventory for items at the Governor's Palace includes household furnishings, food supplies, globes and money scales.
  • MS2012-16-001.jpg

    Apprenticeship indenture for Alley Anthony a free African American woman of Norfolk, Virginia. The indenture was arranged by Robert Brough at the request of the court. Anthony, who was 18 at the time, was indentured to Thomas McDorman for a term of 3 years to learn the trade of a seamstress. Robert Brough as Chamberlain of Norfolk was responsible for binding out orphans in accordance with an ordinance of 1791. Chamberlain was the term Norfolk used for its treasurer.
  • MS1999-10-001.jpg

    Alexander Spotswood writes from Surry County to Edmund Pendleton concerning the dispatch of William Woodford's troops to the defense of Southside Virginia. Spotswood also discusses John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, and loyalist sentiment in Norfolk and Portsmouth, Va. Spotswood expresses his belief that more is to be feared from the loyalists of those places than from Lord Dunmore writing "... I woud Rather burn the Towns of Norfolk, Gosport,& portsmouth, than hurt a hair of his Lordsh-ip's head ..."
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