Bedford History:A Review of Local Resources

Reference Books

Non-Fiction – incl. Local Historians

Historical Fiction, Biographies

Primary Source Documents

Court Records, Museum Archives

Movies, Documentaries, Plays

Internet (genealogy, educational websites)

Reference Books – a sampling

• Adventures on the Western Waters, Vol. 1, Mary Kegley

• Virginia Frontier, F. B. Kegley

• Chalkley Chronicles (Augusta County Courthouse Records)

• Military History of Bedford County, Lula Jeter Parker

• Historical Sketch, Bedford County, Virginia, Roland G. Buford (1907)

• History of Bedford County ,Hardesty (1884)

• The Town of Bedford in Virginia, Lula Jeter Parker (1954)

• Bedford County, Virginia, 1774-1783: A Study of Participation in the war for independence, John Stephen Westerlund

• New London Today and Yesterday, Daisy I. Reed

• Working Americans, Grey House Publishing

• Virginia’s Montgomery County

Non-Fiction, incl. Local Historians

• Bound Away, David Hackett Fischer

• Cradle of America, Peter Wallenstein

• Trans-Alleghany Pioneers, John Hale

• The Great Valley Road of Virginia, Warren R. Hofstra, ed.

• TheGreat Wagon Road, by Parke Rouse, Jr.

• Historical Diary of Bedford, Virginia, USA, Peter Viemeister

• Mills of Bedford County, vol. 1 & 2, Bedford County Museum

• America Our Vanishing Landscape, Eric Sloan

• Bedford Villages, Lost and Found, Vol. 1-3, D.A.R.

• Bedford County: Images of America, Ben Martin

• Lynchburg: A City Set on Seven Hills, Clifton Potter and Dorothy Potter

• Virginia’s History (1956)

• Heroes of the American Revolution, Burke Davis

Historical Fiction & Biographies

• Follow the River, James Alexander Thom

• From Sea to Shining Sea, Thom

• Panther in the Sky, Thom

• Or Give Me Death, Ann Rinaldi

• Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, Rinaldi

• The Last Silk Dress, Rinaldi

• Coffin Quilt, Rinaldi

• Wolf by the Ears, Rinaldi

• Stonewall Jackson, James B. Robertson

• Jefferson’s Women, Jon Kukla

• Cold Mountain, Charles Frasier

• If Trouble Don’t Kill Me, Ralph Berrier

Primary Source DocumentsLetters, Journals, Ledgers, Family Narratives

• Escape From Indian Captivity, John Ingles

• Repairing the March of Mars, John Roper, ed.

• One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickok Reports on the Great Depression, Richard Mowitt & Maurine Beasley, eds.

• Travels in North America by the Marquis de Chastellux, Howard C. Rice, Jr., ed.

• Dear Miss Kit: Letters to Katherine McClanahan Ingles (1903-1906), Ellen Apperson Brown, ed.

Court House Records, Museum Archives

• Cemetery Records

• Birth Records

• Marriage Records

• Maps

• Deeds & other court records

• Scrap Books

• Newspaper Clippings

• Journals & Diaries

• Ledgers & Day-books

• Genealogy & complied narrative histories by family name

Movies and Documentaries

• Civil War Documentary – Ken Burns

• John Adams – David McCullough

• Follow the River – Hallmark Movie

• Shenandoah (Jimmy Stewart, etc.)

Internet -

• Google Searches (incl. family websites)

• Ancestry.com & Genweb

• Mormans

• Museums, historical societies, state and municipal archives

• Universities (i.e. special collections at VT)

• Journals (Roanoke, Smithfield Review, etc.)

• Library of Virginia

• Newspapers (i.e. Philadelphia Gazettes , and Virginia Gazettes- eighteenth century)

• Out of print history books – many are now being offered on line for free

Lessons in Historic Methodology

• To determine if a source is trustworthy, look for footnotes and bibliographies. Check the reputation of authors, and just as in good

journalism, try and verify information by finding second and third sources.

• Here is where the skills taught in genealogy classes can come in handy, and one must try and find reliable documentation for birth, death,

marriage, military service records, etc.

• Every author has his or her own perspective and motives for writing history, so try and find out as much as possible about the author and the

historical context. For example, histories written in the 1880s tended to be romanticized and poorly documented (i.e. Trans-Alleghany Pioneers)

• For some examples of lessons Ellen Brown has learned in conducting research on her own family, look at Treasures in the Attic: Becoming a

History Detective (power point presentation – on her website)

For you…Virginia History Exchangea special online resource

• Power Point presentations: Treasures in the Attic; Mary Ingles Finds a Home in Bedford; Coming of Age on the Virginia Frontier; History Soup: a Recipe;

• Family Portraits (Harvey, Ingles, Apperson, etc.)

• Scholarly papers (on Thomas Jefferson, Mary Draper Ingles, John S. Apperson…and more)

• www.vahistoryexchange.com