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This collection consists of two letters signed by John Archer. One of the letters is not dated and the other letter is dated 19 August 1786. These letters relate to the quality of 2 tracts of land each 4000 acres on the waters of the Gauley River, Greenbrier County, Virginia. The surveys which were conducted by John Archer were requested by Adonijah Matthews and William Morrow.

Records of marriages, 1816-1867, performed by the Reverend William Welch, Mineral County, West Virginia; Civil War typescripts, including "Capture of Generals Kelly and Crook," by Capt. Jesse C. McNeill, and "Capture of a Railroad Train," by John T. Peerce. There are scrapbooks on South Branch Valley history, and account books for grain, carding, and other activities in Morgantown. There are also clippings and photographs.

Correspondence and miscellaneous papers of a lieutenant colonel in the Eighth West Virginia Volunteer Infantry and later the Seventh West Virginia Regiment. The letters, most of which are addressed to Polsley's wife, pertain to military activities in central West Virginia, 1862-1863, and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. These letters comment on the West Virginia statehood movement, camp life, guerrilla warfare, Polsley's confinement in Libby Prison, General John Imboden's raid, 1863, and the West Virginia capital question.

Six page typescript by John L. Johnston, 1920, titled "Historical Notes, Ice's Ferry." Covering the time span of 1758-1920, the narrative locates and describes early settlements; roads; forts; Indian trails, villages and tribes; industries; the land office; and men and families prominent in the development of Monongalia County. Mention is made of the proposed construction of the dam and recreation area on the Cheat River.

Correspondence, business and legal papers, surveys, account books, and a diary of a Burning Springs surveyor, oil developer, rural entrepreneur, horticulturalist, and captain of the Little Kanawha River steamer GENERAL JACKSON. Collection includes a brief journal of a trip from Des Moines, Iowa, to the Forks of the Platte in 1860; papers of Clarke's venture in quartz mining and milling in the Colorado Territory, 1861-1863; surveys of the Burning Springs oil region; letters from James C. Clarke, president of the Wirt Oil and Mining Company of which Clarke was superintendent; papers on the National Grange, the West Virginia Grange (Patrons of Husbandry), cooperatives, and the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia Wool Growers Association; a diary of farming operations at Burning Springs; letters from Clarke's brother, James C., while a member of the Pennsylvania senate, 1875-1880; letterheads from Little Kanawha and Ohio Valley mercantile firms and steamboat companies; and family letters. Other subjects covered include: the Allegheny Valley Railroad; early history of Bethalto, Illinois; the speculative spirit and western expansion, 1860; freighting on the Great Plains during the Civil War; construction of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad near Council Bluffs in 1868; and the effect of the German crisis of 1866 on American oil prices.

Papers of a resident of Glenville include a notebook containing measurements of lumber, a memo book of logs sold, a tally book of rafts floated down the Little Kanawha River, a stock certificate in the Gilmer County Fair Association, and West Virginia Department of Agriculture statistics for 1920.

Miscellaneous papers concerning the history of the Kanawha Valley salt industry, including correspondence, newspaper clippings and photographs which pertain to the Dickinson Salt Works and Malden, West Virginia. There are a list of salt works on the Kanawha River, clippings on the destruction of the Dickinson Salt Works by fire, and a historical sketch of the Kanawha Valley salt industry.

Typed transcription of a letter written by Lorena Brown to her aunt, Lucinda Dunham Powell. The letter, dated 28 March 1863, describes the Brown family's journey from the Kanawha Valley to Monroe County.

The interviews, correspondence, notes and reports of a Wisconsin based, New York born antiquarian and early researcher of frontier history. Lyman C. Draper's manuscripts were willed to the Wisconsin State Historical Society where he had been its corresponding secretary and instrumental in its development. Microfilm was produced by the society of his papers and made available for purchase to libraries because of their significance for studying the Eastern frontier and its pioneers. Draper had originally planned to publish on the basis of these manuscripts a series of books on frontier history and biographies of famous pioneers. Only one was published, King's Mountain and Its Heroes. Draper, in his writings, generally reflected biases common to white male Americans of the nineteenth century but he collected many documents and interviewed women, Native Americans, and African Americans connected with the frontier and their descendents. Indeed he had collected enough material that he had decided to write biographies of chiefs: Tecumseh and Joseph Brant. Other materials for biographies are of white frontier notables such as Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, Lewis Wetzel, Simon Kenton, and Samuel Brady. His papers are also organized regionally with holdings encompassing an area bordered by the western parts of Virginia and the Carolinas and portions of Georgia and Alabama, encompassing the entire Ohio River Valley, and part of the upper Mississippi Valley from the era of frontier conflicts in the 1740's and 1750's to the American Revolution and the War of 1812.