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Correspondence, maps, business records and other papers of a U.S. Senator, Democratic politician, and promoter of the oil industry, railroads, and coal and timber resources of West Virginia. The papers regard Camden's purchase of land in the 1850s; his activities in oil production and refining, 1860-1875; his presidency of the Camden Consolidated Oil Company and the Baltimore United Oil Company; the affairs of the Stewart Brick Company of Parkersburg; the Virginia debt controversy; and his development of railroads, including the Ohio River Railroad, the West Virginia and Pittsburgh Railroad, and Monongahela River Railroad, 1879-1892. See the "Scope and Content Note" for more information.

Correspondence, legal papers, photographs, and printed materials of John W. Mason (1842-1917). Mason was a circuit court and state Supreme Court judge, member of the Virginia State Debt Commission, and commissioner of Internal Revenue. The general correspondence contains personal and business letters, as well as manuscript speeches, notebooks, and reports. The period while Mason was circuit judge is particularly sparse. Also includes Internal Revenue correspondence consisting of about 8,500 pages in letter press copy books. Roughly half of the collection is devoted to his legal papers and printed materials concerning law in general. Subjects include early development of the Republican Party in West Virginia; political campaigns in West Virginia from 1870-1916; Monongalia Academy; industrial development; Internal Revenue Service (1889-1893); the Virginia Debt question; early banking development in Grafton; and the development of coal companies, particularly around Fairmont. Correspondents include Arthur I. Boreman, A.W. Campbell, Stephen B. Elkins, Benjamin Harrison, Francis H. Pierpont, and others.

Correspondence and papers of a major political figure dealing largely with politics in Virginia, West Virginia, and Virginia in the Confederacy. Bennett, a lawyer and legislator, was a member of the Virginia General Assembly, 1852-1853; president of the Weston Branch of the Exchange Bank of Virginia; auditor of Virginia, 1857-1865; member of the senate of West Virginia, 1872-1876; and a member of the commission appointed to adjust the Virginia debt question in 1871. Correspondents include James Barbour, Arthur I. Boreman, G.D. Camden, J.N. Camden, R.P. Camden, John S. Carlile, Spencer Dayton, J.H. Diss Debar, Matthew Edmiston, John W. Garrett, Nathan Goff, William L. Jackson, Joseph Johnson, Edwin Maxwell, J.H. Pendleton, Francis H. Pierpont, Beverly Randolph, John H. Reagan, William Prescott Smith, Felix Sutton, William P. Thompson, John Tyler, and P.G. Van Winkle.

Correspondence, newspaper clippings, and financial papers of a lawyer and state senator from Kingwood, who was instrumental in the organization of the West Virginia Northern Railroad, and the Kingwood Coal and Coke Company. Subjects include state politics, 1888-1895, Virginia Debt Question, the tariff debate, land development, coal mining and railroads. Correspondents include J.M. Mason, W.E. Chilton, S.B. Elkins, and George C. Sturgiss.