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Marshall County History
Marshall County was created by
an act of the Virginia General Assembly on March 12, 1835, from parts of Ohio
County. The county was named in honor of John Marshall (1755-1835).
John Marshall was born in Germantown, Virginia on September 24, 1755. He served
as a soldier during the American Revolutionary War and, after leaving the army
in 1781 was licensed to practice law in his home county (Fauquier County). He
served as a member of the Virginia General Assembly (1782-1791) and was named a
special envoy to France in 1797. In 1798, he was elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives representing Virginia from 1799 to 1800. He was then named
Secretary of State by President Thomas Jefferson (1800-1801), and was selected
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1801-1835). The court's
rulings during his tenure in office, especially Marbury vs. Madison (1803) which
established the court's right of judicial review, established Marshall as one of
the greatest Chief Justices in American political history. He died on July 6,
1835.
The First Settlers
The first native settlers along the Ohio River in the area of present-day
Marshall County were the Mound Builders, also known as the Adena people.
Remnants of the Mound Builder's civilization have been found throughout the Ohio
River Valley, with a high concentration of artifacts located at Moundsville. The
Grave Creek Indian Mound, located in the center of Moundsville, is one of West
Virginia's most famous historic landmarks. More than 2,000 years old, it stands
69 feet high and 295 feet in diameter. It was acquired by the state in 1917.
The mound was discovered by James Tomlinson and was opened under the supervision
of Abelard B. Tomlinson in 1838. He discovered a vault 111 feet from the
northern side containing the skeletal remains of two Indians, one of them
surrounded with 650 ivory beads and wearing an ivory ornament about six inches
long. The mound also contained ashes and bits of bones that are believed to be
the remnants of Indians burned prior to their internment in the mound. Another
vault was discovered near the top of the mound, containing a skeleton wearing
beads, seashells and copper bracelets. An inscribed stone was removed from the
vault and is on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
According to missionary reports, several thousand Hurons occupied present-day
West Virginia during the late 1500s and early 1600s. The powerful Iroquois
Confederacy (consisting of the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida and Seneca
tribes, and joined later by the Tuscaroras tribe) drove then from the state
during the 1600s. The Iroquois Confederacy was headquartered in New York and was
not interested in occupying present-day West Virginia. Instead, they used it as
a hunting ground during the spring and summer months.
During the early 1700s, the Mingo made their home in both the Tygart Valley and
along the Ohio River near present-day Marshall County. The Mingo were not
actually an Indian tribe, but a multi-cultural group of Indians that established
several communities within present-day West Virginia. They lacked a central
government and, like all other Indians within the region at that time, were
subject to the control of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Mingo originally lived
closer to the Atlantic Coast, but European settlement pushed them into western
Virginia and eastern Ohio.
Just prior to the outbreak of the French and Indian War (1755-1763), George
Washington, then a British officer, reported seeing Mingo campfires near
Follansbee, just north of present-day Marshall County (in Brooke County). During
the war, the Mingo, Shawnee, and Delaware Indians allied themselves with the
French. Unfortunately for the Mingo, the French lost the war and ceded the all
of its North American possessions to the English. The Mingo then retreated to
their homes along the banks of the Ohio River.
During the American Revolution (1776-1783), the Mingo allied themselves with the
British. In 1777, a party of 350 Wyandots, Shawnees, and Mingos, armed by the
British, attacked Fort Henry, near present-day Wheeling. Nearly half of the
Americans manning the fort were killed in the three-day assault. The Indians
then left the Fort celebrating their victory. For the remainder of the war,
smaller raiding parties of Mingo and other Indian tribes terrorized settlers
throughout the Northern Panhandle region. As a result, European settlement in
the region came to a virtual standstill until the war's conclusion. Following
the war, the Mingo, once again allied with the losing side, returned to their
homes along the banks of the Ohio River. However, as the number of settlers in
the region began to grow, and with their numbers depleted by the war, the Mingo
decided to move further inland.
