Diary of the Reverend Robert Rose(1746–1751)

• MS 1941.9
• Microfilm: M-47
• Photocopy: PH/02/10
• Transcript: TR/26
• part of 1 vol. ([116] pp.)

Diary of the Rev. Robert Rose (1704–1751), minister of St. Anne’s Parish, Essex County, VA, 1727–1748, where he succeeded the Rev. John Bagge, and of St. Anne’s Parish, Albemarle County, VA, 1748–1751. The fact that Rose was named an executor of his estate by lieutenant governor Alexander Spotswood adds to the impression that Rose was a friend, and perhaps a protégé, of the governor.

The diary reveals Rose as a planter, businessman, surveyor, doctor, and lawyer, as well as a minister and a frequent traveler between Albemarle and Essex counties. In making these trips he passed through Stafford, Spotsylvania, Louisa, Orange, and Culpeper counties, visiting the leading families and sometimes preaching, performing marriages, or baptizing. He visited friends in western Virginia, going as far as the Cow Pasture River, sleeping out in cold weather, and drinking “wretched” whiskey for want of something better. There are three entries for visits to Williamsburg. Most of the entries are brief, but there is a long exposition, dated August 28, 1750, on the curing of tobacco.

The diary fills the second half of the volume which also contains the Edmund Bagge Account Book.

Ralph Emmet Fall, ed. The Diary of Robert Rose: A View of Virginia by a Scottish Colonial Parson, 1746–1751 (Verona, VA, 1977).