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The collection consists of printed volumes relating to Colonel William Edwards, William W. Edwards, and William Henry Edwards; also copies of manuscript materials, including a diary of William Henry Edwards for 1846, and his "Journal and Preface to London Diary," 1848. Other materials relate to the family's coal interests in Kanawha County and include account books for the Coalsburg-Kanawha Mining Company, 1926-1928; the Deep Hollow Coal Company, 1920-1940; and the Kanawha and Ohio Coal Company, 1864-1866.

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.

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.

Negatives and other material from the Gravely and Moore Studio of Charleston, West Virginia. The majority of items within the collection are cellulose acetate negatives; the collection also includes glass plate negatives, prints, two photograph albums, and other material, as well as a card catalog documenting business transactions with customers. The collection is organized into customer project files as established by the Studio; the contents of these files are stored in envelopes usually containing one or two negatives, but they can contain up to a dozen or more. There are approximately 3,500 customer project files containing an estimated 11,000 items, most of which are negatives. The majority of photographs within the collection are portraits of individual adults. Other subjects include portraits of children; group photographs; businesses and advertising; members of the military; civil servants; civic organizations; missionaries; and aerial photographs, among others.

Pamphlets include Henry Ruffner's antislavery pamphlet, 1847, and his Union speech, 1856. Subjects of the manuscripts and correspondence include family history; travel; Kanawha Salt Works; schools in Virginia and Kanawha County; Lane Seminary Library; Presbyterian Church; slavery, coal, gas, iron, and timber; Johns Hopkins, Washington and Lee, Harvard, Hobart, Cornell, and Hampden-Sydney colleges; Greenbrier County; Alabama; election of 1904; University of Virginia; Kanawha Valley floods; Venezuela; American Colonization Society; and the Philippine Islands. Persons mentioned or commented on include Philip Doddridge, John Letcher, Hugh Mercer, and Nelson A. Miles. Correspondents include Charles H. Ambler, John Eaton, John P. Hale, H.R. Helper, W.S. Laidley, David L. Ruffner, John W. Wayland, and William L. Wilson.

County court records consisting primarily of court case papers, related court record books (dockets, execution books, fee books, witness books, etc.), and public records concerning a variety of topics including land records, schools, and marriages. There are also a few private account books relating to various local industries, including salt, mining, sawmills, steamboats, and general stores.

Personal and business papers of the Lewis family, mainly of John D. (1800-1882), Charles C., Sr. (b.1839), and Charles C., Jr. (b.1865), of Kanawha County. For the period 1825-1875 there are papers of various members of the Ruffner, Dickinson, and Wilson families of West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and other states. The business papers relate to farming operations, the purchase and sale of slaves, salt manufacturing and trade, the Old Sweet Springs Company, coal, iron, oil, lumbering, railroads, and real estate in Kanawha, Clay, Boone, Fayette, and Nicholas counties. There are newspaper clippings, speeches, and other papers reflecting the Lewis' interests in the Democratic Party in the period 1914-1920. Settlement papers and correspondence regarding the estates of John D. Lewis, and Joel, Daniel, and Andrew Ruffner are in the collection. The personal papers include diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, and letters. Travel accounts in the United States, South America, and Europe are given in the correspondence, as well as comments on schools in West Virginia and Virginia; the building of a church in Kanawha County in 1834; missionary work in Colombia, South America, 1874-1875; Civil War and postwar conditions in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri; conditions at Camp Chase, in the Civil War; and material relating to World War I.