Preston County (W. Va.) Court Records and Miscellaneous Papers

Access and use

Location of collection:
West Virginia and Regional History Center
West Virginia & Regional History Center
West Virginia University
P.O. Box 6069
1549 University Avenue
Morgantown, WV 26506
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Lori Hostuttler
Phone: (304) 293-3536
Restrictions:

No special access restriction applies.

Terms of access:

Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. For more information, please see the Permissions and Copyright page on the West Virginia and Regional History Center website.

Preferred citation:

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Preston County (W. Va.) Court Records and Miscellaneous Papers, A&M 0956, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Summary

Extent:
4.15 Linear Feet Summary: 4 ft. 1.75 in. (5 document cases, 5 in. each); (2 large flat storage boxes, 3 in. each); (1 Oversized record carton, 17 in.); (1 reel of microfilm, 1.75 in.)
Creator:
Preston County
Abstract:
Records of the Preston County court, consisting almost entirely of land records such as maps, surveys, plats, deeds, and indentures. There are also some personal papers and correspondence of Preston County residents, including Israel Baldwin and Julius K. Monroe, and the Fairfax family. Some photographs from this collection have been digitized.
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Preston County (W. Va.) Court Records and Miscellaneous Papers, A&M 0956, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Background

Scope and content:

Records from the Preston County court, consisting almost entirely of land records such as maps, surveys, plats, deeds, and indentures. Land records are of private individuals, corporations, and general surveys of the County, as well as a few records on the Deakins Line on the border of West Virginia (then Virginia) and Maryland. There are also some personal papers and correspondence of Preston County residents, including Israel Baldwin and Julius K. Monroe, and the Fairfax family.

This collection consists of two parts: the original accession and the 1996 addendum. The original collection includes boxes 1-7 and 1 reel of microfilm. Boxes 1-5 are primarily land records from Preston County, and include land in Monongalia and Harrison Counties. The collection includes early papers relating to land, court cases, mills and furnaces, post offices, inns, mineral development, Morgantown and Kingwood Railroad Company, roads, the Virginia-Maryland boundary, and estate settlements. Boxes 6-7 are almost exclusively maps and surveys, and the materials are primarily from circa 1900-1915. The microfilm reel is a copy of a 1909 Map of Kingwood (item A-24); the original was returned after being filmed. Five of the seven photographs are available digitally. The 1996 addendum is box 8. This box is exclusively photocopies of the loaned materials, no original materials exist. These materials were the papers of Julius Kemble Monroe, a surveyor in Preston County.

Both the originals and the addendum may have at one point been the papers of Monroe, but the original accession was donated by the Preston County Court through the Leroy Bucklew Museum. The papers in this collection include court records, but seem to have been returned to the court from private citizens. As a result, the records in this collection include the kinds of court records kept by individuals, and include private papers, such as correspondence. Furthermore, this collection is representative of specific individuals who kept records, rather than the general population of Preston County. The collection of private records by the County may have occurred after a fire at the courthouse in 1869 destroyed most of the original records, or it may be a result of the collecting efforts of the Bucklew Museum, which appears to have been connected with the court.

Highlights of this collection include: Original survey maps from 1790, 1792, and 1794 (A-17); a survey of the border between West Virginia and Maryland (undated, A-16); records of local industries such as a coal report (undated, A-171), Muddy Creek Iron Furnace (A-318, circa 1860), and the Kingwood Railroad; Accounts of Mail for Preston County Post Offices (1845-1849, A-269); records of first Kingwood Sunday School, including Semi-Annual report of Kingwood Sunday School, 1828 (A-274) and a list of scholars and donors (A-280); lists of voters for Evansville (1844 or 1848, A-278); Literary Digest maps of New Europe and Africa following World War I (1920, A-156 and A-168); Soil, topography, and agricultural surveys for Preston, Monongalia, Marion, and Taylor Counties (1912-1914, A-148-149, A-169); and a poster advertising a "Judicial Sale of Very Valuable Land" (1868, A-167).

Acquisition information:

Gift of Thomas Ward, President of the Preston County Court, 1957 April 16.

Addendum: Gift of the McCrum Estate through the Leroy Bucklew Museum, 1996 August.

Arrangement:

This collection consists of two pieces: the original accession and the 1996 addendum. Materials in the first piece were numbered as "items" A-1 to A-280. An "item" could either be a single document or item, or could be a collection of materials. Some "items," such as A-22, include specifications of their contents, the contents identified as 1-67, while other items have their contents designated alphabetically, such as A-163, which includes A-L. There are three items in box 6 designated as X-123, X-124, and X-126. These items appear to have been added after the inventory. Item numbers were written on folders or directly on the items. Additionally, several of the boxes contain a few miscellaneous unnumbered items.

The addendum in box 8 uses a similar system, but are designated MON 1-MON 45, in reference to Julius Kemble Monroe, the originator of these materials. This label is not related to Monroe or Monongalia Counties.

The materials in boxes 1-5 and box 8 are in folders labeled with item numbers, and arranged numerically by item number. The materials in boxes 6 and 7 are generally not foldered, and are not arranged in numerical order.

Photographs 015954, 015955, and 015959 are part of A-18; 015735 is A-19; and 015958 is part of A-20. The other photographs were never scanned, and do not have ID numbers.

Physical location:
West Virginia and Regional History Center / West Virginia University / 1549 University Avenue / P.O. Box 6069 / Morgantown, WV 26506-6069 / Phone: 304-293-3536 / URL: https://wvrhc.lib.wvu.edu/
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:
Coal mining.
Court records
Estate settlements.
Iron furnaces and iron industry.
Maps.
Mills and mill-work
Railroads
Surveyors and surveying.
County courts
Real property
Public records
Names:
Leroy Bucklew Museum
Deakins, Francis.
Deakins, William.
Monroe, Julius Kemble.
Sisler, Janice Cale, 1935-
Places:
Berkeley Springs (W. Va.)
Bruceton Mills (W. Va.)
Kingwood (W. Va.)
Preston County (W. Va.)
Rowlesburg (W. Va.)
Preston County (W. Va.) -- archives
Indexes:

There are two item level inventories, one of the original collection (boxes 1-7) and one of the 1996 addendum (box 8). Additionally, there is an inventory of the contents of item A-174, Miscellaneous Land Contracts and Deeds, 1795-1859 (box 3). These inventories include further information about names, locations, and dates found in this collection. Physical and digital copies of these are available upon request.

These inventories were made around the time of the collections' accessions, and may include some outdated information, but are generally still accurate. Materials on the inventory that are no longer part of the collection are: Items A-1, 13, 21, 24, 70, 111, 133, 166, 261-268, 271-272, and 276-277. The microfilm reel in this collection is a copy of A-24, the original material was returned to the donor. A-21 is The State Of Maryland, Complainant, Vs. The State of West Virginia, which was separated into the general book collection (975.2 M369s).