Collections

Typescripts compiled by a Wellsburg local historian, on the history of Holliday's Cove and the Hancock-Brooke County area. Subjects include prominent settlers, churches, schools, post office, toll roads, oil and gas wells, floods, gristmills, manufacture of gunpowder, iron and brick industries, newspapers, Indians, and the James Campbell and Alexander Morrow family genealogy.

Papers of a Preston County farmer, merchant, and licensed exhorter of the Methodist Episcopal Church who served in the state legislature in the years 1870-1876. There are letters of H. Davis and William Ewin regarding land and coal properties in Preston County. Also included are minutes of the incorporators' meeting of the Iron Valley and Pennsylvania Railroad, 1873, as well as scattered items relating to the Methodist Episcopal Church, Kingwood; the Northwestern Turnpike at St. George; the Grafton and Greenbrier Railroad Company; Civil War bounty claims; the Rowlesburg Lumber and Iron Company; stave making; the Wheeling Female College; political and religious speeches; and the Morgantown District Camp Meeting Association, 1877.

Material written and collected by a former curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection that includes bibliographies, transcripts, photostats, papers and historical sketches on various aspects of West Virginia history. Items deal with prominent West Virginia University historians, the Civil War, early settlement, industrial growth, and West Virginia University. A number of letters and circulars discuss the West Virginia Historical Society in 1869.

Papers of the Hagans family of Preston County, West Virginia, including Harrison, Elisha, George M., Henry C., John Marshall, Zer Hagans, and others. There are letters, invoices, account books, advertisements, and other business records pertaining to family business enterprises including several general merchandise stores and outlets in western Pennsylvania and Maryland, and at Brandonville, Kingwood, Greenville, and Palatine, West Virginia. There are several postal records from Harrison Hagans' twenty years as postmaster, 1822-1841, at Brandonville, and magistrate papers and deeds, most regarding the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. There are also financial records documenting Hagans' tenure as president of the Greenville Mining and Manufacturing Company which produced iron in Preston County in the 1830s. Other information records Hagans' interests in: county roads, schools, churches, government and politics; the Preston Telegraph Company; a fulling mill, 1827; and a linseed oil mill, 1842. There are Hagan patents for a washing and wringing machine (1845), and working models of mowing and threshing machines. There is a volume of minutes of the quarterly conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1834-1859, and 1861 Wheeling Convention papers regarding a new state government, and Civil War letters from family and friends.

Pamphlets include Henry Ruffner's antislavery pamphlet, 1847, and his Union speech, 1856. Subjects of the manuscripts and correspondence include family history; travel; Kanawha Salt Works; schools in Virginia and Kanawha County; Lane Seminary Library; Presbyterian Church; slavery, coal, gas, iron, and timber; Johns Hopkins, Washington and Lee, Harvard, Hobart, Cornell, and Hampden-Sydney colleges; Greenbrier County; Alabama; election of 1904; University of Virginia; Kanawha Valley floods; Venezuela; American Colonization Society; and the Philippine Islands. Persons mentioned or commented on include Philip Doddridge, John Letcher, Hugh Mercer, and Nelson A. Miles. Correspondents include Charles H. Ambler, John Eaton, John P. Hale, H.R. Helper, W.S. Laidley, David L. Ruffner, John W. Wayland, and William L. Wilson.

Business and personal correspondence of several members of the Holt and Keyes families of Barbour County, West Virginia, including Ben M., Charles, Samuel T.H., and Stephen Holt, and W.G. and Bertha Holt Keyes. The collection includes records of firms operated by these families, mainly the Keyes Lumber Company, the Holt Ice Company, and Holt's Mill; genealogical material on the Holt family; records relating to foundries, coal, coke, building supplies, general merchandise, farm and construction work, mine post sales, and the Elk Creek Oil and Gas Company.

Papers of the Jackson family of Monongalia and Preston County, (West) Virginia, including business, financial, and legal documents. Includes Civil War pension records for Henry C. Jackson (1864); business records of Jackson and Lamb documenting transactions with Tassey and Church, Grocers of Pittsburgh (1833-1834); and records regarding Cheat Iron Works, St. John's Furnace, and Hampton Forge (1833 and undated), among other material (1814-1891).

Personal and business papers of the Lewis family, mainly of John D. (1800-1882), Charles C., Sr. (b.1839), and Charles C., Jr. (b.1865), of Kanawha County. For the period 1825-1875 there are papers of various members of the Ruffner, Dickinson, and Wilson families of West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and other states. The business papers relate to farming operations, the purchase and sale of slaves, salt manufacturing and trade, the Old Sweet Springs Company, coal, iron, oil, lumbering, railroads, and real estate in Kanawha, Clay, Boone, Fayette, and Nicholas counties. There are newspaper clippings, speeches, and other papers reflecting the Lewis' interests in the Democratic Party in the period 1914-1920. Settlement papers and correspondence regarding the estates of John D. Lewis, and Joel, Daniel, and Andrew Ruffner are in the collection. The personal papers include diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, and letters. Travel accounts in the United States, South America, and Europe are given in the correspondence, as well as comments on schools in West Virginia and Virginia; the building of a church in Kanawha County in 1834; missionary work in Colombia, South America, 1874-1875; Civil War and postwar conditions in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri; conditions at Camp Chase, in the Civil War; and material relating to World War I.

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.

Letters of McKelvey concerning disposal of his property, a small forge shop. Also includes articles from a Pittsburgh newspaper about the early iron making industry near Morgantown.