Collections

Correspondence, typescripts, notes, clippings, photographs, and printed material of a local historian and promoter of patriotic societies from Berkeley Springs. Many of the papers pertain to the local history of the eastern panhandle. Subjects include the town of Bath (Berkeley Springs); James Rumsey; George Washington; Porte Crayon (David Hunter Strother); Washington Bicentennial; National Flag Day; D.A.R.; and American Indian Day. One of the clippings scrapbooks includes a photo of West Virginia Governor William G. Conley with Key to Bath, West Virginia (ca. 1929-1933), and another scrapbook contains an announcement for a meeting of the "equal suffrage club" on 25 August 1915.

Personal and business papers of Arthur I. Boreman (1823-1896), lawyer, U.S. senator, circuit court judge, and first governor of West Virginia. The bulk of the collection consists of papers relating to his judgeship and to the law firm of Boreman and Bullocks, Parkersburg, WV. Series include correspondence, notes on cases tried before Judge Boreman, envelope cases of material regarding legal cases in which Boreman was involved, financial material, and political and judicial printed material. Correspondence includes letters to Boreman from Francis H. Pierpont (1866-1867), which concern politics in West Virginia, the admission of Berkeley and Jefferson counties into the state, the Virginia debt, and Reconstruction in Virginia. There is little other material relating to the governorship or political activities. Additional correspondents include J.W. Davis, John J. Davis, D.D.T. Farnsworth, D.H. Strother, J.G. Jackson, Charles J. Faulkner, and E.W. Wilson. Also includes manuscripts of speeches; muster rolls; household accounts; civil and court case papers concerning oil well drilling and sales; railroad property inventories and operation; coal prices, shipping data, and strikes; liquid fuel transportation; and steam and tow boat cargoes, navigation data, and names of boats in service on the Ohio River. There is also genealogical information on P.G. Van Winkle and Ebenezer Zane, and a letter and deposition by J.H. Diss Debar. For more details and box-level contents list, see Scope and Content Note. For more information on Arthur I. Boreman, see Historical Note.

Papers of a Berkeley County, West Virginia, farmer and his descendants. Included are the estate papers of Nicholas Stroyer and business and legal papers of George, Henry J., Benjamin S. and Harman L. Couchman. There is the correspondence of Adrian W. Lamon, John W. Marshall, J. Marshall Neel, the Reverend A.A.P Neel of Shepherdstown (colportage agent of the Baltimore Conference M.E. Church South), Professor J. Wilbur Neel of Romney, and various members of the Couchman and Neel families. The collection includes the subscription list for the Reverend C.P. Heathe, 1823; quarterly reports and manuscript minutes of the Cherry Grove Grange, No.13, Patrons of Husbandry of West Virginia, Berkeley County, 1892, 1893; materials on Methodism in the Berkeley County area; pocket diaries; and family photographs.

Papers of James ("Jim") Franklin Comstock of Richwood, West Virginia, whose position as editor of the West Virginia Hillbilly and avocation as collector and advocate of all things West Virginia led to the preservation of much of the state's physical, visual, and textual history. The collection includes materials Comstock collected about West Virginia history as well as his own personal and professional papers. Materials include: general series of historical documents such as letters, deeds, and county court cases pertaining to a diverse range of subjects (1717, 1754-1988, undated [includes facsimiles]); letters of Lucy Prichard, former instructor at Marshall College (now Marshall University) (1925-1927, undated); clippings and typescripts of Wirt County resident and Atlantic Monthly writer Louis Eckert Reed (ca. 1960-1975, undated); account books concerning economic development and commercial activities in the northern part of the state in the 19th and early 20th centuries (1830-1938); printed material about West Virginia schools, businesses, and events as well as non-West Virginia books and pamphlets (1829-1995, undated); Comstock's personal and professional correspondence (1882-1995, undated); a wide variety of photographs, including images of West Virginia cities and towns, among many others (ca. 1850s-1995, undated); microfilmed records of the Civil War and Dunmore's War (undated); glass lantern slides, which include views of scenery and buildings in Wheeling and various other locations in Ohio County, WV (1871-1897, undated); Grand Army of the Republic and U.S. military history scrapbooks (1883-1918); broadsides, including advertisements for a circus in Moundsville (ca. 1827-1960 [includes facsimiles]); and maps and atlases of pre- and post-statehood West Virginia, counties, colonial North America, and other topics (1730-1976, undated [includes facsimiles]). An addendum of 2013/05 includes additional personal and professional correspondence, publications, newspaper morgue files, photographs, audio-visual material, artifacts, scrapbooks, account books, and maps. For more information on Jim Comstock, see the Historical Note.

Newspaper clippings, manuscripts, pamphlets, typescripts, correspondence, and photographs relating to the history of Martinsburg and Berkeley County.

Records of the Arden District, 1916-1930; Gerrardstown District, 1877-1925; the Hedgesville District, 1866-1927; Martinsburg District, 1908-1918; Mill Creek District, 1921-1935; and the county superintendent, 1893-1911. Subjects covered include: tax assessments, attendance applications, teacher appointments, apportionment of funds, and school levies.

Material regarding the Sommerville family of Berkeley County, mainly concerning Robert A. Sommerville and his son Obed W. Somerville. Includes a family history narrative (folder 1), transcript of a journal (folder 1), copies of legal documents (folder 2), and colored copies of photographs and portraits of Sommerville family members and of artifacts associated with the family (folders 3 and 4). Material regarding Robert A. Sommerville includes a transcription of family and personal memoranda he recorded in 1852; the transcript contains an account of the emigration of his father William from Ireland to the American Colonies in the 1770s, and excerpts from a journal kept by William Sommerville in 1794. Material regarding Obed W. Sommerville includes documents regarding his Civil War service, pension records, copies of legal testimony regarding his placement in a mental asylum, and his death certificate. All items in this collection are reproductions.