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Histories and recollections of churches, schools, and early settlers in Mercer, Wayne, Jackson, and Lewis counties, by W.M. King. Communities or areas covered include Athens, Wayne, Cow Run, Antioch, Cherry Grove, and Smith Run. There is also an article on Aracoma Lodge, No.99, A.F. and A.M.

Letters of Henry and Joseph Bennett concerning travel by sea from New York to Chagres, Panama, overland across Panama and by ship to San Francisco in 1851. Letters from California, 1852-1853, discuss arrival of immigrants; employment conditions and wages; gambling and social life in San Francisco; investment opportunities; conditions in the gold mines; travel by steamboat to Hangtown (Placerville); churches; crime; Indians; mining profits; cost of land; ranching; blacksmith and plough shop in Santa Clara; digging a canal to take water from the American River to supply Hangtown, Coon Hollow, and Gold Hill; and Webber Run. Two letters by Joseph Bennett from Australia in l853 comment on mining, living conditions, profits of mining, and criminals sent from Great Britain. There is one 1849 letter to Samuel Bennett from relatives in Sheffield, England. There are several items of Jacobs family correspondence, 1880-1923, concerning family affairs, schools, economic conditions in Jackson County, and Monongalia County taxes in 1907.

A revised and indexed transcript copy of an interview with Dr. O.C. Stine, an expert in agricultural economics who was employed with the Department of Agriculture from the Progressive Era to that of the Fair Deal. Stine tells of his childhood on a farm in Jackson County, WV, his subsequent education in small town southeastern Ohio where his family moved, and his attendance and graduation from Ohio University with a bachelors in liberal arts and education. After teaching briefly on the secondary level agricultural vocation courses, he attained a masters in agricultural economy at the University of Wisconsin. Upon graduation he went to work in Washington, DC for the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, a statistically based research and survey branch of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. There he pioneered in the establishment of professionalized statistic keeping and in creating accurate economic forecast indicators. He was also helpful in the creation of various and changing proposals for parity farm price support programs. Privately, he was a founder of the Agricultural History Society. Of note, he mentions much interaction with the New Deal agency, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and his opinion of it. He talks about an official trip to the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy before World War II and comments on agriculture, the economy and society in Europe. Also he gives a candid evaluation of the Arthurdale project. Prominent names mentioned are: William J. Bryan, Calvin Coolidge, Howard M. Gore, Herbert Hoover, Benito Mussolini, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Gray Silver, and Henry Wallace.

Sermons, essays, lectures, correspondence, and miscellaneous papers of a Methodist preacher who served in Clarksburg and Sutton, West Virginia; Louisa, Kentucky; and along the Ohio River from Ashland, Kentucky, to Parkersburg.

Genealogies of the Smith family and allied Ripley family of Doddridge, Tyler and Jackson Counties, WV and Greene County, PA. The Smiths are descended from Thomas Smith, Sr. from Greene Co., PA of German descent. He was a pioneer settler of the Doddridge Co. community of Nutter's Fork. There is a 3 1/2 in. x 4 1/2 in. color photo of a tombstone dated 1800-85 of Isaac Smith. Others mentioned are Austin Ott Smith, John and Lydia Smith, Lewis Ripley and Harry Ripley. Material covers the years 1756-1989.