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• Francis Harrison Pierpont

  State founder Francis Harrison Pierpont (January 25, 1814-March 24, 1899) was the first and only governor of the "Reorganized Government of Virginia":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/62. Born near "Morgantown":https://www. …

• Battle of Pigeon Roost

  The Battle of Pigeon Roost occurred in Princeton, "Mercer County":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1764, May 17, 1862, during the "Civil War":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1193. The battle culminated a month-long series …

• Martin Robison Delany

  Activist and physician Martin Robison Delany (May 6, 1812-January 24, 1885) was an African-American who was born free in Charles Town. In 1822, the Delany family was forced to flee for violating a Virginia law forbidding the education of Blacks. The …

• The Department of West Virginia

  The Department of West Virginia was created June 28, 1863, during a military reorganization of Union forces in the "Civil War":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1193. It included all Union forces from the new state of West Virginia and that …

• Joseph H. Diss Debar

  Joseph Hubert Diss Debar (March 6, 1820-January 13, 1905) was the designer of the "Great Seal":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/576 of West Virginia and the state’s first "commissioner of immigration":http://www.wvencyclopedia. …

• Battle of Droop Mountain

  Droop Mountain, located three miles south of Hillsboro in Pocahontas County, was the site of one of the most important Civil War battles in West Virginia, as well as the last large-scale engagement fought on our soil. The decisive Union victory ended …

• Z. D. Ramsdell

  Soldier, postal official, manufacturer, and merchant Zophar D. Ramsdell (November 21, 1816-December 9, 1886) learned the shoe trade in Massachusetts. He relocated to "Ceredo":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1040 in 1858 at the invitation …

• John Echols

  Confederate General John Echols (March 20, 1823-May 24, 1896) was born at Lynchburg, Virginia. A graduate of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) and Harvard, he became a lawyer in 1843 and was later commonwealth’s attorney and a …

• Moccasin Rangers

  The Moccasin Rangers were a Confederate guerrilla company that operated around the headwaters of the "Little Kanawha River":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1422 during the first two years of the "Civil War":http://www. …

• Montani Semper Liberi

  The Latin term, ‘‘Montani Semper Liberi,’’ which translates in English as ‘‘Mountaineers are always free,’’ is the West Virginia state motto. The first West Virginia legislature adopted the motto on September 26, 1863. The joint committee on the state …

• Formation of West Virginia

  The creation of West Virginia was an outcome of the "Civil War":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1193. Statehood was preceded by decades of "sectional conflict":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/229 between leaders of …

• Battle of Moorefield

  After burning Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Confederate cavalry under "Gens. John McCausland":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1612 and Bradley Johnson camped on August 6–7, 1864, in the fertile South Branch Valley at Old Fields, about three …

• Fort Boreman

  Fort Boreman was a Civil War fort. Originally called Fort Logan, the Union garrison overlooked the confluence of the Ohio and Little Kanawha rivers at "Parkersburg":https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1811. When West Virginia became a state, …

• Morgan’s Raid

  In the summer of 1863, Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan led 2,460 cavalry men on a long raid across Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, before remnants of his force escaped southward through West Virginia. This raid was the only time a large Southern force …

• Freedmen’s Bureau

  The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was the first social welfare agency created to address the problems of freedmen and refugees in the former Confederate states or anywhere the U.S. Army had operated …

• Grafton National Cemetery

  Grafton National Cemetery was authorized in 1865 when Congressman Swinton Burdett of Iowa introduced a bill creating a National Cemetery in northern West Virginia. As commander-in-chief of the "Grand Army of the Republic":http://www. …

• Grand Army of the Republic

  The Grand Army of the Republic, national fraternal organization for Union veterans of the "Civil War":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1193, was founded in 1866 in Illinois. All soldiers and sailors of the U.S. army, navy, and marine corps …

• Flick Amendment

  Following the Civil War, former Confederates were barred from voting in West Virginia and the voting rights of African-Americans were not assured. The divergent issues were brought together in the Flick Amendment. It happened as the control of Radical …

• John B. Floyd

  Virginia Governor and Confederate General John Buchanan Floyd (June 1, 1806-August 26, 1863) was born at Smithfield, Virginia, near present Blacksburg. Floyd, the son of Virginia Governor John Floyd, graduated from South Carolina College in 1829. A lawyer …

• Charles James Faulkner

  Statesman Charles James Faulkner (July 6, 1806-November 1, 1884) was born in "Martinsburg":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1552, the son of an Irish immigrant. Faulkner attended Georgetown College (now Georgetown University) in Washington …

• William H. H. Flick

  William Henry Harrison Flick (February 21, 1841-June 7, 1904) was the author of the "Flick Amendment":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/2195, which removed voting restrictions on former Confederates. Flick was born in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. …

• The Semi-Centennial

  “The weather conditions were ideal. The sky was purest azure, and a breeze which at times became strong enough to make hearing difficult tempered the rays of the bright sun.” The _Wheeling Intelligencer_ described the weather when thousands, representing …

• Marc Harshman

  … for West Virginia,” during anniversary events in his hometown of Wheeling and at the State Capitol in Charleston. The "Sesquicentennial":http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/2333 poem was commissioned by the Wheeling National Heritage Area.