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 Felix Nemegyei. Nemegyei, also known as Felix DeNemegyei or Nemegyei Bodog, was a Hungarian soldier and engineer who immigrated to the United States in 1851. He settled in West Virginia and became the owner of an iron works and other businesses. Papers include records of Nemegyei's academic performance as a student, records of his military service in Europe, material regarding military engineering, and family history. Family history material includes items regarding Nemegyei's father. The majority of documents in this collection are in German, Hungarian, or Latin; many documents have a brief explanation of their content in English attached.

A ledger of an unknown store or individual in or near Jefferson County, Virginia (now West Virginia) showing the accounts of customers who purchased meat and grain items in 1800-1801. Also includes an account of wood deliveries to the 8th Regiment at the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry during winter 1800-1801, and the public sale of the assets of Keep Triste Furnace (also spelled Keep Tryste and Keep Tryst), located near Harpers Ferry, in or after 1801.

The ledger documents the beginnings of Greenville Iron Furnace in northwestern Preston County. The furnace was erected by Josiah Jackson, heir of the prosperous Cheat Iron Works, and managed by Walter Carlile. Subsequent to the period covered by this ledger, the furnace was operated by Harrison Hagans, whose papers in the West Virginia Collection include later ledgers for the furnace. This ledger records the daily business of iron production and of the store which was associated with the furnace.

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.