Collections

The collection includes photocopies of land grants (1798, 1801, 1802, and 1832), treasury warrant records (1779-1780), survey maps, and property maps (two originals, ca. 1966) relating to landholdings, family farms, and tracts in Monongalia County, West Virginia containing Pittsburgh coal seams owned by Thomas Lazzell, Robert Courtney, Michael Courtney, and their descendants in Monongalia County, West Virginia. There are also photocopies of church baptism records (1756-1825) and a War of 1812 militia payroll record (including the company commanded by Captain Robert Courtney); and there are several genealogy charts and correspondence regarding court records, repository materials, and family history (1963-1966). Material covers the years 1756-1994.

Correspondence, book reviews, certificates and pictures of Waddell, a pioneering black veterinarian and author. His books (People Are The Funniest Animals, The Black Man in Veterinary Medicine, Universal Veterinarianism, and Historical Facts of the Black Veterinarian) document the little known contributions of African-Americans from antebellum times to the present in the field of veterinary science. They also indicate his beliefs that the veterinarian profession can also help heal misunderstandings among mankind. After graduation in 1935 from the University of Pennsylvania, one of the first schools to admit blacks into its veterinarian program, he taught and worked at Tuskegee Institute where he co-founded the first program in veterinary science at a black American college. During World War II, he joined the Ninth Cavalry, a famed black unit of which he includes some of its history among his papers. After the war, he established a private practice in West Virginia eventually locating in Monongalia County where he also served on the board of the Monongalia County Mental Health Association. His home near Morgantown served as a social center for some of the first black students who attended West Virginia University. He was also instrumental in fostering integration of other institutions within the county. After 1963 he moved to North Dakota where he worked on the Chippewa reservations of Turtle Mountain and Fort Totten. Waddell offers his observations on the aspirations of Native Americans and how they are discriminated against and neglected.

Three clippings notebooks compiled by Blacksville, West Virginia resident Karen Haught regarding primarily the history of Monongalia County, West Virginia and Greene County, Pennsylvania in the period ca. 1800 to 1980. Clippings were culled from local newspapers.

Records of the League of Women Voters, Morgantown-Monongalia County, West Virginia. Includes membership lists, minutes, proposals, plans for conventions and environmental projects, and guides to government officials. See the scope and content note for detail.

Papers of Hu Maxwell (1860-1927), historian, editor, and author of several county histories of West Virginia, along with papers and records of other family members. There are manuscripts of fiction, verse, and local history written by Maxwell, as well as a number of his manuscripts and publications dealing with forestry which were prepared while he was a member of the Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. Maxwell kept a diary during the years 1901-1919 while residing in Morgantown, Chicago, Illinois, and Washington, D.C., which is extensive for the period of World War I and which contains notes on the diary of Rufus Maxwell (1855-1907). See scope and content note for more detail.

Genealogical material regarding the Popenoe (Papineau, Popino, and other spellings) family and related families (including the Burris, Davis, Dent, Evans, Judy, Martin, Morgan, Prickett, Scott, and Snider families), compiled through the research of Oliver Popenoe. The Poponoe family in North America is traced back to Jean Papineau, a French Huguenot who immigrated to Massachusetts ca. 1700. His son Peter settled in what would later become Monongalia county in the 1770s. This collection includes narratives, family trees, maps, correspondence, research notes, photocopies from books and other publications, transcriptions of original documents, newspaper articles, land surveys, and other material.

These photocopies of alphabetized client records of the Owen-Neely Funeral Home of Blacksville, Monongalia County, list the names and addresses of the deceased, their marital status, survivors, details of funeral and burial services, and birth, death, and burial dates.

Correspondence, membership lists, forms, descriptions and by-laws of self help co-operatives organized and instituted in the vicinity of Scotts Run during the latter part of the Great Depression. Trubee was a newly ordained pastor sent upon request from local volunteers by the Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church. His task was to conduct religious services and to develop programs to alleviate poverty for those unemployed miners and their families who had not been resettled at Arthurdale. With the technical advice of Hjalmer Rutzebek of Merom, Indiana, the manager of an institute to aid in the development of self help organizations, Trubee and the community formed a co-operative that operated a bakery, gardens and food processing (canning) center. Trubee was also instrumental in obtaining better drinking water, medical and dental services and recreational facilities for the inhabitants. Nonetheless, these papers reflect not only the success of the co-operatives' efforts but also the severity of the Great Depression persisting even as late as the eve of America's entry into World War II.