Collections : [Virginia Historical Society]

FitzGerald Bemiss's papers cover his career in the Virginia General Assembly, his work on various government commissions, and other related political activities and interests. Commissions on which he served include the Commission on Public Education (a.k.a. the Gray Commission), the Virginia Outdoor Recreation Study Commission, the irginia Metropolitan Areas Study Commission, and the overnor's Commission on Virginia's Future. His areas of particular interest included educational and environmental issues.

Chiefly papers, 1826-1884, of Charles James Faulkner (1806-1884), consisting of correspondence concerning his legal and political career; records of his law practice, including materials concerning the disagreement between Virginia and West Virginia over the counties of Berkeley and Jefferson, and materials concerning the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company; political files relating to his activities in the Whig and Democratic parties and including campaign materials for Virginia elections and for the presidential election of 1856, papers relating to his U.S. ambassadorship to France, 1859-1861, and materials concerning the West Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1872; and miscellaneous items relating to the Martinsburg & Potomac Railroad Company and the Berkeley County Agricultural & Mechanical Association. Also includes papers, 1866-1915, of Charles James Faulkner, Jr. (1847-1920), consisting of correspondence, financial records, and legal documents concerning his law practice and his service in the U.S. Senate, 1887-1899; papers, 1793-1816, of Martinsburg, Va. (now W. Va.), merchant James Faulkner (1776-1817), including records of his service in the Virginia militia during the War of 1812; papers of lawyer Elisha Boyd, including correspondence with Richmond, Va., lawyer John Wickham; and records of Boyd's father-in-law, merchant Andrew Waggener of Berkeley County, Va. (now W. Va.).

Papers of Joseph Gwathmey (1754-1824), planter, major in the Virginia militia, and deacon of Beulah Baptist Church, consist chiefly of records for his estate. Papers of William Gwathmey (1794-1875), planter and physician, trustee for Beulah Baptist Church, include diaries, 1833- 1874 (20 v.), primarily concerning weather conditions, farming operations, the health of slaves, physician's visits, and church activities (Civil War diaries provide his views on the war and document local events); correspondence, 1819-1875, with family members, many concerning church activities; accounts books, 1825-1875 (3 v.), for farming operations and physician's services (containing also records of family and slave births); loose accounts, 1833-1875; deeds and bonds, 1818-1873; and Beulah Church records, 1829-1872. Papers of Joseph Hardin Gwathmey (1846-1918), planter, insurance agent, and superintendent of King William County schools, include diaries, 1872 and 1910; correspondence, 1885-1918, chiefly with family members; and account books, 1887-1917 (2 v.), concerning farm operations. Papers of John Ryland Gwathmey (1888-1982), planter, include correspondence, 1918- 1982, chiefly with family; account books, 1951-1980, concerning farming operations; accounts, 1919-1982; checks and bank statements; and materials concerning the creation of the Burlington-Gwathmey Memorial Foundation. Papers of Anna Garnett Gwathmey (1879-1979), insurance agent, include correspondence, 1913-1975, with family; account books, accounts, and bank records, 1916-1979; and business records, 1921-1970, documenting her career in New York City and King William County, and include account books and client files. Papers of Mary Burnley Gwathmey (1883-1974), teacher and artist, include correspondence, 1910-1973; accounts, 1930-1974; school notes, artwork, and materials documenting her work with the Virginia 350th Anniversary Commission.

Collection contains letters, 1833-1873, written to William Gray as a director of the Bank of Virginia, officer of the Manchester Methodist Episcopal Church, trustee of the town of Manchester, Va., justice of the peace for Chesterfield County, Va., and owner of William Gray & Co. (a tobacco manufacturing and shipping firm). Correspondence in part concerns the tobacco trade and hiring out slaves to Richmond tobacco factories; fugitive slaves and free blacks; and the education of children. Also includes letters, 1833-1874, accounts, banking records, and other business records of William Gray & Co., in part concerning tobacco agents primarily in London, Eng., and New York City, the financial Panic of 1837, the murder of Gray's partner, Joseph H. Harris, by a slave in New Providence, Tenn. (who was subsequently lynched), and European reaction to secession and the American Civil War.

