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Genealogical Data On Blackfords
Now Accessible For Research Here
By Martha Rivers Adams

Genealogical and historical data
pertaining to the family background
of the late Capt. Charles
Minor Blackford, Lynchburg lawyer
and historian, and his wife,
the late Susan Leigh Colston Blackford,
civic and social leaders of
their day, has been made accessible
for research at Jones Memorial
Library. Capt. and Mrs.
Blackford were married in 1856
in Albermarle county and lived
here, on Pearl street, thereafter.

Bound into the Blackford family
Bible, the information was assembled
by the late Capt. Blackford
and written in long hand. How it
has been made available to the
public is a procedure of the library
which has resulted in preservation
of similar valuable local historical
items without risk to the aged
documents, retained in the
archives for authentication of the
facts.

Entries Accurate, Meticulous

Written entries have been typed
and bound, meticulously and accurately
by Mrs. Harry H. Skelton,
assistant librarian, and are
now on the shelves for the purpose
of practical research. Mrs.
J. Warren Dickerson, chief librarian,
is concerned with the
building up of items pertaining to
Lynchburg, this section of the
State, and to Virginia as a whole.
This collection has been expanded
greatly from an excellent nucleus
established by the late Miss J.
Maud Campbell, librarian for about
25 years.

The Blackford Bible material is
source of an incredible number of
local articles, dealing as it does
with matteres pertinent to this section
and to the State at large.
Capt. Blackford's impress on public affairs
is felt today, nearly 50
years after his death. The last
member of his family to live in
Lynchburg was the late R. Colston
Blackford, Lawyer, industrialist,
historian and for many years,
chairman of the Lunchburg School
Board.

Family histories fo the Blackfords,
Colstons, Minors, Carters,
Marshalls and Fishers, whose
bloods are intermingled in the lineage,
have been bound in the Bible
along with statistical records of
births, deaths and marriages. Capt.
Blackford injects a note of frivolity
now and then, telling about a
party and who was present, following
this up with footnotes showing
what happened to the persons
in later years.

Associated with families in the
direct ancestry are others, some
of them also kin to the Blackfords
and Colstons, such as the
Hills of Shirley, the Byrds of Westover,
and the Lee, Fauntleroy, Burwell,
Page, Kean (formerly of
Lynchburg) and other related families.

Jones Memorial Library was
given all books from Capt. Blackford's
collection with his estate
was settled after Colston Blackford's
death. Mrs. Vance C. McCormick
of Harrisburg, Pa., the
former Gertrude Howard, Capt.
Blackford's ward who made her
home with the Blackfords during
her girlhood, bought the collection
and presented the books and
papers to Jones Memorial Library
as a memorial to their former
owner.

Rich in Historical Data

From first to last, the Bible material
is rich in historical data as
basis for articles of public interest.
Illustrative of these is the
opening sketch of Raleigh Colston,
Mrs. Blackford's great grandfather.
The entry copied from the
Colston Bible shows that representatives
of the family came to
(Continued on Page 8; Column 1)

(Continued from Page Three)

Virginia in 1640, and how this family
is connected through marriage
with other first families of the colonial
period. Raleigh Colston declares
that he had clear memory
of events which happened from the
time he was two years old and
proceeds to recall things that happened
in his early life and hence forward.

Those familiar with restoration
work, such as that at Williamsburg,
are cognizant of the value of
family records in substantiating
historical happenings, small clues
assisting in the documentation
required for every step. An example
of such a clue is in the Colston
reminiscences. Raleigh Colston
recalls his early apprenticeship
to James Tarpley of the mercantile
firm of Tarpley, Thompson
and Company, and this is one of
the restored locations at Williamsburg.
Young Colston's guardians
were Charles Beale and Major
Traverse Tarpley appointed after
the death of his father, which he
declares he remembered, although
he was less than four years old.
He read law later "with George
Wythe, Esq." at Williamsburg, "to
whom I was recommended by John
Tayloe and Prestley Thornton, the
juvenile friends of my Father" he
states.

The book prepared for research
at Jones Memorial Library occupies
place on shelves which contain
similar volumes from other
sources, made available as a public
service by the library.

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