Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

Correspondence, business and legal records, account books, news releases, clippings, and family papers and photographs of a U.S. marshal (1916-1922); editor of the Fairmont TIMES (1925-1959) and Wheeling REGISTER (1933-1935); Democratic politician; member of the National Bituminous Coal Commission (1935-1939); and businessman. Subjects include: Smith's student days at Virginia Military Institute; West Virginia National Guard; Monongah Mine Relief Committee; Associated Press; Association Against the Prohibition Amendment; Eighteenth Amendment; presidential elections and national and state politics, 1916-1956; John W. Davis; Alfred E. Smith; post-World War I radicalism and reaction; Ku Klux Klan; United Mine Workers; National Miners' Union; labor conflict, 1920s; U.S. Railway Administration; New Deal agencies; and Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. Correspondents include Van A. Bittner, William E. Chilton, William G. Conley, John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Eugene V. Debs, James A. Farley, William Green, Averell Harriman, Homer Adams Holt, Rush Dew Holt, Hugh S. Johnson, Louis Johnson, Harley M. Kilgore, H.G. Kump, John L. Lewis, William A. MacCorkle, J. Howard McGrath, Clarence W. Meadows, M.M. Neely, Okey L. Patteson, Jennings Randolph, Adlai E. Stevenson, Clarence W. Watson, and James O. Watson. There are also papers of Clarence L. Smith (1850-1905), editor of the Fairmont INDEX (1889) and founder of the Fairmont TIMES (1900), which include a domestic diary of his wife, 1876-1910; minute book of the Fleming Association, 1890-1894; papers of Clarence Edwin Smith, Jr., 1940-1941; papers of Thomas Barns (1750-1836), and his sons, John S. (delegate to Second Wheeling Convention) and James F.; Marion County millers and manufacturers, 1795-1908. There are also papers of Waitman T. Willey and a taped interview with C.E. Smith, 1956. Correspondents include John L. Lewis, Matthew M. Neely, Francis H. Pierpont, and John J. Cornwell. There are also papers, 1917-1950, of Smith's brother, Earl H. (1880-1941), co-founder and editor of the Fairmont TIMES (1900-1925), state legislator, officer in the National Guard, and state commander of the American Legion. Subjects include World War I; Woodrow Wilson; American Legion; and state and national politics, 1918-1940. Correspondents include John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Sam T. Mallison, M.M. Neely, Jennings Randolph, and Howard Sutherland. The collection also includes papers, 1908-1940, of Herschel H. Rose, Smith's son-in-law, Fairmont attorney, Democrat politician, and circuit court judge. M.M. Neely is a correspondent. Financial records include account books, 1826-1893, of Thomas Barns, John S. Barns and Company, Barns, Fleming and Company (1857), James R. Fleming, woolen and flour milling, shoe manufacturing, and general merchandise operations in Marion County; account book of Mary Fleming Smith, 1888-1912; Fairmont Newspaper Publishing Company, 1919-1949; Fairmont Broadcasting Company, 1932, 1947-1949; and Jackson Coal Company, 1917-1924; Fairmont Coal Company founding mortgage document, 1901 (box 2, folder 4).

Correspondence, business and legal records, account books, news releases, clippings, and family papers and photographs of a U.S. Marshall (1916-1922); editor of the Fairmont TIMES (1925-1959) and Wheeling REGISTER (1933-1935); Democratic politician; member of the National Bituminous Coal Commission (1935-1939); and businessman. Subjects include: Smith's student days at Virginia Military Institute; West Virginia National Guard; Monongah Mine Relief Committee; Associated Press; Association Against the Prohibition Amendment; Eighteenth Amendment; presidential elections and national and state politics, 1916-1956; John W. Davis; Alfred E. Smith; post-World War I radicalism and reaction; Ku Klux Klan; United Mine Workers; National Miners' Union; labor conflict, 1920s; U.S. Railway Administration; New Deal agencies; and Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. Correspondents include Van A. Bittner, William E. Chilton, William G. Conley, John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Eugene V. Debs, James A. Farley, William Green, Averell Harriman, Homer Adams Holt, Rush Dew Holt, Hugh S. Johnson, Louis Johnson, Harley M. Kilgore, H.G. Kump, John L. Lewis, William A. MacCorkle, J. Howard McGrath, Clarence W. Meadows, M.M. Neely, Okey L. Patteson, Jennings Randolph, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adlai E. Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Clarence W. Watson, and James O. Watson. There are also papers of Clarence L. Smith (1850-1905), editor of the Fairmont INDEX (1889) and founder of the Fairmont TIMES (1900), which include a domestic diary of his wife, 1876-1910; minute book of the Fleming Association, 1890-1894; papers of Clarence Edwin Smith, Jr., 1940-1941; papers of Thomas Barns (1750-1836), and his sons, John S. and James F.; Marion County millers and manufacturers, 1795-1908. There are also papers of Waitman T. Willey and a taped interview with C.E. Smith, 1956. Correspondents include John L. Lewis, George B. McClellan, Matthew M. Neely, Francis H. Pierpont, John J. Cornwell, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. There are also papers, 1917-1950, of Smith's brother, Earl H. (1880-1941), co-founder and editor of the Fairmont TIMES (1900-1925), state legislator, officer in the National Guard, and state commander of the American Legion. Subjects include World War I; Woodrow Wilson; American Legion; and state and national politics, 1918-1940. Correspondents include John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Sam T. Mallison, M.M. Neely, Jennings Randolph, and Howard Sutherland. The collection also includes papers, 1908-1940, of Herschel H. Rose, Smith's son-in-law, Fairmont attorney, Democrat politician, and circuit court judge. M.M. Neely is a correspondent. Financial records include account books, 1826-1893, of Thomas Barns, John S. Barns and Company, Barns, Fleming and Company (1857), James R. Fleming, woolen and flour milling, shoe manufacturing, and general merchandise operations in Marion County; account book of Mary Fleming Smith, 1888-1912; Fairmont Newspaper Publishing Company, 1919-1949; Fairmont Broadcasting Company, 1932, 1947-1949; and Jackson Coal Company, 1917-1924.

