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The Baughman Family Papers contain correspondence between members of the Baughman family of Richmond, Virginia, as well as with friends, written from 1837 to 1957 (bulk, 1837-1907). The second part of the collection is family papers from about 1859 to the 1940s. This includes military documents, estate papers, legal documents, Confederate society papers, poetry, and photographs.

This collection contains ephemera, University of Richmond memorabilia, service awards, photographs, and postcards representing the life of Earl and Jewell Ratliff and their service to the University of Richmond, volunteer organizations, and their love of travel.

Papers of Francis Harrison Pierpont (1814-1899) of Monongalia and Marion Counties, West Virginia, who served as governor of the Restored Government of Virginia during the Civil War. Includes manuscripts, typescripts, printed materials, and photocopies consisting of genealogies, correspondence, college essays, speeches, official messages, articles prepared for newspapers, legal documents, pamphlets, scrapbooks, and ephemera. Topics include Pierpont's education; his career as governor of the Restored Government of Virginia at Wheeling, Alexandria, and Richmond; the West Virginia statehood movement; politics; and his later work in the Methodist Protestant Church. Notable series include Pierpont's personal and professional correspondence; his writings and speeches, which include several drafts of his reminiscences on Lincoln; correspondence and notes of Charles H. Ambler, biographer of Pierpont, in the Subject Files series; and a series of several hundred telegrams related to statehood and the Civil War. Pierpont's correspondents include Gordon Battelle, Arthur I. Boreman, John S. Carlile, Abraham Lincoln (copies), Waitman T. Willey, and others. For civil war telegrams related to this collection, go to wvhistory.org.

Anna Pierpont Siviter's notes and typescript draft with holograph notes of Recollections on Civil War (Recollections of War and Peace, 1861-1868). Also includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, unpublished poems, and genealogy of the Pierpont, Siviter, and Pryor families.

Papers regarding West Virginia statehood and the history of Wheeling and Ohio County compiled by Judge Gibson L. Cranmer (1826-1903) of Wheeling, West Virginia, who served as secretary of the Wheeling Convention that repudiated Virginia's secession from the United States in 1861. Series 1 includes manuscript narratives and correspondence describing events of the West Virginia statehood movement, written by eyewitnesses at the request of Gibson L. Cranmer. Manuscript authors include John S. Burdett, John S. Carlile, Daniel Frost, Lewis Ruffner, and Benjamin Wilson. Series 2 includes Cranmer's handwritten notes, drafts of articles, copies of documents, and letters solicited by him regarding the history of Wheeling and Ohio County, West Virginia. See Scope and Content Note for details and contents list.

Correspondence, legal and business papers, mercantile records and tax receipt books of Isaac McNeel, who operated a store at Edray and Mill Point, Pocahontas County, West Virginia, served as sheriff of the county, operated a gristmill, raised livestock, and was appointed provost marshal of the county in 1862 by the Confederate Army. The collection also includes letters and school reports of McNeel's sons, Winters and Summers, while students at Washington and Lee and the Medical and Law Departments of the University of Virginia, 1893-1897. Other school material pertains to the Hillsboro Male and Female Academy and the Lewisburg Female Institute. Subjects include mercantile and cattle trade with Baltimore and Richmond; business conditions in the l850s and in Richmond during the Civil War; slave hiring; ginseng trade; agriculture; the American Party, 1855; Henry A. Wise; Virginia Secession Convention; effect of the Union blockade on Richmond commerce; speculation in whiskey, tobacco, and cattle during the Civil War; and postwar economic and political conditions in the Pocahontas County area.

Bills, receipts, and letters of Kincaid of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, mainly concerning his attempts to obtain a position at the Richmond, Virginia insane asylum as a medical student and his various contacts with Greenbrier County as a school teacher. Also there is a Renick family history.

The collection documents parts of John Barton Payne's varied professional career. It contains correspondence, including letters from President Woodrow Wilson and federal agencies including the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, and Postmaster General, as well letters from Payne's former employer, invitations, letters of thanks, and requests from private entities. The collection also contains photographs from trips that Payne took during his tenure as Secretary of the Interior, most of which were taken at Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone National Park, but also a photo album from a trip to Alaska as part of the Alaskan Engineering Commission (AEC).

Clippings and illustrations regarding abolitionist and activist John Brown, who led a raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859, precipitating the American Civil War. Includes: 1) facsimile of a page of the newspaper "Independent Democrat" of Charlestown, Virginia from 10-25-1859 including article giving an account of the raid by John Brown; 2) facsimile of a page of the newspaper "Daily Enquirer" of Richmond, Virginia from 11-21-1859 including copy of Brown's petition for a writ of error in his trial; 3) original copy of pages from "Frank Leslie's" illustrated newspaper from 12-10-1859 featuring article of final interviews with John Brown and an illustration of John Brown's execution; 4) photocopy of pages from "Harper's Weekly" from 1909 featuring article titled "How Patrick Higgins Met John Brown, His Story of What He Saw of the Raid on Harper's Ferry", October 16, 1859". Also includes two small undated newspaper clippings of images of "John Brown's House on Franklin Street", and of Brown's "Wool Warehouse on Railroad Row"; and two small undated magazine clippings of images of the schoolhouse John Brown used as an arsenal, and of insurgents thrown off a bridge at Harper's Ferry.

Papers of Thomas Tavenner and the Tavenner family of western Virginia, including correspondence; memoirs; journals; financial and legal documents; pamphlets; newspapers; and other material. Much of the material in this collection regards the Civil War. The Tavenner family were Confederate sympathizers.