MONIQUE HOLLAND PHOTOS, MARTINSVILLE BULLETIN
Henry County Clerk Jennifer Ashworth (left) and Library of Virginia Senior Local Records Archivist Eddie Woodward look at a book that Henry County has kept in storage.
Henry County collection dating from 1700s
MONIQUE HOLLAND
Martinsville Bulletin
Significant Henry County history is slowly but surely being preserved because of efforts by Clerk of Henry County Jennifer Ashworth and the clerk’s office in conjunction with the Library of Virginia.
A number of documents, from bonds to plans for building, have been identified and set aside to make up a collection that will be presented for a grant to be preserved properly and more effectively. This collection includes documents with signatures from prominent historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Benjamin Harrison, John Tyler and Patrick Henry.
One book in the collection from 1777, the year Henry County was founded, is a list of the minutes from the first time the court ever went into session, such as appointing a clerk of the court.
Another book details records from 1777 for reports of stray cattle, and yet another is the bond for the first area ordinary (tavern).
Henry County Clerk Jennifer Ashworth holds a book full of stray cattle reports from the 1700s.
Other documents include: a bond for Josiah Carter for the construction of the first courthouse in 1780; a bond, dimensions and floor plan for the construction of the 1793 courthouse which was built around that original courthouse; the Town of Martinsville plan from 1817 that had been copied from the original plan made in 1792; plans for the prison; and one for renovations on the courthouse. The most important of the collection, Ashworth said, is an original land deed written and signed by King George III in 1774. The deed is written on sheepskin.
Ashworth said she thinks that the documents, not necessarily related in content, were pulled out for educational purposes in the past, stored in a vault and now rediscovered.
Library of Virginia Senior Local Records Archivist Eddie Woodward is working in Henry County with Ash worth and the Henry County Circuit Court Clerk’s office to preserve these records through the Circuit Courts Record Preservation Program (CCPR) supported by the Virginia Court Clerks Association and the Library of Virginia.
This is done through grants funded by a $3.50 recordation fee on land transactions in clerk’s offices. The Library of Virginia also processes records and stores them in Richmond.
History
Many of Henry County’s records are stored there; chancery court case documents are digitized and are available online.
Woodward travels around the state of Virginia to assist clerks with conservation and preservation needs and since Ashworth is applying for grants with CCRP, he has been to Henry County a number of times to help her in the archive where the older documents are stored.
Ashworth has been working in the clerk’s office since 1989 and was elected clerk in 2016, which is when she started working with Woodward and CCRP to begin preserving significant documents in Henry County history.
A grant for the current cycle has been approved, and the next round will be in the fall, which is the grant the collection mentioned will be considered for, Woodward said. The collection was found when Frances Wade contacted him to look through storage and they found the documents.
Wade originally contacted him to look into 1900s records in the archives room, which is open to the public and not nearly as significant as the documents that eventually resurfaced.
The more significant documents were found when Ashworth was going through the vault in her office with the intention to purge court trial exhibits eligible to be destroyed and in the process found the collection. This caused her to reach back out to Woodward to let him know she had something else for him to come look at.
MONIQUE HOLLAND PHOTOS, MARTINSVILLE BULLETIN This document is an 1817 copy of a 1792 plan for the Town of Martinsville. The original document is still at the court house, but is not in good condition.
This collection of documents has been set aside to become a collection to be preserved through a grant from the CCRP.
Typically, documents were originally stored as loose records typically trifolded and stored in Wood ruff drawers, and over the years conservation efforts by the county led them to being unfolded to be flat filed, repaired with tape, stored in page protector sleeves and in binders and sometime laminated. Though Woodward said this storage method is not bad, it is just not professionally done and it can be improved upon by replacing backing paper with an acid-free paper, removing tape that was used to repair tears and removing lamination.
Should they receive the grant, the collection will be properly preserved through CCPR by being “mended, de-acidified, folded and put into a box,” Woodward said. Woodward added that the rarity of the documents depends on the situation, saying that documents with famous signatures would have been in other court houses they just hadn’t been preserved for various reasons.
“Henry County has a lot of records that survived over the years,” Woodward said, which could be as a result of not having courthouse fires or raids that otherwise could have resulted in the destruction of records.
“It’s the history of Henry County,” Ashworth said. “To think that we have records that go back as far as they do and how the county was the foundation … how the county was built … how things have evolved is just unbelievable.”
“I was really surprised, happy, shocked, pleased when I got here and they showed me all of these records,” Woodward said when he found these documents instead of “1960s computer punch cards” which, while still significant, are nowhere near as interesting as what they found.
“I usually look for items in there that are good candidates for conservation grants,” Woodward said. Lately he has been going through marriage bonds and licenses which, when properly stored, can be useful for genealogists to study.
“I feel confident once the CCRP members [grant review board] realize what we have here … that they will award the grant to Henry County,” Ashworth said. “To hit this little treasure and having it pre served … is very exciting and I’m just very proud to be at this point to see this take place.”