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Diary of Lyman Stedman (1824-1916), a farmer and former member of the House of Delegates, 1877, from Brown's Island, Hancock County. Entries concern farm operation, Republican political activities on the district and county level, comments on state and national organizations, floods on the Ohio River, steamboat and barge traffic, Hopedale School, Methodist Episcopal Church, railroad travel, circuses and fairs, taxes and land valuations, and Memorial Day.

Petitions from northwestern counties to the Virginia State legislature for internal improvements, namely turnpikes, railroads and river navigation claims. Mention is made of the Ohio River, Little Kanawha River, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Northwestern Turnpike.

M.K. Lowther (1869-1947) was a journalist and one of the first women newspaper editors in West Virginia. She was the author of the HISTORY OF RITCHIE COUNTY; BLENNERHASSETT ISLAND IN ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY; FRIENDSHIP HILL, HOME OF ALBERT GALLATIN; MARSHALL HALL AND OTHER POTOMAC POINTS IN STORY AND PICTURE; and MT. VERNON: ITS CHILDREN, ITS ROMANCES, ITS ALLIED FAMILIES AND MANSIONS. There are complete and incomplete typescripts, rough drafts, revisions, photographs and plates of her books. Also there are typescripts of news articles on Washington, D.C., the Potomac Valley, and Wood County. There are genealogical notebooks and correspondence and also correspondence to publishers concerning business arrangements. Families mentioned are: Ball, Barber, Bee, Brake, Broadwater, Burns, Chenoweth, Clayton, Collins, Corbitt, Cox, Cunningham, Davis, Day, Dougherty, Drake, Fittro, Fitzrandolph, Goff, Hall, Hardman, Harris, Haymond, Henderson, Hoff, Hughes, Ireland, Jackson, Johnson, Kapkin, Kendall, Kercheval, Kuykendall, Leep, Leg(g)ett, Lemon, Lowther, McDougal, McGinnis, McGregor, McNeill, Marsh, Maxwell, Meredith, Minear, Modesitt, Morgan, Morrison, Murphy, Null, Nutter, O'Maley, Piatt, Pierpont, Pribble, Prunty, Ralston, Reger, Riddel, Riddle, Scott, Sharp, Shinn, Sleeth, Smith, Stump, Taylor, Waldo, Web(b), Willard, Willis, Wilson, and Zinn.

Photostats of deeds, surveys, plats, and grants, the latter signed by Thomas M. Randolph, David Campbell, and William Smith, governors of Virginia, in 1820, 1838, and 1847, for land in Harrison and Doddridge counties; a school attendance sheet for 1865; and a report to the board of education of the number of school-age children in District 4 of Doddridge County in 1869. Also included are a number of photographs taken around Webster Springs showing the hotel, a subscription school, and public school classes, ca.1900, along with two photographs of lumbering activities near Holly River. There is also a typescript, "An Adventure of Two Years in Webster Springs High School, 1915-1917," by Maud M. Hull; and a short history of the Webster Hardwood Lumber Company at Dixie.

Compact disc of a searchable database of 1200 facsimile pages of New River Symposium Proceedings dating from 1982-1999. Articles in the Proceedings discuss the natural and cultural features of the New River region of West Virginia, including the following topics: botany, Civil War, coal mining, environmentalism, folklore, folk music, geology, Green Sulphur Springs, historic preservation, iron industry, native Americans, railroads, rivers (Bluestone, Gauley, New), transportation, and Mary Draper Ingles.

Papers relating to the early development of Marietta and the Ohio Valley include the journal, 1784-1790, and correspondence, 1776-1824 (3 vols.), of a Revolutionary War officer and organizer of the Ohio Company, General Rufus Putnam; papers of Samuel Prescott Hildreth entitled: "Early Events in the Valley of Ohio, 1787 to 1847" (2 vols.); letter from Nathan Goodale to Rufus Putnam, 15 March 1788; journal of Joseph Buell, 1785-1789; and a journal of John Mathews, 1786 (holograph copy).

Newspaper clippings, picture-books, postcard albums, and government reports relating to floods along the Ohio River Valley especially at Pittsburgh, Wheeling, and Parkersburg.

Aside from routine municipal affairs these journals contain material on the development of internal improvements in the Parkersburg, West Virginia, area like the Wheeling-Parkersburg struggle for the western terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the development of the Northwestern Virginia Railroad, and the demands for various river improvements. There are also a few references to Civil War military activities and the development of the oil industry in the Wood County area. Mayors mentioned include C.S. Despard, John J. Jackson, and Peter G. VanWinkle.