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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.

Papers of Lewis Maxwell, an attorney at Weston including primarily letters from clients concerning land in West Virginia, 1840-1859. Correspondents include J.H. Diss Debar, John S. Carlile, Matthew Edmiston, J.M. Bennett, and Benjamin H. Latrobe. Other subjects covered include railroad legislation and construction and the surfacing of the Weston-Clarksburg road.

Diary of Lyman Stedman (1824-1916), a farmer and former member of the House of Delegates, 1877, from Brown's Island, Hancock County. Entries concern farm operation, Republican political activities on the district and county level, comments on state and national organizations, floods on the Ohio River, steamboat and barge traffic, Hopedale School, Methodist Episcopal Church, railroad travel, circuses and fairs, taxes and land valuations, and Memorial Day.

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 of W.K. Marshall, a West Virginia railroad engineer, includes letters received from his wife and sons in Callaghan, Virginia, as well as the letters he wrote to them. This collection also includes letters from Marshall's brother and niece. Marshall's correspondence concerns the following subjects: personal and family matters; employment conditions on the railroad; railroad accidents; trade union and fraternal society insurance plans. Letters from Marshall's wife touch on people and events in Callaghan, Virginia and on the family's farm work.

Compact disc of a searchable database of 1200 facsimile pages of New River Symposium Proceedings dating from 1982-1999. Articles in the Proceedings discuss the natural and cultural features of the New River region of West Virginia, including the following topics: botany, Civil War, coal mining, environmentalism, folklore, folk music, geology, Green Sulphur Springs, historic preservation, iron industry, native Americans, railroads, rivers (Bluestone, Gauley, New), transportation, and Mary Draper Ingles.

"Norfolk and Western Railway Time Tables" No. 3, July 4, 1943 edition that includes time tables for the trains, as well as contact information for the railway representatives in major cities served, and a centerfold system map detailing rail lines and connections from Norfolk, Virginia to Cincinnati, Ohio.

A genealogy of the Osborne family of Greenbrier County. Originally from New Jersey, the family settled in Greenbrier and Hampshire counties.

Records of the Pardee and Curtin Lumber Company. Includes 55 account books in 9 series: 1) Bills Payable & Bills Receivable (1 item); 2) Cash Books (9 items); 3) Cashier's Check Registers (9 items); 4) Check Registers and Records (5 items); 5) Day Book (1 item); 6) Journals (8 items); 7) Ledgers (4 items); 8) Petty Cash Books (2 items); 9) Sales Books and Shipping Books (16 items). These records are from company offices in Clarksburg, Curtin, and Sutton, and from logging operations in Braxton, Nicholas, and Webster counties, including the Cherry Run, Hominy, Palmer, and Sutton Mills. There are also 43 photographs documenting logging and coal mining operations, including mills and railroads.