Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

Correspondence, business and legal records, account books, news releases, clippings, and family papers and photographs of a U.S. marshal (1916-1922); editor of the Fairmont TIMES (1925-1959) and Wheeling REGISTER (1933-1935); Democratic politician; member of the National Bituminous Coal Commission (1935-1939); and businessman.
Subjects include: Smith's student days at Virginia Military Institute; West Virginia National Guard; Monongah Mine Relief Committee; Associated Press; Association Against the Prohibition Amendment; Eighteenth Amendment; presidential elections and national and state politics, 1916-1956; John W. Davis; Alfred E. Smith; post-World War I radicalism and reaction; Ku Klux Klan; United Mine Workers; National Miners' Union; labor conflict, 1920s; U.S. Railway Administration; New Deal agencies; and Mountain Lake Park, Maryland.
Correspondents include Van A. Bittner, William E. Chilton, William G. Conley, John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Eugene V. Debs, James A. Farley, William Green, Averell Harriman, Homer Adams Holt, Rush Dew Holt, Hugh S. Johnson, Louis Johnson, Harley M. Kilgore, H.G. Kump, John L. Lewis, William A. MacCorkle, J. Howard McGrath, Clarence W. Meadows, M.M. Neely, Okey L. Patteson, Jennings Randolph, Adlai E. Stevenson, Clarence W. Watson, and James O. Watson.
There are also papers of Clarence L. Smith (1850-1905), editor of the Fairmont INDEX (1889) and founder of the Fairmont TIMES (1900), which include a domestic diary of his wife, 1876-1910; minute book of the Fleming Association, 1890-1894; papers of Clarence Edwin Smith, Jr., 1940-1941; papers of Thomas Barns (1750-1836), and his sons, John S. (delegate to Second Wheeling Convention) and James F.; Marion County millers and manufacturers, 1795-1908. There are also papers of Waitman T. Willey and a taped interview with C.E. Smith, 1956. Correspondents include John L. Lewis, Matthew M. Neely, Francis H. Pierpont, and John J. Cornwell. There are also papers, 1917-1950, of Smith's brother, Earl H. (1880-1941), co-founder and editor of the Fairmont TIMES (1900-1925), state legislator, officer in the National Guard, and state commander of the American Legion. Subjects include World War I; Woodrow Wilson; American Legion; and state and national politics, 1918-1940. Correspondents include John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Sam T. Mallison, M.M. Neely, Jennings Randolph, and Howard Sutherland.
The collection also includes papers, 1908-1940, of Herschel H. Rose, Smith's son-in-law, Fairmont attorney, Democrat politician, and circuit court judge. M.M. Neely is a correspondent. Financial records include account books, 1826-1893, of Thomas Barns, John S. Barns and Company, Barns, Fleming and Company (1857), James R. Fleming, woolen and flour milling, shoe manufacturing, and general merchandise operations in Marion County; account book of Mary Fleming Smith, 1888-1912; Fairmont Newspaper Publishing Company, 1919-1949; Fairmont Broadcasting Company, 1932, 1947-1949; and Jackson Coal Company, 1917-1924; Fairmont Coal Company founding mortgage document, 1901 (box 2, folder 4).

