Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Please use microfilm (Misc. Reels 616-620) or online collection.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Virginia. Convention of 1776. General Correspondence, Minutes, and Journals, 1774-1776. Accession 30003. State government records collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

Acquisition information unavailable.

Processing Information

The collection was processed years before a finding aid was created. The collection is roughly chronological but not completely. Some items were dated by the date the item was laid before the Convention, while others were dated by the date of the document. The encoding archivist maintained the order in which the items were originally arranged by the processing archivist.

Biographical Information

The five revolutionary conventions that provided Virginians with an alternative government between August 1, 1774, and July 5, 1776, grew out of an extralegal meeting of twenty-five members of the House of Burgesses at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg on May 30, 1774. The burgesses considered methods of protesting the closing of the port of Boston by British authorities as a punishment for the Tea Party held there in 1773. A boycott of British goods was agreed upon, and a call was issued for the full House to convene at Williamsburg on August 1, 1774, in open defiance of Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, who had prorogued the assembly. The dates of the conventions were: first, August 1-6, 1774; second, March 20-27, 1775; third, July 17-August 26, 1775; fourth, December 1, 1775-January 20, 1776; fifth, May 6-July 5, 1776. This fifth convention adjourned and was replaced the next day by the new state government organized under the Virginia Constitution of 1776.

Scope and Content

Records, 1774-1776, including abstracts, accounts, amendments, correspondence, depositions, ordinances, petitions, reports, resolutions, and other sundry items. Each item in the collection has been cataloged individually with descriptive notes. This inventory was created to have a place where each item in the collection was listed.

The collection is being digitized and is available online at: Virginia Revolutionary Conventions, 1774-1776, Digital Collection

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into two series: