Preservation of Historical Papers

On 19 January 1872 Senate Bill 8, draft legislation proposing the securing of "the preservation of historical papers in the Capitol building" was read for the first time before the House of Delegates. According to this draft, a multitude of manuscripts and other documents, most of which related to the rich history of Virginia, lay in disorder and neglect on the top floor of the capitol. When the bill was signed into law on February 7, 1872, Dr. William Price Palmer of Richmond was charged by the legislature to oversee the organization, indexing, and preservation of the papers.

The documents found by Palmer and his colleagues in the upper chambers of the state house encompassed an extensive period of time and dealt with a great number of topics. Ranging in date from 1652 to 1869, the documents included land grants, public and private correspondence, court proceedings, and various other records.

In the act of February 7, the legislature authorized the executive committee of the Virginia Historical Society to publish any items from the records, or a description thereof, that may be deemed of sufficient interest and use to others. Palmer, also a member of this committee, accepted the ambitious task of compiling a comprehensive calendar of the papers for publication. In the first volume of this series, he expressed his opinion that unless examined as part of a larger whole, the documents would be of little or no use to historians and researchers. Four additional volumes of the series were completed under Palmer's thorough supervision. In the end, eleven volumes would be published. Today, the valuable series known as the Calendar of Virginia State Papers is of great use to students of the history and culture of the commonwealth.