Our Collections

The Amherst County Museum & Historical Society is a combined museum & historical society. While materials in our research library can be used whenever the museum is open, archival material and artifact collections are stored in a more secure, non-public area. Arrangements must be made in advance to see archival material or artifacts in our collections.

• Archival materials

  The Museum has a number of fragile collections that require special storage considerations and limited handling. We try to minimize risk to these items by digitizing them so they can be used without handling. Some cannot be made available via internet due to copyright restrictions and some require more staff time that the Museum has available. Here is what we can offer:

  • Booklets and pamphlets
    • Berry, Silas Nashpy (b. 1864) - African American schoolteacher in Amherst County
    • Amherst County in 1907 - a booklet prepared by order of the Board of Supervisors to promote Amherst County
    • Mt. Moriah Methodist Church - a short history of Mt. Moriah Methodist Church prepared for its sesquicentennial in 1954
    • Amherst Presbyterian Church - a short history of Amherst Presbyterian Church prepared for its sesquicentennial in 1981
    • Index to Memories of Rev. R.D. Merchant: Pastor for Sixty Years of The First Baptist Church of Amherst County, Virginia, which is not digitized here (for copyright reasons), yet is available in the Museum's research library. [1935] 39 pages.
    • Pamphlet/catalog of mill furnishing equipment found at Sandidges
  • Scrapbooks
    • In 1913, Emma Ellis Saunders created a scrapbook of her activities in Amherst County. Many thanks to Charles Strickler for providing images of her scrapbook and to his family for so graciously sharing it.
    • This scrapbook of Wood family members has been graciously donated by Bill McLean.
    • The Oscar and Kate Dillard Scrapbook was donated by Elsie Carpenter of Monroe, Virginia.
    • In 1914, Greenwood H. Nowlin, Jr., compiled the scrapbooks which he titled "Scenes in Amherst County, Virginia: Amherst Court House to and in New Glasgow, on April 19, 1914"
  • Postcards and postal collections
    • The Richard Bennett collection provides a variety of postal cancellations from Amherst County and other locations in Virginia. Here's a sampling of some of the Amherst County cancellations.
  • Photograph collections
    • Selections from the Frank Cash collection, an Amherst County photographer of the early 1900s.
    • Help us with identifying veterans at the Reunion of Confederate Veterans, held at the Amherst Courthouse in 1904.
    • Artifact collections pages -- this section currently under construction

    Updated 06/27/2013