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Personal and business papers of Arthur I. Boreman (1823-1896), lawyer, U.S. senator, circuit court judge, and first governor of West Virginia. The bulk of the collection consists of papers relating to his judgeship and to the law firm of Boreman and Bullocks, Parkersburg, WV. Series include correspondence, notes on cases tried before Judge Boreman, envelope cases of material regarding legal cases in which Boreman was involved, financial material, and political and judicial printed material. Correspondence includes letters to Boreman from Francis H. Pierpont (1866-1867), which concern politics in West Virginia, the admission of Berkeley and Jefferson counties into the state, the Virginia debt, and Reconstruction in Virginia. There is little other material relating to the governorship or political activities. Additional correspondents include J.W. Davis, John J. Davis, D.D.T. Farnsworth, D.H. Strother, J.G. Jackson, Charles J. Faulkner, and E.W. Wilson. Also includes manuscripts of speeches; muster rolls; household accounts; civil and court case papers concerning oil well drilling and sales; railroad property inventories and operation; coal prices, shipping data, and strikes; liquid fuel transportation; and steam and tow boat cargoes, navigation data, and names of boats in service on the Ohio River. There is also genealogical information on P.G. Van Winkle and Ebenezer Zane, and a letter and deposition by J.H. Diss Debar. For more details and box-level contents list, see Scope and Content Note. For more information on Arthur I. Boreman, see Historical Note.

Memoirs of a retired newspaperman, editor, and Republican state house representative (1898-1901). McIntosh supported the Republican party and coal operator interests through his newspapers and periodicals, which included: HUNTINGTON GAZETTE, HUNTINGTON SUNDAY GAZETTE, HINTON FREE LANCE, FAYETTE JOURNAL, NEWS-MAIL CO., RALEIGH HERALD, and company magazines for the Island Creek Coal Company and Solvay Collieries. McIntosh discusses: his early employment on the railroads as census taker and assessor; his newspaper career; state politics; his fight against the Fayette Whiskey Ring; taxation; "The Committee of Twenty-eight"; "Lincoln Party" Convention; West Virginia Coal Association; United Fuel Gas Company; United Mine Workers; strikes; March on Mingo and Logan; Logan Coal Operators Association; and World War I and the National Defense Board. There is also some information on the McIntosh family history and genealogy. Among the persons mentioned are: Mather Archer, W.R. Bennett, William Blizzard, William M.O. Dawson, Samuel Dixon, Charles A. Goddard, Henry D. Hatfield, Bob Patterson, Oscar Price, Gen. J.W. St. Clair, M.J. Simms, and Z.T. Vinson.

Transcript of an interview by Richard Hadsell with Major W.P. Tams, Jr., former mine operator in the Winding Gulf coal mining region. Tams discusses his early days in coal mining, the opening of the Kanawha coal region, and coal operators and union officials such as: E.J. Berwind, Joe Beury, George Collins, Jarius Collins, Justus Collins, John J. Cornwell, Samuel Dixon, Elias Hatfield, Troy Hatfield, Isaac Mann, S.T. Patterson, J.A. Renahan, James O. Watts, and George Wolfe. Other individuals mentioned include: Henry D. Hatfield, John L. Lewis, John Mitchell, Fred Mooney, Bob Patterson, and "Mother" Mary Jones. Tams also discusses the Winding Gulf Collieries, the Beaver Coal Co., the Smokeless Coal Field, the N&W Railroad, the C&O Railroad, the Virginian Railroad, Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, unions and strikes, racial relations, blacks, scrip, company stores, Atwater, and Castner, Curran and Bullitt.

Correspondence, reports, petitions, agreements, newspaper clippings, and magazine articles relating to the soft coal industry and labor conditions, generally in southern West Virginia. Subjects covered include the eight-hour day; strikes; consolidation of coal operations; freight rates; government contracts for coal; Paint and Cabin creeks, 1912-1913; working conditions in the Polack Cigar Factory, Wheeling, 1914; investigation of the Gay Coal and Coke Company, Logan County, 1917; investigation of the Wheeling Can Company, 1918; labor conditions in West Virginia, 1917; publicity releases of Winding Gulf Operators Association, 1923-1925; and eviction of miners; labor conditions in Logan County, 1923. Correspondents include D.T. Evans, Carl Hayden, W.E. Borah, M.M. Neely, Van A. Bittner, J.P. White, F.J. Hayes, Mary "Mother" Jones, Thomas Haggerty, Woodrow Wilson, and J.J. Cornwell.

The collection consists of ledgers, journals, and cashbooks of the Goodwill Coal and Coke Co., Greenbrier Coal and Coke Co., Gulf Coal Co., Louisville Coal and Coke Co., Winding Gulf Coal and Coke Co., and the Winding Gulf Colliery Co., with some material on the operation of company stores. There is also correspondence (1911-1915) between the managers of mines at Winding Gulf and Davy, West Virginia, discussing production levels, availability of railroad cars and freight rates, New River and Pocahontas Operators Organization, operating difficulties, labor shortages and working conditions, the Mabscott mine strike and German "socialists" at Mabscott, the Bottom Creek explosion at Vivian, the UMWA and a 1915 agreement, and the good roads movement in Raleigh County in 1915.