Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

Correspondence, newspaper clippings, and other papers, of a state senate minority leader, 1899-1901, prominent Fayette County lawyer, and Democratic committeeman. Subjects include Osenton's early life; his law training at Georgetown University; his election to the state senate as a "silver" Democrat; William Jennings Bryan's tour of West Virginia, 1908; the presidential election of 1908; and Champ Clark's battle for the Democratic nomination, 1912. The papers also include a collection of broadsides pertaining to West Virginia, Kentucky, and national politics, 1898-1920; and the business and legal papers, ca.1847-1880, of Osenton's father-in-law, Arthur J. Lansdowne of Grayson, Kentucky. Correspondents include John D. Alderson, William J. Bryan, William E. Chilton, and Champ Clark.

Formulary or recipe book, of G.H. Caperton, a pharmacist at Fire Creek, Fayette County, West Virginia.

Genealogical notes and research of a member of the Fayette Co., WV Genealogical Society, Helen Scott, on the following families: Arthur, Blake, Decker, Jaynes, Johnson and Scott. There are cemetery readings for Fayette County including the areas of Fayetteville, Mt. Hope, Oak Hill, and Pax and of the Blue Ridge Cemetery. There is also a copy of the genealogical research conducted by Laura Blake.

The collection consists largely of correspondence to Morgantown businessman John Rogers from relatives in Pennsylvania and Maryland. It also includes two letters from Sgt. William A. Widney, who was assigned to the U.S. War Department during the Civil War, to a Morgantown friend (possibly William Hennen). One letter was written by an unidentified woman to her grandson, a West Virginia University student.

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.

Correspondence, business records, legal papers, and miscellaneous papers of the Haldeman, Baldwin, and Smith families of Monongalia and Preston counties in West Virginia and of Greene, Fayette, and Washington counties in Pennsylvania. The major portion of the collection relates to the business dealings of the Rev. T.A. Haldeman, who built and repaired carriages, wagons, and buggies at a shop in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and also dealt in fruits and vegetables. There is genealogical material on the Haldeman family, information about the Drummond Chapel Sunday School (Morgantown, West Virginia), and the journal of the Rev. T.H. Trainer (1881-1899), who served Drummond Chapel, Rock Forge, Woodland, Mellon, and other Monongalia County churches.

This microfilm version of the Thornton Tayloe Perry Collection held by the Virginia Historical Society contains historical material collected by Perry over a 30 year period. It concentrates upon western Virginia and West Virginia with particular emphasis upon the lower Shenandoah Valley and Jefferson, Berkeley, and Morgan counties of West Virginia. The microfilm was placed in the West Virginia Collection by the Virginia Historical Society under provisions of a National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant.

Civil War materials collected by Dr. Brooks in writing his biographies of Grant and Lee. Included are pamphlets, scrapbooks, newspapers, photographs, and originals and copies of soldiers' letters, journals, and military reports. There are typed copies of a journal, 3 November-2 December 1863, of a civilian observer in Tennessee, who was at Grant's headquarters at the Battle of Chattanooga; letters, 1861-1864, of William Ludwig, a private in the Thirty-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry in Fayette, Kanawha, and Cabell counties; Confederate officers' reports on the action around Beverly in July 1863; and a Union soldier's letter of 9 May 1863, describing the Battle of Chancellorsville.