Collections

County court and public records primarily concerning deeds, estates, guardianships, executors, poor and paupers, roads, and "scalp certificates" for various animals. There are also record books, predominantly personal property and land books, and a few private accounts. There is also a breadth of material concerning records of personal property; county courthouse and jail; marriages; liquor, attorney, minister, and professional licenses; apprenticing; surveys and plats; lunacy; court proceedings; elections and voting; and public utilities and taxation.

County and circuit clerks records, arranged chronologically. Records for the years 1835-1857, include bonds of ministers, tavern operators, ordinaries, ferries, and county officials; estate settlements; records pertaining to road, bridge, and public building; records of the overseer of the poor; school commissioners' and surveyors' appointments; and lists of county officials. Records for 1863-1874 include county supervisors' records; records of the Fairmont and Wheeling Turnpike; and muster certificates and reenlistment and bounty lists for the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh, Tenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth West Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiments, the First, Third, Fifth, Sixth West Virginia Cavalry, the First Light Artillery Regiment, and the Forty-fifth Regiment, United States Colored Troops. Papers for 1867-1907 include justice of the peace records, United States Admiralty Court records, and road surveyors' statements.

Court case papers, wills, deeds, surveys and plats, ca.1772-1879, along with bound volumes of court records, deeds, estrays, road and tax records, a register for free blacks, and private account books, 1783-1923. The account books include: records of a U.S. Army post hospital at Union, 1867-1869; oil well drilling, 1886-1890; Union and Fort Spring Stage Line, 1876-1877; newspapers, 1867-1903; taverns, 1815-1872; and Union Lyceum minutes, 1845-1847.

Correspondence of William A. Harrison, a Clarksburg lawyer, assistant federal district attorney, member of the Virginia Assembly, and judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia; most letters are from members of the family to Mrs. Anna Robertson Harrison. Subjects include construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal; Civil War loyalty Oaths, Camp Chase land purchases, and road building. There are also grade school attendance certificates and notes concerning the Lunatic Asylum West of the Allegheny Mountains and Weston State Hospital.

County court records consisting primarily of marriage records and sheriff settlements relating to roads, schools, and poor funds. There are also estate administration papers; lunacy proceedings; Board of Education records; receipts and bank records; other misc. records, and an account book of the firm of Meador and Graham in Hinton, WV. There are also some papers of former clerks E. H. Peck and P. B. Pack.

The collection consists of ledgers, journals, and cashbooks of the Goodwill Coal and Coke Co., Greenbrier Coal and Coke Co., Gulf Coal Co., Louisville Coal and Coke Co., Winding Gulf Coal and Coke Co., and the Winding Gulf Colliery Co., with some material on the operation of company stores. There is also correspondence (1911-1915) between the managers of mines at Winding Gulf and Davy, West Virginia, discussing production levels, availability of railroad cars and freight rates, New River and Pocahontas Operators Organization, operating difficulties, labor shortages and working conditions, the Mabscott mine strike and German "socialists" at Mabscott, the Bottom Creek explosion at Vivian, the UMWA and a 1915 agreement, and the good roads movement in Raleigh County in 1915.