Grant County History
Grant County was created by an act of the state legislature on February 14, 1866 from parts of Hardy County. It
was named in honor of General Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-1885), graduate of the Military Academy at West Point,
General of the Union Army during the Civil War, Secretary of War (1868), and 18th President of the United States
(1869-1877). Although his two Presidential Administrations were rocked by scandals, and historians generally consider
him one of the nation's least respected Presidents, he remained very popular with the public for his accomplishments
during the Civil War.
The First Settlers
The first native settlers in West Virginia's Potomac Highlands (Grant, Hampshire, Hardy, Mineral, Pendleton, Pocahontas,
Randolph, and Tucker counties) were the Mound Builders, also known as the Adena people. Remnants of the Mound Builder's
civilization have been found throughout West Virginia, with many artifacts found in the Northern Panhandle, especially
in Marshall County.
A more thorough presentation of the first native settlers in West Virginia can be read on-line here.
The following is a brief overview of that history:
• Several thousand Hurons occupied present-day West Virginia during the late 1500s and early 1600s.
• During the 1600s, the Iroquois Confederacy (then consisting of the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, and Seneca
tribes) drove the Hurons from the state and used it primarily as a hunting ground.
• During the early 1700s, the Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, and other Indian tribes also used present-day West Virginia
as a hunting ground. West Virginia's Potomac Highlands was inhabited by the Tuscarora. They eventually migrated
northward to New York and, in 1712, became the sixth nation to formally be admitted to the Iroquois Confederacy.
The Cherokee Nation claimed southern West Virginia.
• In 1744, Virginia officials purchased the Iroquois title of ownership to West Virginia in the Treaty of Lancaster.
• The Delaware, Mingo, and Shawnee sided with the French during the French and Indian War (1755-1763). The Iroquois
Confederacy officially remained neutral, but many in the Iroquois Confederacy allied with the French.
• When the French and Indian War was over, England's King George III feared that more tension between Native Americans
and settlers was inevitable. In an attempt to avert further bloodshed, he issued the Proclamation of 1763, prohibiting
settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains. The Proclamation was, for the most part, ignored.
• During the summer of 1763, Ottawa Chief Pontiac led raids on key British forts in the Great Lakes region. Shawnee
Chief Keigh-tugh-qua, also known as Cornstalk, led similar raids on western Virginia settlements. The uprisings
ended on August 6, 1763 when British forces, under the command of Colonel Henry Bouquet, defeated Delaware and
Shawnee forces at Bushy Run in western Pennsylvania.
• In 1768, the Iroquois Confederacy (often called the Six Nations) and the Cherokee signed the Treaty of Hard Labour
and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, relinquishing their claims on the territory between the Ohio River and the Alleghenies
to the British.
• In April 1774, the Yellow Creek Massacre took place near Wheeling. Among the dead were Mingo Chief Logan's brother
and pregnant sister. Violence then escalated intoLord Dunmore's War.
• On October 10, 1774, Colonel Andrew Lewis and approximately 800 men defeated 1,200 Indian warriors led by Shawnee
Chief Cornstalk at the Battle of Point Pleasant, ending Lord Dunmore's War.
• The Mingo and Shawnee allied with the British during the American Revolutionary War (1776-1783). One of the more
notable battles occurred in 1777 when a war party of 350 Wyandot, Shawnee, and Mingo warriors, 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. Following the war, the Mingo and Shawnee, once again allied with the losing side, returned to
their homes in Ohio. As the number of settlers in the region grew, both the Mingo and the Shawnee move further
inland, leaving western Virginia to the white settlers.
Grant County's European Pioneers
In 1725, John Van Meter accompanied a group of Delaware warriors on their way to attack the Catawba Indians. During
their travels, they crossed through present-day Hardy County and the southern portion of present-day Grant County.
Unfortunately for the Delaware, they were ambushed by a group of Catawba warriors in present-day Pendleton County.
John Van Meter escaped and returned to his home in New York. He often spoke of his adventures in the wilds of western
Virginia to his son, Isaac Van Meter.
In 1736, John Van Meter's son, Isaac, who has since moved to New Jersey, decided to explore western Virginia for
himself. He traveled to present-day Moorefield in nearby Hardy County and staked a claim to 400 acres of land by
using a tomahawk to mark slashes on trees outlining the claimed territory. He then returned to his New Jersey home.
When he returned the following year, he found James Coburn living on his land. Coburn was a member of a group of
families which had settled in the Hampshire County vicinity around 1735. He moved to the Moorefield area while
Isaac Van Meter was away. The dispute over the land's ownership was settled peacefully as Isaac Van Meter paid
Coburn for the land. Coburn then moved further south and west, settling in the vicinity of present-day Petersburg
in Grant County.
In 1746, Thomas Lewis led a surveying party, which included Peter Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's father, into the
Potomac Highlands to establish the boundaries of Lord Fairfax's land holdings. They passed through present-day
Petersburg and met Jacob Peters or Peterson who had apparently been living there for some time and was the proprietor
of the area's only general store. It is unclear who arrived in Petersburg first, Jacob Peters or James Coburn.
It is generally believed that Petersburg was named in Jacob Peters's honor. However, others believe that the town
may have been named after either Peter Jefferson or Peter Keran, another early settler in the area. On October
17, 1746, Lewis's surveying party placed the Fairfax Stone, marking Maryland's southwestern border, in the extreme
western corner of present-day Grant County.
Dr. William Geinitz is the first-known school teacher in Grant County. He was teaching in the Petersburg area in
1776.
Important Events in Grant County during the 1800s
During the Civil War (1861-1865), most of present-day Hardy County's residents supported the Confederacy while
most of present-day Grant County's residents supported the Union. This helps to explain the county's formation
in 1866.
The county's first newspaper, the Mountain Breeze, began publication in 1865 in Bayard.
Grant County Seat
When the county was formed, the county seat was held temporarily at John May's Mill, near the North Fork of Luney's
Creek, while a courthouse was being constructed in Maysville, named for John and Henry May, two brothers who settled
there in 1831. E. C. Bunker was the new county's first judge, and Ernest Muntzing was its first county clerk. John
R. Dolly was named the county's first sheriff, Martin Judy served as the county's first assessor, and S. H. Horn
was the county's first prosecuting attorney.
Petersburg became the county seat in 1870. When the first post office was opened within present-day Petersburg
in 1833 the town was renamed Lunice Creek because Virginia already had a Petersburg. The town was incorporated
in 1845 as Lunice Creek. The town's original name was restored when West Virginia became a state. The town was
incorporated by the West Virginia legislature in 1910.
References
Judy, Elvin Lycurgus. 1951. History of Grant and Hardy Counties, West Virginia. Charleston, WV: Charleston
Printing Company.
Idleman, D. W. 1927. History of Mt. Storm Community in Grant and Mineral Counties, West Virginia. Morgantown,
West Virginia, Agricultural Extension
Division. Accessed on-line at: http://www.wvculture.org/history/agrext/mtstorm.html.
"Indian Massacre on Looney's Creek." 1927. Grant County Press, April 7.
Author
Dr. Robert Jay Dilger, Director, Institute for Public Affairs and Professor of Political Science, West Virginia University.
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