West Virginia Statewide Files  WV-Footsteps Mailing List
WV-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest				Volume 99 : Issue 113

Today's Topics:
  #1 HISTORY: Taylor County and Some of   [Haddeleigh@aol.com]
  #2 MONONGALIA COUNTY                    [Haddeleigh@aol.com]

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______________________________X-Message: #1
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 08:17:58 EST
From: Haddeleigh@aol.com
To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com
Message-ID: <0.ac851f8b.2562b386@aol.com>
Subject: HISTORY: Taylor County and Some of Its Towns
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>From History of West Virginia Vol. II by Virgil A. Lewis, 1889

Taylor county was formed from Harrison, Barbour and Marion, by act of
Assembly, January 19, 1844, and named in honor of General Zachary Taylor.

Pruntytown--then Harrison county--was established a town under the name of
Williamsport, January 8, 1801, on lands the property of David Prunty, at a
place called the "Cross Roads," and Robert Plummer, James Cochran, John
Asbury, Peter Johnson and Vincent Leek, were appointed trustees.  By an act
of Assembly, January 23, 1845, the name was changed from Williamsport to
Pruntytown.  The act creating the county fixed the seat of justice at
Williamsport.

Grafton, the present county seat, was incorporated March 15, 1856;
Flemington, on the 16th of March, 1860, and Fetterman, February 26, 1869.

______________________________X-Message: #2
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:04:31 EST
From: Haddeleigh@aol.com
To: WV-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com
Message-ID: <0.e8edfe80.2562be6f@aol.com>
Subject: MONONGALIA COUNTY
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Source: History of West Virginia, vol. II, by Virgil A. Lewis, 1887
Submitted by: N. L. Kotowski

In 1776, the first Assembly of the newly-declared Commonwealth of Virginia
met in the old State House at Williamsburg.  In October they passed an act
dividing the District of West Augusta into three distinct
counties--Monongalia, Ohio and Youghiogheny [sic].  The boundaries of
Monongalia were thus defined:  "All that part of the said district lying to
the northward of the county of Augusta, to the westward of the meridian of
the fountain of the Potowmack [sic], to the southward of the county of
Yohogania [sic] and to the eastward of the county of Ohio, shall be one other
distinct county, and shall be called and known by the name of Monongalia."
Thus Monongalia was one of the first three counties created in the New
Republic.  The name was received from the river Monongahela, which in the
Indian language signifies "River of caving or crumbling banks."

The act creating the county further provided "that it shall and may be lawful
for the landholders of said county qualified to vote in the General Assembly
to meet at the house of Jonathan Cobun, in the said county, on the 8th of
December following, then and there to choose the most convenient place for
holding courts for the county in the future."  In 1796 the records of
Monongalia county were burned, and we have no means of ascertaining whether
such an election was held.  We may infer that it was, as thereafter the
courts were regularly convened at the plantation of Theophilus Phillips, near
where New Geneva, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, now is, the last-named county
at that time being a part of Monongalia.  Nor can it be stated with certainty
who were the first sheriff and clerk of the county.  In Monongalia, tradition
names Captain John Dent as the first sheriff and Colonel John Evans as the
first county clerk, while a Fayette county tradition makes Joseph Coombs the
first clerk.