Charleston WV – 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.
Sept. 24, 1911: Laura Jackson Arnold died in Buckhannon. The sister of Stonewall Jackson, she was a staunch Unionist during the Civil War, opening her home to care for injured Union soldiers.
Sept. 24, 1918: George Spencer “Spanky” Roberts was born in London, Kanawha County. He entered aviation cadet training with the first class of Tuskegee Airmen and became the first Black military pilot from West Virginia.
Sept. 25, 1864: Confederate Col. George Smith Patton was killed at the Third Battle of Winchester during the Civil War. Patton, a Charleston lawyer, had organized the Kanawha Riflemen, a Virginia militia company. He was the grandfather of Gen. George S. Patton of World War II.
Sept. 25, 1866: Editor and publisher M. T. Whittico was born in Virginia. He moved to Keystone about 1900 and made the McDowell Times the preeminent Black newspaper in West Virginia, with topics ranging from race issues to life in the coalfields. He also played a key role in McDowell County Republican politics.
Sept. 26, 1781: Gen. Andrew Lewis died in Bedford County, Virginia. The Irish-born surveyor, militia officer and legislator led Virginia forces to victory over Cornstalk’s allied tribes at the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant.
Sept. 26, 1816: David Hunter Strother was born in Martinsburg. He was an artist and an author who used the pen name “Porte Crayon.”
Sept. 26, 1863: The Great Seal of West Virginia was adopted by the legislature. The seal, which has remained unchanged, was designed by Joseph H. Diss Debar.
Sept. 26, 1880: Labor leader John Bertram Easton was born in Pennsylvania. He came to Williamstown, Wood County, to work for Fenton Glass in 1907. He was president of the Parkersburg Trades and Labor Assembly before becoming president of the West Virginia Federation of Labor in 1924.
Sept. 26, 1955: Wheeling College (now University) first opened its doors to students. It is West Virginia’s only Catholic institution of higher learning.
Sept. 27, 1914: Author Catherine Marshall was born in Johnson City, Tennessee. Her family moved to West Virginia and lived in Keyser during the late 1920s and the 1930s. Her best-loved novel, Christy (1967), was based on her mother’s girlhood in the southern mountains.
Sept. 28, 1955: Labor activist Sarah “Mother” Blizzard died at age 90. Blizzard was deeply involved in the United Mine Workers of America, from the organization’s early beginnings in the late 19th century.
Sept. 28, 1965: The first national recreation area within a U.S. national forest was established when President Lyndon B. Johnson created the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area in Pendleton County.
Sept. 29, 1861: The Kanawha Valley experienced severe flooding. The Kanawha River reached 46.87 feet in Charleston, more than 16 feet above flood stage.
Sept. 29, 1927: Artist June Kilgore was born in Huntington. She was an abstract expressionist painter who spent 30 years as an art professor at Marshall University.
Sept. 30, 1832: Community leader Ann Reeves Jarvis was born in Virginia. She organized Mother’s Day Work Clubs in Taylor County to improve health conditions and is credited with pulling together a divided community after the Civil War. She was the inspiration for Mother’s Day, first celebrated in Grafton in 1908.
Sept. 30, 1872: Educator Fannie Cobb Carter was born in Charleston. She organized the teacher-training department at what is now West Virginia State University, led the State Industrial Home for Colored Girls in Huntington and was director of adult education in Kanawha County.
Sept. 30, 2010: Facing an economic downturn and foreign competition, Wheeling-La Belle Nail Company closed. The company was founded in 1852 as La Belle Ironworks. By 1875, Wheeling was known as the Nail City, and La Belle was the city’s leading nail producer.
e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia is 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.
