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Letters written by various members of the Varner family in Gilmer County and Baltimore, Maryland, and a number of letters of S.W. Varner, a physician in Kingwood, relating to his medical practice. Included is a letter from M.O. Dawson who is running for governor soliciting names of Republican voters. Subjects covered include death, illness, and news in the family, and West Virginia state politics.

Executive and Board of Public Works records of the early state government. Included are oaths of office, appointments, executive orders, extraditions, pardons, election certifications, accounts, tax assessments, proclamations and addresses. Subjects covered include militia and political activities during the early statehood period.

Official records on the appointment, resignation, and removal of state officers, railroad and special police, and corporate representatives. Archives include financial records of state agencies, executive meeting minutes, executive decrees, and documents relating to pardons, extraditions, and state convicts in county jails. Much information relates to charters and taxation of railroad companies. Also contains official state election returns and records concerning the reconstruction of the state capitol after the fire of 1921.

Papers of a Morgantown lawyer and state legislator. Includes political correspondence of William Moreland addressing issues ranging from abortion to coal mining with a majority of the papers regarding the operation of state bureaucracy and the importance of organized labor in West Virginia. Addendum of 2010/10/29 includes Moreland's World War II (WWII) service records, family genealogy, and family photographs. Addenda of 2011/03/21 and 2011/06/20 include papers of William Moreland, and papers of his father and grandfather, James R. Moreland and Joseph Moreland. Addendum of 2014/06/12 includes some papers and many artifacts. Addendum of 2016/07/27 includes drawings of properties in Monongalia County and political campaign and other material. See "Scope and Content Note" for details. Addendum of 2017/05/22 contains two scrapbooks of clippings documenting Moreland from 1933-1970. There are additional addenda.

The personal business papers of William Hereford McGinnis (1855-1930), a Beckley lawyer who was prosecuting attorney of Raleigh County, 1892-1896, a senator in 1902, judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, 1922-1924, chairman for a number of years of the executive committee of the Democratic Party in Raleigh County, and delegate to the national convention in 1920. There are case papers, correspondence and other records of the Hatcher-McGinnis Law Firm, 1834-1930; family photographs; and materials relating to the Methodist Church and World War I.

Correspondence, diaries, writings, newspaper clippings, and miscellaneous papers of Wilson, a private in the Twelfth Virginia Cavalry (Confederate), President of West Virginia University, 1882-1883, member of Congress, 1883-1895, Postmaster General, 1895-1897, author of the Wilson-Gorman Tariff, 1894, and President of Washington and Lee University, 1897-1900. The collection includes portions of the diaries covering the years 1862-1863, 1865, 1868-1870, 1877-1891, 1896-1899. Most of the correspondence pertains to Wilson's career as Congressman and Postmaster General and his acceptance of the presidency of Washington and Lee University. Subjects include the tariff, the currency and bimetalism controversy, West Virginia state politics, the income tax, and foreign affairs. Also includes research papers of West Virginia University history professor Festus P. Summers on microfilm; there is a detailed listing of their contents, which includes newspaper editorials and letters.

Letters, legal papers, and accounts of William Parker, Hampshire County, West Virginia. Included also are scattered papers of John P., Benjamin, and James Parker and Company. Letters originate from Virginia; Greene County, Illinois, 1859; and Pleasant Hill, Dallas County, Alabama, 1849. Subjects include doctors' fees; election of 1851 in Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties, and Frederick County, Virginia; prices of farm produce; and observations of Virginians newly settled in Illinois and Alabama in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Correspondence, business and legal papers, notebooks, speeches, historical essays, genealogical records, clippings, and printed material of a Buckhannon lawyer, state jurist, member of Congress (1927-1929), and West Virginia Secretary of State (1933-1948). The collection also includes papers of O'Brien's father, Emmett J., a member of the state's first Constitutional Convention; letters from O'Brien's brother, Lieutenant A.L. O'Brien, 1874-1887, a West Point graduate serving at forts Assinniboine, Belknap, and Spokane in the Montana Territory and Washington State; letters of Henry M. White, O'Brien's brother-in-law, and a lawyer with the Immigration Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission; a diary of a trip to Texas in 1907; and genealogical records of the Joseph Hall, William Norris, O'Brien, and Jacob Reger families. Subjects include West Virginia Wildlife League; Methodism in Upshur County; an expedition in pursuit of Sitting Bull; the Rush Holt contested election of 1934; the McAdoo-Smith contest of 1924; the Townsendites; presidential election of 1936; state politics; pioneer history of West Virginia; and the Vandalia Company.