Virginia History

The Virginia Writers Project includes essays on historical aspects of our state. We invite historians and authors with an interest to get involved. Each topic below links to a published story as an electronic copy. 

 
Volume 1 Spring 2023  (stories linked below)

• A Letter to the Citizens of Virginia Beach

• Fiercest of Fires: the Great Orange Fires of 1889, 1908, and 1909

• Samuel Scollay Moore

• Through the Shadow: A Boy’s Memories of the Civil War

• The 1809 Slave Hanging in Montgomery County

• The Marion Democrat 1893-1895

• The Hampton Poorhouse

• The Unwritten law & the 1907 Trial of W. G. Loving

• The Lee Camp for the Civilian Conservation Corps

• The McCue Murder

• The Commonwealth of VA v. James A. and Philip J. Strother

• Images of Wythe County

• “Out of the Ashes We will Rise Again”: The Wytheville Fire of 1924

• The Virginia Guide
   

Volume 1 Summer 2023  (stories linked below)

• Illustration “The Underground Railroad”

• CCC 357 Damascus, Washington County

• The Temperance Cause in Southampton County

• Aubrey E. Strode, Amherst Judge and State Senator

• Alvin Harris vs Commonwealth of Virginia

• Charles Tyler Botts–Printer & Adventurer

• Camp A.A. Humphreys, then Ft. Belvoir, VA

• “Uncle Ned”

• Briscoe Bouldin’s Life on the Randolph Plantation

• Splendid Demonstration of Patriotism: Boy Scout Potato Camps of WWI 

• Who “Ruled” Carroll County in 1912: The Law or the Allen Family?

• Glendon Boyd ~ Master Craftsman
   

Volume 1 Winter 2023  (stories linked below)

• Treasures Beneath Philpott Lake

• “Jack” Lynch Lee, Jr. ~ Lynchburg Attorney

• The 1919 Cadet John Fox Hazing at V.P.I.

• Cottolene

• The Circus in Virginia

• Circus Freaks Turn Faces Homeward

• Mary Randolph & The Virginia House-Wife

• The Patrick/Henry County CCC 1389 

• Rev. Philip Slaughter & Randolph Fairfax

• Gold Dust

• Humpback Bridge in Allegheny County

• Virginia’s First Eagle Scouts

• The Goochland Trial of Asa Wayne Chamberlain

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Volume 2 Spring 2024  (stories linked below)

• The Nut Cracker

• American Press Association

• Standard Sanitary and the Occanock Gas Company

• The Whitaker Ridge  Murders in Tazewell County

• The Chautauqua Movement in Virginia

• The Henry Clay Beattie Murder Trial & Beulah Binford

• Afton Mountian Car Accident 

• Silent Films in Richmond Theaters

• Dixon's "The Clansman" & "Birth of a Nation"

• Senator Craig R. Deeds

• Senator Ghazala F. Hashmi

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Volume 2 Summer 2024  (stories linked below)

• Revenge is Sweet (1890 with historical context)

• Domestic Happiness & Biographical Note (1827)

• Captain Edwin Anderson Fulcher  (Staunton)

• The Woman’s Club of Richmond 

• The Clark Gas Stove 

• African Folk Stories 

• Isle of Wight County’s Confederate Monument 

• Carr’s Hill and Henry Martin, 1890 College Topics

• Steps Toward Equality (Fluvanna Rosenwald Schools)

 

V​olume 2 Winter 2024 (stories linked below)

• The Massie Store, Tyro Virginia

• The Life of the Rev. John Jasper

• John Jasper’s Sermon “The Sun Does Move”

• The Ministry of the Rev. Richard Wells

• History of the Richmond Community Hospital

• Newspaper Resources for the Richmond Community Hospital

• Dr. Fergie Reid: a Legacy

• Edyth Carter Beveridge,Richmond Photographer

• The Lunenburg Trials

• Newspaper Resources for the Lunenburg Trials
  
  Volume 3 Spring 2025 (titles are hyperlinks to story)

• Victor Arnautoff (1896-1979)

• Charles True Goodsell, A Reflection

• William W. Browne and the Birth of a Bank

• Saving Simon S. Walker from the Gallows

• Toothpast & Powders

• Chronology of the Virgiia Writers Club (Part I)

• A Struggle for Collective Memory