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Correspondence, typescripts, notes, clippings, photographs, and printed material of a local historian and promoter of patriotic societies from Berkeley Springs. Many of the papers pertain to the local history of the eastern panhandle. Subjects include the town of Bath (Berkeley Springs); James Rumsey; George Washington; Porte Crayon (David Hunter Strother); Washington Bicentennial; National Flag Day; D.A.R.; and American Indian Day. One of the clippings scrapbooks includes a photo of West Virginia Governor William G. Conley with Key to Bath, West Virginia (ca. 1929-1933), and another scrapbook contains an announcement for a meeting of the "equal suffrage club" on 25 August 1915.

Personal and business papers of lawyer, U.S. Senator, circuit court judge, and first Governor of West Virginia, Arthur I. Boreman. See scope and content note for more details.

Personal and business papers of Arthur I. Boreman (1823-1896), lawyer, U.S. senator, circuit court judge, and first governor of West Virginia. The bulk of the collection consists of papers relating to his judgeship and to the law firm of Boreman and Bullocks, Parkersburg, WV. Series include correspondence, notes on cases tried before Judge Boreman, envelope cases of material regarding legal cases in which Boreman was involved, financial material, and political and judicial printed material. Correspondence includes letters to Boreman from Francis H. Pierpont (1866-1867), which concern politics in West Virginia, the admission of Berkeley and Jefferson counties into the state, the Virginia debt, and Reconstruction in Virginia. There is little other material relating to the governorship or political activities. Additional correspondents include J.W. Davis, John J. Davis, D.D.T. Farnsworth, D.H. Strother, J.G. Jackson, Charles J. Faulkner, and E.W. Wilson. Also includes manuscripts of speeches; muster rolls; household accounts; civil and court case papers concerning oil well drilling and sales; railroad property inventories and operation; coal prices, shipping data, and strikes; liquid fuel transportation; and steam and tow boat cargoes, navigation data, and names of boats in service on the Ohio River. There is also genealogical information on P.G. Van Winkle and Ebenezer Zane, and a letter and deposition by J.H. Diss Debar. For more details and box-level contents list, see Scope and Content Note. For more information on Arthur I. Boreman, see Historical Note.

Manuscript and galley proofs of THE OLD SOUTH ILLUSTRATED, by Porte Crayon, edited with an introduction by Cecil D. Eby, Jr. (1959); a manuscript draft of Eby's PORTE CRAYON; manuscript of a VIRGINIA YANKEE IN THE CIVIL WAR: THE DIARIES OF DAVID HUNTER STROTHER (1961); THE LIFE OF DAVID HUNTER STROTHER (1960); and photocopies of Strother's VIRGINIA ILLUSTRATED and his articles in HARPER'S MAGAZINE. Also contains Eby's curriculum vitae (1995) and a copy of his obituary (2015).

Artworks by David Hunter Strother (1816-1888), a nineteenth century American illustrator and writer for Harpers Magazine whose pseudonym, "Porte Crayon," was a household word. Many of the drawings in this collection were made while Strother was studying art in Florence, Italy (1841-1843). The collection also includes a color lithograph by Mexican artist Casimiro Castro which depicts Strother on horseback in the lower left of the image; this lithograph is dated ca. 1879, at which time Strother was Consul General to Mexico.

Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, memorabilia, photographs, journals, drawings, and sketchbooks of David Hunter Strother (1816-1888), a nineteenth century illustrator and writer for Harpers Magazine whose pseudonym, "Porte Crayon", was a household word. Other highlights of his career, all of which are reflected in this collection, are authorship of Virginia Illustrated (1857) and Charleston and its Resources (1878), his work as illustrator for Blackwater Chronicle (1853), service during the Civil War as a Union officer, stint as a newspaper editor, and Consul-Generalship to Mexico (1879-1885). According to Strother's biographer, Cecil D. Eby Jr., his writings linked the two traditions of literature in the south, "the genteel romanticism of the sentimental novelists and the earthy realism of the frontier humorists." In 1872-1875 Strother wrote The Mountains, which Eby considers the first important presentation of West Virginia in literature. The collection includes roughly 590 drawings and sketches, 44 volumes of journals, and several boxes of correspondence. An addendum of 2015/06/13 includes one drawing. An addendum of 2007/02/08 includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, announcements, and photographs regarding Strother and related families of the Eastern panhandle of West Virginia. An addendum of 2021/06/04 contains an abridged transcription by Cecil D. Eby Jr., of Strother's diary, 1879-1880, when Strother was General Consul to Mexico. For contents of the addenda and link to the digital collection: Drawings of David Hunter Strother, please see the Scope and Content Note.

Approximately 300 letters by the family of noted author and artist, David Hunter Strother and the Walker families. The letters are mainly from Strother to his daughter and son-in-law, Emily Strother Walker and Brisben Walker.

Letter to Joseph S. Duckwall, dated City of Mexico, October 4, 1882, concerning Strother's father's estate and the estate of Phillip C. Pendleton.

Papers of Francis Harrison Pierpont (1814-1899) of Monongalia and Marion Counties, West Virginia, who served as governor of the Restored Government of Virginia during the Civil War. Includes manuscripts, typescripts, printed materials, and photocopies consisting of genealogies, correspondence, college essays, speeches, official messages, articles prepared for newspapers, legal documents, pamphlets, scrapbooks, and ephemera. Topics include Pierpont's education; his career as governor of the Restored Government of Virginia at Wheeling, Alexandria, and Richmond; the West Virginia statehood movement; politics; and his later work in the Methodist Protestant Church. Notable series include Pierpont's personal and professional correspondence; his writings and speeches, which include several drafts of his reminiscences on Lincoln; correspondence and notes of Charles H. Ambler, biographer of Pierpont, in the Subject Files series; and a series of several hundred telegrams related to statehood and the Civil War. Pierpont's correspondents include Gordon Battelle, Arthur I. Boreman, John S. Carlile, Abraham Lincoln (copies), Waitman T. Willey, and others. For civil war telegrams related to this collection, go to wvhistory.org.