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Pamphlets include Henry Ruffner's antislavery pamphlet, 1847, and his Union speech, 1856. Subjects of the manuscripts and correspondence include family history; travel; Kanawha Salt Works; schools in Virginia and Kanawha County; Lane Seminary Library; Presbyterian Church; slavery, coal, gas, iron, and timber; Johns Hopkins, Washington and Lee, Harvard, Hobart, Cornell, and Hampden-Sydney colleges; Greenbrier County; Alabama; election of 1904; University of Virginia; Kanawha Valley floods; Venezuela; American Colonization Society; and the Philippine Islands. Persons mentioned or commented on include Philip Doddridge, John Letcher, Hugh Mercer, and Nelson A. Miles. Correspondents include Charles H. Ambler, John Eaton, John P. Hale, H.R. Helper, W.S. Laidley, David L. Ruffner, John W. Wayland, and William L. Wilson.

County court records consisting primarily of court case papers, related court record books (dockets, execution books, fee books, witness books, etc.), and public records concerning a variety of topics including land records, schools, and marriages. There are also a few private account books relating to various local industries, including salt, mining, sawmills, steamboats, and general stores.

Personal and business papers of the Lewis family, mainly of John D. (1800-1882), Charles C., Sr. (b.1839), and Charles C., Jr. (b.1865), of Kanawha County. For the period 1825-1875 there are papers of various members of the Ruffner, Dickinson, and Wilson families of West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and other states. The business papers relate to farming operations, the purchase and sale of slaves, salt manufacturing and trade, the Old Sweet Springs Company, coal, iron, oil, lumbering, railroads, and real estate in Kanawha, Clay, Boone, Fayette, and Nicholas counties. There are newspaper clippings, speeches, and other papers reflecting the Lewis' interests in the Democratic Party in the period 1914-1920. Settlement papers and correspondence regarding the estates of John D. Lewis, and Joel, Daniel, and Andrew Ruffner are in the collection. The personal papers include diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, and letters. Travel accounts in the United States, South America, and Europe are given in the correspondence, as well as comments on schools in West Virginia and Virginia; the building of a church in Kanawha County in 1834; missionary work in Colombia, South America, 1874-1875; Civil War and postwar conditions in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri; conditions at Camp Chase, in the Civil War; and material relating to World War I.

Diary of Luke Wilcox, a Kanawha County farmer, merchant, salt well and furnace owner and operator, written in memorandum form except for scattered entries giving more information on specific subjects, such as the weather, churches and ministers, farm operation, travel, salt wells and furnaces, slaves, names of personal and business correspondents, coal, and land purchases. There is also an addendum regarding the Wilcox family bible. See "Scope and Contents" for additional information.

Papers relating to the Wilson, Lewis, and Ruffner families of Prince Edward County, Virginia, Kanawha County, [West] Virginia, St. Charles County, Missouri, and Fairfield County, Ohio. Correspondence between Nathaniel V. Wilson and Dr. Goodridge Wilson, concerning land purchases, preparation for the settlement of the family, care of livestock, employment of slaves, salt making and marketing, and the market price of salt. Other members of the family migrated to St. Charles County, Missouri, and to Fairfield County, Ohio, and land prices, suitable crops, settlement and railroad building in Missouri comprise much of their correspondence. A third generation member of the family, Virgy Wilson Hall and her husband, John G. Hall, were missionaries in Matamoras, Mexico, and Colombia, South America, and her correspondence with her mother comments on living conditions, progress of the missionary work, revolution in Colombia, and health and living conditions of the residents of the Barranquilla area. In addition there is a will of Col. Charles Lewis, a series of letters between two doctors concerning health problems and treatment of various illnesses, and two diaries by Mrs. Daniel Ruffner, 1846, and Elizabeth Ruffner Wilson, 1871-1872, commenting on family life and community activities in Fairfield County, Ohio, and Kanawha County, [West] Virginia. All are photocopies. Material covers the years 1774-1942.