State Archives Rich in 'Buried' Treasure

Little Known Department of State Library
With Its Restoration Workshop
and Fireproof Studio Replete With Interest

By Priscilla Williams

Do you like to dig into old records? If you do, you can spend a delightful afternoon in the Archives Division of the State Library.

There are the land books and personal property books for all the counties beginning in 1783, in which you may see the amount of taxes your ancestors paid or didn't pay. And, then, there are the deed books and will books, the survey books and the order books, the journals of the council and the "executive papers," and the many thousands of letters which compose the second largest manuscript library in the United States. Only the collection in the Library of Congress in Washington is larger.

The oldest of these old volumes is one of the County Record Books for Northumberland County which begins with the year 1650. The earliest Journal of the Council begins with the year 1705. The library also has a photostat copy of the Accomack Records for 1632 - 1640 which is conceded to be the oldest county record in the country.

Many of these old manuscript volumes, however, are now in a dilapidated condition. After years of use in the clerk's office many of them were stored away in some county official's attic for safekeeping, from which they were rescued by the late Dr. McIlwaine or Mr. Robinson in their effort to bring together all of the State's records in one place -- the Archives Division of the State Library.

Process of Restoring is Interesting One

But these manuscripts can be restored, and the process of restoring them is an interesting one. In a tiny little room in the basement of the Library Building, surrounded by old manuscripts and his tools, Barrow works diligently away. Each aging sheet is worked on separately. It is first washed off in order to remove the accumulation of dust and dirt. "A page written in ink washed off?" I am sure you are asking. Yes, washed off, and the ink doesn't run. It is made of gall-tannate of iron, and the paper is of the best quality and washing doesn't hurt either of them.

Next, sizing is applied to keep the paper in shape, and a solution of arsenic of lead is used with it to prevent book worms. While the paper is still wet, a thin silk material, called crepelene, is pressed gently but firmly into first one side and then the other. This material is made in France especially for the purpose, but it looks very much like a thin chiffon. After this process, the edges are further reinforced by Japanese tissue, a material that is imported from Japan. When there is a complete hole in a page, new paper is inserted into the tiny place and the paper is so cut and fitted in that there is no overlapping. When all of the pages have been reinforced and mended, they are rebound. Often each sheet is attached to a small strip which is used as a binding margin.

If the volume is to have particularly hard use, it is rebound in wooden covers. Mr. Barrow has just completed restoring a volume of George Washington's letters of which he is justly proud. The wooden covers to this volume are covered with leather, and he has made them just a little bit more ornate than he usually does because he thought the Father of His Country "deserved it."

The work of restoring these manuscripts is necessarily expensive, and the library's funds are limited. Up to the present time only about a hundred volumes have been restored, and the restoration of most of these has been the gifts of the various patriotic organizations, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Colonial Dames, the Daughters of 1812, the Daughters of the seventeenth century, the Association of the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, the Daughters of the American Colonists, the National Society of the Daughters of the Barons of Runnemede, the Daughters of the Founders and Patriots, the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Virginia, the Sons of the Revolution in the State of Virginia and the Virginia Society, Sons of the American Revolution.

Quality of Modern Ink and Paper is Danger

There are still over a thousand of these old manuscript volumes that need to be restored, and it is with a feeling of the keenest regret that lovers of Virginia and the Virginia lore see shelf after shelf of these old volumes slowly disintegrating. With each trip to the reading room they are brought back to the shelf just a little bit more worn than they were before. Many of them have had to be wrapped up in brown wrapping paper in order to keep them intact.

Another important phase of the work of record preservation is that of making photostat copies (facsimiles) of old record volumes, the original of which are owned by some other department of the State or some other library. These copies are made in the archival annex to the State Library, which is a two-story, concrete and steel vault, with the result that there is no fire hazard while the copies are being made. Two copies are always made. Both of these are certified under authority of an act of the Assembly, and these certified copies have the same standing in court as the original volume. One of these volumes is given without cost to the office lending the original volume, and the other is kept in the archival annex of the State Library.

A source of great worry to the State archivist just now is the quality of paper and ink that is being used today for our public records. As he points out, two or three hundred years from now our descendants will be tracing their ancestry to us and our records of today will be just as interesting to them as the early records of the State are to us now.

Standards Needed to Safeguard Future Records

In the mad rush for speed and mass production, quality has been sacrificed. This is especially true in the manufacture of paper and ink which have become more and more inferior each year.

Imagine, two hundred years from now washing off a sheet of the paper we use today, written on with ink of today. Well, in the first place, the paper won't last that long. The National Government and many of the States have found it necessary to enact legislation requiring standard paper and ink to be used for public records. Effort has been made for similar legislation in Virginia, but so far it has been ineffectual.

It is always deplorable when valuable Virginia material is allowed to go out of the State because the State Library, handicapped by its meager funds, is unable to compete with collectors and dealers and the more prosperous libraries of other States. This was true when the valuable Brock collection was sold to the Henry E. Huntington Library at San Marino, Cal. But surely Virginia can afford to restore and preserve the old manuscript volumes she already has which are invaluable to historians and research workers, and surely she can take the proper steps to insure standard paper and ink being used for her records of today which will also be invaluable to future generations.