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Nineteenth century records regarding African-Americans, including deed of emancipation (1829), two brief autograph letters by abolitionists Charles Sumner and Wendell Phillips (1850, 1882), eight copies of "The Anti-Slavery Record", a significant abolitionist publication (1835), and twenty popular song broadsides featuring minstrel song themes (ca. 1830s-1860s).

Correspondence and genealogical materials related to the William B. Edwards family of King George County, Virginia, and the Capt. William Sommerville family of Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia) from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These families were joined when Elizabeth Sommerville (1812-1886), daughter of the Revolutionary War veteran, married William B. Edwards (1810-1888), a Methodist clergyman from a planter family, in 1833.

Papers of David Goff (ca. 1804-1878) of Beverly, West Virginia, an attorney and land promoter for Harrison, Randolph, and Tucker Counties. Goff became prosecuting attorney in 1835, served as a Colonel in the Virginia militia in 1844, was superintendent of Randolph County schools in 1853, served as a member of the Virginia Assembly, and was a West Virginia State Senator from Randolph County (1875-1877). The papers include manuscript letters and other papers concerning land transactions, slave sales, and miscellaneous legal business for various clients. Included are papers of the Peter Buckey, Solomon Sturmer, James M. Marshall and Baldwin Dade estates; a copy of that part of the proceedings of the Board of Public Works, 1853, which concerns the payment of Lemuel and Eli Chenoweth for construction of the bridges crossing the Tygart River at Philippi, and the West Fork River; and an ALS (autograph letter signed) from George H. Moffett regarding a convention of delegates from Greenbrier, Monroe, Barbour, Pocahontas and Randolph Counties to secure the routing of a railroad from Pittsburgh through Pocahontas County.

The correspondence, wills, deeds, receipts, recipes, remedies, and genealogy, of the Ellison-Dunlap Petrie families of Monroe County. The letters discuss family and business matters, enslaved Africans, the Civil War, and settlement of some family members in Kansas. There are papers about land and farming, including surveys, deeds, memos, and accounts as well as correspondence and printed material about the WVU Agricultural Extension Service. There are ledgers for Han Creek Mill and an account book of William Petrie. There is also an 1831 journal of William Petrie with entries about his travels to England, Cuba, New Orleans, and along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. There are separations from this collection of photographs, pamphlets, newspapers, and broadsides.

Papers centering upon Williams and Vause Fox, Hampshire County; including indentures, patents a slave deed, return of supplies and regimental orders of the 77th Regiment of Virginia Militia, accounts for farm implements and household supplies; names mentioned include Johnson Barkelow, and William and George Calmes; the land papers bear the signatures of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Wood, and Thomas Randolph.

Letters and business papers of the Fox family, centered on William and Vause Fox; there are accounts showing prices for goods and services in the first decades of the nineteenth century, including hides and leather, surveying, field labor, and weaving; items on Negroes and slavery, the Literary Society of Romney; and letters from Virginians who had taken up western lands.