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Historic Communities
Visitors often wonder at the early history of some Barbour County communities and how they came to be located where they are. Here is a brief history of several historic towns in the county.
Pleasant Creek
There is some speculation, for example, that Pleasant Creek is the place where John Simpson and his Indian guide camped, hunted, and fished, after separating from the Pringle brothers who ended up in Buckhannon. Because of their pleasant experience, Simpson is believed to have called the area "Pleasant Creek." Tradition says they camped on a knoll where the Pleasant Creek Church is now located.
Valley Furnace
Valley Furnace, located on Route 38, east of Route 92, is the location of an old iron furnace built in 1848. John Johnson had discovered iron ore in the area in 1835. The reconstructed furnace is still there for visitors to see.
Volga
Volga, off 119 South of Philippi, was near the site of an old Indian camp. The Governor of Virginia gave a land grant to Jacob Reger in 1776. Reger sold the grant to Jacob Burner who started the village and called it Burnersville. The road through the village was called Pringle Pack Road. Tradition says the village was renamed Volga by a Russian lumber man employed by the Barrett Lumber Company, because Burnersville was too often mistaken for Burnsville in Braxton County.
Arden
The first settlement of Arden, six miles north of Philippi on the Tygart Valley River, was in 1853. Its post office was established a year later following the completion of the Grafton and Greenbrier Railroad from Grafton to Philippi which operated as a narrow gauge railway until 1892 when it was sold to the standard gauge Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Arden was the site of two major coal mines. It had a water mill, blacksmith shop, shoe shop, barber salon, grist mill, sawmill, restaurant, movie theatre, gas stations and several doctors. Today it is a tourist attraction because of its river scenery.
Elk City
Elk City is said to be named for the elk which came to drink at a salt spring located there. The area was first surveyed in 1859 and had the first casualty of the first land battle of the Civil War, Washington Dickenson, a Confederate with Captain W.K. Jenkins and his cavalry. Elk City boasted a water mill, grist mill, blacksmith's shop, sawmills, a brick kiln, a stave mill, gas wells, and even a telephone switchboard.
Junior
Junior the first community of any size driving north from Randolph County on U.S. Route 250, was settled as Row Town, Virginia, after the grandfather of Golden Franklin Row. In 1890, U.S. Senator Henry Gassaway Davis of Elkins, established the Junior Coal Company, named for his son, Henry G. Davis, Jr. The town grew rapidly because of the coal and lumber operations. A branch of the railroad was extended from Elkins to Junior. When Davis's son was drowned in a storm off the African coast and his body lost at sea, Senator Davis asked that the town be renamed Junior in memory of his son. This happened in 1897.
Meadowville
Meadowville's history is related to its location (on what is now U.S. Route 92) first as a store opened in 1829 by William and Samuel Elliott. William Johnson opened a tavern at Meadowville before the Civil War beside the "new turnpike" which burned in 1847. Its replacement was destroyed along with other homes and stores in the Shinnston tornado of 1844. Many residents of the community served the Stars and Bars of the South during the war, some in the Barbour Grays. After the railroads were built from Philippi through Belington and Junior, the wagons that brought the traders through the county ceased to traffic through Meadowville. Meadowville is probably the site of the Thomas Harrison Fort, built about 1775, and destroyed by Indians in 1781.
Boulder
John Bozarth may have been the first settler, in 1790, of the community of Hanna, renamed Boulder when the railroad came through in 1903. Bozarth built a mill in 1800, a sawmill was added in 1866, and as a result of the new railroad, two stores, a telephone system and finally a bridge over the Buchannon River were added. Boulder was a booming village in 1917 when four coal mines were opened, boasting schools and churches, and from 1904 to as late as 1956, passenger train service.
Belington (Belington
City Map)
At the crossroads of the Indian trails, Belington was originally called the Barker Settlement after Elias Barker settled there after 1769. The name was changed to Belington after John Bealin, who had established a store there in 1855. Bealin subsequently moved to Kansas and his store was burned during the Civil Ware. The Barker Settlement has also been known as Yeagers, after George Yeager and his sons, who settled there in 1785. A Confederate Camp on Laurel Hill has been identified for tourists on the original road across Laurel Mountain to Elkins. A Union Camp was also established in the area known as "Camp Belington." In 1887-88, Belington became the junction of the Belington and Greenbrier Railroad, which met the now Western Maryland Railroad from Elkins. The town had a brick-making plant, steel mill, wholesale grocery store, hardware and drug stores, and a series of newspapers. The "Central Republican" was set by hand in the old Luzerne Hotel from 1897 to 1910, and was followed by several more newspapers. Belington is the center of Barbour County's timber industry which is cutting second and third growth harvest.
Philippi (Philippi
City Map)
John Ratliff, an early hunter who traveled with the Pringle brothers, claimed land in 1773 where the present town of Philippi now stands. By 1789, the area was known as Booth's Ferry for Daniel Booth who operated a ferry service there. Booth had purchased the land from William Anglin in 1784 when it was known as Anglin's Ford, one of several crossings in the area. The Rev. Francis Asbury was forced to swim his horse across the river at Anglin's Ford in 1788. William Anglin started his ferry service shortly thereafter. The old ferry changed hands many times until the new bridge was built in 1852. Before Philippi was given legal existence, it was owned by William F. Wilson and used as far. Wilson sold ΒΌ acre lots for up to $120 each to almost 30 persons, reserving an acre and a half for the county courthouse. On the third day of the first county court, the new town was named Phillipa, after the daughter of Philip Pendleton Barbour. That was April 5, 1843. The Virginia Legislature acted on February 14, 1844, but through bureaucratic blunder, the name had been corrected to Philippi in the state legislature. 1844 town minutes also refer to Philippi. When Philippi was incorporated in 1871, the first ordinance passed ordered that, "All hogs and horses running at large should be arrested." Barbour County's original courthouse was built in Philippi in 1845 and replaced by a second structure in 1904.
Philippi had its first tannery in 1850, Methodist Episcopal Church in 1851 and its first schoolhouse in 1853. William Wilson's old mill was still in use and a sawmill, foundry, marble shop, stores, hotels, banks and taverns followed. The town's first newspaper, "The Jeffersonian," began in 1857.
More History...
First Land Battle
Covered Bridges of Barbour County
Flags Over Philippi
Barbour County Fair
Barbour County Region
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