Search

Legal papers of a Morgantown lawyer, partner of United States Senator Waitman T. Willey, prosecuting attorney of Monongalia County, state senator, and judge of the Eleventh Circuit Court. Included are papers which relate to Bunker's Civil War service and Willey's legal practice. There are a few items of correspondence on land speculation and immigration in post-Civil War West Virginia.

Papers of Judge Gideon D. Camden (1805-1891) of Clarksburg, Harrison County, West Virginia. Camden was a lawyer, Democratic politician, member of the Virginia Convention of 1850-1851, circuit judge, and state senator (1872-1876). Includes business correspondence, financial records, legal papers, and court records. Materials include the early land papers of Camden's law partner, John J. Allen, and the legal papers of the firm Allen and Camden, which deal primarily with land suits and surveys in Harrison and surrounding counties. Later legal and business papers relate to the development of the West Virginia oil fields and Camden's extensive holdings in mineral and timber lands in central West Virginia. Other papers concern the Constitutional Convention of 1872, subsequent ratification, attempts to remove the legislature to Clarksburg, and West Virginia politics in general, particularly the period 1860-1874. Other subjects include Diss Debar's attempts to stimulate immigration from Alsace-Lorraine; H.G. Davis and the development of West Virginia railroads; and a debate on Christian baptism at Fairmont, 1872, between Benjamin Franklin and Professor Solomon of West Virginia University. Correspondents include Henry G. Davis, John J. Davis, J.H. Diss Debar, Johnson N. Camden, John J. Allen, Spencer Dayton, John S. Carlile, John Bassel, James M. Bennett, David Goff, Lot M. Morrill, James S. Wheat, Alpheus J. Haymond, John Jay Jackson, Jr. and Sr., George R. Latham, Nimrod Dent, Benjamin F. Martin, Okey Johnson, J. Marshall Hagans, J.W. Arbogast, and W.J. Bland. For partial inventory of business correspondence, see control folder. For series list, see Scope and Content Note.

Papers of Judge Gideon D. Camden (1805-1891) of Clarksburg, Harrison County, West Virginia, and papers of his grandson Wilson Lee Camden (1870-1958). Gideon D. Camden was a lawyer, Democratic politician, member of the Virginia Convention of 1850-1851, circuit judge, and state senator (1872-1876). His papers include correspondence, legal and business papers, surveys and plats, and printed material. Subjects include Virginia, West Virginia, and national politics; the railroad, oil, timber, and coal industries; and Camden's law practice. Wilson Lee Camden papers include correspondence, legal papers, surveys and plats, printed material, business manuscripts, photographs, map, and ledgers. Subjects include the settlement of his grandfather's estate, and extensive coal, timber, land, railroad, and oil interests in West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. See Scope and Content Note for more information.

A collection of 400 letters, cards, petitions, telegrams, printed, and other similar items received and sent by U.S. Senator and Representatives Howard Sutherland (1865-1950) of West Virginia. The papers are part of Sutherland's constituent mail and are all concerned with the question of women's suffrage. The period covered is 1914-1919, and correspondence regarding both the Bristow-Mondell House Resolution, considered in Jan. 1915, and the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, voted upon 5 June 1919, is included. About one-third of the collection is anti-suffrage in sentiment; the other two-thirds is made up of material from suffrage supporters. The collection is arranged chronologically, with carbon copy replies from Sutherland attached to the letters to which they reply. Among supporters of women's suffrage may be found the National American Women Suffrage Association, the National Woman's Party, the West Virginia Equal Suffrage League, the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage, various West Virginia chapters of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, individual professional women and housewives, the West Virginia chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Victory Union, the Women's Home Missionary Society of Wheeling, West Virginia, the Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission, Inc., various labor groups, including the West Virginia Federation of Labor, numerous professional and business men, the Woman's Republican Club of New York City, and various other non-West Virginia state women's suffrage organizations. Anti-suffrage correspondents include the American Constitutional League, numerous individual professional and business men, housewives, and various state and local associations opposed to women's suffrage. Especially important among the pro-suffrage correspondence are letters signed by Carrie Chapman Catt, Anna Howard Shaw, and Maud Wood Park of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. These letters are dated 25 Sept. 1918, and 17 Feb. and 13 June 1919. Further description of the collection, including excerpts from some letters, may be found in the inventory folder for the Howard Sutherland Papers.

Legal correspondence and papers of a Clarksburg lawyer who specialized in land title litigation and served as associate judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, 1862-1876. Papers pertain to lands in the central counties of West Virginia. Subjects include: the James Swan lands; European immigration to West Virginia following the Civil War; New York Southern Land Company; Philadelphia International Land Association; state economic development during Reconstruction; and timberlands on Shaver's Mountain. Correspondents include J.M. Bennett, John S. Carlile, William Henry Edwards, David Goff, and Cyrus Hall. One volume is a record of the settlement of the estate of Judge Hoffman, 18 November 1877-1 January 1892 (eleventh and last settlement), by G.D. Camden and J.R. Boggess.

Naturalization papers of Feit Spindler, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, 1844; three smallpox immunization certificates, 1804, 1811, 1830, in German; confirmation certificate of Andrew Spindler, 1868; deed between George Maust and Trustees of the St. Peter's Lutheran Church, 1870, for land in Preston County; church record of the St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran congregation of Hazelrun, Preston County, 1861-1870, 1879-1902. The originals are two diplomas of Watson Moore from Merchant's College, Pittsburgh, 1851, 1852.