Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

Correspondence, military service records, receipts and photographs of David Billmeyer, George Billmeyer and family. David Billmeyer (1907-63) was a writer, clerk and laborer who in 1933 joined the U. S. Army Air Corps and served in it until after World War II when he re-enlisted in the U. S. Air Force from which he retired in 1955. In his youth he had worked in New York City as a clerk and free lance author where he met and later corresponded with America's then foremost literary critic, H. L. Mencken. During the Depression he enlisted in the U. S. Army and was assigned to the National Geographic Stratosphere Flight and at various meteorological stations in the United States. During World War II he served the U. S. Army meteorological service in the Canal Zone and Europe. After the war he re-enlisted in the U. S. Air Force and served in meteorological units in the Orient. Most of the military and veterans records document his career and state of health. There are many photographs of where he was stationed and of him with various companions indicative of service life. There is also correspondence of David Billmeyer's brother George and other family members mainly about conditions in Shepherdstown. There is also correspondence from George's daughter, Ann, who attended the University of Nebraska and after graduation moved to San Francisco where she mentions witnessing the Republican convention of 1964, her feelings about the Kennedy assassination and her involvement in the estate of her uncle, David, who died in retirement in the Philippines.

Correspondence, newspaper clippings, journal articles, and pamphlets relating to the John Henry legend, John Henry ballads, and the erection of a John Henry statue at Talcott, West Virginia.