Search

This is a collection of letters and documents tracing the personal and business life of an eastern panhandle West Virginia family. The papers concern a broad range of political, social, financial, and legal topics, particularly focusing on J. Hammond Siler, Jr., his parents, J. Hammond Siler, Sr. and Jessie Castleman Siler (residents of the Town of Bath better known as Berkeley Springs). Also includes correspondence and other papers from related families. Subjects include banking, the Civil War, the Episcopal church, secession of Virginia, Virginia Loyalty Oath, women's diaries, and women's letters and papers. A notable item in the collection is the diary of Anne Doyne Wolff Strother, wife of artist and writer David Hunter Strother, documenting a trip with husband and daughter Emily to New Orleans in 1857 (S2/Box 67, folder 1a).

This collection, compiled by Richard Wright, focuses on the evolution of the Black American image in print media, cartoons and comics. Wright organized his own historical timeline titled "Good Clean Fun: Blacks in Comics," also referred to as "Clean Fun: Blacks in Comics," in a series of binders with artist biographies and time period summaries. Item titles have been retained from the original labels.

The Ephemera Collection contains material primarily acquired for teaching. It includes material in various formats, most of which have been previously published. The collection is currently being processed and new items will be added on an ongoing basis. For this reason, the indicated date range is approximate at this point.

Correspondence, miscellaneous family papers, nineteenth century school records, ledgers, bank books, and memorabilia of Hugh F. Sayre and family of Parkersburg, Reedy, St. Marys and West Creek, West Virginia. Some material relates to oil and gas leases on the Sayre family farm and Sayre's invention of a scientific alphabet called EBDECORD.

The papers of the Cocke family of Fluvanna County, Virginia, and related Barraud family, Faulcon family, and other families, consist of ca. 25,000 items, (194 Hollinger boxes, ca. 64.5 linear shelf feet), 1725- 1939, and contains correspondence, legal and financial papers, diaries of John Hartwell Cocke, Louisa Maxwell Holmes Cocke, and Lucy Cocke, minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University ofVirginia, diagrams and sketches concerning the University, bound volumes, sketches and drawings, college and school notes, poetry, orations and speeches, essays, genealogy, and lists pertaining to agriculture, music and other subjects.

This collection contains a bound lawyer's docket book, with entries from 1823 to 1836 and from 1842 to 1888, both indexed. The earliest entries are likely from the law office of Chauncey Dewey in Cadiz, Ohio, during his association with Steubenville lawyer Benjamin Tappan. The later entries are first from the law office of Dewey & Shotwell, a partnership between Chauncey Dewey and Stuart B. Shotwell, also in Cadiz. Dewey retired from the partnership in 1849, so entries after that date are from the law office of Stuart B. Shotwell in Cadiz. Most entries give the case name, list of case actions, and receipts of payments. Also included in this collection is a tin sign reading "Shotwell's Law Office."

The Cocke- ElliotFamily papers contain ca. 15,000 items (41 Hollinger boxes, ca. 17 linear feet and four oversize folders), ca. 1773-1992, and consist largely of personal and family correspondence, financial and legal papers, memorabilia, bound volumes, and genealogical and historical research material pertaining to the Cocke, Elliot, and related families from the colonial period through the twentieth century, assembled by John Page Elliot.

Series 1: Group A, Acc. 78 T97 and 1992.63: Papers, 1856-1895, of John Tyler, Jr., post Civil War Republican Party activist. Subjects covered by the collection include alcoholism, Republican Party politics, Presidential elections, political patronage, Reconstruction, Methodist Episcopal Church, Florida, Braxton Bragg, and the Fenian Brotherhood. Prominent correspondents include Charles Francis Adams, Chester Alan Arthur, Pierre G. T. Beauregard, James Gillespie Blaine, James Buchanan, Jefferson Davis, Benjamin Stoddert Ewell, Henry Stuart Foote, Nathan Bedford Forrest, James A. Garfield, John Brown Gordon, Horace Greeley, Wade Hampton, Rutherford B. Hayes, Andrew Johnson, Joseph Eggleston Johnston, L. Q. C. Lamar, William Mahone, Raphael Semmes, William Henry Seward, John Sherman, Leroy Pope Walker, and William Lowndes Young. Acc. 1992.63 consists of letters of John Tyler, Jr., son of the President, to Mrs. Laura Holloway, author of a book on the ladies of the White House. Letters written from Washington, D.C.