The Edwin Fisher Conger papers focus primarily on several of Conger's business operations, specifically the production of treated telephone and electrical poles. Two of Conger's chief operations, Norfolk Creosoting Company and the Piedmont Wood Preserving Company (later simply the Piedmont Company) figure most heavily in the collection, along with information regarding Conger's first endeavor in this field, E.F. Conger Creosoting Company, his extensive timber holdings near Aiken, South Carolina, and his financial, social, and philanthropic dealings as a wealthy businessman living in Virginia.

Include scattered business and personal correspondence, ca. 1916-1950, as well as newspaper clippings, organizational minutes, notes and other published and manuscript materials pertaining to a wide array of Clark's political and artistic interests. Among the organizations with which Miss Clark worked were the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, the League of Women Voters of Virginia, and the Federal Art Project in Virginia. Correspondence, 1916-1940 and 1926-1939, with Nora Houston (1883-1942) and Willoughby Ions (1881-1977) illuminates the relationship between women's personal and professional networks and their political activities. The correspondence, 1906-1929, of Clark's mother, Estelle (Goodman) Clark (1847-1893) with her three daughters offers insights into relationships between mothers and their adult children. The collection also contains information on teaching art history in a variety of contexts, on women's suffrage and women's rights, and on other civic and political activities.

Historical and operational materials relating to Arvonia-Buckingham Slate Corporation compiled by its last secretary-treasurer, Charles E. Wingo, III. Arvonia-Buckingham had a long history in Buckingham County, Virginia, as one of the largest slate quarrying and production companies in the twentieth century. Founded by members of the Richmond-based Branch & Co. investment banking firm, or persons closely associated in business with Branch's principals, the company operated successfully until the mid-1980s, when its assets were sold to a subsidiary of Hi-Test Laboratories, Inc., called Buckingham Slate Company, Inc., and later absorbed by LeSueur-Richmond Slate Corporation, which is now the only remaining slate quarrying and production company operating in Buckingham County.

Include public correspondence, press releases, speeches, newspaper clippings, printed materials, legislative bills, private writings, condolences, and family correspondence relating to the political career of J. Sargeant Reynolds, member of the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate, who served as Lieutenant Governor until untimely his death in 1971.

The collection includes correspondence (some copies), 1778-1799, of attorney John Wickham (1763-1839) of Richmond, Va., and extensive materials concerning the settlement of his estate (including wills, correspondence, financial, land and legal records, and trust materials, some involving Robert E. Lee and William Henry Fitzhugh Lee). Also contains papers of William Fanning Wickham (1793-1880) of "Hickory Hill," Hanover County, Va., including diaries (17 v.), 1828-1880, concerning agricultural operations, slave families and runaway slaves, and local events during the Civil War and Reconstruction; family correspondence, 1817-1878; accounts; land records; and materials concerning the emancipation and resettlement in Ohio of slaves belonging to the estate of Samuel Gist. Also contains letterbooks, 1877-1881, of Williams Carter Wickham (1820-1888) as a Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company official and Republican Party State Executive Committee chairman; correspondence, 1862-1888; financial records; "Hickory Hill" farm records; and materials concerning the management of "North Wales," Caroline County, Va., for Dr. Charles Carter of Philadelphia, Pa. Alsoincludes correspondence, 1848-1913, financial records, and estate materials of Lucy Penn (Taylor) Wickham (1830-1913); letterbooks, 1931-1940, scrapbooks, correspondence, 1874-1941, farm records, and Virginia Senate and Democratic Party materials of Henry Taylor Wickham (1849-1943) of "Hickory Hill"; correspondence, accounts, farm records, and Richmond, Va., rental property records of Elise Warwick (Barksdale) Wickham; and miscellaneous records of other members of the Wickham and Fanning families.