Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Robert Thruston Hubard Farm Journal, Accession #8039-c , Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This journal was given to the University of Virgina Library by William Stebbins Hubard of Roanoke, Virginia, on December 13, 1999.

Scope and Content Information

This farm journal belonged to Robert Thruston Hubard (1808-1871) of "Chellowe," Buckingham County, Virginia, and includes farm accounts from September 26, 1835 to December 1846. The journal contains clear and very detailed accounts of tobacco and wheat farming expenses and receipts as well as personal and family expenses. At one point in the journal, Hubard stops to commend to his sons and every man his practice of keeping a "register of receipts and payments" for his own economic health (1841 Dec 5; 1846 Dec).

The first page of the journal begins with a memorandum concerning the administration of the estate of Hubard's mother, by his brother, Edmund W. Hubard which lasted until January 1, 1835. As part of the settlement of his mother's estate, Robert T. Hubard had received a tract of mountainous land called the Tye River tract which he sold to William Harvey on September 26, 1835 (see second entry in journal).

Near the back of the journal are two inventories of slaves with notes on births and deaths called "Names of Negroes owned by Robert T. Hubard in Nelson in 1837, with their ages ascertained to the fall of 1837" and "Names of Negroes owned by Robert T. Hubard in Buckingham in 1837, with their ages ascertained to the fall of 1837."

Another reference to named slaves includes the murder of "Joe" (age 24) by the "other Joe" (age 24), who was condemned to death by the Nelson County   Court and then pardoned by Governor Gilmer, who sent him out of the United States instead of having him hung (1841 Sep 28). Hubard also refers to the purchase of a male slave, George, "at Maysville under execution" from the sheriff of Buckingham County (1842 Jan 10). Hubard also refers to expenses related to his service in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Another topic of interest is a penciled account in a different hand of political controversy over activities at the Republican state and national conventions in 1896 to control the state chairman and deprive the minority delegates of their right to participate. The author writes an eleven page description of how one faction refused to recognize the Virginia state chairman, Colonel [William ?] Lamb (1835-1905) of Norfolk, chosen by the convention and their mistreatment of him at St. Louis. Other individuals mentioned in this attempt to remove Lamb from the chairmanship of the party include Edmund Waddill, Jr. (1855-1931) and Park Agnew (1847-?) of Alexandria, who became state Republican Chairman in 1900.

The journal records Hubard's expenses for a trip with his family to the White Sulphur Springs and Hot Springs (1839 Sep 11), where he includes his comments about the springs, "that sink hole of extravagance, gambling and vice for many young and unmarried men" . . . "If either of my sons should after or before my death visit the Virginia springs, for health and I hope they will never go for any other purpose, may heaven in its mercy guard & defend them from all the evil, the seduction & corrupting influences of those dull, disagreeable and dangerous places."

Hubard gives additional advice about debt and economy at the end of his account of the expenses involved in remodeling his house (1837, at the end of his regular accounts), followed by several pork and agricultural memoranda concerning the "Rosny Estate," his wife's property after the death of her father in January 1835, and the "Tye River Estate," in Nelson County .