The most famous Mingo in West Virginia history was known to the European
settlers as Logan. His real name was Talgayeeta. His father was a member of the
Cayuga tribe and originally lived in central Pennsylvania. His father had taken
the name Logan after a Pennsylvania official named John Logan. In 1763, Logan
moved west to the Ohio River where he established a small settlement consisting
of primarily of members of his extended family. Logan and the other members of
his settlement were considered friendly and cooperative by most settlers in the
region, until his settlement was attacked by English settlers on April 30, 1774.
The attack occurred on the West Virginia side of the river, just north of
present-day Marshall County (in Hancock County). Ten members of Logan's
settlement, including two women, were killed and scalped by the settlers. Among
the victims were members of Logan's immediate family, including his wife and all
but one of his children. Several versions of the massacre circulated on the
frontier. Lord Dunmore blamed a settler named Daniel Greathouse while Logan
blamed Michael Cresap, a Maryland soldier and land speculator who was building
cabins along the Ohio River as a means of securing land. Although the evidence
suggests that Cresap was in the vicinity at the time of the massacre, many
historians believe that he was not involved in the murders. In any case,
following the massacre, Logan allied himself with the British and went on the
warpath, leading four deadly raids on the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers
and instigating what would later be called Lord Dunmore's War of 1774.
Logan gained national fame for his eloquent speech that was delivered during the
peace negotiations following the Indians' defeat at the Battle of Point Pleasant
in 1774. Logan was not at the decisive Battle of Point Pleasant, but returned to
the main Indian camp during the peace negotiations. His famous speech was not
delivered in council, but was given to Colonel John Gibson who wrote it down and
delivered it on Logan's behalf during the negotiations. The speech was later
published in many newspapers across the nation:
I appeal to any white man to
say if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry and I gave him not meat; if ever
he came cold and naked and I gave him not clothing. During the course of the
long and bloody war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace.
Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed
and said, "Logan is the friend of white men." I had even thought to have
lived with you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last
spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan,
not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in
the veins of any human creature. This called on me for revenge. I have
sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my
county I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that
mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn his heel to
save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.
After Lord Dunmore's War concluded, Logan moved from place to place and, in
1789, joined an Indian raiding party that attacked settlements in southwestern
Virginia. He was later killed by one of his own relatives in 1780, near
present-day Detroit. He said before his death that he had two souls, one good
and the other bad, as he put it "...when the good soul had the ascendant, he
[referring to himself] was kind and humane, and when the bad soul ruled, he was
perfectly savage, and delighted in nothing but blood and carnage."
European Pioneers and Settlers
Robert Cavelier de La Salle was probably the first European to set foot in
present Marshall County. He sailed down the Ohio River in 1669. In 1749, Louis
Bienville de Celeron sailed down the Ohio River and may have set foot on the
current site of Marshall County. He claimed all of the lands drained by the Ohio
River for King Louis XV of France. He met several English fur traders on his
journey and ordered them off of French soil and wrote strong letters of
reprimand to the colonial governors protesting the English's presence on French
soil.
Christopher Gist was the first Englishman to leave a recorded record of his
visit to the county. In 1751, he explored the area on behalf of the Ohio
Company. It had been granted 500,000 acres of land between the Great Kanawha and
Monongahela Rivers by King of Great Britain. They were to forfeit the lands
unless the company was able to locate at least 100 families upon the land within
seven years. Its efforts to settle the region was, at least partly, responsible
for the ensuing French and Indian Wars (1754-1763).
