Search

Papers of a Monongalia County, West Virginia, farm family residing near Maidsville include: the farm account books of John and John J. Courtney, 1831-1877; family Bible records and photographs; college essays of Alpheus Courtney, a West Virginia University student; manuscript ciphering book, 1817; diary of Ulysses J. Courtney, 1878-1883 (7 vols.) pertaining to lumbering, farming, and livestock operations, and community religious and social life; correspondence; steamboat bills of lading, invoices of mercantile stores; Civil War bounty receipts; a record of lumbering operations, 1878; and records of the Bethel (Methodist) Church. Subjects include the construction of the Monongahela Valley Railroad; frontier conditions in Iowa; Morgantown Bridge Company; and Methodism within the Baltimore and West Virginia conferences. Correspondents include Alston G. Dayton.

Fourteen letters, thirteen from J.M. Vandeman of Adams Co., Ohio, a Union soldier in Co. B, 33rd Ohio Volunteer Company, 3rd Division, 9th Brigade, and one from W.T. and H.A. Wright of Webster City, Hamilton Co., Iowa. All are addressed to Miss S. Jane Vandeman in Adams Co., Ohio. The letters from J.M. Vandeman were written between 6 October 1861 and 25 December 1862; the letter from the Wrights is dated 1866. The letters of 1861-1862 were written from various locations in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama and describe life as a Union soldier, including camp life, battles, and hospital stays. In addition to the letters, there is a document dated September 17, 1864, appointing George G. Menelly as 2nd lieutenant, 173rd Reg., Ohio Volunteer Infantry for one year.

Correspondence, business and legal papers, surveys, account books, and a diary of a Burning Springs surveyor, oil developer, rural entrepreneur, horticulturalist, and captain of the Little Kanawha River steamer GENERAL JACKSON. Collection includes a brief journal of a trip from Des Moines, Iowa, to the Forks of the Platte in 1860; papers of Clarke's venture in quartz mining and milling in the Colorado Territory, 1861-1863; surveys of the Burning Springs oil region; letters from James C. Clarke, president of the Wirt Oil and Mining Company of which Clarke was superintendent; papers on the National Grange, the West Virginia Grange (Patrons of Husbandry), cooperatives, and the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia Wool Growers Association; a diary of farming operations at Burning Springs; letters from Clarke's brother, James C., while a member of the Pennsylvania senate, 1875-1880; letterheads from Little Kanawha and Ohio Valley mercantile firms and steamboat companies; and family letters. Other subjects covered include: the Allegheny Valley Railroad; early history of Bethalto, Illinois; the speculative spirit and western expansion, 1860; freighting on the Great Plains during the Civil War; construction of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad near Council Bluffs in 1868; and the effect of the German crisis of 1866 on American oil prices.

Correspondence, legal papers, photographs and genealogical records of the Putney-Reed family. The letters, which were exchanged between family members in California, Iowa and Kanawha Salines, West Virginia, primarily concern family affairs. There are also thirty-seven letters, 1858 - 1862, written by Emily Reed a student at the Woodburn Female Seminary in Morgantown, Virginia (later West Virginia), to her family describing student life, particularly the curriculum and her efforts to promote Christianity.