Lewis County History
Lewis County was created from parts of Harrison County by an act of the Virginia General Assembly on December 18,
1816. The county was named in honor of Colonel Charles Lewis (1733-1774), who was killed at the decisive Battle
of Point Pleasant in 1774. His dying words were "Push on boys. Don't mind me." He was second in command
at the time, serving under his older brother, General Andrew Lewis.
The Battle of Point Pleasant was considered a precursor of the American Revolutionary War and was a turning point
in the war against the Indian uprising in western Virginia. During the battle, one-half of General Lewis's commissioned
officers, including his brother Charles, were killed, as were seventy-five non-commissioned soldiers. Another one
hundred and forty soldiers were wounded. The actual number of Indians engaged or killed in the battle is not known,
but included warriors from the Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo, Wyandotte and Cayuga tribes, lead by their respective
chiefs and by Cornstalk, Sachem of the Shawnees and King of the North Confederacy. The all-day battle was ferocious,
with the battle line reportedly extending more than a mile. First-hand accounts of the battle indicate that rifle
fire and hand-to-hand combat lasted throughout the day. By the end of the day, the Indians retreated into Ohio
with Lewis's men in pursuit. Now on the defensive, and following the arrival of additional troops under the command
of Virginia Governor John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore, the Indians agreed to a peace treaty, ending what had
become known as Lord Dunmore's War.
The First Settlers
The first native settlers in central West Virginia (Braxton, Calhoun, Clay, Gilmer, Lewis, Nicholas, Roane, Upshur,
and Webster counties) were the Mound Builders, also known as the Adena people. Remnants of their civilization have
been found throughout northern 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.
Lewis County's European Pioneers and Settlers
William Hacker, Thomas Hughes, Jesse Hughes, John Radcliff, William Radcliff, and John Brown were the first Englishmen
to set foot in present-day Lewis County. They explored the area in 1769. Later that year, John Hacker built a cabin
just to the south of the present-day Berlin. He is credited as Lewis County's first permanent European settler.
John and William Radcliff built cabins not far from Hacker's cabin in 1770. Their settlement, later known as Hacker's
Creek, almost failed from the start. After constructing cabins and planting corn and other crops, the three men
returned to the South Branch settlements to get their families. While they were away, buffalo ate all of the crops
they had planted. Fortunately, there was plenty of wild game available and the settlement survived and more than
doubled in size annually as immigrants moved in from the east. Other early permanent settlers in the county included
Jesse Hughes, John Whendy, Francis Tibbs and Daniel Veach.
Important Events in Lewis County during the 1800s
Lewis County was enlarged on February 4, 1818, adding land east of the Buckhannon River. At that time, the county
constituted 1,754 square miles, including present-day Lewis County as well as nearly all of Upshur, Gilmer, and
Braxton counties, and parts of Barbour, Webster, Doddridge, Ritchie, and Calhoun counties.
Most of Lewis County's residents sided with the Union during the Civil War, with pockets of Confederate support,
primarily in the county's southern portion. Union forces controlled the county for most of the war. However, in
August 1862, General A. G. Jenkins led a force of more than five hundred Confederate soldiers and para-military
sympathizes on a raid into central West Virginia. They arrived in Weston on August 31, 1862 and left that evening
after securing supplies from the town's stores. Several other skirmishes took place between Union and Confederate
forces within the county, but the county was spared the more widespread damage and fighting that occurred in neighboring
Braxton County.
One of the first acts of the newly formed West Virginia state legislature was to change the name of the recently
completed Trans-Alleghany Lunatic Asylum in Weston to the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane. It began operations
in 1864 with nine patients. Later renamed Weston Hospital, it continued to provide care for the mentally impaired
until it closed in 1994.
On November 1, 1880, railroad service between Clarksburg and Weston began, opening up the area for further economic
development, especially for the lumber industry.
In August 1893, the Lewis County Oil and Gas company was formed. It bought 3,500 acres of land within Lewis county
and dug its first test well in late 1897, just below Weston. Several other oil companies also moved to the area,
and many of them struck oil. Local land values soared. The biggest oil strike occurred at the Copely well No. 1,
on Sand Fork, on September 22, 1900. It produced several thousand barrels of oil per day and was the largest well
drilled in the Appalachian Mountains for many years. In 1902, Lewis County's oil production peaked. At that time,
Lewis County produced more oil than in any other county in the state.
On July 26, 1913, the first street car service opened for business in Jane Lew and Weston. The service enabled
Jane Lew and Weston's residents to reach the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, located in Clarksburg,
in just under an hour and a half.
The Lewis County Seat
The first meeting of the county court was held on March 16, 1817 at the home of the Reverend Peter Davis at Westfield,
about five miles north of the current site of Weston. The meeting was conducted by nineteen Justices of the Peace,
each appointed by then-Governor James P. Preston. Philip Reger was sworn in as the county's first sheriff. Daniel
Stringer was elected county clerk and George Bush was recommended to the Governor for appointment as county surveyor.
The court's next meeting took place at Mrs. William Newlon's home (also reported as Mrs. Newton) on April 11, 1818.
At that meeting, it was decided to locate the county court at the farm of Henry Flesher, near the mouth of Stone
Coal, and that the place be called Preston, in honor of Governor Preston.
In 1819, the area's residents decided to change the town's name following the creation of Preston County. They
were concerned that people unfamiliar with the town might mistake it as Preston County's seat. Colonel John McWhorter
and John Bozarth represented the area in the House of Delegates and introduced a bill that changed the town's name
to Fleshersville, honoring Henry Flesher, believed to be the first settler in the area. He had arrived in the area
in 1784.
However, many local residents objected to the new name because Mr. Flesher had sold the property on which the town
was built, moved to the east side of the river, and reportedly refused to have anything to do with the new town.
At the urging of the town's leading citizens, the following year the state legislature renamed the town Weston.
Weston was incorporated by the West Virginia state legislature in 1913.
References
Adkins, Frank S., Jr. 1983. Editor. Stonewall Jackson Lake, West Fork River, Lewis County, West Virginia:
Architecture, History, Oral History, and
Reconstructed Domains. Pittsburgh, PA: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Pittsburgh District.
Cook, Roy Bird. 1924. Lewis County in the Civil War. Charleston, WV: Jarrett Printing Company.
Gilchrist, Joy L. 1995. They Started It All: A Guide to Hacker's Creek Historic Sites. Jane Lew, WV: Hacker's
Creek Pioneer Descendants.
Gilchrist, Joy L. and Gilchrist, Charles H. 1993. Lewis County West Virginia: A Pictorial History of Old Lewis
County, the Crossroads of Central
West Virginia. Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company Publishers.
Smith, Edward Conrad. 1920. A History of Lewis County, West Virginia. Weston, WV: Edward Conrad Smith.
Author
Dr. Robert Jay Dilger, Director, Institute for Public Affairs and Professor of Political Science, West Virginia University.
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