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This collection contains a sampling of Civil War correspondence referencing both Union and Confederate soldiers fighting throughout Virginia at various points during the Civil War. Individually acquired, the collection was created by a private collector, so the items were brought together as a collection by his design.

The Heatwole Family Papers, 1838-2001, document descendants of David Heatwole (1767-1842). The collection documents the Virginia Heatwoles, specifically those of Mt. Clinton and Dale Enterprise, as well as the Trumbos of Fulks Run. Materials include correspondence, financial records, personal papers, photographs, and ephemera.

The Henkel Family Papers, 1801-2008, document the influential Henkel family of Rockingham and Shenandoah counties in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. The collection, primarily documenting the Siram and Margaret Koiner Henkel line of the family, is comprised of correspondence, personal and financial papers, and genealogical research materials. The Renalds family is heavily documented in the 2023 accession materials.

Historical material compiled by Jack Sandy Anderson. Contains a land grant for land in Monongalia County, Virginia signed by James Monroe (1801; oversize); a typed copy of a Civil War-era letter from a Union soldier (1862); genealogical information; and other material. Also includes notes from the donor, which give context and sometimes genealogy of the items' owners. For contents list, see Scope and Content Note.

Papers of James ("Jim") Franklin Comstock of Richwood, West Virginia, whose position as editor of the West Virginia Hillbilly and avocation as collector and advocate of all things West Virginia led to the preservation of much of the state's physical, visual, and textual history. The collection includes materials Comstock collected about West Virginia history as well as his own personal and professional papers. Materials include: general series of historical documents such as letters, deeds, and county court cases pertaining to a diverse range of subjects (1717, 1754-1988, undated [includes facsimiles]); letters of Lucy Prichard, former instructor at Marshall College (now Marshall University) (1925-1927, undated); clippings and typescripts of Wirt County resident and Atlantic Monthly writer Louis Eckert Reed (ca. 1960-1975, undated); account books concerning economic development and commercial activities in the northern part of the state in the 19th and early 20th centuries (1830-1938); printed material about West Virginia schools, businesses, and events as well as non-West Virginia books and pamphlets (1829-1995, undated); Comstock's personal and professional correspondence (1882-1995, undated); a wide variety of photographs, including images of West Virginia cities and towns, among many others (ca. 1850s-1995, undated); microfilmed records of the Civil War and Dunmore's War (undated); glass lantern slides, which include views of scenery and buildings in Wheeling and various other locations in Ohio County, WV (1871-1897, undated); Grand Army of the Republic and U.S. military history scrapbooks (1883-1918); broadsides, including advertisements for a circus in Moundsville (ca. 1827-1960 [includes facsimiles]); and maps and atlases of pre- and post-statehood West Virginia, counties, colonial North America, and other topics (1730-1976, undated [includes facsimiles]). An addendum of 2013/05 includes additional personal and professional correspondence, publications, newspaper morgue files, photographs, audio-visual material, artifacts, scrapbooks, account books, and maps. For more information on Jim Comstock, see the Historical Note.

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.

Compact disc of a searchable database of 1200 facsimile pages of New River Symposium Proceedings dating from 1982-1999. Articles in the Proceedings discuss the natural and cultural features of the New River region of West Virginia, including the following topics: botany, Civil War, coal mining, environmentalism, folklore, folk music, geology, Green Sulphur Springs, historic preservation, iron industry, native Americans, railroads, rivers (Bluestone, Gauley, New), transportation, and Mary Draper Ingles.

Approximately 22,500 words total, a detailed manuscript account, in diary form, of long periods of the first two years of the Civil War in Virginia, April 18-August 12, 1861, and April 10- September 8, 1862. The diaries contain eye-witness accounts of Civil War battles, social commentary on life during wartime, and detailed descriptions of travel in Virginia, including trips to Montpelier and Weyer's Cave. The first diary features a detailed double-page manuscript map of the first Battle of Bull Run.