We enjoyed very much the visit to campus of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Co-Moderator, Valmarie Cintrón-Olivieri.  We gave her a tour of the beautiful William Smith Morton Library, and then a peek at a treasure of the history of Presbyterianism in Virginia.  This manuscript book contains the Minutes of the Synod of Virginia, founded in 1788 (the year the Constitution of the new United States of America was ratified).  It faithfully records in detail the business of the Synod, in beautiful 18th-century handwriting, offering a meaningful link to the Presbyterian church here through the centuries.

We also showed her the Makemie Desk (just visible in the background), owned by Francis Makemie, who came to the colony of Virginia in 1683 from Ireland and began the first four Presbyterian congregations.  Our Library also houses the manuscript minutes of the Presbytery of Hanover, founded by Samuel Davies in 1755.  We are now engaged in a digitizing project intended to make high-quality scans of these precious documents available for research online.  This page provides access to the volumes we have completed so far.