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Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. For more information, please see the Permissions and Copyright page on the West Virginia and Regional History Center website.

Conditions Governing Access

No special access restriction applies.

Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Harry T. Leeper, Collector, Papers, A&M 0348, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Leeper, Harry T., 1951 September 13.

Biographical / Historical

Thomas M. Leeper, 1858-1950, prominent person and local historian, was born in Monongah-Thoburn, Marion County, West Virginia. Leeper was a descendant of an early Revolutionary War veteran, Nathaniel Cochran, 1757-1808, whose life and captivity by indigenous peoples Leeper recorded and gave speeches about. He taught in the Marion County school system for eleven years after graduating from Fairmont Normal School and was employed for 45 years in Consolidated Coal's store. He was considered to be an expert on Marion County history, particularly Monongah and Grant districts. He was also a genealogist and worked on many family histories from requests.

Leeper was married to Martha Nye and they had two children. He was a member of the West Fork Baptist Church, the I.O.O.F. lodge, the Modern Woodsmen, the Marion County Historical Society, and the Monongah Good Will Club. He died at his home in Thoburn after a long period of failing health.

(from Thomas Leeper's death notice in The Fairmont (W.Va.) Times, 1950 August 1)

Scope and Contents

Collection includes family correspondence of the Bowman, Veach, and Leeper families. Manuscripts include a recounting of the Civil War event known as "Jones' Raid." In another document Nathaniel Cochrane, an ancestor of Thomas Leeper, recounts his capture and imprisonment by indigenous people, along with a biography of Cochrane. Daily life for that time is captured in "Home Life of the Leeper Family." Other typescript histories include "Monongah," Thomas Leeper's diary regarding heavy rains and high waters of 1888, a history of West Monongah High School, and "History of the Leeper Family."

The collection contains 47 teacher's daily registers, 1881-1891, for Briartown, Davis Ridge, Willow, Brumage, Tucker, Union, and Thoburn Schools. Some of the ledgers show marriage and death records of pupils. Other miscellaneous documents incude teacher certificates, agreements, deeds, road petitions, and land and crop agreements.

Eighteenth century documents include Nathaniel Cochrane's oath of allegiance to Pennsylvania, 1787, and an order regarding county precincts, 1795.

Finally, the collection includes receipts, accounts, notes and reports, some adhered to pages of the book Report of the Commissioner of Patents, 1855.

Related Material

251, 348

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Birth, marriage, and death records.
• Bowman family
• Civil War - raids and raiders.
• Cochran family
• Cochran, Nathaniel.
• Diaries and journals.
• Education
• Floods
• Frontier and pioneer life
• Indians of North America -- Wars -- West Virginia
• Leeper family
• Leeper, Harry T.
• Leeper, Thomas M.
• Marion County (W. Va.)
• McKeesport (Pa.)
• Monongah (W. Va.)
• Monongah High School (Monongah, W. Va.)
• Revolutionary War.
• Rivers and river valleys.
• Schools. SEE ALSO Academies
• Teachers
• Travel accounts.
• Veitch family
• Worthington (W. Va.)