Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

Retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Launcelot Minor Blackford Diaries #68, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Typed transcriptions available.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Ambler M. Blackford and brothers, Jacksonville, Fla., in 1939 and from Sally-Bruce Blackford McClatchey, 1976-1997.

Sensitive Materials Statement

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, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Linda Sellars, June 1997

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Finding aid updated by: Amanda Loeb, 2013

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Alexandria (Va.)--Religious life and customs.
• Alexandria (Va.)--Social life and customs.
• Blackford, Launcelot Minor, 1837-1914.
• Church schools--Virginia.
• Diaries (Blank-books)
• Episcopal Church--Education--History.
• Episcopal Church--Virginia--History.
• Episcopal High School (Alexandria, Va.)--History.
• Europe--Description and travel.
• Schools--Virginia--Alexandria.
• Virginia--Diaries.

• Blackford Family Papers (#1912);
• Launcelot Minor Blackford School Record Book, Special Collections Library, Duke University Library.

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.

This 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.

• Volume I-XXVIII.