The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
Jan. 19, 1818: The Virginia General Assembly established Preston County from part of Monongalia County. The new county was named for James Patton Preston, then governor of Virginia.
Jan. 19, 1820: Fairmont was established by the Virginia legislature on the farm of Boaz Fleming. The original name of Middletown was changed to Fairmont in 1843.
Jan. 19, 1844: The Virginia General Assembly established Taylor County from parts of Barbour, Harrison and Marion counties. The county was named in honor of U.S. Sen. John Taylor, a soldier-statesman from Caroline County, Virginia.
Jan. 19, 1848: Wirt County was created by the General Assembly of Virginia from portions of Wood and Jackson counties. It was named for William Wirt, Virginia statesman and a presidential candidate in 1832.
Jan. 19, 1894: Railroad worker John Hardy was hanged for killing a man in a drunken gambling dispute. The episode inspired the widely popular ballad “John Hardy.”
Jan. 19-20, 1978: An overnight snowstorm paralyzed Charleston. Unusual in that more snow fell in the capital city than in Randolph County, total snow depth in Charleston averaged 24 inches, the deepest on record for the city. January 1978 became the snowiest month for both Huntington and Charleston, and extended cold kept the snow cover on the ground into March, the longest known continuous snow cover for most towns in West Virginia.
Jan. 20-21, 1824: West Virginia’s most famous soldier, Thomas Jonathan Jackson, was born near midnight in Clarksburg. When Virginia left the Union in 1861, Jackson went with his native state. He commanded the strategically important post at Harpers Ferry until being appointed a brigadier general of infantry. In the opening battle at Manassas on July 21, 1861, he won the name “Stonewall” for steadfastness at a critical point in the engagement.
Jan. 21, 1906: The first passenger train ran from Elkins to Charleston following completion of the Coal & Coke Railway. The new railroad, a project of former senator Henry Gassaway Davis, provided a much-needed north-south route through the heart of West Virginia.
Jan. 22, 1927: Confederate General John McCausland died. After the fall of the Confederacy, McCausland fled the country. He returned in 1867 and spent the remainder of his life on his large farm in Mason County.
Jan. 23, 1888: Union leader Fred Mooney was born in a log cabin on Davis Creek in Kanawha County. He was secretary-treasurer of United Mine Workers of America District 17 from 1917 to 1924 and was a radical leader in the West Virginia Mine Wars.
Jan. 23, 1890: The United Mine Workers was organized at a meeting in Columbus, Ohio. Three months later, in Wheeling, UMWA District 17, encompassing most of West Virginia, held its first meeting, elected M. F. Moran as district president and launched what became a struggle of more than 40 years to unionize the state’s coal mines.
Jan. 23, 1903: The great rhododendron was designated the official state flower of West Virginia.
Jan. 24, 1968: Mary Lou Retton was born in Fairmont. She made history at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles when, at 16, she became the first American woman ever to win a gold medal in gymnastics and the first native West Virginia woman to win a gold medal in Olympic competition.
Jan. 25, 1814: Francis Harrison Pierpont was born near Morgantown. On June 20, 1861, Pierpont was unanimously elected as governor of the unionist Reorganized State of Virginia, which sat at Wheeling until West Virginia entered the Union two years later.
Jan. 25, 1878: Activist Lenna Lowe Yost was born in Basnettville in Marion County. She held key leadership roles in the woman’s suffrage and temperance movements.
Jan. 25, 1889: Anna Johnson Gates was born in Kanawha County. The state’s first female state legislator, Gates was elected to the House of Delegates in 1922 and served a single ter.
e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopediais a project of the West Virginia Humanities Council. For more information contact the West Virginia Humanities Council, 1310 Kanawha Blvd. E., Charleston, WV 25301; (304) 346-8500; or visit e-WV at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
