The Dictionary of Virginia Biography is published online through a partnership with Encyclopedia Virginia. Biographies that do not also appear in the three print volumes (surnames Aaroe�Daniels) link to lists of sources consulted.
Sources consulted for the biography of:Ballard Trent Edwards (c. 1828–1881)
Primary Sources
- Chesterfield County Marriage Register, Library of Virginia
- February 11, 1871 application (no. 2492), Registers of Signatures of Depositors, Freedman's Savings and Trust Company (1865–1874), Records of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Record Group 101, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
- Property ownership recorded in Chesterfield County Deed Books 53, 56, 61, 65, and in Land Tax Returns, Chesterfield County and Manchester, Record Group 48, Library of Virginia
- Mount Olivet Cemetery Burial Register (undated entry with age at death 52 years, 5 months, 17 days)
- variant life dates, 1830–1881, on gravestone inscription, Mount Olivet Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia
Political Career
- 1869 election results in General Orders and Circulars, Headquarters First Military District, 1869 (1870), "Summary of the Result for the Election for Members of the House of Delegates of Virginia, Held July 6, 1869," 4, 6, 9
- 1871 election results in Election Record No. 3, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Election Records, 1776–1941, Accession 26041, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia
- Journal of the House of Delegates of the State of Virginia for the Session of 1869–70 (1870), 74, 90–91, 95, 106–107, 112 (second quotation), 208, 269, 308, 348, 393 (third quotation)
- Journal of the House of Delegates of the State of Virginia for the Session of 1869–71 (1871), 126
- Journal of the House of Delegates of the State of Virginia for the Session of 1874 (1874), 4
Secondary Sources
- Biography in Luther Porter Jackson, Negro Office Holders in Virginia, 1865–1895 (1945), 13–14, 74, 76, 77 (photograph)
- Robert W. Waitt Jr., "Ballard T. Edwards: A Forgotten Black Leader," Richmond Literature and History Quarterly 1 (1979): 47–49 (which embellishes family and local traditions and contains several demonstrable errors)
- Numerous references in Traveling On . . . First Baptist, South Richmond, Today and The First Fifty Years, 1821–1921, volume 1 (1993, 1999)
Newspapers
- Richmond Daily Dispatch, July 9, 1869 (first quotation); July 10, 1869; July 12, 1869; November 8, 1871; November 9, 1871
- Norfolk Journal and Guide, February 16, 1946
Obituaries (all misidentifying Edwards as a former member of the Senate of Virginia)
- Richmond State, March 28, 1881
- Richmond Daily Dispatch, March 29, 1881
- Richmond Daily Whig, March 29, 1881
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