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Personal and business papers of Arthur I. Boreman (1823-1896), lawyer, U.S. senator, circuit court judge, and first governor of West Virginia. The bulk of the collection consists of papers relating to his judgeship and to the law firm of Boreman and Bullocks, Parkersburg, WV. Series include correspondence, notes on cases tried before Judge Boreman, envelope cases of material regarding legal cases in which Boreman was involved, financial material, and political and judicial printed material. Correspondence includes letters to Boreman from Francis H. Pierpont (1866-1867), which concern politics in West Virginia, the admission of Berkeley and Jefferson counties into the state, the Virginia debt, and Reconstruction in Virginia. There is little other material relating to the governorship or political activities. Additional correspondents include J.W. Davis, John J. Davis, D.D.T. Farnsworth, D.H. Strother, J.G. Jackson, Charles J. Faulkner, and E.W. Wilson. Also includes manuscripts of speeches; muster rolls; household accounts; civil and court case papers concerning oil well drilling and sales; railroad property inventories and operation; coal prices, shipping data, and strikes; liquid fuel transportation; and steam and tow boat cargoes, navigation data, and names of boats in service on the Ohio River. There is also genealogical information on P.G. Van Winkle and Ebenezer Zane, and a letter and deposition by J.H. Diss Debar. For more details and box-level contents list, see Scope and Content Note. For more information on Arthur I. Boreman, see Historical Note.

A short history of Doddridge County, 1846-1893 entitled "Reminiscences Of Doddridge County by a Former Inhabitant." J.H. Diss DeBarr, the author, describes early residents, taverns, roads, transportation, and newspapers in Doddridge County.

Correspondence, business and legal papers, maps and printed materials of a French emigre, land speculator, and merchant from Cincinnati and Parkersburg. Subjects include Levassor's extensive landholdings in Kanawha, Lincoln, Jackson, Wood, Wirt, and Monongalia counties, and activities of his land agents; James Swann lands; the coming of the Northwestern Virginia Railroad to Parkersburg; the Panic of 1857 in that city; oil fever in the Wood County area, 1859-1866; and the activities of J.H. Diss Debar, West Virginia's first commissioner of immigration. Correspondents include J.H. Diss Debar, James M. Laidley, Charles Lisez, and Alexander Quarrier.

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.

Sketchbook of Joseph Hubert Diss Debar (1820-1905), a French-born American artist and the first commissioner of immigration for West Virginia. Sketchbook includes clipping of an article about Debar (1931) as well as artworks by Debar. Artworks include mostly pencil and pen sketches, as well as some watercolors. Most of his work is labeled with subject and year, and has been pasted into the sketchbook. Subjects are generally landscapes and portraits. Sections of the sketchbook include: "In Alsace 1832-5" (includes watercolor of island of Schwanau), "Paris 1835-40", "In America 1840" (includes watercolor of Niagara Falls and sketches of Charles Dickens), "In West Virginia 1846-1876", "The Civil War 1861-65" (includes sketches of John Brown, Stonewall Jackson, and other prominent military and political figures), "Kansas 1880" (includes Salina area), "Visit to Europe 1881-2", and "Supplementary of Various Dates and Places".

Papers of Lewis Maxwell, an attorney at Weston including primarily letters from clients concerning land in West Virginia, 1840-1859. Correspondents include J.H. Diss Debar, John S. Carlile, Matthew Edmiston, J.M. Bennett, and Benjamin H. Latrobe. Other subjects covered include railroad legislation and construction and the surfacing of the Weston-Clarksburg road.