The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go toe-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
Jan. 17, 1918: The War Department hired a New York engineering firm to build the DuPont munitions plant in Nitro. Within 11 months, the powder plant and a complete town with houses, a civic center and a hospital, were completed.
Jan. 17, 1956: Musician Blind Alfred Reed died. He was a street singer, fiddler, and songwriter from Pipestem, Summers County. He also is a member of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.
Jan. 18, 1842: Wayne County was established from part of Cabell County. It was named for General “Mad Anthony” Wayne, a Revolutionary War hero who later defeated Ohio Indian tribes at the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers.
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 snow on the ground into March, the longest known continuous snow cover for most West Virginia towns.
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 Confederate brigadier general of infantry. He won the name “Stonewall” in the Battle of First Manassas on July 21, 1861.
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, 1850: Raleigh County was established by an act of the Virginia General Assembly. The county’s founder, Alfred Beckley, named it after Sir Walter Raleigh.
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.
