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 12, 1835: Marshall County was created from part of Ohio County. It was named for John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
March 12, 1850: Wheeling Hospital was chartered. During the Civil War, the institution was used as a general military hospital. The Sisters of Saint Joseph were hired as army nurses, treating wounded Union and Confederate soldiers side by side.
March 13, 1942: Steel guitarist Russ Hicks was born in the Beckley area. He was a longtime member of Hee Haw’s house band, did session work with the biggest names in Nashville, played in his own band Barefoot Jerry and had his own line of pedal steel guitars, The Russler.
March 13, 2002: Herbalist and folk doctor Catfish Gray died in Huntington. Gray was known for his vast knowledge of traditional plant lore and for his quaint and engaging personality. At the height of the folklore revival of the 1970s, Gray was a frequent newspaper and television interview subject.
March 14, 1931: Noting the interest in the annual reunion of Carnifex Ferry battle veterans from the Civil War, the legislature created the Carnifex Ferry Battlefield Park Commission.
March 15, 1822: Coal pioneer William Henry Edwards was born in New York state. In the 1850s, he opened early coal mines in the Kanawha Valley. As an avid entomologist, he documented at least 165 species of butterflies. His three-volume The Butterflies of North America became a standard in the field.
March 15, 1882: Union leader Frank Keeney was born on Cabin Creek, Kanawha County. Keeney, who went to work in the mines as a boy, became a rank-and-file leader during the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912–13.
March 15, 1890: Architect Walter Martens was born in Illinois. After moving to Charleston, he won competitions to design prominent buildings across the state, including the current governor’s mansion.
March 15, 1952: Governor Earl Ray Tomblin was born in Logan County. He was elected as a Democrat from Logan County to the House of Delegates in 1974, when he was only 22 years old and still a senior at West Virginia University. After serving as president of the senate for 15 years, he was governor from 2010 to 2017.
March 16, 1906: Country musician Buddy Starcher was born Oby Edgar Starcher near Ripley. In 1946, Starcher cut his first recordings on Four Star, including his best-known composition, “I’ll Still Write Your Name in the Sand,” which became a hit in 1949.
March 16, 1922: WHD at West Virginia University received the first radio license in West Virginia.
March 16, 1954: Award winning bluegrass musician and songwriter Tim O’Brien was born in Wheeling. He helped form the “new grass” band Hot Rize, and his songs have been recorded by Garth Brooks, Kathy Mattea and New Grass Revival, among many others.
March 17, 1837: Mercer County was created from parts of Giles and Tazewell counties and named for Hugh Mercer, a Revolutionary War general.
March 17, 1858: William Edwin Chilton was born in Coalsmouth, now St. Albans. A lawyer, U.S. senator and businessman, Chilton expanded Charleston’s electric streetcar system and was publisher and editor of the Charleston Gazette.
March 17, 1869: Historian and journalist Minnie Kendall Lowther was born in Ritchie County. One of the earliest women newspaper editors in West Virginia, she worked for the Pennsboro News, Wetzel Republican, West Union Record and Glenville Democrat.
March 17, 1891: West Virginia State University was founded as the West Virginia Colored Institute by the legislature. It was one of 17 Black land-grant colleges established under the Second Morrill Act of 1890.
March 17, 1912: Athlete Joe Stydahar was born in Pennsylvania. A star in football and basketball at WVU, he was the first round selection of the Chicago Bears in the first NFL draft of college players in 1936.
March 18, 1932: Harry Powers was executed in Moundsville. He had been convicted of killing two women and three children at Quiet Dell, near Clarksburg, as part of a “lonely hearts” scheme. The murders inspired two prominent novels: Davis Grubb’s Night of the Hunter (1953) and Jayne Anne Phillips’s Quiet Dell (2013).