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Size | 4.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 39 volumes items) |
Abstract | Head of the Episcopal High School for boys in Alexandria, Va., 1870-1913. Blackford's diaries cover his education and boyhood in Lynchburg, Va., teaching and administrative activities at the Episcopal High School for boys at Alexandria, Va., social and Episcopal church affairs in Alexandria, and fourteen trips to Europe. There is a gap between 1856 and 1872. |
Creator | Blackford, Launcelot Minor, 1837-1914. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Linda Sellars, June 1997
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
Finding aid updated by: Amanda Loeb, 2013
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Launcelot Minor Blackford was born in Fredericksburg, Va., in 1837. His parents were Mary Berkley Minor and William M. Blackford. Blackford spent his childhood in Lynchburg, Va. He was educated at the University of Virginia, 1855-1859. He served as a lieutenant in the Confederate Army.
After the Civil War, Blackford was principal of Norwood School in Nelson County, Va., 1865-1870. He was head master of Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va., from 1870 until 1913.
On 5 August 1884, Launcelot Minor Blackford married Elizabeth Chew Ambler. They had four children.
Blackford died in May 1914.
Back to TopThis collection contains 39 volumes of the diaries of Launcelot Minor Blackford, 1847-1913, with a gap from 1856 to 1872.
The first seven volumes cover the years, 1847-1855, when Blackford was a child and young man in Lynchburg, Va. They give daily accounts in detail of boyhood games; schooling at a private school managed by his father, who hired a teacher for his own and several other boys; social activities; and family life. Blackford described assisting his father in work at the post office; a newspaper printed by the boys; chemistry experiments by and with his father, including an "electrical machine"; and drawing classes conducted by his mother. He wrote a great deal about activities in the Episcopal Church and Sunday School; temperance meetings and organizations; social events;, swimming and fishing in the creek; visits from friends and members of family; and journeys by stage, train, or boat, to other parts of Virginia to visit them. Many references are made to members of Minor, Blackford, Gwatkins, Davis, and other families.
Volumes 8-11, 1873-1878, give daily notations of events of Blackford's life as Head of the Episcopal High School for boys, his duties and anxieties as to studies, discipline of the boys, his visitors and social life, and trips to Washington, Baltimore, Richmond, and to Rawley Springs, Va.
Also included are travel diaries describing fourteen trips to Europe and copies of articles by Blackford from Southern Churchman describing the trips. An index of Blackford's summer trips, 1876-1908, listing his companions and cities visited may be found in the front of typed volumes XXVII and XXVIII.
Typed transcriptions of the diaries are available.
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