Saturday, August 09, 2008

Dabney Carr's Library

One of Thomas Jefferson's best friends during the early part of his life was Dabney Carr (1743-1773), who grew up near Jefferson, attended school with him, and even went on to marry Jefferson's youngest sister Martha in 1765. Carr died at age 30, at the start of what almost certainly would have been a distinguished political/legal career.

I've used a small portion of this week to catalog Carr's library into LT, drawing from the inventory of Carr's estate taken at the time of his death. It's an interesting little collection, very indicative of what a young, educated, legal-minded Virginian would have had on his bookshelves in the middle of the eighteenth century.