Administrative Information

Access

There are no restrictions.

Publication Rights/ Restrictions on Use

Before publishing quotations or excerpts from any materials, permission must be obtained from the Special Collections Librarian/ Associate Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, and the holder of the copyright, if not the Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg.

Preferred Citation

William Byrd Papers, Manuscript MS 40.2, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Acquisition Information

Purchase, 1940.

Alternative Form

Also available on microfilm M-1553. Some items also available as photostats PH/07.

Biographical/Historical Information

William Byrd II resided at Westover in Charles City County, Virginia.

Scope and Content Information

Writings of William Byrd II (1674-1744), of Westover, Charles City County, Va., including a fragmentary rough draft, in his hand, of the November 5-22, 1728, entries in his Secret History of the Dividing Line, which he later revised as the History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina. When Thomas Jefferson sent a contemporary fair copy from Berkeley to the American Philosophical Society in 1817, the text of these pages was missing. Also included is a contemporary transcript of Byrd's entries for October 29 through November 5, 1728, in the History of the Dividing Line.

The collection contains Byrd's letterbook for 1728-1729, including copies of letters to Mrs. Armiger, [Mr?] Bradley [Lord Islay?], Gov. Sir William Gooch, Col. Edward Moseley, Col. [Mann] Page, Micajah Perry, Mr. Spencer, "Cousen" Taylor, and [Sir Charles Wager?]; and a synopsis of Moses's death and Joshua's winning of the Promised Land, in handwriting similar to that of the History, but with interlineations that may be Byrd's.

For the provenance of these papers, see Maude H. Woodfin, "Thomas Jefferson and William Byrd's Manuscript Histories of the Dividing Line," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., I (1944), pp. 363-373; and Maude H. Woodfin, "The Missing Pages of William Byrd's Secret History of the Dividing Line," ibid., II (1945), pp. 63-70. The latter article also prints the 20-22 November section of the Secret History fragment.

Arrangement

Chronologically arranged.

Index Terms

Persons:

• Byrd, William, 1674-1744.
• Byrd, William, 1674-1744. Histories of the dividing line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina.
• Gooch, William, Sir, 1681- 1751
• Moseley, Edward, 1661-1736
• Page, Mann, 1691- 1730
• Perry, Micajah, d. 1753.
• Wager, Charles, Sir.

Subjects:

• Boundary disputes.

Geographical Names:

• Virginia--Boundaries-- North Carolina.
• Virginia--History--Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.
• North Carolina--Boundaries--Virginia.
• United States-- Politics and government--To 1775.

Additional Descriptive Data

Bibliography

The Secret history and the History are printed in their entirety in Prose works ..., but the Colonial Williamsburg fragments are incorrectly cites as being in the William Blathwayt Papers.