1758 Spotsylvania Court Record from Katharine Legg

Collections for the Heritage Center usually come to us from local residents or from people whose family roots are in the Rappahannock region.  Once in a while, though, we receive a document from an unexpected source.

Katharine Legg lives on 36th Street in New York City.  She has ancestors from Pennsylvania and Virginia, but no known connection to our region.  Many years ago, one of those Pennsylvania ancestors, her grandmother, bought a piece of antique furniture and found within it an old document.

Eventually, the furniture and the paper, torn or cut into 16 pieces, came into the possession of Katharine, who was curious enough to read the document.  Having determined that it was a 1758 court record from Spotsylvania County in Virginia, she felt she needed to send it home.  Through the magic of the internet, she found the Heritage Center, and in mid-July she emailed us asking if we would be interested in the document she had inherited.

After receiving our enthusiastic "yes", she mailed the 16 pieces, directions for putting them together, and an almost-complete transcription.  Our volunteer, Cooky Harpold, has attached all the parts and the complete document is now part of the Heritage Center collections.

Reverse side of the repaired document.

While we love this example of our regional documents turning up in unexpected places, we also think that the care, concern, time and effort taken by a stranger in Manhattan to return these old pieces of paper to their rightful place makes this story even more thrilling.

So, many thanks to Katharine Legg and to all of you, near and far, who have entrusted your historically-important documents to the care of the Heritage Center.  We promise to treat them with the care that such welcome gifts deserve.