Manuscript Location

Washington and Lee University, Leyburn Library, Special Collections

Place of Origin

United States ➔ Virginia

Date of Composition

1830-1880

Description

This recipe book, compiled between 1830 and 1880 by an unknown person or persons in the Davidson family, is part of the library's collection of the papers of James Dorman Davidson (1808-1882). A graduate of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, of which he was a trustee for twenty-four years, Davidson practiced law in Lexington, Virginia, and wrote two books, published in the 1870s. He met with President Abraham Lincoln to discuss Virginia's secession during the Civil War, during which three of five sons died fighting for the Confederacy.  His remaining two sons predeceased him, but he was survived by two daughters.