Search

The collection documents the formation of the Lillian Thomas Pratt Collection of Fabergé decorative artworks at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Bequeathed to the museum upon her death in 1947, Pratt's Fabergé collection consistently remains one of the highlights of the museum's permanent collection. Pratt purchased most of her Fabergé collection from the Schaffer Collection and Hammer Galleries, both of New York City, in the 1930s and 1940s. Comprised of correspondence, invoices, price tags, and detailed item descriptions, this collection illuminates Pratt's mind as a collector, as well as her relationship with one of her dealers, Alexander Schaffer.

Papers of a Morgantown resident who practiced medicine and operated a pension claim office in Mt. Morris, Greene County, Pennsylvania, ca.1847-1859, and who later conducted his claim business in Morgantown while serving with the U.S. Internal Revenue Bureau as collector for the second district of West Virginia. The collection contains letters, accounts, and business papers of Morgantown residents, 1790-1855, including a private account book of Hugh McNeely, 1790-1800. The internal revenue returns and tax statements give the occupations of many persons in northern West Virginia, ca.1861-1886. There are also photographs; genealogical compilations on the Statler, Morgan, and Wendell Brown families; and typescripts of Monongalia County history.

Correspondence, legal papers, photographs, and printed materials of John W. Mason (1842-1917). Mason was a circuit court and state Supreme Court judge, member of the Virginia State Debt Commission, and commissioner of Internal Revenue. The general correspondence contains personal and business letters, as well as manuscript speeches, notebooks, and reports. The period while Mason was circuit judge is particularly sparse. Also includes Internal Revenue correspondence consisting of about 8,500 pages in letter press copy books. Roughly half of the collection is devoted to his legal papers and printed materials concerning law in general. Subjects include early development of the Republican Party in West Virginia; political campaigns in West Virginia from 1870-1916; Monongalia Academy; industrial development; Internal Revenue Service (1889-1893); the Virginia Debt question; early banking development in Grafton; and the development of coal companies, particularly around Fairmont. Correspondents include Arthur I. Boreman, A.W. Campbell, Stephen B. Elkins, Benjamin Harrison, Francis H. Pierpont, and others.

Correspondence and writings of the mayor of Jane Lew and one-time Republican nominee for Congress, pertaining to fluoridation, United Nations, foreign aid, income tax, socialism, the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, and Lightburn's conservative interpretation of Americanism.

Operator in the Logan coalfield for many years, collector of Internal Revenue for West Virginia, and president of the state Board of Control, 1937-1941. Thurmond returned to the coal industry in 1941 and helped organize the Southern Coal Producers' Association, serving as its secretary until his retirement in 1958. The collection consists of correspondence, speeches, scrapbooks, and other papers, including Thurmond's diaries for 1938-1967. Subjects include labor relations, taxes, mine safety, non-union fields, company stores, the United Mine Workers of America, race relations, and national politics. There is specific comment on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Papers of Alexander Smith and George W. Brown. The Smith papers are letters and receipts, 1794-1814, and include a letter from N. Suter commenting on a naval battle of the War of 1812, current prices, government, and business conditions and receipts for the payment for slaves. The Brown letters, 1870-1886, concern a gift to West Virginia University, marriage, and payment of land taxes. Correspondents or persons mentioned include Alexander Martin and John W. Mason. Receipts, 1881-1894, are for taxes paid by the Brown, Miller and Co. Also included are certificates of appointment and commissions, 1858-1921, for Virginia Militia, Quartermaster General and Adjutant General of the state of West Virginia, the Collector of Internal Revenue, the U.S. Army Officers' Reserve Corps, the National Guard, and a membership certificate for the Society of the Army of West Virginia.