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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.

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.

Newspaper clippings, manuscripts, pamphlets, typescripts, correspondence, and photographs relating to the history of Martinsburg and Berkeley County.

Includes minute books of the Martinsburg Board of Trustees (1813-1857), the Council of the Corporation of Martinsburg (1857-1862, 1865-1894), and the City Council (1894-1981). There are also ordinance books, 1870-1981.

Aside from routine municipal affairs these journals contain material on the development of internal improvements in the Parkersburg, West Virginia, area like the Wheeling-Parkersburg struggle for the western terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the development of the Northwestern Virginia Railroad, and the demands for various river improvements. There are also a few references to Civil War military activities and the development of the oil industry in the Wood County area. Mayors mentioned include C.S. Despard, John J. Jackson, and Peter G. VanWinkle.

Personal papers and scrapbooks of Peter G. Van Winkle (1808-1872), a Parkersburg attorney, delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1850-1851, member of the Second Wheeling Convention of 1861, delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1861-1862, legislator from Wood County in 1863, U.S. Senator from 1863-1869, and participant in West Virginia railroad and business enterprises. Includes manuscripts speeches, essays, correspondence, and three scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. Highlights include a manuscript speech on the American Colonization Society, which helped found the colony of Liberia (undated); a letter to the president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company (March 18, 1836); a draft of "Address of the Delegates composing the New State Constitutional Convention to their Constituents" (1863). Other subjects of Van Winkle's writings include the U.S. Constitution, philosophical and religious writings (including the rights and nature of mankind), and Virginia and West Virginia politics. The scrapbooks are mostly full of clippings, with subjects including the Northwestern Turnpike, politics, and the development of Parkersburg (1827-1902, undated). One of the scrapbooks also includes journal entries (1834-1844).

Various Pittenger family members wrote these letters, mostly to other family members. The most frequent correspondent is Abraham Pittenger, a farmer, teacher, and local government official in Hancock County. The letters detail farming and marketing of farm goods, educational developments, affairs of the Presbyterian Church, and family events. The collection also provides significant information about the early Republican party, secession crisis, Civil War and Reconstruction.