Richard Corbin Papers(1746–1825)

• MS 1971.5
• Microfilm: M-1559, M-1560
• 3 vols. and 370 items

Letters and accounts of Richard Corbin (1708–1790) of “Laneville,” burgess, councilor, and receiver general of Virginia from 1761–1776. Included are warrants for payments from the Virginia quit rents; accounts and letters with Osgood and Capel Hanbury, his London agents; memoranda and accounts regarding his plantations; accounts with tradesmen; and accounts, legal papers, and letters to his son, Richard Corbin, Jr., which comprise most of the later material.

The three volumes include Corbin’s letterbook, 1758–1768, with copies of letters and invoices to Edward Athawes, Lt. Gov. Robert Dinwiddie, the Hanburys, Edmund Jenings, Philip Ludwell, John Roberts, Ralph Wormeley, Charles Goore, the Rev. Beilby Porteus, and others; his tobacco book, 1746–1790, recording annual quantity, origin, place of inspection, disposition, and overseers’ shares; and the diary of John Harrower, 1773–1776, Scottish indentured tutor of Col. William Daingerfield’s children. Daingerfield, of Belvidera, near Fredericksburg, VA, was a neighbor of the Corbins.

Prominent names in the papers include Jacquelin Ambler, Leroy Anderson, Burwell Bassett, Carter Braxton, Charles Carter, Robert Cary, Robert Cholmondeley, James Lee, John Norton and Sons, John Robinson, James Semple, Benjamin Tomkins, and Benjamin Waller.

The tutor’s diary has been published. See Edward Miles Riley, ed., The Journal of John Harrower: An Indentured Servant in the Colony of Virginia, 1773–1776 (Williamsburg, VA, 1963).

View name index to Corbin’s letterbook

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