Search

Papers of Archibald W. Campbell (1839-1899), editor of the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer. A strong unionist and Republican Party member, he worked hard through his editorials and behind the scenes in order to support the formation of the new state of West Virginia. The collection includes correspondence, clippings, ephemera, and scrapbooks dealing with the Civil War and political affairs in West Virginia's early statehood period. Some of the correspondence asks Campbell to publish specific accounts of events or rebuttals of others, showing the importance of the newspapers in shaping public perception. Correspondents include family members, Jacob B. Blair, Cassius M. Clay, Sherrard Clemens, B.F. Kelley, Francis H. Pierpont, John C. Underwood, and others. See Scope and Content Note for more information.

Personal and business papers of lawyer, U.S. Senator, circuit court judge, and first Governor of West Virginia, Arthur I. Boreman. See scope and content note for more details.

Personal and business papers of Arthur I. Boreman (1823-1896), lawyer, U.S. senator, circuit court judge, and first governor of West Virginia. The bulk of the collection consists of papers relating to his judgeship and to the law firm of Boreman and Bullocks, Parkersburg, WV. Series include correspondence, notes on cases tried before Judge Boreman, envelope cases of material regarding legal cases in which Boreman was involved, financial material, and political and judicial printed material. Correspondence includes letters to Boreman from Francis H. Pierpont (1866-1867), which concern politics in West Virginia, the admission of Berkeley and Jefferson counties into the state, the Virginia debt, and Reconstruction in Virginia. There is little other material relating to the governorship or political activities. Additional correspondents include J.W. Davis, John J. Davis, D.D.T. Farnsworth, D.H. Strother, J.G. Jackson, Charles J. Faulkner, and E.W. Wilson. Also includes manuscripts of speeches; muster rolls; household accounts; civil and court case papers concerning oil well drilling and sales; railroad property inventories and operation; coal prices, shipping data, and strikes; liquid fuel transportation; and steam and tow boat cargoes, navigation data, and names of boats in service on the Ohio River. There is also genealogical information on P.G. Van Winkle and Ebenezer Zane, and a letter and deposition by J.H. Diss Debar. For more details and box-level contents list, see Scope and Content Note. For more information on Arthur I. Boreman, see Historical Note.

Notes and maps related to the Civil War in West Virginia compiled by Luther E. Cole, probably in the 1930s. Handwritten notes with revisions appear to be the basis for an unfinished military history of the Civil War in West Virginia from 1861 to 1863. They chiefly describe campaigns and troop movements in the state, particularly the Battle of Rich Mountain, the Battle of Corrick's Ford, and the Jones-Imboden Raid. Also includes four battle maps with troop positions and geographical features.

Photostat negatives of correspondence to Francis H. Pierpont concerning statehood and secession. Also includes a petition of Harrison County, (West) Virginia citizens to Brigadier General Kelly protesting the return and admittance to the county of former members of the Confederate Army (undated); a petition of Gilmer County, (West) Virginia citizens denouncing secession and pledging action to suppress rebellion (1861); and the act by which the Restored Government of Virginia gave permission for the new state of West Virginia to be formed from Virginia (May 12, 1863). Also includes a photostat negative of a typescript checklist of Pierpont manuscript material held at the Virginia State Library (now Library of Virginia) (1916). Correspondents include: Arthur I. Boreman, John I. Brown, William G. Brown, A.W. Campbell, John S. Carlile, Spencer Dayton, James Evans, Thomas. M. Harris, J.H. Jordan, Daniel Lamb, J.A.J. Lightburn, A.F. Ritchie, Lewis Ruffner, Henry I. Samuels, J.C. Paxton, P.G. Van Winkle, and John O. Watson.

