Mason County, West Virginia          Early History of Mason County

    The Early History of Mason County was submitted by Sandy Spradling,
    E-mail address:  <SSpradling@aol.com>

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Mason County:

Mason County was the first territory that was taken from Kanawha County.  It
became evident that kanawhaians could very well get along with a less number
of square miles of land than they possessed, so a proposition was agreed to,
allowing the Legislature to establish a new county from the north-western
portion of Kanawha county, to be called the county of Mason, in honor of the
distinguished Virginia statesman, Hon. George Mason.  Accordintly, in 1804,
an act was passed to that effect, and Mason took her place in the roll of
Virginia counties, with her seat of government at Point Pleasant, situated on
the plateau lying between the "La Belle" (Ohio) and the "Great Kenhawa"
(Kanawha) rivers.

Mason county originally contained an area of 904 square miles, with a
population, at the time of its organization, of 6,534 souls, 915 of whom were
of the age requiring them to be enrolled for taxation.  Its greatest length
at the present time is about thirty miles, it breadth twenty two miles; and
it ranks in wealth and population fourth in the list of counties in the
present State of West Virginia.  The soils of this county bordering on the
Ohio and Kanawha rivers, is of a superior quality for farming and grazing
purposes; though back from the river it is some what broken, bit is well
timbered, and many portions of it contain large quantities of a superior
quality of coal and other minerals.

Source: History of Kanawha County, George W. Atkinson, 1876, p. 17