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The collection includes manuscript materials (correspondence, land warrant, accounts, receipts, petition and will) and printed and typescript materials (invitations, broadside, newspaper and magazine clippings). Subjects of the various items include sale and survey of land; schools, churches, estates, comment on and description of agriculture, social and economic conditions in Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, California, Morgantown, Fairmont, and Wheeling, WV, and Ireland; westward migration [1849]; gold mining, enslaved Africans; and business and family affairs.

The collection includes 57 letters (1795-1871) to or from Benjamin H., Henry, James G., James O., Rebecca D., and Thomas Watson; 3 land grants on sheep-skin (1787-1798) Monongalia County; 25 articles of agreement (1812-1875), manuscript; 4 manuscript wills or copies of wills (1852-1862); 32 surveys, maps, and plats of coal fields (1798-1892); 99 tax receipts (1807-1865), manuscript and printed forms; 44 receipts for clerking fees (1815-1845) manuscript and printed forms; 79 receipts, bills, notes (1782-1862), manuscript and printed forms; 51 miscellaneous manuscript and printed forms (1790-1902), including inventories of estates, sale bills, notes on legal matters with respect to property, court proceedings, etc.; and one manuscript constable's receipt book of Campbell and Watson.

The Watts family papers of Roanoke County, Virginia at "Oaklands" in Flat Creek, Campbell County) consist of correspondence and documents related to the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the United States Civil War, war with Osceola and Seminole tribes in Florida, Virginia politics, economic and social history (including enslavement),land ownership, farming, court cases and debt from 1786 to 1950 in southwest Virginia. The Watts are related to many other Virginia families including James and Dolley Madison. This collection represents a great view into historical and social events of the eighteenth and nineteenth century in Virginia.

The collection contains 41 manuscripts dating 1770-1831. Many of the manuscripts date from the era of the American Revolution, and several are directly relevant to the course of the war. Among the documents are single letters by John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Lafayette, James Madison, John Marshall, James Monroe, Paul Revere, and George Washington, as well as letters and other documents that include the signatures of signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Papers, 1792-1822, concerning the law suit of John C. Webb and Jacob Keeling and his wife Sarah Webb Keeling against George Webb, administrator of Kedar Webb, deceased. (Jacob Keeling was the administrator of Sarah Webb, James Webb and Penelope Webb.) Includes documents and accounts concerning Nansemond and Norfolk counties, Va. Sarah Webb Keeling was the daughter of James Webb. Kedar Webb was the son of James Webb and his wife Sarah Webb.