Collections

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.

Correspondence, photographs, post cards, newspapers, pamphlets (regarding typical antebellum and postbellum topics such as slavery, states rights, etc.), official records including the 1793 marriage license for Lund Washington (George Washington's cousin) and Susanna Grayson, a 1732 shipping order for items, including gold and silver, to be transported from Delaware to London, a 1837 document authorizing payment of a navy pension to the children of Lt. John Packette, and memorabilia of a prominent Jefferson County family, the Davenport-Gibson-Packette-Todds. The bulk of the correspondence is that of Mrs. Frances Packette Todd, Braxton Davenport (Port) Gibson, Susan G. (Zan) Gibson and Mrs. Anne Gibson Packette. Mrs. Todd was an heiress who travelled much in her youth and she was married to a distant cousin, Augustine J. Todd, who, like her, also claimed descent from George Washington's family. Her aunt, Zan Gibson, was an active local historian and genealogist. Her uncle B. D. (Port) Gibson was a lawyer who was a state legislator at the turn of the century. There are letters and artifacts of his days as a student at the University of Virginia where he was quite popular and an esteemed member of the rowing team. There are also several letters of his sisters, Anne and Zan, from a private French school in Canada. There is a shell jacket of a Confederate uniform belonging to Mrs. Todd's grandfather, John Thomas Gibson. He was a non-commissioned officer serving in an engineering unit of the CSA Army which was stationed around Richmond near the end of the Civil War. Gibson also commanded militia units during John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. There are letters of his concerning the hiring out of slaves before and during the war. After the war he once again became successful in business and built a mansion in Charles Town upon the site where John Brown was executed. One other prominent family member was Capt. James Gibson who served in a Virginia infantry regiment stationed at Norfolk during the War of 1812. Subjects covered include family matters, politics, land, slavery, education and warfare.

Correspondence and business papers of the family of George Koonce of Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County. Koonce was a prominent Unionist during the Civil War, a representative at the 1861 Wheeling Convention, and later a member of the West Virginia State Senate. The correspondence spans 1854 to 1920 (the bulk of which is from the period 1870 to 1900) and principally includes personal letters to and from family members spread out from Baltimore to Galveston, Texas. The topics, for the most part, involve family matters although there are some letters discussing politics and the Civil War. There are also some business papers concerning the firm of George Koonce & Son, a Harpers Ferry general store, and tax receipts.

Family papers of Lucie S. Wysong of Charles Town, Jefferson County, West Virginia and Sykesville, Carroll County, Maryland. Includes letters, receipts, tax documents, and legal documents. Most of the letters were sent to Lucie. Letters are clipped to the envelopes in which they were found, though in some cases the dates do not match. Lucie seems to have written notes on the envelopes regarding their content. Additional documents concern her earlier relatives of Jefferson County including Thomas, John, and Sarah Campbell. The surnames Janney and Hammond also appear within the collection. Also includes papers that list the full names of slaves owned by Lucie's family and names of slaves that were "taken by the government", as well as a deposition (1874) listing the names of slaves belonging to her and her mother, Sarah Campbell, who were freed in 1863.

Records of Storer College, West Virginia's first African American institution of higher learning, located in Harpers Ferry. Types of records include correspondence, business papers, photographs, memorabilia, issues of the Storer Record (the Storer College newspaper), financial records, scrapbooks, bulletins, minute books, newspaper and magazine clippings, diaries, motion pictures, and miscellaneous material. Includes records regarding the early years of the College, among other topics. See "Scope and Content Note" and "Historical Note" for further information.

Vestry minutes and parish records of the Zion Episcopal Church of Charles Town. The vestry minutes concern business meetings of the church, ministerial appointments, program scheduling and church maintenance. A detailed account of expenditures and donor bequeathals is included. The parish records contain indexed and unindexed records of birth, marriage, membership and burials as well as ledgers on contributions to theological education, missionary efforts, charity disbursements, church repairs and debts. Of special note are records of funds sent after the Civil War for Southern relief to Georgia, Louisiana, and Tennessee.