Family genealogies and correspondence for Ruth Woods and Arthur S. Dayton. Includes estate records and Photographs for the Jarvis, Stickler, Dayton, Bosworth, and Woods families. Personal correspondence with and/or pertaining to the Rare Book Room at West Virginia University, World Wars I and II, John W. Draper, West Virginia Wesleyan College, and Dayton Park in Philippi, West Virginia. Also included are research and writings by both Ruth and Arthur Dayton. Newspaper headlines are stored unfolded in an oversize flat storage box; they include: 1. Charleston Gazette, 1944/06/06, D-Day invasion; 2. Charleston Gazette, 1945/05/07, surrender of Nazi Germany; 3. Charleston Gazzette, 1945/08/14, surrender of Japan. A detailed paper guide to this collection can be found in the control folder for A&M 0052. An electronic copy of the same guide is available through a curator at the History Center.

Lecture notes, clippings, notes, and drafts for A History of European Civilization, Volume 1, and other miscellaneous papers of Jason C. Easton, former professor of history at West Virginia University (WVU). The collection also contains Dr. Easton's correspondence with several former students serving in the military during World War II dating from ca. 1942-1946. Other WWII items include ration books for food, gasoline, and liquor; and two unpublished sound recordings on disc of a radio discussion by J.C. Easton and Clark Ennis regarding the question of which nation the United States should support following World War II, Germany or Russia. There is also an album of photographs, some indentified, of members of the Young family of Charleston, West Virginia, dating from ca. 1860-1890. Addenda to the collection, in two document cases, include Lieutenant Clark Easton's World War I ledger containing class notes and instructional material from an Army Intelligence School, for period 30 September 1918 to 9 November 1918; and a listing of WVU students and graduates killed in World War II. Addenda also include items collected by Easton, including three Civil War documents: 1) payment voucher for Captain John D. Young for work on Bateau No. 16 on the Kanawha River (1962), 2)An eulogy/composition regarding "Stonewall Jackson" by Virginia Military Institute cadet, Samuel Francis Atwill (1863) who was mortally wounded at the Battle of New Market on 15 May 1864, and 3) a three-page narrative by unknown soldier regarding Shenandoah Valley campaign (January to July 1864). There is also a history of Charleston and Kanawha County published in 1911. For photographs related to this collection, go to wvhistoryonview.org and search for this collection's four digit call number (otherwise known as an a&m number).

Correspondence, photographs, post cards, newspapers, pamphlets (regarding typical antebellum and postbellum topics such as slavery, states rights, etc.), official records including the 1793 marriage license for Lund Washington (George Washington's cousin) and Susanna Grayson, a 1732 shipping order for items, including gold and silver, to be transported from Delaware to London, a 1837 document authorizing payment of a navy pension to the children of Lt. John Packette, and memorabilia of a prominent Jefferson County family, the Davenport-Gibson-Packette-Todds. The bulk of the correspondence is that of Mrs. Frances Packette Todd, Braxton Davenport (Port) Gibson, Susan G. (Zan) Gibson and Mrs. Anne Gibson Packette. Mrs. Todd was an heiress who travelled much in her youth and she was married to a distant cousin, Augustine J. Todd, who, like her, also claimed descent from George Washington's family. Her aunt, Zan Gibson, was an active local historian and genealogist. Her uncle B. D. (Port) Gibson was a lawyer who was a state legislator at the turn of the century. There are letters and artifacts of his days as a student at the University of Virginia where he was quite popular and an esteemed member of the rowing team. There are also several letters of his sisters, Anne and Zan, from a private French school in Canada. There is a shell jacket of a Confederate uniform belonging to Mrs. Todd's grandfather, John Thomas Gibson. He was a non-commissioned officer serving in an engineering unit of the CSA Army which was stationed around Richmond near the end of the Civil War. Gibson also commanded militia units during John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. There are letters of his concerning the hiring out of slaves before and during the war. After the war he once again became successful in business and built a mansion in Charles Town upon the site where John Brown was executed. One other prominent family member was Capt. James Gibson who served in a Virginia infantry regiment stationed at Norfolk during the War of 1812. Subjects covered include family matters, politics, land, slavery, education and warfare.

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.

Papers of Hu Maxwell (1860-1927), historian, editor, and author of several county histories of West Virginia, along with papers and records of other family members. There are manuscripts of fiction, verse, and local history written by Maxwell, as well as a number of his manuscripts and publications dealing with forestry which were prepared while he was a member of the Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. Maxwell kept a diary during the years 1901-1919 while residing in Morgantown, Chicago, Illinois, and Washington, D.C., which is extensive for the period of World War I and which contains notes on the diary of Rufus Maxwell (1855-1907). See scope and content note for more detail.

Correspondence, legal papers, and business papers of John J.D. Preston, his ancestors, and his relatives. The correspondence is primarily between members of the Preston family with topics being discussed, such as living conditions, business conditions, military training camps, Civil War battles, politics and campaigns, political personalities, education, schools, and the World Wars. Correspondents include John Preston, Rev. David Preston, John J. Davis, and John W. Davis.