Exhibits / Charter / W&M Charter / Transfer to Faculty / Act to Establish a Normal School / Transfer to the State

The Charter

On February 8, 1693 the Charter was granted to the College of William and Mary in Virginia by England's King William III and Queen Mary II. It established the College and its administrative structure as well as providing funds for its creation and maintenance. The Reverend James Blair was named as president.

The copy of the Charter in the possession of the College during the 18th century disappeared during or after the American Revolution. An investigation of the disappearance of the original was set forth by Robert J. Morrison, a professor of history at the College from 1858-1861. Although the events surrounding the disappearance of the Charter are still unknown, many theories have revolved around Professor Carlo Bellini and Fedor Vadil'evich Karzhavin.

Carlo Bellini immigrated to the United States in 1774 from Italy. After a few years, he began to associate with prominent Virginians and eventually became known as one himself. Thomas Jefferson helped him secure a professorship at the College of William and Mary, as well as the position of Virginia Clerk of Foreign Correspondence. In 1779, Bellini officially became the first professor of Modern Languages at the College. Around this same time, he met Fedor Karzhavin, the son of a wealthy Russian St. Petersburg merchant.

In the mid-1770s, Karzhavin's involvement with trade brought him to the Chesapeake Bay area. He then traveled to Boston and returned to Virginia at the end of April 1779. At that time he placed an advertisement for his interpreting skills with the Virginia Gazette. Karzhavin left for Martinique at some point, only to return again to Virginia in 1784. Once back, he taught school, practiced medicine, and served as translator to Virginia's French Consul. On April 15, 1787, Karzhavin left Virginia, made a brief stay in Paris, and then returned to his homeland of Russia.

After 1779 Bellini's life had taken a downward turn and he had to resign his position as Clerk of Foreign Correspondence. He wanted to return to Italy at this time but lacked the funds. In 1791, he reported to his colleagues that Karzhavin had taken the College's Charter in 1787 when he had left Virginia for the last time. He claimed that he saw the Charter in Karzhavin's possession and knew of his intentions to deposit it among the archives of St. Petersburg in Russia.

However, since the Charter was never found among Karzhavin's papers, one possible theory hypothesizes that he may have either sold it or lost it during his journey. Or it is possible that Bellini may have used Karzhavin as a scapegoat since Bellini was the College's librarian and thus responsible for securing the property, including the Charter. Many people have felt that the story Bellini told to his colleagues was suspect. A whole different theory speculates that the Charter disappeared during the French Occupation of the College from 1781-1782.

Fortunately, the College of William and Mary has made several successful attempts to recover other issues of the Charter. A manuscript version from the late 17th century was found in an old trunk at the Harvard College Library and was given to the College in 1931. In 1977, the College acquired a manuscript of the Charter at auction. This copy is believed to be the one sent to Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of the Virginia Colony from 1692-1697. Interestingly, the same manuscript was published in two early sources. One was printed in the 1727 The Present State of Virginia and the College by Henry Harwell, James Blair and Edward Chilton. It also appeared in 1736 in The Charter and Statutes of The College of William and Mary in Virginia by William Parks, published and printed in Williamsburg.

The text in this online version of the Charter is from the Bulletin of the College of William and Mary, Vol. VI, No. 3 (January 1913) and it replicates the pagination of that version. Page 3 of the book begins the text of the charter; page 20, the 1729 transfer of corporate authority from the surviving trustees to the President and Masters; page 41 begins the 1888 act to establish the normal school; and page 43 marks the beginning of the text of the 1906 act to transfer the College to the Commonwealth of Virginia. The titles of each web page reflect these page numbers.