David Rogers Chesnutt

David Rogers Chesnutt HARDWICK, Vt. - David Rogers Chesnutt, 74, died of throat cancer at home in Hardwick, Vermont, on December 15, 2014. Born in Athens, AL in 1940, the son of Thomas Brice Chesnutt and Lena (Moss) Chesnutt, he earned degrees from the University of Alabama, '62, Auburn University, '67, and the University of Georgia, '73. Dr. Chesnutt spent 35 years as Research Professor in the History Department at the University of South Carolina where he served as Associate Editor and then Editor of the Papers of Henry Laurens, a 16 volume collection of the letters of the leader of revolutionary activity in South Carolina during the American Revolution. Laurens, a former president of the Continental Congress, participated in the negotiations which led to the peace of Paris, 1783, which brought the war to an end. Chesnutt was one of the founding members of the Association for Documentary Editing, in the late 1970s, and he served as its President, 1991-1992. In the mid-1970s, Chesnutt started to apply computers to scholarship in the humanities when he developed the first program for creating a back-of-the-book index. In the 1980s and 1990s he worked with a small group of scholars from the US and Europe to develop the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), a protocol for publishing humanities documents on the infant World Wide Web. His work in what is now called digital humanities culminated in the Model Editions Partnership which demonstrated five different ways in which fully edited documentary editions, such as the Laurens Papers, could be served up on the Web. For 23 years, Chesnutt served as a member of the South Carolina Historical Records Advisory Board. In 2005, Governor Mark Sanford presented him with the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina's highest civilian honor for extraordinary lifetime achievement and service to the state and nation. Chesnutt owned a small desk-top publishing business which published scholarly books, and, for more than 35 years, he edited and published Manuscripts, the journal of the Manuscript Society. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth H. Dow, of Hardwick, VT, his son, James B., daughter-in-law Allison Narver and granddaughter Kate, of London, England, twin daughters, Catherine R. of New York City, and Elizabeth of Columbia, SC, brothers Thomas B., of St. Petersburg, FL, and Samuel W. of St. Helena Island, SC, sister Carol B., of Birmingham, AL, and six nieces and nephews. He was a southern gentleman in the best sense of the word: genteel, kind, generous, and wise a pleasure to work with, even if you disagreed with him. A memorial service will be held in the summer. In lieu of flowers, donations in his name should go to Hardwick Historical Society, PO Box 177, Hardwick, Vermont 05843 or the Manuscript Society, 14003 Rampart Ct., Baton Rouge, LA 70810, or the Association for Documentary Editing, c/o Ondine LeBlanc, ADE Treasurer, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215.