Search

Papers, mainly of Daniel and Daniel R. McNeill, stock dealers and mill owners of Hardy County. The early correspondence relates to the purchase and sale of livestock and the driving of herds to markets in the east. There is correspondence from members of the family in the vicinity of Chillicothe, Ohio, relating to farm and market conditions and commenting on travel from Hardy County to Ohio. There are also references to river traffic on the Scioto and Ohio rivers and to the quantity of merchandise being shipped to the New Orleans market. There are account statements for school fees, books, and general school expenses for several years in the period, 1809-1822, and 1870; a herd pedigree book, 1851-1861; and poultry and cattle records and accounts, 1913-1929.

Papers of P. D. Strausbaugh, former head of the Department of Botany, author of a biology textbook, and professor of Botany at WVU.

Letters and copies of eight letters, 1813-1841; pages 5-10 from Kanawha Salines general merchandise account book, 6-9 March 1827; three manuscript volumes by Henry Ruffner: "Notes on a Tour to the West" and "An Expedition to the North," 1815, and "An Account of Amounts Paid to Rev. Nath'l W. Calhoon," 1826-1834; and "Subscription for Church, 1836-1842," by David Ruffner. There is also a printed brief involving Ruffner-Donnally estates, 1875, and information on the Shackelford family.

The collection includes manuscript materials (correspondence, land warrant, accounts, receipts, petition and will) and printed and typescript materials (invitations, broadside, newspaper and magazine clippings). Subjects of the various items include sale and survey of land; schools, churches, estates, comment on and description of agriculture, social and economic conditions in Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, California, Morgantown, Fairmont, and Wheeling, WV, and Ireland; westward migration [1849]; gold mining, enslaved Africans; and business and family affairs.