Online Edition Copyright © 2010 EagleRidge Technologies, Inc..
Used with permission.

Editor's Notes: About This 2010 Online Edition of Foote's Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical, Book 1:

William Henry Foote wrote his 1850 Sketches of Virginia in answer to an assignment to gather the history of the Presbyterian church in Virginia. His emphasis is on the history of the Scotch-Irish and on the beginnings of democracy in America. His tome is hardly a religious history although it is a record of the growth of churches in Virginia. It is rather a history of a people vying for subsistence, equality, and self-government in a new and strange land. Foote deals with the Revolutionary War and the personalities involved, but since he published before the Civil War, the War between the States is not mentioned. Some of the most interesting stories to come out of the Revolutionary War were recounted originally in Foote.

In this online edition we have tried to faithfully reproduce the book in a freely available, fully searchable online format readable in popular browsers. Clearly marked annotations and internal links have been added where they seemed useful and appropriate and can often be accessed by holding the mouse over the highlighted section. Editor's notes on misspellings, etc., are inserted inside curly brackets: {}.

We welcome constructive comments on this edition as well as on our other publications.

Reverend Foote quoted a great deal from other historians. He used their wording and spelling which are not modern twenty-first century wording and spelling. I found the original very easy to read without much translation. Where I found a difficulty I attempted to make the wording clear.

The greatest problem that I found was that, at that time, there was no set spelling for names. Smith might be Smythe, Thompson might be Tomason or Tomson. The spellings are almost interchangeable. Foote knew all these authors by their last names as they were current in his intellectual circles. He rarely used a first name for any man. I have tried to annotate this volume with as much information about the people he mentions as I was able to find. Some of the notes are long, but most are worth reading.

Early printers used to gratuiously insert spaces before various forms of punctuation. I find this disconcerting and have removed these spaces.

Suggested citation examples:

• Print citation of page 33:
  Foote, Rev. W.H.. (2010). Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical, Book 1. (p. 33). (Electronic ed.). Rockwood, TN: EagleRidge Technologies. (Original work published 1850). Retrieved December 31, 2010, from
  http://www.roanetnhistory.org/foote-virginia.php?loc=Foote-Sketches-Virginia-First&pgid=41
• Scholarly online citation of page 59:
  Foote, Rev. W.H.. (2010). Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical, Book 1. (p. 59). (Electronic ed.). Rockwood, TN: EagleRidge Technologies. (Original work published 1850). Retrieved December 31, 2010, from
  http://www.roanetnhistory.org/foote-virginia.php?loc=Foote-Sketches-Virginia-First&pgid=67
  HTML code:
  Foote, Rev. W.H.. (2010). <i>Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical, Book 1.</i> (p. 59). (Electronic ed.). Rockwood, TN: <a href="http://www.ertin.com">EagleRidge Technologies</a>. (Original work published 1850). Retrieved December 31, 2010, from<br /> <a href="http://www.roanetnhistory.org/foote-virginia.php?loc=Foote-Sketches-Virginia-First&pgid=67">http://www.roanetnhistory.org/foote-virginia.php?loc=Foote-Sketches-Virginia-First&pgid=67</a><br />
• Informal online citation of page 59:
  Source: Foote's Sketches of Virginia, Book 1 (1850) (2010 Electronic ed.), p. 59. Copyright © 2010 EagleRidge Technologies. Used with permission.
  HTML code:
  Source: <a href="http://www.roanetnhistory.org/foote-virginia.html">Foote's <i>Sketches of Virginia, Book 1 (1850)</i> (2010 Electronic ed.)</a>, <a href="http://www.roanetnhistory.org/foote-virginia.php?loc=Foote-Sketches-Virginia-First&pgid=67">p. 59</a>. Copyright © 2010 <a href="http://www.ertin.com">EagleRidge Technologies</a>. Used with permission.<br />
• Short informal online citation:
  Source: Foote's Sketches of Virginia, Book 1 (1850), 2010 Online Edition
  HTML code:
  Source: <a href="http://www.roanetnhistory.org/foote-virginia.html">Foote's <i>Sketches of Virginia, Book 1 (1850), 2010 Online Edition</i></a><br />

Credits:

• Conception, typing, scanning, editing: G. Anne Sloan.
• Database design, programming, web development: Crystal Sloan.
• Web hosting provided by EagleRidge Technologies, Inc..
• This 2010 online edition is based on the 1850 edition published by WILLIAM S. MARTIEN, 142 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA.