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The Baughman Family Papers contain correspondence between members of the Baughman family of Richmond, Virginia, as well as with friends, written from 1837 to 1957 (bulk, 1837-1907). The second part of the collection is family papers from about 1859 to the 1940s. This includes military documents, estate papers, legal documents, Confederate society papers, poetry, and photographs.

Papers of Francis Harrison Pierpont (1814-1899) of Monongalia and Marion Counties, West Virginia, who served as governor of the Restored Government of Virginia during the Civil War. Includes manuscripts, typescripts, printed materials, and photocopies consisting of genealogies, correspondence, college essays, speeches, official messages, articles prepared for newspapers, legal documents, pamphlets, scrapbooks, and ephemera. Topics include Pierpont's education; his career as governor of the Restored Government of Virginia at Wheeling, Alexandria, and Richmond; the West Virginia statehood movement; politics; and his later work in the Methodist Protestant Church. Notable series include Pierpont's personal and professional correspondence; his writings and speeches, which include several drafts of his reminiscences on Lincoln; correspondence and notes of Charles H. Ambler, biographer of Pierpont, in the Subject Files series; and a series of several hundred telegrams related to statehood and the Civil War. Pierpont's correspondents include Gordon Battelle, Arthur I. Boreman, John S. Carlile, Abraham Lincoln (copies), Waitman T. Willey, and others. For civil war telegrams related to this collection, go to wvhistory.org.

Letters written by a lawyer and businessman near Shanghai in Berkeley County to his sister Mary, who was residing in their father's home at New Cumberland, Virginia. There are also letters written from: Wellsburg Academy, 1849-1850; Washington College, Washington, Pennsylvania, 1851-1855; Cuba, 1857; New Orleans, 1857; and from Richmond, Virginia, 1858-1860. A diary includes entries from 1 January to 20 March 1864. Porter had business relations with firms in Pittsburgh concerning brick making, coal lands, and shipping. Much of the diary concerns his wife's illness and his own poor health and there are a few minor references to Civil War developments and Porter's Union sentiments. Muster records of the Panhandle Greys, a state militia unit, 1861-1863, organized and captained by George McCandless Porter, are included.

Papers regarding West Virginia statehood and the history of Wheeling and Ohio County compiled by Judge Gibson L. Cranmer (1826-1903) of Wheeling, West Virginia, who served as secretary of the Wheeling Convention that repudiated Virginia's secession from the United States in 1861. Series 1 includes manuscript narratives and correspondence describing events of the West Virginia statehood movement, written by eyewitnesses at the request of Gibson L. Cranmer. Manuscript authors include John S. Burdett, John S. Carlile, Daniel Frost, Lewis Ruffner, and Benjamin Wilson. Series 2 includes Cranmer's handwritten notes, drafts of articles, copies of documents, and letters solicited by him regarding the history of Wheeling and Ohio County, West Virginia. See Scope and Content Note for details and contents list.

Correspondence, legal and business papers, mercantile records and tax receipt books of Isaac McNeel, who operated a store at Edray and Mill Point, Pocahontas County, West Virginia, served as sheriff of the county, operated a gristmill, raised livestock, and was appointed provost marshal of the county in 1862 by the Confederate Army. The collection also includes letters and school reports of McNeel's sons, Winters and Summers, while students at Washington and Lee and the Medical and Law Departments of the University of Virginia, 1893-1897. Other school material pertains to the Hillsboro Male and Female Academy and the Lewisburg Female Institute. Subjects include mercantile and cattle trade with Baltimore and Richmond; business conditions in the l850s and in Richmond during the Civil War; slave hiring; ginseng trade; agriculture; the American Party, 1855; Henry A. Wise; Virginia Secession Convention; effect of the Union blockade on Richmond commerce; speculation in whiskey, tobacco, and cattle during the Civil War; and postwar economic and political conditions in the Pocahontas County area.

Papers of Thomas Tavenner and the Tavenner family of western Virginia, including correspondence; memoirs; journals; financial and legal documents; pamphlets; newspapers; and other material. Much of the material in this collection regards the Civil War. The Tavenner family were Confederate sympathizers.