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Start Over Date range 1864 Subjects Women's history -- 1850-1899

Henry Ruffner (1790-1861) and William Henry (1824-1908) Papers, 1829/1913 0.15 Linear Feet Summary: 1 3/4 in. (1 reel of microfilm (310 items), 1.75 in.)

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.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Henshaw Family Correspondence, 1786/1876 0.1 Linear Feet Summary: 1 in. (1 folder)

Henshaw family

Personal correspondence written to members of the Hiram and Mary Henshaw family of Mill Creek, Berkeley County, West Virginia, from their relatives between 1825 and 1876. Letters from the 1820s to 1840s are chiefly written from Sarah McConnell and William McConnell in Washington County, Virginia, to their sister, Mary Henshaw, and her children, Martha Henshaw Silver and James Henshaw. Topics include news about family activities, health issues, finances, education, gardening, and other household chores. Several letters from the late 1840s and early 1850s are from David Miller to his sister, Nancy Henshaw, and contain news about family relationships, deaths and family estates, and moving to California. Three letters from James McConnell to Martha Henshaw Silver in 1861 discuss the beginning of the Civil War and concern for family in the northern part of what will become West Virginia. Several letters from the late 1860s and 1876 are from Sarah McConnell, Rebecca Park, and Peter and Ellen Black. Topics chiefly include health, financial issues, household arrangements, and news of family and friends. Other correspondents include Isabella Henshaw, Sarah McKown, and D.C. McConnell. Collection also includes undated and unsigned letters; a 1786 land patent for Samuel Beall and an 1826 executor's account of an estate settlement.

  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Isaac McNeel (b.1830) Papers, 1850/1908 3.7 Linear Feet Summary: 3 ft. 7 1/2 in. (8 document cases, 5 in. each); (1 small flat storage box, 3 in.); (1 account book, 1 1/2 in.)

McNeel, Isaac (b. 1830)
Correspondence, legal and business papers, mercantile records and tax receipt books of Isaac McNeel, who operated a store at Edray and Mill Point, Pocahontas County, West Virginia, served as sheriff of the county, operated a gristmill, raised livestock, and was appointed provost marshal of the county in 1862 by the Confederate Army. The collection also includes letters and school reports of McNeel's sons, Winters and Summers, while students at Washington and Lee and the Medical and Law Departments of the University of Virginia, 1893-1897. Other school material pertains to the Hillsboro Male and Female Academy and the Lewisburg Female Institute. Subjects include mercantile and cattle trade with Baltimore and Richmond; business conditions in the l850s and in Richmond during the Civil War; slave hiring; ginseng trade; agriculture; the American Party, 1855; Henry A. Wise; Virginia Secession Convention; effect of the Union blockade on Richmond commerce; speculation in whiskey, tobacco, and cattle during the Civil War; and postwar economic and political conditions in the Pocahontas County area.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Jonathan M. Bennett (1816-1887) Papers, 1785/1899 33.6 Linear Feet Summary: 33 ft. 7 in. (80 document cases, 5 in. each); (1 document case, 2 1/2 in.); (1 folder, 1/4 in.); (1 oversize folder, 1/4 in.)

Bennett, Jonathan M., 1816-1887
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.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Kingwood Methodist Episcopal Church Records, 1852/1937 0.15 Linear Feet 1 reel of microfilm (9 vols.), 1.75 in.

Kingwood Methodist Episcopal Church
Church record, 1852-1896, listing baptisms, marriages, probationers, members and various classes; quarterly conference records, 1899-1903, 1917-1920; church ledgers, 1910-1936; the minutes of the Women's Home Missionary Society, 1914-1937; and "A Brief History of Methodism in Kingwood and Vicinity from Our Earliest Times to March, 1874," by W.C. Snodgrass.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Louis Bennett Papers, 1841/1916 5.8 Linear Feet Summary: 5 ft. 10 in. (14 document cases, 5 in. each)

Bennett, Louis, Sr., 1849-1918
The business papers and legal correspondence of Louis Bennett (1849-1918) of Weston, a wealthy landowner and lawyer. Also included are papers of his father Jonathan M. Bennett and the latter's associate Gideon D. Camden.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Martha Bratton Correspondence, 1854/1894 0.01 Linear Feet Summary: 1/4 in. (1 folder)

Bratton, Martha
Bratton was born, ca.1838, and lived in the town of Millboro Springs, Bath County, Virginia, where she married Townley Cauthorn, ca.1860. Correspondence is to Martha from other women friends, dealing with courtship, marriage, education, and domestic life Some are letters from Virginians pioneering in Illinois and Missouri, detailing the hardships of their new lives; and others are love letters from suitors.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

Martha Dent Watson (1837-1905) Diary, 1864/1865 0 Linear Feet Summary: 1 item (photocopy)

Watson, Martha Dent, 1837-1905
Diary written in Fairmont by an unmarried daughter of Thomas Watson and Rebecca Haymond Watson, the youngest sister of James Otis Watson. Comments concern the Civil War, the Southern cause, Lincoln and his assassination, and the attitudes of Fairmont residents toward Southern sympathizers and returning Confederate soldiers.
  1. West Virginia and Regional History Center

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