July 2nd - 8th The Last Four Libraries

The man for whom Dinwiddie County is named -
Robert Dinwiddie from Ronald Seagrave collection

On July 5th while in Mecklenburg County I visited the library in South Hill. They had four whole shelves of genealogy and county history books, and I was thrilled. I set up camp at a nearby table, adjusting the furniture so I could plug in my laptop for the duration. Then I started with the top row of shelf number one and worked my way through to the bottom row of shelf four. It took a couple hours or more. I checked the titles of each book and took down all that had any potential.

While on this trip I’ve been dutiful to enter sources into my Research Log. My log is an EXCEL file with separate tabs for each family name. The Pattillo tab has 151 listed sources. This is a tremendous help for avoiding looking at the same source twice. Though there are times when I do so purposely. For example, on this trip I expanded my research to include new family names. There is a comments column on my spreadsheet where I make notes of what names I look up in each reference and something about what I found, so I might have looked at Pattillo and Land in 2014 and would now check Phillips and Moseley – two maternal family names. Of course it is equally important to record references where you find nothing, so you don’t bother with those a second time.

Photo of the historic Dinwiddie courthouse from "Dinwiddie
County The Countrey of the Apamatica" compiled by the
Writers Program of the WPA

At South Hill I also expanded my county research to include Brunswick, Lunenberg and Dinwiddie Counties – all places my ancestors lived prior to migrating to Mecklenburg.  I found the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Patriot Index, also four books on Early Wills, Early Settlers, Family Records and Bible Records all for Mecklenburg. The South Hill collection included a well-written Hutchison Family History published in 1968. I studied it briefly and decided to copy the entire 88 page book.

Several of the documents that were of interest to me were written by Katherine B. Elliott who lived in South Hill. One such book was a synopsis of Revolutionary War Records for Mecklenburg County that included one Pattillo and four Phillips relations.

I like this illustration on the inside cover of the book

When I finally finished reviewing each book I packed up and headed for the Tobacco Museum but I arrived fifteen minutes after they’d closed - darn.  Disappointed, I left South Hill and Mecklenburg County, again with some reluctance.

After driving until I was tired I sought a place to camp and found Fort Pickens RV Park. I hit the “navigation” button on my iPhone app and headed that way. When the speaker directed me towards a military base I thought something must be wrong and ignored the directions. A few miles later the same thing happened. I was a little low on gas and was too tired to chase around. There were no other campgrounds in the vicinity, so on the fourth pass I finally drove onto the Fort Pickens Military Base to ask directions to the RV Park. There the soldier at the entry gate told me, “Yes, there’s an RV park on the base. Just turn left here, right on 10^th Street and you’ll see the site on your right.” It wasn’t much but it was only $11 for the night including electric and water hookups.  So, I spent the night on a military base and felt very safe.

The following day after finishing at the courthouse I checked the Dinwiddie Library. It was a sweet little building but housed only a single book of interest that I dutifully reviewed and made a few copies.

Dinwiddie Library

Next was the library in Hopewell where I hoped to find more sources for Dinwiddie County but their archive room was closed and the one woman who could unlock the door was unavailable until the following week. After checking their shelved books, I left feeling only mildly disappointed for by now I could feel myself losing steam.

July 8^th Virginia Library – my last research stop.

This day I returned to the State Library of Virginia in their capital city Richmond. I did research there in 2014 but knew there was more to find so looked forward to going back and finding what I’d missed previously.  The highlight of my 2014 visit was being allowed to handle and photograph original documents, so when I arrived this time that is the first thing I headed for. I was very disappointed to learn that since 2014 all those documents have been scanned and are now available on microfilm. The thrill of holding the originals gone and the ability to make quality copies compromised. I understand why they did it but was still a disappointment.

Photo of the Boydton Courthouse from 1905 provided by
Ruth Crowder

I selected a few rolls of film and searched through them but without much enthusiasm. But my efforts paid off by producing the wills of Pettus Phillips a 4^th great grandfather, Edward Pattillo a 3^rd great granduncle, Curtis Land a 6^th great granduncle, and wills for three Land brothers that were 4^th great granduncles. I found a couple of indentures for James Pattiloe/Pattillo dated 1778 and 1779 but the real prize for the day was a Homestead document for my second great grandfather James H. Pattillo. It listed what he paid for the land including one mule, six head of cattle, one hog, farming implements valued at $5, household and kitchen furniture valued at $60 plus the entire crop of wheat on hand, and all other crops he would produce in the year 1880. I’m not sure if he got a good deal or not.

Having exhausted all that I could think to check in their microfilm collection I tackled a few books but only half-heartedly. At this point I’d been travelling and doing research intensively for 66 days and even though I knew the State Library had much more to offer I just could not bring myself to open one more book to scan the index or thread one more reel of microfilm onto a reader. I was tired of scanning, photographing and assigning names to files. I could do no more, so I left the library an hour before it closed and headed for my reserved campsite at Americamps RV Resort in Ashland, Virginia.

Colored lights and decorations at the Americamps RV Resort

As I write this, I’ve been traveling for 77 days. During the trip I’ve visited six courthouses in four states, sixteen libraries, and I made 3390 copies of pages of documents. This should keep me busy and content for a while. I’ll write another story for the CGS Blog when I have a tally of all the new ancestors I have found and will discover as I process all this new information – stay tuned. 

Winfield Scott from the Library of Congress. I
copied this because I have an ancestor named
after him

This is the Homestead document for James H. Pattillo

Illustration of a tobacco auction in Clarksville, Virginia. Mecklenburg
County was the 3rd largest producer of tobacco in the state.

One of Elliott's books. This one summarizing wills in
Mecklenburg County. This page lists Phillips ancestors

The Butler Rittenhouse family, 1905, Mecklenburg.
No relation but I wish there were because I like the photo