John Nuttall was born near Accrington, Lancaster, England (1817-1897). His father died when he was very young so as soon as he was able to work, he went to work in the English coal mines at age eleven. At an early age he married Elizabeth Pollard and they had four children: Elizabeth Alice (1844-1933?), Susanna (c. 1847-1906), Thomas (c. 1847-1868) and Martha (1851-1926). John emigrated from England to America in 1849 and found work in silk mills earning enough money to shortly bring his family to America. His wife Elizabeth died in 1853. Their children were cared for by Martha Sutcliffe, a cousin of Elizabeth. By April 1856 the Nuttalls settled in the bituminous coal fields of Centre and Clearfield Counties, Pennsylvania. Having observed that the Pennsylvania Railroad was extending railroad lines into western Pennsylvania coalfields, Nuttall purchased land with a coal seam near the town of Osceola and established the Decatur Coal Company. During a trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, John met Ann Nuttall, the widow of a distant relative. They married in December 1856. The extended family settled near his mine in what became the company town of Nuttallville, Pennsylvania near Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. John and Ann had a son Lawrence William (1857-1933) first of the family to be born in America. By 1870 John Nuttall began to investigate the bituminous coalfields of West Virginia. He anticipated that the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad would run through the New River Gorge. Shortly thereafter, he opened the Nuttallburg mine and mining community in the New River Gorge, near the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. When the railroad arrived in 1873, Nuttall had built about 100 houses, 80 coke ovens, mine structures and a coal tipple along the railroad siding. Structures were built on both sides of the river as the town was segregated. A pedestrian suspension bridge was built by the Roebling Bridge Co. in 1899. In 1882 or 1884, Nuttall established the Nuttallburg Coal & Coke Company. By his death in 1897, the Nuttall family owned thousands of acres of land, operated coal mines, and provided livelihood for hundreds of mine workers and their families. When John and Ann’s son Lawrence finished school in 1878 he went to work with his father at the mines as secretary-treasurer of the coal company and private secretary to his father. In 1884 he married Katherine DuBree of Philipsburg, Pa. who was interested in butterflies which complimented Lawrence’s interest in botany (he was a distant relative of English botanist Thomas Nuttall [1786-1859] who explored much of the American West and noted various coal outcrops during his exploration of the West). Lawrence and Katherine had a son John II who eventually had a coalyard near York, Pennsylvania. In 1892, John’s son-in-law George W. McGaffey with some other men opened the First National Bank of Philipsburg and George soon became president of the bank. In 1907 he asked Lawrence to join him in the bank. In 1915 on McGaffey’s death, Lawrence became president of the bank. The eldest Nuttall daughter, Elizabeth Alice had married George William McGaffey (1833-1915) in 1864. George McGaffey came from Lyndon, Vermont to Philipsburg, Pa. to work for the Nuttall mines in 1861 or 1862 as bookkeeper and business partner. George’s parents were William (b. 1797-c.1869) and Eliza Locke (b. 1803-1868) McGaffey. George and Alice had two daughters (Caroline/Carrie is included in this collection). This collection contains also some McGaffey related correspondence before his Nuttall connection. Second daughter Susanna (1847-1906) married John Oliver Todd around 1863. Todd was a mine boss at the old Decatur Mine and the Powelton Mine. Another daughter of John and Elizabeth Nuttall, Martha (1851-1926) married Jackson Taylor (1850-1915) who with Lawrence went to New River Gorge mines. The other family members stayed in Philipsburg, Pa. On John Nuttall’s death in 1897 Jackson Taylor along with Lawrence became sole managers of the old Nuttall Mine which was sold in 1903 to Maryland-New River Coal Company of Philadelphia. The Jacksons had seven living adult children: John Nuttall Taylor (1873-1919), Minnie (1875-1934), 1884-1945), Andrew Ruffner (1886-1941), Grace (1888-1963), Ernest Jackson (1890-1928), Thomas Rothwell Taylor (1890-1950). Eventually, Henry Ford purchased the Nuttallburg Mine when the Nuttall family decided to sell in 1919 to supply coal to the Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. In 1928 Ford sold the Nuttall mines to New River Coal Corporation. The Nuttallburg underground mine was sealed in 1958. The National Park Service acquired the Nuttallburg town, mining complex and surrounding land from the Nuttall Estate in 1998 and incorporated it into New River Gorge National River park. Nuttallburg town is considered the most intact example of traditional coal mining in West Virginia. West Virginia’s sandstone geology in southern West Virginia is named for John Nuttall. The Nuttall sandstone is 98% quartz and the hardest sandstone formation on earth.