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Personal and business correspondence, legal papers, ledgers, family records, and other papers of the Allen family of Moorefield, Hardy County, West Virginia. Also includes papers of members of the Barr, Weibley, Taylor, and Gamble families. The majority of the collection includes personal and business correspondence, legal papers, and financial records of Judge James W.F. Allen (1813/12/03 - 1875/07/16), a Hardy County lawyer, Jacksonian Democrat, and Circuit Court Judge in Hardy and Grant Counties (active ca. 1852-1865, 1872-1875). Also includes the papers of Allen's second wife, Caroline Williams Allen (d. 1907), several of Allen's children, and other related people, and a large group of 19th century advertising memorabilia. See Scope and Content Note for more information.

Family resided in Maine. Contains correspondence, genealogical material, receipts, a ledger book, and newspapers clippings.

M.K. Lowther (1869-1947) was a journalist and one of the first women newspaper editors in West Virginia. She was the author of the HISTORY OF RITCHIE COUNTY; BLENNERHASSETT ISLAND IN ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY; FRIENDSHIP HILL, HOME OF ALBERT GALLATIN; MARSHALL HALL AND OTHER POTOMAC POINTS IN STORY AND PICTURE; and MT. VERNON: ITS CHILDREN, ITS ROMANCES, ITS ALLIED FAMILIES AND MANSIONS. There are complete and incomplete typescripts, rough drafts, revisions, photographs and plates of her books. Also there are typescripts of news articles on Washington, D.C., the Potomac Valley, and Wood County. There are genealogical notebooks and correspondence and also correspondence to publishers concerning business arrangements. Families mentioned are: Ball, Barber, Bee, Brake, Broadwater, Burns, Chenoweth, Clayton, Collins, Corbitt, Cox, Cunningham, Davis, Day, Dougherty, Drake, Fittro, Fitzrandolph, Goff, Hall, Hardman, Harris, Haymond, Henderson, Hoff, Hughes, Ireland, Jackson, Johnson, Kapkin, Kendall, Kercheval, Kuykendall, Leep, Leg(g)ett, Lemon, Lowther, McDougal, McGinnis, McGregor, McNeill, Marsh, Maxwell, Meredith, Minear, Modesitt, Morgan, Morrison, Murphy, Null, Nutter, O'Maley, Piatt, Pierpont, Pribble, Prunty, Ralston, Reger, Riddel, Riddle, Scott, Sharp, Shinn, Sleeth, Smith, Stump, Taylor, Waldo, Web(b), Willard, Willis, Wilson, and Zinn.

Collection is chiefly composed of genealogical materials compiled by Ruffner R. Payne. It contains various types of genealogical information for different West Virginia families from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Documents include charts, notes, letters, certificates, pamphlets, narrative histories, and legal documents, and date from 1805 to 1943. Materials are loosely arranged in alphabetical order by family name and vary in number and format for each family. Families for whom there are several documents include the Fowke, Franklin, Furman, Payne, Rogers, and Ruffner families. A complete inventory of names is available in the library. Collection also includes typewritten copies of journals and letters belonging to Henry Bedinger (1753-1843) that detail his service in Boston as a member of Captain Hugh Stevenson's Company of Riflemen. Bedinger chiefly records he unit's movements, places they camped, and engagements with the British. Bedinger served in defense of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, and was captured there in November 1776. He was held as a prisoner of war until his exchange in October 1780. He later served as postmaster of Shepherdstown and a member of the Virginia Assembly. Collection also includes a bound volume of typewritten letters to and from Henry Bedinger from September 1781 to 1799. Most letters are written to Bedinger during the 1790s and pertain to Assembly meetings and Bedinger's business as a merchant. Letters written from Bedinger are typically to his wife and friends and relate more to family matters.