John Wetzel and his family were the first English settlers to build a cabin in
the county. They arrived in the vicinity of Sand Hill in 1769 or 1770. Several
other settlers, including Ebenezer Zane and his brothers Silas, Jonathan, and
Andrew, a Mr. Mercer and a Mr. Bonnett settled nearby that same year. In March
1771, three brothers, Joseph, Samuel and James Tomlinson, Nathaniel Parr, and a
man employed by the Tomlinsons named Con O'Neill arrived in the county. The
Tomlinson brothers and their companions settled in the flats along Grave Creek,
near Moundsville. As settlers continued to move into the region, James Tomlinson
decided in 1798 to plat a town. He called it Elizabethtown, in honor of his
wife. The first lot in the town was sold for $8 to Andrew Rogers on November 15,
1799. The town grew slowly. It was incorporated on February 17, 1830. At that
time, it had about 300 residents. Another town, called Mound City, was begun
nearby by Simon Purdy. It was incorporated as Moundsville on January 28, 1832.
Its name was derived from the Mammoth Grave Creek Indian Mound, located there.
The act creating the county in 1835 named Elizabethtown the county seat. The act
required that the first meeting of the Marshall County Court take place in the
brick school house in the town on the first Thursday after the third Monday of
May, 1835. On February 23, 1865, Moundsville and Elizabethtown merged into
Moundsville.
One of the nation's oldest and largest Indian burial grounds is located in
Moundsville. The mound is 69 feet high, 900 feet in circumference at the base,
and 50 feet across at the top. It was acquired by the state in 1917. The mound
was discovered by James Tomlinson and was opened under the supervision of
Abelard B. Tomlinson in 1838. He discovered a vault 111 feet from the northern
side containing the skeletal remains of two Indians, one of them surrounded with
650 ivory beads and wearing an ivory ornament about six inches long. The mound
also contained ashes and bits of bones that are believed to be the remnants of
Indians burned prior to their internment in the mound. Another vault was
discovered near the top of the mound, containing a skeleton wearing beads,
seashells and copper bracelets. An inscribed stone was removed from the vault
and is on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
Important Events of 1800s
On March 12, 1835, the general assembly of Virginia created Marshall County. It
was cut from 240 square miles of the lower part of Ohio County. The county was
named in honor of John Marshall, who at the time was the Chief Justice of the
United States Supreme Court.
On Christmas Eve, 1852, the B&O railroad track was completed at Rosby's Rock.
The railroad was the first to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Ohio River. It
connected Baltimore, Maryland to Wheeling, Virginia.
On February 23, 1865, Moundsville and Elizabethtown merged. Moundsville became
the new county seat.
Important Events of 1900s
On July 10, 1921, a military plane enroute from San Antonio, Texas to
Washington, D.C. crashed at Moundsville's Langin Field. Although the pilots
survived, five spectators were killed and fifteen automobiles, as well as the
airplane, were destroyed. The Wheeling Register called the accident one of the
worst in American aviation history.
On April 28, 1924, an explosion occurred at Benwood mine, killing 111 coal
miners and trapping many more. Rescue operations took nearly a week. Most of the
dead were killed from the initial explosion.
County Seat
The Marshall County Court was organized in 1835 in a school building in
Elizabethtown at what is now the corner of First Street and Baker Avenue,
Moundsville. The first courthouse at the present site on Seventh Street was used
from 1836 to 1875, when the present building was constructed. It was completely
renovated and enlarged in 1974. A Civil War monument stands at the corner of the
Courthouse lawn flanked by two restored Civil War cannons. At the side of the
building is a fountain and monument dedicated to the memory of all war veterans.
References
Brantner, J. H. 1947. Historical Collections of Moundsville, West Virginia.
Moundsville: Marshall County Historical Society.
Lowe, Dale and Lowe, Naomi. 1984. Schools, Churches, Cemeteries: Pictures,
Charts, Maps, Marshall County, West Virginia.
Marceline, MO: Walsworth
Publishers.
Marshall County Historical
Society. 1984. History of Marshall County, West Virginia. Salem:
Walsworth Publishing.
Powell, Scott. 1925. History of Marshall County. Moundsville: Scott
Powell.
Authors
Dr. Robert Jay Dilger, Director, Institute for Public Affairs and Professor of
Political Science, West Virginia University.
James Marshall, undergraduate research assistant, Institute for Public Affairs,
West Virginia University.
May 13, 2002.
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