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.
March 28, 1870: State officials, with state records and property, boarded the steamboat
Mountain Boy, one of six steamboats that moved West Virginia’s capital from Wheeling to
Charleston.
March 28, 1941: Musician Charlie McCoy was born in Oak Hill. One of the most
significant harmonica players in country music, his work can also be heard on rock ‘n’ roll
albums, including several of Bob Dylan’s. He was the musical director for the TV program Hee
Haw.
March 29, 1834: Henry Mason Mathews, the fifth governor of West Virginia, was born
at Frankford, Greenbrier County. There were strikes and riots during much of his administration,
including the national railroad strike of 1877, which began at Martinsburg.
March 29, 1858: Clay County was created from parts of Nicholas and Braxton counties
and named for Henry Clay, the U.S. senator from Kentucky.
March 30, 1837: The Virginia legislature granted a charter to establish a private academy
at West Liberty in Ohio County. The first class of 65 students met in the home of the Rev.
Nathan Shotwell in 1838. That school is now West Liberty State University.
March 30, 1926: Actor, singer and game show host Peter Marshall was born Ralph
Pierre LaCock in Clarksburg. His career includes Broadway, television and more than 5,000
episodes as host of The Hollywood Squares.
March 31, 1919: Governor John Jacob Cornwell signed legislation that created the West
Virginia State Police. He appointed Jackson Arnold, grandnephew of Gen. Thomas J.
“Stonewall” Jackson and former executive officer of the 1st West Virginia Infantry, as first
superintendent.
April 1, 1884: Nurse Florence Aby Blanchfield was born in Shepherdstown. She served
in the Army Nurse Corps during World War I, oversaw expansion of the corps from 1,000 to
57,000 during World War II, and became the first woman to hold a permanent commission in the
regular army.
April 1, 1934: A sales tax went into effect in West Virginia for the first time. The two-
percent tax helped fill the revenue void caused by the drop in property values during the Great
Depression.
April 2, 1900: Marlinton, the county seat of Pocahontas County, was incorporated. The
town is generally considered to be the site of the first European-American settlement in the
Greenbrier Valley.
April 3, 1755: Frontier scout and “long hunter” Simon Kenton was born in Fauquier
County, Virginia. Upon leaving home, Kenton first traveled north through present West Virginia
to Pittsburgh and then explored, hunted and trapped through much of the Ohio Valley.
April 3, 1908: Samuel Starks died in Charleston. Starks became the first Black state
librarian in the nation when he was appointed to the position in 1901 by Governor Albert B.
White.
