Collections

Receipts for land, school, personal property, and road taxes in Kanawha and Putnam counties, 1863-1886 and 1898-1899; grade reports from the Wesleyan Female Institute, Staunton, Virginia, 1882, and from the Putnam County schools, 1904-1906; a printed souvenir list of the students and teacher at the intermediate school, Poca; two manuscript poems concerning the medical profession, 1879-1880; and other items. Index and table of contents are available in the 17th volume.

Correspondence, bills, receipts, and memoranda books of Gordon, Gordon, Jr., Jacob, George H., and Mrs. F.R. Mullen of Charleston. Subjects include farming operations; the management of a small store in Kanawha County, West Virginia; Barboursville College; and the State Free Silver Headquarters. The collection includes letterheads, business cards, and calendars of Charleston mercantile establishments, ca.1877-1914; and some Ku Klux Klan papers, 1928, of Dr. A.G. Mullen of Galesburg, Illinois.

Papers collected by Roy Bird Cook, a Lewis County native and Charleston pharmacist, who in his role as historian, researcher, and author, was a pioneering and effective advocate for the preservation of West Virginia history. This collection includes the papers he collected in connection with his research, including documentation of the Civil War in West Virginia, Stonewall Jackson and his family, and genealogy of North Central West Virginia, among other topics. Materials include letters and papers of the Hays family, including Samuel L. and Peregrine Hays of Gilmer County (1836-1884, 1952-1962, undated [includes facsimiles]); records of the Confederate 31st Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and later correspondence, clippings, and papers about the regiment and its members (ca. 1856-1955, undated [includes facsimiles]); various collections of individual and family papers and Civil War correspondence (1793-1974, undated [includes facsimiles]); original and copies of Stonewall Jackson letters and papers, as well as papers pertaining to Jackson family members (1801-1963, undated [includes facsimiles]); and materials related to the history of pharmacy and medicine, with a special focus on West Virginia (ca. 1832-1961, undated [includes facsimiles]). There is also an extensive series of bound notebooks containing manuscripts, transcriptions, clippings, genealogies, pamphlets, and images regarding the following topics: Stonewall Jackson, Mary Anna Morrison Jackson, Colonel George Jackson, and Thomas Jackson Arnold; the Civil War, including historical sketches of battles as well as originals and copies of soldiers' diaries, journals, and letters; Lewis County; Charleston and the Kanawha Valley; Douglas S. Freeman; Granville Davisson Hall; Camden family; George Washington; and other topics.

This collection of panoramic photographs primarily documents the coal miners of Fayette and Raleigh counties. The photographer, Rufus "Red" Ribble, was born May 14, 1878, near Blacksburg, Virginia, and died December 27, 1967 in West Virginia. He came to West Virginia sometime before 1920 and lived out his life in Mount Hope. The collection contains 119 panoramic photographs, which were made with a large rotating camera called a Cirkut camera. These photos are contact prints; all but one are black and white. Images include group portraits, landscapes/views of towns, and a few views of store interiors. Subjects of the photographs include coal miners, mining towns, local businesses, and local social and church groups. The majority of the photos are group portraits of coal miners from Fayette and Raleigh counties.

This microfilm version of the Thornton Tayloe Perry Collection held by the Virginia Historical Society contains historical material collected by Perry over a 30 year period. It concentrates upon western Virginia and West Virginia with particular emphasis upon the lower Shenandoah Valley and Jefferson, Berkeley, and Morgan counties of West Virginia. The microfilm was placed in the West Virginia Collection by the Virginia Historical Society under provisions of a National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant.

Correspondence, memo books, legal and business papers of a farmer and deputy sheriff residing in the Cabin Creek District near Coalburg, Kanawha County. Subjects include farm prices, land, coal, politics, and the Paint Creek Railroad.

Civil War materials collected by Dr. Brooks in writing his biographies of Grant and Lee. Included are pamphlets, scrapbooks, newspapers, photographs, and originals and copies of soldiers' letters, journals, and military reports. There are typed copies of a journal, 3 November-2 December 1863, of a civilian observer in Tennessee, who was at Grant's headquarters at the Battle of Chattanooga; letters, 1861-1864, of William Ludwig, a private in the Thirty-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry in Fayette, Kanawha, and Cabell counties; Confederate officers' reports on the action around Beverly in July 1863; and a Union soldier's letter of 9 May 1863, describing the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Telegram by Colonel William Henry Powell, 2nd West Virginia Cavalry, from Camp Piatt, to Captain Eli W. Botsford, 16th Ohio Infantry, dated 6 July 1863. The telegram regards the report of a scouting party concerning Confederate troop positions and recent engagements. The scouts report finding 300 Confederate cavalry and capturing a small number of men and horses. The party was also ambushed and one man was killed and another wounded. Camp Piatt occupied a location of strategic importance on the James River, Kanawha River, and Kanawha Turnpike, and is nearby to present-day Belle, West Virginia. See historical note for further information concerning Colonel Powell.

Extracts from a diary of a tour of the eastern states by a resident of Meadville, Pennsylvania, with descriptions of travel through Greenbrier, Fayette, Kanawha, and Cabell counties, (West) Virginia. Subjects covered include descriptions of buildings, as well as musings about diversions and people of various U.S. cities, including Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. (where Reynolds attended a session of Congress and heard Clay, Calhoun and Buchanan), Richmond, Charlottesville (he visited Monticello), Charleston, and a number of smaller Virginia cities. There are also descriptions of "natural wonders", including Weirs Cave, Devil's Bake Oven, the Natural Bridge, White Sulphur Springs, and Kanawha Falls.