A Guide to the Powhatan County (Va.) Health and Medical Records, 1810-1904, #1173938

Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Powhatan County (Va.) Health and Medical Records, 1810-1904. Local government records collection, Powhatan County Court Records, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

This collection came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from Powhatan County circuit court.

Historical Information

Mental Health Records may consist of a variety of documents that historically were referred to as lunacy papers in the courthouses of Virginia localities and municipalities.

For historical information regarding mental health hospitals and facilities referenced in this collection,see agency histories for Eastern State Hospital (Va.), Western State Hospital (Va.), and Central State Hospital (Petersburg, Va.).

See also: Fiduciary Records. A fiduciary is an individual who enters into a confidential and legal relationship which binds them to act on behalf of another. Guardians are legally invested to take care of another person, and of the property and rights of that person. Thus, some records referred to as insanity papers are housed with fiduciary records and not with mental health records.

By 1792, Virginia's General Assembly enacted very strict laws governing the practice of inoculation. The new act required a license from the county court to administer vaccinations. It also included a penalty of $1,500 or six months' imprisonment for anyone willfully spreading smallpox in a manner other than that specified by the act.

Powhatan County was named for the paramount chief of the Powhatan Indians in the tidewater of Virginia in the late sixteenth and early years of the seventeenth century. It was formed from Cumberland County in 1777, and part of Chesterfield County was added in 1850.

Scope and Content

Powhatan County (Va.) Health and Medical Records, 1810-1904 consist of three folders of Mental Health Records and one folder of Smallpox Epidemic Records.

Mental Health Records contain commitment papers, which may include warrants, orders, petitions, depositions, reports, etc. for or by justices of the peace and others regarding the mental condition of individuals who were released to the recognizance of a family member or who were recommended to be committed to a mental hospital. Mental hospitals and facilities operating as such may be referenced throughout this collection, namely Eastern Lunatic Asylum, Western Lunatic Asylum, and Central Lunatic Asylum (Petersburg). Fiduciary records such as estate inventories of a person judged insane may also be present. Many individuals are persons of color. The earliest item is of Samuel Coy, a free person of color, recommended to the Asylum at Williamsburg in 1810. Other items of interest include Thomas A. Taylor's 1820 estate inventory with 16 named enslaved people and the records of Mary Gills between 1875 and 1877. She spent over a year confined as a lunatic in the local jail, where she died in March 1877.

Smallpox Epidemic Records pertain to events and outbreaks in 1838, 1882, and 1894. Records for March 1838 reference the sheriff collecting for costs of care of smallpox patients who were either free persons of color or enslaved persons hospitalized between January and March at either Fine Creek Armory or the house of Rachel Cole, who was a free person of color. Magistrate reports contain insightful comments regarding vaccination. In September 1882, a suspected smallpox outbreak was determined to have been the result of a spider bite. A March 1894 smallpox outbreak near Clayville is also documented. Mattie Trent, an employee of Powhatan Clay works, had been diagnosed and quarantined, as were others to whom she had been exposed. Most employees were then vaccinated, and others were scheduled to be vaccinated by Dr. St. J. Oppenhimer after the date of the report.