Charleston WV – The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history.
To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
Feb. 12, 1867: Barboursville was incorporated by an act of the state legislature.
Originally the county seat of Cabell County, it lost that honor after the C&O Railway was
completed to Huntington.
Feb. 12, 1899: Karl Dewey Myers was born in Tucker County with severe disabilities.
He never attended school but educated himself through persistent self-study. He was named the
state’s first poet laureate in 1927.
Feb. 13, 1800: Gen. John Jay Jackson was born near Parkersburg. He served in the
Seminole Wars as a member of Gen. Andrew Jackson’s staff.
Feb. 13, 1913. Labor leader Mother Jones was arrested in Charleston after supporting
union miners on Paint Creek and Cabin Creek.
Feb. 13, 1923: Chuck Yeager was born at Myra, about seven miles from Hamlin. In
1947, in a Bell X-1 rocket airplane dropped from a B-29 bomber, Yeager became the first person
to break the sound barrier by flying 700 miles per hour.
Feb. 13, 1977: Football wide receiver Randy Moss was born in Rand, Kanawha County.
After two All-American seasons at Marshall University, he went on to a hall of fame career in
the National Football League.
Feb. 14, 1866: Grant County was created and named for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who later
became the nation’s 18th president.
Feb. 15, 1898: Musician John Homer “Uncle Homer” Walker was born in Mercer
County. Among the last in a tradition of Black Appalachian banjo players, he played the five-
string banjo in the clawhammer style.
Feb. 15, 1930: Sara Jane Moore was born in Charleston. On Sept. 22, 1975, Moore
attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in San Francisco.
Feb. 15, 1975: Elizabeth Kee, the state’s first female member of Congress, died in
Bluefield. Kee was elected to Congress in 1951 after the death of her husband, John. She retired
in 1965 and was succeeded by her son, James.
Feb. 16, 1821: Morris Harvey was born near Prosperity in Raleigh County. Harvey’s
gifts to the Barboursville Seminary led to its name being changed to Morris Harvey College in
- The institution is now known as the University of Charleston.
Feb. 16, 1917: The legislature established the West Virginia State Colored Tuberculosis
Sanitarium for the care of Black TB patients. It was built at Denmar in Pocahontas County.
Feb. 16, 1951: Second Lieutenant Darwin Keith Kyle of Boone County died during an
intense exchange against Chinese forces in Korea. He was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Feb. 17, 1735: Morgan Morgan of present-day Berkeley County was commissioned a
captain of militia in the 201 st Field Artillery, which is considered the oldest military unit in the
United States.
Feb. 17, 1930: Tunney Hunsaker was born in Kentucky and later became Fayetteville’s
long-time chief of police. He was also a boxer and, in 1960, lost to a young Muhammad Ali
(then known as Cassius Clay) in Ali’s first professional bout.
Feb. 18, 1843: Ritchie County was created from portions of Wood, Lewis, and Harrison
counties. The county was named for Virginia journalist and politician Thomas Ritchie.
Feb. 18, 1890: Ellison Mounts, a cousin to the Hatfield family, was hanged for murder,
ending the Hatfield-McCoy Feud.
Feb. 18, 1969: Hundreds of miners in Raleigh County went on strike over the issue of
black lung. Within days, the walkout spread throughout southern West Virginia.