Search

Papers of a Preston County farmer, merchant, and licensed exhorter of the Methodist Episcopal Church who served in the state legislature in the years 1870-1876. There are letters of H. Davis and William Ewin regarding land and coal properties in Preston County. Also included are minutes of the incorporators' meeting of the Iron Valley and Pennsylvania Railroad, 1873, as well as scattered items relating to the Methodist Episcopal Church, Kingwood; the Northwestern Turnpike at St. George; the Grafton and Greenbrier Railroad Company; Civil War bounty claims; the Rowlesburg Lumber and Iron Company; stave making; the Wheeling Female College; political and religious speeches; and the Morgantown District Camp Meeting Association, 1877.

Stock receipt, Taylor County Agricultural and Mechanical Society, 1870; a pass from Headquarters, United States Volunteers, Grafton, dated 3 August 1861; passes from the toll office of Valley River Bridge, Northwestern Turnpike, 1860-1863; list of indigent school children, District 17, Taylor County; and muster fines and receipts bearing Morgantown, Fairmont, and Pruntytown imprints.

Correspondence, minutes, and membership cards which reflect the Association's lobbying efforts on behalf of preserving and rebuilding the Northwest Turnpike which ran from Capon Bridge to Parkersburg and is now part of U.S. Route 50.

Personal papers and scrapbooks of Peter G. Van Winkle (1808-1872), a Parkersburg attorney, delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1850-1851, member of the Second Wheeling Convention of 1861, delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1861-1862, legislator from Wood County in 1863, U.S. Senator from 1863-1869, and participant in West Virginia railroad and business enterprises. Includes manuscripts speeches, essays, correspondence, and three scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. Highlights include a manuscript speech on the American Colonization Society, which helped found the colony of Liberia (undated); a letter to the president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company (March 18, 1836); a draft of "Address of the Delegates composing the New State Constitutional Convention to their Constituents" (1863). Other subjects of Van Winkle's writings include the U.S. Constitution, philosophical and religious writings (including the rights and nature of mankind), and Virginia and West Virginia politics. The scrapbooks are mostly full of clippings, with subjects including the Northwestern Turnpike, politics, and the development of Parkersburg (1827-1902, undated). One of the scrapbooks also includes journal entries (1834-1844).