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Papers of Lewis Summers, a lawyer, businessman, member of the Virginia House of Delegates, 1817-1818, delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention, 1829-1830, and his brother George W., a lawyer in Charleston, a judge, a member of the House of Delegates, 1830-1832, 1834-1836, the U.S. House of Representatives, 1841-1845, a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850, candidate for governor in 1851, member of the 1861 Peace Convention, and delegate to the Richmond Secession Convention, 1861. Correspondence between the brothers is for the years 1818-1843. There are also business, legal, and family papers, speeches, and an autograph book of George W. while a student at the University of Virginia, 1854-1857. Correspondents include George Carlisle, James Craik, James M. Laidley, and Luke Wilcox. Persons mentioned or commented on include John Q. Adams, John C. Calhoun, Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, Thomas R. Dew, Andrew Donnally, Millard Fillmore, John Floyd, William H. Harrison, Andrew Jackson, the Ruffner family, Martin Van Buren, Daniel Webster, and Henry A. Wise.

Diary kept by Lewis Donnally, an attorney at Charleston, containing entries throughout the year, mainly concerns the weather and his fiancee, but mentions some current events topics, like McKinley's nomination.

Diary and commonplace book with miscellaneous entries showing: types of employment in Parkersburg and Charleston; weather conditions; and prices of clothing, room and board, tools, and wages.

Correspondence, bills, receipts, and memoranda books of Gordon, Gordon, Jr., Jacob, George H., and Mrs. F.R. Mullen of Charleston. Subjects include farming operations; the management of a small store in Kanawha County, West Virginia; Barboursville College; and the State Free Silver Headquarters. The collection includes letterheads, business cards, and calendars of Charleston mercantile establishments, ca.1877-1914; and some Ku Klux Klan papers, 1928, of Dr. A.G. Mullen of Galesburg, Illinois.

Letters to Wilson at Farmville, Virginia, and Charleston, West Virginia, from members of his family at: the University of Virginia; Lewisburg, West Virginia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Clarksville, Virginia. Includes references to family business affairs, the Ruffner-Donnally salt works at Charleston, purchase of slaves, and medical education in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1836 and 1844.

Papers of Rush Meadows, a Charleston, West Virginia, mining engineer and mine operator, containing correspondence, maps, reports, and photographs on companies involved in coal, oil and gas production in Appalachia, the Rocky Mountain states, and Latin America.

A scrapbook and personal diary of Volney Andrews, one-time president of Local 175, covering the years 1938-1949. There is material on disputes over the legitimacy of the AFL and the CIO especially as it was reflected in state regional labor councils and jurisdictional struggles in West Virginia between the United Mine Workers of America and the Progressive Mine Workers of America. Also mentioned are political concerns such as elections, congressional investigations of labor and foreign trade bills, state labor legislative proposals and charges of corruption in West Virginia's handling of the WPA. There is mention of the 1940 Charleston construction trades strike and also of that city's segregated neighborhood housing projects as well as material reflecting the predominant racist attitudes of that era. Places mentioned are Bluefield, Charleston, Fairmont, Grafton, Logan, Morgantown, and Wheeling. People mentioned are Van A. Bittner, Tom Cairnes, F.J. Dillon, William Green, Rush D. Holt, John L. Lewis, Joe Ozanic, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Frank W. Snyder.

Trial docket and minute book, 1843-73, and an indexed fee book, 1843-80, of the U.S. District Court at Charleston, West Virginia. The trial docket includes names of presiding judges, jury members and witnesses, and summaries of daily proceedings. The fee book itemizes court fees paid.