Collections

Papers of Anthony L. Asher, who served as a U. S. Army explosives instructor staff officer in France during World War I and later organized and commanded Company K, 150th Infantry, West Virginia National Guard during the West Virginia mine wars. Includes correspondence relating to Company K, 150th Infantry, West Virginia National Guard (and to military charges brought against Asher for theft and unauthorized absence) and photographs.

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.

This collection contains blueprints, ledgers, and a deed of lease from the records of the Buckhorn Coal Company. Material dates from 1880 to 1961.

Car record books of the Cabin Creek Consolidated Coal Company, in Kanawha and McDowell counties. Listed are consignees, serial numbers, types of cars, route, destination, and related information for the Acme, Empire, Buckeye, and Keystone mines.

Letter book from the office of Clark & Krebs, Civil and Mining Engineers, the partnership of Charles E. Krebs, James M. Clark, George R. Krebs, and J. Walter Morgan, of Charleston, WV. Included in the letterbox are land deeds, property inventories, lists of unpaid accounts and land leases, land and mine surveys, equipment bills, reports on the working costs of coal mines and oil production, instructions for the construction of bungalows and a water plant, business contracts, and a letter concerning Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad redeemable Tickets and Coupons. There is also mention of Charles E. Krebs, Inc., a blue print company owned by Charles E. Krebs.

This photograph album includes images of coal mining operations and related industries within West Virginia and Virginia.

Weekly compilations of photocopied news clippings prepared by the publicity department of Consolidation Coal Company. The clippings are taken from a wide variety of newspapers and document to a limited extent the coal industry nationally. Principally, however, the clippings focus on issues directly related to the company, the Bituminous Coal Operators Association, and the United Mine Workers of America, relying mainly on Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia newspapers.

Photocopy of eight page letter from John Spiker to his grandfather, Watson Tenney. In the letter, dated November 7, 1927, Spiker recounts his experience witnessing the Everettville Mine Disaster in Everettville, West Virginia, on April 30, 1927. He was on-site when the Federal No. 3 mine owned by New England Fuel and Transportation Company exploded and he took part in the immediate rescue effort.