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The collection consists of correspondence, business and legal papers, family photographs, clippings, and account books of Zebulon and Eli Musgrave and Daniel and William L. Turney of Fairmont, West Virginia. Aside from family and business affairs and estate settlements, subjects include Missouri frontier life and society in 1836; strife at Lecompton, Kansas School Territory, in 1857; local history of the Fairmont area; and Fairmont Normal School. About 2 ins. of material concerns coal mining, including account books showing coal prices for the Monongahela Gas and Coal Co. of West Virginia and papers concerning production of gas from coal.

Papers of Dr. Margaret Byrnside Ballard (1900-1991), regarding the history of Monroe County, West Virginia, and the Ballard family. As a genealogist and author of local history, she was an avid collector of the historical materials contained in this collection, most of which relate to her family and Monroe County. The collection includes personal papers, business records, historical and genealogical research material, scrapbooks, bibles, memorabilia, artifacts, photographs, broadsides, paintings, and postage stamps. See the Historical Note for more information about Dr. Ballard.

County and circuit clerks records, arranged chronologically. Records for the years 1835-1857, include bonds of ministers, tavern operators, ordinaries, ferries, and county officials; estate settlements; records pertaining to road, bridge, and public building; records of the overseer of the poor; school commissioners' and surveyors' appointments; and lists of county officials. Records for 1863-1874 include county supervisors' records; records of the Fairmont and Wheeling Turnpike; and muster certificates and reenlistment and bounty lists for the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh, Tenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth West Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiments, the First, Third, Fifth, Sixth West Virginia Cavalry, the First Light Artillery Regiment, and the Forty-fifth Regiment, United States Colored Troops. Papers for 1867-1907 include justice of the peace records, United States Admiralty Court records, and road surveyors' statements.

Several letters and financial papers of the McClaugherty family of Princeton, West Virginia, pertaining to family affairs, estate settlements, and the early years of the Civil War. An 1861 letter from George B. Schmitz of the 24th Virginia Infantry written to Hugh McClaugherty chiefly describes the battle of Bull Run in July 1861 and the status of Confederate troops after the battle. A February 1863 letter from Edward McClaugherty of the 17th Virginia Cavalry to his father, John McClaugherty, primarily describes his recovery in a home near Salem, Virginia, and the health of his regiment. Collection also includes a few financial documents (receipts related to dry goods and taxes paid on slaves and horses and estate matters) and letters from the McClaugherty family from the 1840s, 1850s, and early 1870s. Major topics of these letters include health, weather, and news of family members.

Typescript memoir of the life of Mother Jones, entitled "Mother Jones: the Life Story of the Irish Immigrant Girl Who Became the Most Unique Character in the American Labor Movement, Living Past 100 Years," written by Lillie May Burgess of Hyattsville, Maryland, and copyrighted 8 February 1938. The manuscript is in two parts, several pages of which are missing. The first part (241pp.) is entitled "The Life Story of Mother Jones: American Labor's Joan of Arc," and is a narration of events in Mother Jones' life. It includes a description of her early years, before she became a labor activist, and some of the highlights of her labor career. Her activities in organizing miners in West Virginia and Colorado receive most emphasis, but also included are her activities among women brewery workers, her participation in the 1919 steel strike at Homestead, Pennsylvania, her interest in the Mexican Revolution of 1911, her views on woman suffrage and prohibition, her meetings with various presidents and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and her friendship with Terence V. Powderly, fellow labor activist. The narration follows closely that of THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MOTHER JONES, published in 1925 by Charles H. Kerr & Co., Chicago, Ill., with the addition of some chapters on her life after 1925. The second part (106pp.) is entitled "The Last Years of Mother Jones (Personal Reminiscences)." It is a narration of the later years of Mother Jones' life, ca.1927-1930, most of which she spent under the care of the author, Lillie May Burgess, at the Burgess home in Hyattsville, Maryland. Mrs. Burgess relates the circumstances under which Mother Jones and she became friends, how Mother Jones came to live with the Burgess family in 1927, and what these years of her life were like.

Records of the Preston County court, consisting almost entirely of land records such as maps, surveys, plats, deeds, and indentures. There are also some personal papers and correspondence of Preston County residents, including Israel Baldwin and Julius K. Monroe, and the Fairfax family. Some photographs from this collection have been digitized.

County court records consisting primarily of marriage records and sheriff settlements relating to roads, schools, and poor funds. There are also estate administration papers; lunacy proceedings; Board of Education records; receipts and bank records; other misc. records, and an account book of the firm of Meador and Graham in Hinton, WV. There are also some papers of former clerks E. H. Peck and P. B. Pack.

Copies of records from each county in West Virginia gathered by the depression-era public records survey funded by the Works Progress Administration. Included are registers of births, marriages, deaths, wills, estate settlements, and land records. Transcriptions of county and circuit court minute and order books are included as well as cemetery readings and registers; church record surveys; mimeographed calendars of the papers of West Virginia governors; and American Imprint Inventory slips of the holdings of several West Virginia libraries. Material covers the years 1750-1939.