Collections

The Christopher A. Dorrance collection consists primarily of original autographs of important and/or famous people of the United States of America from its founding to the early 21st century. The subjects of the autographs include presidents and first ladies, government officials, political and military figures, musicians, authors, actresses and actors, athletes, reformers and civil rights era activists, foreign leaders and celebrities, flyers and people associated with aviation and aeronautics, etc. The autographs in this collection are written on various mediums including, framed posters, official documents, photographs, books, cards, letters, and various forms of paper ephemera. The series titles reflect what the donor prescribed to his collection. The one change made at the discretion of the archivist was to change the word "foreign" to "international." The signatures were originally housed in three ring binders. The order established by the donor has been maintained. Several signatures are part of larger manuscript pieces, such as letters or ephemeral items such as programs.

Logbooks, account books and accounts, 1807-1841, of Christopher Tompkins kept while captain of ship "Pocahontas", 1807-1809, and while running a general merchandise store in Mathews Co., Va. Includes typed excerpts from a memoir of Tompkins compiled by his son, Christopher Quarles Tompkins in 1860 and twenty-one pages from an account book listing foodstuffs of A. Y. P. Garnett, surgeon in Sally Tompkins' Confederate hospital, Robertson Hospital, in Richmond, Virginia during the Civil War.

This collection primarily concerns Clara Louise Walde Lawrence's career as a nurse in the period before, during, and after World War I. Materials in the collection include correspondence, scrapbooks, diaries, photographs and negatives, pamphlets, medical supplies, and other publications. Most of the correspondence, photographs, and publications relate to either WWI or nursing. Notable correspondents include a letter from Julia Cherney (Bateman) to Clara Walde while serving as a missionary in China. Other items of interest include a 1763 Boston Gazette as well as several 19th century American newspapers. The collection also includes Lawrence's Veterans Administration account books from the 1930s.

Legal documents of the family of Reps Jones (fl. 1773) of Lunenburg County, Va. Other members of the family were wife Lucretia Jones, sons Reps Jones, Drury Jones, William Jones, Thomas Jones, Stephen Jones and daughters Mary Ann Jones and Martha Jones. Collection also includes papers of Thomas and Robert Blackwell.

Miscellaneous papers collected by the Clarksburg Public Library, including Harrison County land papers of John Lang, 1782-1821; General Land Office Warrant of Thomas Cunningham, an 1812 veteran for 160 acres in Illinois; letter from Melville D. Long from Point Lookout prison, April 1865; letter to Mrs. John J. Davis, Clarksburg, telling of an unexpected invasion of Baltimore by the Rebels in July 1854; and farm diary, 1856-1861 of P.R. Page, Gloucester County, Virginia. This volumes gives accurate and detailed information on the operation of a grain and livestock farm in eastern Virginia