Papers of Francis Harrison Pierpont (1814-1899) of Monongalia and Marion Counties, West Virginia, who served as governor of the Restored Government of Virginia during the Civil War. Includes manuscripts, typescripts, printed materials, and photocopies consisting of genealogies, correspondence, college essays, speeches, official messages, articles prepared for newspapers, legal documents, pamphlets, scrapbooks, and ephemera. Topics include Pierpont's education; his career as governor of the Restored Government of Virginia at Wheeling, Alexandria, and Richmond; the West Virginia statehood movement; politics; and his later work in the Methodist Protestant Church. Notable series include Pierpont's personal and professional correspondence; his writings and speeches, which include several drafts of his reminiscences on Lincoln; correspondence and notes of Charles H. Ambler, biographer of Pierpont, in the Subject Files series; and a series of several hundred telegrams related to statehood and the Civil War. Pierpont's correspondents include Gordon Battelle, Arthur I. Boreman, John S. Carlile, Abraham Lincoln (copies), Waitman T. Willey, and others. For civil war telegrams related to this collection, go to wvhistory.org.

Correspondence, speeches and essays, and other papers pertaining to the military and diplomatic service of Colonel George R. Latham (1832-1917), who was a delegate to the Wheeling Convention in 1861, colonel of the 2nd West Virginia Infantry during the Civil War, a member of Congress from 1865 to 1867, and the United States consul in Australia from 1867 to 1870. Materials from the late 1860s and early 1870s relate to the consulate in Melbourne. These include shares of the Fiji Adventure of the Polynesia Company (1869) and papers regarding the Civil War soldier pension of Arthur Sharpley (1872), who appointed Latham as his attorney. Materials from 1914 to 1917 relate to Latham's pursuit of historical information about West Virginia statehood, the Civil War, and various Constitutional matters. It appears that Latham was gathering this information in preparation for writing his reminiscences. Also included are speeches and essays, most of which were probably written by Latham, on U.S. public lands, the constitutionality of West Virginia statehood, and Memorial Day and the Civil War.

Papers regarding West Virginia statehood and the history of Wheeling and Ohio County compiled by Judge Gibson L. Cranmer (1826-1903) of Wheeling, West Virginia, who served as secretary of the Wheeling Convention that repudiated Virginia's secession from the United States in 1861. Series 1 includes manuscript narratives and correspondence describing events of the West Virginia statehood movement, written by eyewitnesses at the request of Gibson L. Cranmer. Manuscript authors include John S. Burdett, John S. Carlile, Daniel Frost, Lewis Ruffner, and Benjamin Wilson. Series 2 includes Cranmer's handwritten notes, drafts of articles, copies of documents, and letters solicited by him regarding the history of Wheeling and Ohio County, West Virginia. See Scope and Content Note for details and contents list.

Papers of Judge Gideon D. Camden (1805-1891) of Clarksburg, Harrison County, West Virginia. Camden was a lawyer, Democratic politician, member of the Virginia Convention of 1850-1851, circuit judge, and state senator (1872-1876). Includes correspondence, legal documents, photocopies of printed material, and land grants. Subjects of the correspondence include West Virginia politics; the elections of 1840, 1860, and 1861; Reconstruction; the Flick Amendment; Southern sentiment in Clarksburg; and the location of the capital. Other papers deal with Indian scouting between the West Fork and Buckhannon Rivers during the Revolution; land speculation in Harrison and nearby counties; New York merchants and the Civil War; public schools in Shepherdstown, 1850; the Meade Collegiate Institute; Mount de Chantal Academy; Wheeling Female Seminary; the Chicago, Parkersburg, and Norfolk Railroad; and the Virginia Debt Question. There are several items of correspondence of the Reverend John S. Martin which relate to Methodism in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., particularly camp meetings, parish life and the slave question. There are also original and photocopied land grants signed by James Monroe, Edmund Randolph, Patrick Henry, and Henry Lee (late 1700s to early 1800s). Correspondents include Judge John J. Allen, Robert M.T. Hunter, Alexander Campbell, Judge E. J. Pitts, James A. Hall, W.P. Cooper, George W. Thompson, Judge Hugh W. Shuffey, Thomas Maslin, William E. Arnold, J. M. Mason, and Samuel D. Tompkins.