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Correspondence of Charles J. Faulkner (1806-1884), who was a Martinsburg attorney, Virginia legislator, member of Congress, and ambassador to France during the James Buchanan administration. Subjects include national and Virginia-West Virginia politics, 1827-1876, and foreign affairs, 1868-1876. Other subjects include the French Colonization Society, the slave controversy, Maryland-Virginia boundary dispute, Virginia Revolutionary debt claims, disposal of the Harpers Ferry Armory, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, numerous internal improvement schemes in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and local history of the Martinsburg and Shenandoah Valley area. Correspondents include Sherrard Clemens; Lyman C. Draper; John J. Jackson, Jr.; Daniel Lamb; Alexander Martin; Samuel Price; George W. Summers; Henry A. Wise; and Waitman T. Willey. For a more complete list of subjects and correspondents, see Scope and Content Note. For a partial list of contents, see the control folder. For more information about Faulkner, see the Historical Note.

Two facsimiles of letters from J.M. Mason at the University of Virginia with reference to the management of the Virginia-West Virginia debt controversy, the nature of the Virginia claims, the history of the case, and recommendations for handling the matter for the best interest of West Virginia.

Correspondence, legal papers, photographs, and printed materials of John W. Mason (1842-1917). Mason was a circuit court and state Supreme Court judge, member of the Virginia State Debt Commission, and commissioner of Internal Revenue. The general correspondence contains personal and business letters, as well as manuscript speeches, notebooks, and reports. The period while Mason was circuit judge is particularly sparse. Also includes Internal Revenue correspondence consisting of about 8,500 pages in letter press copy books. Roughly half of the collection is devoted to his legal papers and printed materials concerning law in general. Subjects include early development of the Republican Party in West Virginia; political campaigns in West Virginia from 1870-1916; Monongalia Academy; industrial development; Internal Revenue Service (1889-1893); the Virginia Debt question; early banking development in Grafton; and the development of coal companies, particularly around Fairmont. Correspondents include Arthur I. Boreman, A.W. Campbell, Stephen B. Elkins, Benjamin Harrison, Francis H. Pierpont, and others.