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Arthurdale, West Virginia, was the first Federal homestead community established under President Franklin Roosevelt during the New Deal. Two scrapbooks, available on microfilm only, document the history of Arthurdale, West Virginia, from 1935 to 1975. Photographs, newspaper clippings, fact sheets about the community, and event programs offer insight into the development of the town, the involvement of Eleanor Roosevelt, students, and reflections on life in Arthurdale. Photographs and clippings on Volume I are chiefly from the 1930s and 1940s. Event programs come from a Labor Day celebration in 1938 and the Mountain Choir Festival in 1946. Book II contains clippings and photographs from the 1940s to the mid-1970s. These chiefly pertain to the Arthurdale church and high school students.

Papers of the Brown, Parsons, and other West Virginia families and residents. Includes correspondence sent to J. Slidell Brown, a Democratic state senator from Elkins (1916-1935); announcements and programs for reunions of the Brown family of Preston County (1913-1930); a deed and copies of maps of land in Springfield Township, Pennsylvania (1846-1893, undated); financial documents, mainly tax receipts, of the Lilley family of Mercer County (1873-1910); correspondence sent to members of the Reckart family of Preston County (1910-1928); financial documents of W. G. Cambric of Harrison County (1895-1921); wedding announcements and other event invitations (ca. 1890-1920); holiday cards (ca. 1900); and other material.

Mine disaster reports, official hearing reports, and hearing and inquest transcripts (1938-1967). Most of the mine disaster reports were created by inspectors from the West Virginia Department of Mines, and some of them involved federal inspectors. Other reports were created by the United States Bureau of Mines and the West Virginia Department of Mines Coal Mine Safety Board of Review. Also includes volumes 3 through 8 of the Decisions of the Interior Board of Mine Operations Appeals (1974-1977). The mine disaster reports and associated materials pertain to the following mining companies, with counties where the disaster occurred in parentheses: American Rolling Mill Company (Boone County), Amigo Smokeless Coal Company (Wyoming County), Boone County Coal Corporation, Christopher Coal Company (Monongalia County), Davis Coal and Coke Company (Tucker County), Hatfield-Campbell Creek Coal Company (Kanawha County), Hitchman Coal and Coke Company (Marshall County), Island Creek Coal Company (McDowell County), Katherine Coal Company (Harrison County), Koppers Coal Company (McDowell County), MacAlpin Coal Company (Raleigh County), C.H. Meade Coal Company (Raleigh County), Meadows Coal Company (Raleigh County), New River and Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company (McDowell County), Oglebay Norton Company (Nicholas County), Page Coal and Coke Company (McDowell County), Parsons Coal Company (Preston County), Pemberton Coal and Coke Company (Raleigh County), Pocahontas Fuel Company (a division of Consolidation Coal Company, McDowell County, near Tazewell County, Virginia), Pursglove Coal Mining Company (Monongalia County), Raleigh Coal and Coke Company (Raleigh County), and Red Jacket Coal Corporation (Wyoming County).

Papers of Harold Henry Miller (24 November 1911 - 8 November 2006) regarding his military service and his career as a high school teacher in West Virginia and Maryland. Miller was a resident of Preston County, West Virginia and served during World War II and the Korean Conflict. Contains biographical information, correspondence, photographs, financial records, newspaper clippings, programs, pamphlets, brochures, handbooks, and highway maps. Also contains a soldier's pocket bible with bulletproof shield given by Miller to Paul Ray Cooper (1952); U.S.S. Missouri cruise book (1952-1953); "The Keel", United State Naval Training Center book (1952); and Terra Alta High School yearbooks, "The Altonian" (1948-1950). For biographical information, see box 1, folder 1.

The Hazel Run Baptist Church minute book with the church's covenant, minutes of meetings and lists of newly baptized members, 1856-74. The Hazel Run Baptist Church later became part of the nearby Hopewell Baptist Church, both located in Preston County. The Hopewell Baptist Church ran Sunday School classes (1883-95) of the combined Baptist and Methodist congregations (the Hopewell Union Church Sunday School) and included are class attendance records. The Hopewell Baptist Church records (1906-86) contain articles of faith, minutes of meetings and membership lists. In more recent years their records include detailed budget reports and denominational certificates of merit.

9.5' x 11' scrapbook which contains genealogical information regarding the Isaiah Bolyard family of Preston County, West Virginia. Includes a photocopied excerpt from THE BALLIET, BALLIETT, BALLIETTE, BALYEAT, BOLYARD, AND ALLIED FAMILIES by Steven Clay Balliet (1968), pp. 680-719. Also includes family photographs, greeting cards, letters, memorial cards, obituaries, and miscellaneous newspaper clippings.

Transcript of "Trips from Ohio to New Germany in Preston County, Virginia 1826, 1833, 1835; Journal entries taken from the Tagebuch [Diary] of David Simon, Boardman Township, Mahoning County, Ohio; translated from the German original with an introduction and indexes by Margaret Miller Simon." The journal entries record the travel experiences of David Simon from Mahoning County, Ohio to Washington, Pennsylvania and New Germany in Preston County near present-day Aurora; includes a record of relatives visited, including the Simon, Reinhart, Stemple, and Easterday (Ostertag) families. Also includes copies of selected pages of David Simon's original manuscript journal in its original German.

Correspondence, business records, legal papers, and miscellaneous papers of the Haldeman, Baldwin, and Smith families of Monongalia and Preston counties in West Virginia and of Greene, Fayette, and Washington counties in Pennsylvania. The major portion of the collection relates to the business dealings of the Rev. T.A. Haldeman, who built and repaired carriages, wagons, and buggies at a shop in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and also dealt in fruits and vegetables. There is genealogical material on the Haldeman family, information about the Drummond Chapel Sunday School (Morgantown, West Virginia), and the journal of the Rev. T.H. Trainer (1881-1899), who served Drummond Chapel, Rock Forge, Woodland, Mellon, and other Monongalia County churches.