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Special Collections Research Center
William & Mary Special Collections Research CenterFinding Aid Authors: Ellen R. Strong, Matthew Niendorf, Del Moore.
Collection is open to all researchers. Before publishing quotations or excerpts from any materials, permission must be obtained from the Manuscripts and Rare Books Librarian, and the holder of the copyright, if not Swem Library. Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, such as the Virginia Public Records Act (Code of Virginia. § 42.1-76-91); and the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (Code of Virginia § 2.2-3705.5). Confidential material may include, but is not limited to, educational, medical, and personnel records. If sensitive material is found in this collection, please contact a staff member immediately. The disclosure of personally identifiable information pertaining to a living individual may have legal consequences for which the College of William and Mary assumes no responsibility.
Wilkin Family Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.
Acquired: 05/07/1939. Acquisition Note: Source: C. J. Carrier of Bridgewater, VA. Exchange.
Preliminary description by Ellen R. Strong in 2002. Sorted by Matthew Niendorf in 2014. Revised and updated by Del Moore in 2015.
More than 600 items from the period 1757 to 1922, with the bulk falling between 1780 and 1870. Most items reference members of the Wilkin/Wilkins family of Shenandoah County, Virginia, particularly Godfrey, John, Philip, Benomi, and Benjamin Wilkin. Other surnames include Gochenauer, Layman, Funkhauser, Koock, and Miller. Most documents are financial or legal, such as receipts, promissory notes, account statements, and probate records. There is some correspondence, as well as a few documents relating to military service in the Revolutionary period and the affairs of the German Reformed Church. Numerous items are written in the German language.
The collection is arranged chronologically within 5 series.
These include tax documents, receipts, promissory notes, and account statements.
Most items are receipts for payment of parish levies and taxes on real estate and personal property.
Receipts acknowledge payments for purchases, services, and debts.
Promissory notes indicate terms for the repayment of loans or payments for services provided.
These items range from brief mention of an item purchased to several pages from a firm's account book.
These include probate records, copies of deeds and indentures, receipts for recording or issuing court documents, and orders to a sheriff to summon witnesses.
In most cases the deceased are members of the Wilkin family or Wilkin family members are administrators of the estates. Among the deceased are Jacob Coffman, multiple Godfrey Wilkins, Benjamin Layman, John Wilkin, Jacob Wilkin, and Peter Miller.
These include copies of deeds, receipts for recording deeds or registering inherited land, boundary descriptions, and a property sale notice.
Included are a guardian indenture, an apprentice indenture, receipts for issuing and recording court documents, vouchers for payments to witnesses, orders to a sheriff to summon witnesses, and receipts for payment of court settlements.
There are about thirty letters and notes and four empty envelopes.
John Wilkin is the writer or recipient of many items. Some are to or from relatives who have moved to the Midwest. Topics include land, crops, finding wives, and money. Some correspondence with a Mr. E. Duvall involves forming a Branch Society related to alchemy and mining.
There are four empty envelopes; addressees are Isaiah Funkhauser, Dr. E. Duvall, and John Wilkins.
This material includes items relating to military service, church business, medicine, and poetry. There also are newspaper clippings and other printed ephemera, as well as numerous fragments and scribbles.
These ten items include certificates for service, supplies, and attendance at a Court Martial during or just after the Revolution. A return for May 1815 of a company of Virginia militia commanded by Captain Samuel Bare has numbers only – no names.
These three items include an 1841 letter (without signatures) to the German Reformed Church of Woodstock stating why thirty-nine members are withdrawing their membership, an 1854 request for subscribers to pay for a new preacher in German and English in North Mountain Gorge, and a petition signed by more than one hundred members of Evangelic German Reformed congregations in Shenandoah County asking that the German-speaking Rev. John Kessler be given permission to take charge as their minister.
These eight items include medical prescriptions and lists of chemicals.
There are three poems of unknown origin, though one has three or four names on the back, including Edwina V. Hatfield.
Among about twenty-five items are candidate lists for an 1873 election in Shenandoah County, newspaper clippings, Sunday school lessons, blank checks, ads for medical products, and a large ad for a Bible.
There are approximately fifty items, most of which range from small fragments to significant portions of various types of documents. Other items include scrap paper with scribbles and a page of repetitions of statements apparently assigned to a student for disciplinary purposes.
These thirty-five documents apparently are written in German or a combination of German and English. There are a variety of formats, but translation is required to reveal purpose and content.