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Papers of Hu Maxwell (1860-1927), historian, editor, and author of several county histories of West Virginia, along with papers and records of other family members. There are manuscripts of fiction, verse, and local history written by Maxwell, as well as a number of his manuscripts and publications dealing with forestry which were prepared while he was a member of the Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. Maxwell kept a diary during the years 1901-1919 while residing in Morgantown, Chicago, Illinois, and Washington, D.C., which is extensive for the period of World War I and which contains notes on the diary of Rufus Maxwell (1855-1907). See scope and content note for more detail.

Business correspondence and papers, including land grants and deeds, 1761-1881, surveys, wills, and account books of William McCoy, Sr. and Jr., of Pendleton County. There are papers on the administration of estates; management of property in Mercer, Pendleton, and Randolph counties, and in Augusta and Highland counties, Virginia, for absentee owners; and on farm operations. There is material on the Central Bank of Virginia at Staunton; the Moorefield and North Branch Turnpike Company; and on military units in the eastern parts of West Virginia during the Civil War, including letters, orders, and requisitions. Also includes record of land transaction between Levi Hollingsworth and Robert McCulloh regarding 11,435 acres in Pendleton County (1803).

The business papers of Moses H. Crouch, a farmer and miller who lived near Huttonsville, Randolph County, West Virginia, in the nineteenth century. Chiefly contains receipts, deeds, promissory notes, and other financial and legal documents related to Crouch's business and property from the 1840s to the 1890s. Receipts and account information document the sale of dry goods and textiles, including meat, coffee, tobacco, sugar, tea, oatmeal, peaches, silk, thread, and chambray. Legal materials include deeds, insurance information, tax documents, and other information related to land tracts owned by Crouch. While most of the materials are Moses Crouch's papers, there are also documents for George Long, Andrew Crouch, and John Crouch. Early materials from 1802, 1821, and 1830 consist of land indentures. Also included are two account ledgers, from 1839 to 1899 and from 1853 to 1870, that record purchases of grains such as flour, corn, flax, and wheat by the pound and by the bushel and note payments on accounts.

Papers of the Nathan Ochs family of Shelby and Jefferson County, Kentucky, document the family history from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century and chiefly concern his children. Letters from siblings Simon, Nathan Jr., and Sallie Ochs are written from Kentucky to their brother, Charles, in California between 1884 and the early 1900s. Topics chiefly include the weather, their farms (crops, animals, and farm workers), family news, and their mother's illness and death. Genealogical records document the history of the family beginning with Nathan Ochs, who was born in Germany in the 1820s. These materials include naturalization papers for Nathan Ochs, genealogical charts for his descendants, and a narrative history of the family written by Shirley A. Ochs Cocke in 1970.

A revised and indexed transcript copy of an interview with Dr. O.C. Stine, an expert in agricultural economics who was employed with the Department of Agriculture from the Progressive Era to that of the Fair Deal. Stine tells of his childhood on a farm in Jackson County, WV, his subsequent education in small town southeastern Ohio where his family moved, and his attendance and graduation from Ohio University with a bachelors in liberal arts and education. After teaching briefly on the secondary level agricultural vocation courses, he attained a masters in agricultural economy at the University of Wisconsin. Upon graduation he went to work in Washington, DC for the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, a statistically based research and survey branch of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. There he pioneered in the establishment of professionalized statistic keeping and in creating accurate economic forecast indicators. He was also helpful in the creation of various and changing proposals for parity farm price support programs. Privately, he was a founder of the Agricultural History Society. Of note, he mentions much interaction with the New Deal agency, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and his opinion of it. He talks about an official trip to the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy before World War II and comments on agriculture, the economy and society in Europe. Also he gives a candid evaluation of the Arthurdale project. Prominent names mentioned are: William J. Bryan, Calvin Coolidge, Howard M. Gore, Herbert Hoover, Benito Mussolini, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Gray Silver, and Henry Wallace.

Papers mainly related to the Civil War in southern West Virginia, including correspondence, maps, photographs, newspaper clippings, muster rolls, and other material. Highlights of the collection include material regarding Captain John V. Young of the 11th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry; Captain James S. Cassady of the 7th West Virginia Cavalry; Captain W.D. Thurmond and his company of Partisan Rangers; and the 8th and 13th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry units. The collection is organized into seven series, including: 1. Correspondence (1841-1888, undated); 2. Maps (1861-1935, undated); 3. Miscellaneous (1851-1867); 4. Photographs (undated); 5. Sketches (1898, undated); 6. Newspaper Clippings (1861-1938, undated); and 7. Muster Rolls (1864, undated).

Yearly diaries in 39 volumes by Sarah Morgan McKown of Berkeley County, West Virginia, regarding everyday domestic and agricultural activities, local auctions, births, weddings, deaths, emigrations, churches, and religious activities. Also mentioned are the Civil War and its personalities. An index to the Sarah Morgan McKown diaries can also be found in the control folder--includes errata, pages missed on microfilming.