Virginia Almanacks(1717–1814)

• AY 326.V57

While Virginia Almanacks published in the 18th century document early printing in Williamsburg and give us an idea of the type of printed information 18th-century planters needed, the Almanacks also served as diaries or account books for plantation and other business matters, and notebooks for any type of circumstance, incident, recipe, or story which caught the diarist’s interest.

The Colonial Williamsburg Library Special Collections has 25 examples of the Virginia Almanack dating between 1747–1814. Several Almanacks contain extensive diary entries. Others contain various sorts of marginalia. Most of the 13 Almanacks with substanial manuscript material have identifiable authors. Included among these authors are Francis Jerdone (two diaries), John Page (three diaries), Benjamin C. Waller, B. Terrel, Thomas Bolling, Robert Wormeley Carter, and Martine Cockburne. Unknown authors include a close associate of the Governor’s Council in Williamsburg (1752–1753) and a diarist who kept detailed accounts of purchases.

Subjects in the diaries include accounts of purchases of goods and services; wholesale tobacco accounts; political matters in Williamsburg; slave, family and plantation matters; daily weather observations; copies of land deeds in Petsworth Parish (1686–1688); scattered scientific observations of John Page; lists of book purchases (1812–1845); and Revolutionary War matters.

Inventory