I can surely speak on behalf of every historian on this list:

Thank you! 

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  

I have been eagerly awaiting publication of this material for more years now than I care to think--it will be a huge improvement on the early transcripts I have been using.

Your hard and careful work is truly, deeply, and much appreciated.

All warm regards,
Kevin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 09:48:18 -0400
>From: "Edmund Berkeley, Jr." <[log in to unmask]>  
>Subject: Robert "king" Carter project finished  
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>I am pleased to report that my electronic edition, "The Diary,
>Correspondence, and Papers of Robert 'King' Carter of Virginia, 1701-1732,"
>(http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/users/berkeley/) is essentially finished. I
>have some cleanup and checking to do but that work probably won't be visible
>to users of the site. 
>
>Scholar's Lab at the University of Virginia Library (successor to the
>Electronic Text Center) hosts the site, and has a pretty good search
>capability in place after some teething problems when new software was
>installed around the first of this year. A search pulls up the section of
>text in which the searched word appears. One can also pull up the
>bibliographic header. Unfortunately the "Full Text" link does not work, but
>one can find that by going to the "Read and Search The Transcribed Texts"
>screen where all the documents in the database are listed chronologically.
>
>It has been said of Carter (in his obituaries and in many places since his
>death) that he owned 1,000 slaves when he died on August 4, 1732. My
>spreadsheet total of his slaves as enumerated in the extensive inventory of
>his estate shows 745 slaves held on nearly sixty quarters in eight Virginia
>counties. I have created an alphabetical list (available on the website) of
>those slaves that shows their family members, farm or quarter where held,
>county, and work skill if given.
>
>I commend the sections of Carter's inventory that list the goods in his
>Brick House Store to those interested in everyday life in the colony. I was
>startled, for instance, at the variety of fabrics held by the store, and had
>to mine many sources to identify some of them. My particular thanks go to
>Liinda Baumgarten, curator of textiles and costumes at Colonial
>Williamsburg, for her generous and patient assistance with my many inquiries.
>
>I also commend the inventory's lists of the many books--some 300--that
>Carter owned, predominantly legal and theological, but including some
>history and other topics.. Whenever possible, I have included in footnotes
>the full title of each book to expand the brief entry in the inventory. It
>has not always been easy to determine some titles even with online access to
>the English Short Title Catalogue and the many national library catalogues.
>
>If you should find an error in the material on the site, please let me know
>about it. Making changes and corrections is now very easy for me to do with
>the new software.
>
>Ned Berkeley
>
>______________________________________
>To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
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Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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