A transcription of Newspaper Articles concerning Buckingham county Virginia covering the period from 1736-1850. More than 75,000 newspaper issues were searched, within 140 newspaper titles from which over 2,000 articles were transcribed. The three-column, 56-page index, contains some 10,700 entries that locate more than 16,700 references, among which are several thousand named women and children and 523 named slaves.
Newspapers chronicle the lives, the history, and document the social minutiae of a community. It has been stated that Òno matter how eagerly a newspaper is read, after a few minutes it is thrown aside as heedlessly as a bus ticket and is as soon forgotten. To historians, however, a bundle of old newspapersÑreally old onesÑ is precious, and the reason is clear: the passage of two or three centuries can make a two-penny newspaper invaluable, not just because of its scarcity but because it discloses so much about the people who first read itÉÓ Every facet of life is exposed in the newspapers from the details of the weather to the election of the President. The morals, actions, ideals, hopes and goals of a people along with sundry and everyday facts, such as the cost of bacon or wheat may be gleaned from the encompassing sweep of the Newspaper. ÒÉIt is reasonable to insist that unless the social historian consults the columns of É papers distributed weekly to thousands of readers, he is largely uninformed, not only about the eighteenth-century provincial press as a cultural influence, but about music, the theater, public health, education, inland and seaport trade, politics, the weather, transportation, and practically every activity of those multitudes of folk ... are all revealed on the thousands of pages which, though neglected for twenty decades, can now be read with new interest.Ó
Within this compilation, is an important addition to the historical and genealogical sources available for this burned county. The reader will happily find here, a discriminating selection of the Òfreshest AdvicesÓ of the sort that slaked the thirst for intelligence and for the amusement of yeomen, tavern patrons, gentry and wealthy planters all. The reader will discover many interesting facets of the life and history of this county; some tragic, some funny, some fascinating and some hard to believe. A delightful and fascinating excursion into a bygone era of Buckingham county, Virginia.