Records, 1913-1990, of Arvonia-Buckingham Slate Company, Inc., Arvonia, Va.

ArchivalResource

Arvonia-Buckingham Slate Company, Inc. Records, 1913-1990, of Arvonia-Buckingham Slate Company, Inc., Arvonia, Va.

Records, 1913-1990, of Arvonia-Buckingham Slate Company, Inc., Arvonia, Va.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/774693604

Historical and operational materials relating to Arvonia-Buckingham Slate Company, Inc., compiled by its last secretary-treasurer, Charles E. Wingo, III. The records in this collection consist of two main categories in four series: operational records primarily comprised of minute books of meetings of the board of directors and stockholders, as well as two series of loose records; and materials relating to the dissolution of the firm and sale of its assets, and the related matter of distribution of assets of the company's pension plan to entitled beneficiaries. The company remained an entity some three years beyond its official dissolution in order to handle the latter matter, although all its assets had by then been sold and all funding of activities was covered by escrow funds established through the sale of those assets merged with those of the previously funded pension plan. Arvonia-Buckingham Slate Corporation, incorporated in 1913, was founded through the efforts of James Turner Sloan, a major land manager and developer, and his colleague Owen Robert Jeffrey, from a local mining family in Buckingham. They were joined by Thomas Aubrey Yancey, who also served for many years as the firm's president, and Robert Gamble Cabell, III, of Branch & Co., the firm that handed much of Arvonia-Buckingham's financial and investments affairs. In fact, while operations centered in the Arvonia region of Buckingham County, corporate activities were largely run out of offices at Branch & Co. in Richmond. The firm joined with Williams Slate Company, Inc., and LeSueur-Richmond Slate Corporation to create Buckingham-Virginia Slate Corporation in 1929 as the marketing and sales arm of these three firms. For many years these firms shared a major market for roofing and structural slate products, but in the mid-1980s the directors recommended to the company's stockholders that Arvonia-Buckingham's assets to be sold and the company dissolved, which occurred in 1985. The firm remained on the books while the company pension plan was terminated and assets distributed directly or into annuities for former qualified employees. The four series into which the collection is divided are 1) minute books covering the entire period of the company's history (folders 1-13); 2) president's files, containing scattered surviving files relating to slate mining and production of slate products (folders 14-27); 3) secretary/treasurer's files, primarily focused on financial aspects of company operations (folders 28-45); and 4) dissolution/pension plan records, including materials on negotiations with Hi-Test Laboratories, Inc., and Buckingham Slate Company, Inc., of Buckingham, Va., regarding acquisition of company assets, work with State Mutual Life Assurance Company of America regarding distribution of pension plan assets, which was overseen by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and materials relating to reporting to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (folders 46-71).

71 folders.

Virginia Historical Society Library