Correspondence, business and legal records, account books, news releases, clippings, and family papers and photographs of a U.S. Marshall (1916-1922); editor of the Fairmont TIMES (1925-1959) and Wheeling REGISTER (1933-1935); Democratic politician; member of the National Bituminous Coal Commission (1935-1939); and businessman. Subjects include: Smith's student days at Virginia Military Institute; West Virginia National Guard; Monongah Mine Relief Committee; Associated Press; Association Against the Prohibition Amendment; Eighteenth Amendment; presidential elections and national and state politics, 1916-1956; John W. Davis; Alfred E. Smith; post-World War I radicalism and reaction; Ku Klux Klan; United Mine Workers; National Miners' Union; labor conflict, 1920s; U.S. Railway Administration; New Deal agencies; and Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. Correspondents include Van A. Bittner, William E. Chilton, William G. Conley, John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Eugene V. Debs, James A. Farley, William Green, Averell Harriman, Homer Adams Holt, Rush Dew Holt, Hugh S. Johnson, Louis Johnson, Harley M. Kilgore, H.G. Kump, John L. Lewis, William A. MacCorkle, J. Howard McGrath, Clarence W. Meadows, M.M. Neely, Okey L. Patteson, Jennings Randolph, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adlai E. Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Clarence W. Watson, and James O. Watson. There are also papers of Clarence L. Smith (1850-1905), editor of the Fairmont INDEX (1889) and founder of the Fairmont TIMES (1900), which include a domestic diary of his wife, 1876-1910; minute book of the Fleming Association, 1890-1894; papers of Clarence Edwin Smith, Jr., 1940-1941; papers of Thomas Barns (1750-1836), and his sons, John S. and James F.; Marion County millers and manufacturers, 1795-1908. There are also papers of Waitman T. Willey and a taped interview with C.E. Smith, 1956. Correspondents include John L. Lewis, George B. McClellan, Matthew M. Neely, Francis H. Pierpont, John J. Cornwell, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. There are also papers, 1917-1950, of Smith's brother, Earl H. (1880-1941), co-founder and editor of the Fairmont TIMES (1900-1925), state legislator, officer in the National Guard, and state commander of the American Legion. Subjects include World War I; Woodrow Wilson; American Legion; and state and national politics, 1918-1940. Correspondents include John J. Cornwell, John W. Davis, Sam T. Mallison, M.M. Neely, Jennings Randolph, and Howard Sutherland. The collection also includes papers, 1908-1940, of Herschel H. Rose, Smith's son-in-law, Fairmont attorney, Democrat politician, and circuit court judge. M.M. Neely is a correspondent. Financial records include account books, 1826-1893, of Thomas Barns, John S. Barns and Company, Barns, Fleming and Company (1857), James R. Fleming, woolen and flour milling, shoe manufacturing, and general merchandise operations in Marion County; account book of Mary Fleming Smith, 1888-1912; Fairmont Newspaper Publishing Company, 1919-1949; Fairmont Broadcasting Company, 1932, 1947-1949; and Jackson Coal Company, 1917-1924.

Papers of a Huntington attorney, member of the West Virginia National Guard, 1909-1916, employee of the C&O Railway Company, president of the Union Bank and Trust Company of Huntington, president of the Ben Lomond Company, president of the Blackberry, Kentucky and West Virginia Coal and Coke Company, attorney for Central City, prosecuting attorney of Cabell County, 1905-1908, chairman of a county Democratic committee, and delegate to the Democratic National Convention, 1912. Wallace served in the Spanish-American War and as judge advocate general in West Virginia during the coal strike in 1912-1913. During World War I he was a state draft executive, a major in the judge advocate general corps in Washington, and a lieutenant colonel in France. Subjects include the influenza epidemic of 1918, the depression of 1929-1932, state and national politics, and genealogy of the Wallace and allied families. The collection also includes three typescripts, "Runnymede Receipts,"Train Running for the Confederacy," and "Norborne Parish and St. George's Chapel," by Philip P. Gibson; Civil War data; an account of the taking of San Juan Hill in 1898; a military diary; a scrapbook of Cabell County court records; a speech against the League of Nations; and notes on a trip to Nice, circa 1919.

Correspondence, mainly concerning family news and business. There is comment on prohibition, President Woodrow Wilson's reelection, World War I speculation, the Food Administration under Herbert Hoover, and the influenza outbreak of 1919-1920.

Correspondence, reports, petitions, agreements, newspaper clippings, and magazine articles relating to the soft coal industry and labor conditions, generally in southern West Virginia. Subjects covered include the eight-hour day; strikes; consolidation of coal operations; freight rates; government contracts for coal; Paint and Cabin creeks, 1912-1913; working conditions in the Polack Cigar Factory, Wheeling, 1914; investigation of the Gay Coal and Coke Company, Logan County, 1917; investigation of the Wheeling Can Company, 1918; labor conditions in West Virginia, 1917; publicity releases of Winding Gulf Operators Association, 1923-1925; and eviction of miners; labor conditions in Logan County, 1923. Correspondents include D.T. Evans, Carl Hayden, W.E. Borah, M.M. Neely, Van A. Bittner, J.P. White, F.J. Hayes, Mary "Mother" Jones, Thomas Haggerty, Woodrow Wilson, and J.J. Cornwell.