Collections

Court cases, 1775-1933, and county record volumes and private account books of Lewis County, 1817-1932. The private accounts include records of a harness maker, millers, druggists, printers, and general merchants. A checklist of the bound volumes is available, as well as a chronological, subject, and name index to the suit papers.

The Liskey Collection of Heavner Family Papers, 1788-1967, consists of one box (.4 cubic feet) of personal correspondence, business and personal financial records, and various other items pertaining to the William Heavner family, documented through the maternal side: William Heavner, Evaline Heavner Aubrey, Dorcas Aubrey Breneman (also spelled Brenneman), and Mae Breneman Liskey. Other names represented are Hughes, Brake, Dove, Hess, and Trumbo, among others. The collection is arranged chronologically in four series: Richard Hughes Estate Papers, Correspondence, Financial Papers, and General Miscellany.

A ledger and financial records of Logan Osborne (1836-39) also containing the will of Balamm Osborne. The ledger contains accounts of an assortment of general store goods from perishables such as food and candles to durable goods such as tools and carriages. There are Osborne family deeds, land contracts and letters about family matters and debt (1808-89). There are early nineteenth century state bank script from Louisiana, Virginia, and North Carolina. There are land indentures and legal papers from eighteenth century Virginia, mainly of Matthew Rankin and Thomas Rutherford who contended for property in Ohio County. There is the thirty-eight page diary of Cleon Moore, a Confederate soldier from Charles Town. As a volunteer regiment member he was eyewitness and participant in the siege and capture of John Brown at Harpers Ferry. His unit was again called out prior to Virginia's secession resolution. He recounts their early maneuvering, stationing and being consolidated in the Virginia Second Cavalry which served at the First Battle of Bull Run. The account ends with the early 1862 campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley of General "Stonewall" Jackson. There is Civil War related material of Logan Osborne including records of loans to the Confederate government, letters to family and friends recounting and justifying the events and cause of the Confederacy and an 1861 January 28 broadside, entitled: "To The People of Jefferson County...", of Logan Osborne as a Unionist candidate to the Virginia Secession Convention. Also there are early West Virginia political papers pertaining to Jefferson County such as an attempt to move the county seat to Sheperdstown. Also included are George Shutt business letters and certificates as a geologist; certificates from the United Daughters of the Confederacy to Mary M. Shutt; and Osborne family history, genealogy and obituaries of descendents.

History of the Akers, Lilly, and Ellison families, compiled by Lonnie L. Okes, Jr., 1961.

The collection includes records of the Joshua Allen, Bartlett, William Ferguson, J.C. Garrett, Gore, Green, Joseph Mayse, Richards, Robinson, Joshua Smith, and other Harrison County families; an obituary clipping book; the minute book of the Hepzibah Baptist Church, 1861-1888; and two letters from Governor Howard M. Gore to Mrs. C.L. Hornor, 1926.

The interviews, correspondence, notes and reports of a Wisconsin based, New York born antiquarian and early researcher of frontier history. Lyman C. Draper's manuscripts were willed to the Wisconsin State Historical Society where he had been its corresponding secretary and instrumental in its development. Microfilm was produced by the society of his papers and made available for purchase to libraries because of their significance for studying the Eastern frontier and its pioneers. Draper had originally planned to publish on the basis of these manuscripts a series of books on frontier history and biographies of famous pioneers. Only one was published, King's Mountain and Its Heroes. Draper, in his writings, generally reflected biases common to white male Americans of the nineteenth century but he collected many documents and interviewed women, Native Americans, and African Americans connected with the frontier and their descendents. Indeed he had collected enough material that he had decided to write biographies of chiefs: Tecumseh and Joseph Brant. Other materials for biographies are of white frontier notables such as Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, Lewis Wetzel, Simon Kenton, and Samuel Brady. His papers are also organized regionally with holdings encompassing an area bordered by the western parts of Virginia and the Carolinas and portions of Georgia and Alabama, encompassing the entire Ohio River Valley, and part of the upper Mississippi Valley from the era of frontier conflicts in the 1740's and 1750's to the American Revolution and the War of 1812.

A twenty page, unpublished history of the descendants of George and Margaret (McCorkle) Lynch who emigrated from Scotland to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1770.