The Morven Plantation Family Letters

The Morven Plantation Family Letters gathers letters and documents written between 1813 and 1857 by David Baldwin's ancestors (David and Mary Higginbotham and their children) who lived on land once owned by Thomas Jefferson, on the plantation they called Morven.

It is a work of family history and preservation: original voices from the early nineteenth century, transcribed and set in order so that a scattered archive can be read as a single story. The same devotion to family that animates Baldwin's poetry drives this book, here turned toward the generations that came before.

Readers drawn to the family history in these pages will recognize the impulse behind Wheel of Water, whose “Family Memories” move from these deep roots to the poet's own mid-century childhood.