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These papers contain correspondence, photographs, business papers, artifacts, certificates, and other materials related to Charles Edward Gary, Jr. Mr. Gary was a prominent African American business owner in Williamsburg, operating for decades the West End Valet Shop off Prince George Street. The collection comprises business ledgers and other West End Valet Shop records over several years, as well as legal documents pertaining to the Valet Shop and Gary family estates such as leases and deeds. Personal materials pertain especially to Mr. Gary's schooling, his miltiary service during World War II, family photographs, and some of Mrs. Zelda Gary's personal papers. An active member of the Williamsburg community, Mr. Gary served in several civic, fraternal, and religious organizations. Centering on his involvement in local baptist churches and in the Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World - Old Capitol Lodge, Mr. Gary's papers include speeches he prepared for religious and I.B.P.O.E.W. meeting touching on religion, family, and race issues in America. The collection thus contains materials relevant to the study of twentieth-century Williamsburg history and African American history.

Scrapbooks, correspondence, business papers, and memorabilia of a prominent Charleston family that were long time owners of the Charleston Gazette. There are papers of W. E. Chilton, Sr., and for his son and grandson, W. E. Chilton, Jr. and W. E. Chilton, III. The papers of Chilton senior include some correspondence, but mostly land papers documenting the coal mining district in Webster and Braxton Counties. There are also scrapbooks, and contracts pertaining to the family newspaper business; and volumes on the education of W. E. Chilton, Jr. at Woodberry, VA Forest School, and at Yale. The military service of the Chiltons is documented by the service papers, photographs, and other material for W. E. Chilton, Jr. and W. E. Chilton, III in World War (WWI) I and World War II (WWII) respectively.

Letters, chiefly 1919-1964, written by Mary Haldane Begg Coleman (1875-1967) of Williamsburg, Virginia, to Julia Gardiner Tyler Wilson (1881-1965), of Charlottesville, Virginia. Diaries of Mary Haldane Begg Coleman and Isabella Haldane.

Collection of letters to and from the Dowdy family from 1944-69. Daniel and Gladys Dowdy were residents of Eggleston, VA. Their letters to each other, written in 1944-45, discuss their life together, their plans for after the war, and their romance in explicit detail. Also includes letters from 1961-62 from the Dowdy children's German penpal, and letters from 1969 as son Harold began basic training in the US Army.

Papers of Elizabeth Nunn, an elementary school teacher in Williamsburg, Virginia.