C&RL News October 2018 524

G r a n t s  a n d  A c q u i s i t i o n sAnn-Christe Galloway

Ed. note: Send your grants and acquisitions to Ann-
Christe Galloway, production editor, C&RL News, email: 
agalloway@ala.org.

A gift of $2.5 million has been given to   
Washington and Lee University (W&L) to 
establish the Hal F. and Barbra Buckner 
Higginbotham University Librarian En-
dowment through a charitable deferred 
irrevocable pledge from the estate of the 
Higginbothams. John Tombarge, W&L’s 
university librarian, will hold the inau-
gural position, the first to be established 
specifically for a faculty member of the 
W&L library. It is only one of a handful of 
similar endowments across the country. 
The gift marked the occasion of Hal Hig-
ginbotham’s 50th reunion of the W&L Class 
of 1968, which provided a gift of just over 
$11 million to the university. The couple’s 
intent is to support special opportunities 
and needs of Leyburn Library in enriching 
the university’s academic mission. The 
Higginbothams intend to begin funding the 
endowment with occasional outright gifts. 

Virginia Tech’s University Libraries’ Special  
Collections department received a $68,722 
grant to preserve and make accessible 
decades of materials that tell the story 
of Fries, Virginia, and its textile mill. The 
grant from the National Historical Publica-
tions and Records Commission, the grants-
making arm of the U.S. National Archives 
and Records Administration, will fund a 
one-year archivist position to process the 
collection, organize community events, and 
promote the town’s history through out-
reach and exhibits. The project, “They’re 
Closing Down the Textile Mill: Creating 
Access to the Fries Textile Plant Records 
at Virginia Tech,” illuminates the history 
of a small company town and its contribu-
tions to the American experience. In 1903, 
Colonel Francis Henry Fries founded the 
town of Fries and constructed the textile 

plant in Grayson County, Virginia. He was 
president of the family-owned Washington 
Mills Company and used his political and 
business influence to build a connection 
to the main branch of the Norfolk and 
Western Railroad along with a dam on 
the New River to generate power for the 
mill. As a result of increased international 
competition in the textile industry, the mill 
closed in 1988. In 2016, the Fries Town 
Council officially donated the 150 cubic 
feet of company records to the University 
Libraries’ Special Collections department.

A c q u i s i t i o n s

A manuscript written by Sir Isaac Newton 
that provides instructions for making the 
philosopher’s stone, a substance thought to 
have special powers of transformation, has 
been acquired by the Rare Book and Manu-
script Library at the University of Illinois. 
The “Opus Galli Anonymi” is Newton’s Latin 
translation of a French work on making the 
philosopher’s stone, with corrections and 
notes by Newton based on his own scientific 
work. The library bought the manuscript at 
auction for $275,000, thanks to a donation 
by Jim and Lionelle Elsesser of St. Louis, 
who are Illinois alumni. The Elsessers made 
a $500,000 donation to the Rare Book and 
Manuscript Library to be used for materials 
for special collections. The philosopher’s 
stone was thought to be a substance that 
would turn base metals into precious ones, 
such as lead into gold, and also cure illness 
and grant immortality. The manuscript is 
made up of four sheets of paper folded in 
the middle to make eight leaves. It must be 
translated into English, it needs some conser-
vation work, and it must be fully cataloged 
and integrated into the collection. The most 
important consideration is how to house the 
fragile document.  

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