This collection contains two letters from Thomas J. Matthews, surveyor for Kanawha County, West Virginia. The first letter, written by Matthews from Kanawha Court House to W. W. Gitt, discusses and describes coal lands south of Brownstown, West Virginia, on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, at Coal River and Cabin Creek. In the second, undated letter (which may be merely a postscript to the first), Matthews writes that prior claims on the land were not noted on the Swann map and that it would require a great deal of work to create a map showing prior claims on the land. Also on this second sheet is a set of instructions to an unnamed recipient from Gitt, in which he writes, "I do not want Mr. Matthews to be written to or any one else in the county, because I shall, when I go in for the specimen of the coal to get a squatter on the land to sign a lease thus giving me possession of the whole tract."