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.
April 15, 1872: Peter Godwin Van Winkle died in Parkersburg. Van Winkle was a member of the Governor’s Council of the Reorganized Government of Virginia, 1861-63, under Gov. Francis Pierpont. On August 4, 1863, Van Winkle was elected as one of West Virginia’s first two U.S. senators.
April 16, 1829: Jacob Beeson Jackson was born in Parkersburg. In 1881, he became West Virginia’s sixth governor.
April 16, 1894: Leonard Riggleman was born in a Randolph County cabin. As president of Morris Harvey College (now University of Charleston), he moved the school to Charleston in 1935 and led the college to accreditation in 1958.
April 16, 1923: Arch Moore was born in Moundsville. He was the first governor in 100 years to serve a second term, and he returned later for a third. He also was the second former governor to serve federal prison time.
April 17, 1827: Outdoorsman William “Squirrelly Bill” Carpenter was born on the Elk River near the mouth of Laurel Creek, Braxton County. Carpenter guided prominent West Virginians, including Gov. MacCorkle, through the wonders of the Elk Valley.
April 17, 1861: Delegates to a special convention in Richmond voted for Virginia to secede from the Union, subject to approval by a public referendum. This decision also set in motion the process that would lead to the creation of West Virginia.
April 17, 1871: West Virginians approved the Flick Amendment, restoring voting rights to former Confederates. Although the amendment also applied to formerly enslaved people, they had already been granted suffrage under the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
April 17, 1924: A fire destroyed much of downtown Franklin, the Pendleton County seat.
April 17, 1972: Actress Jennifer Garner was born in Houston, Texas. Growing up in Charleston, she appeared in theater and ballet productions before becoming a television and film star.
April 18, 1756: The largest battle fought in Virginia during the French and Indian War occurred at Fort Edwards in Hampshire County.
April 18, 1861: At the start of the Civil War, retreating U.S. troops set fire to the national armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry to prevent them from falling into Confederate hands. Virginia militia extinguished the flames, salvaged much of the weapon-making equipment and sent it south before ultimately destroying the site in June 1861.
April 18, 1912: The Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912–13 began in Kanawha County when coal operators rejected union workers’ demands for higher wages. The ensuing strike became one of the most dramatic and violent episodes in the early 20th-century labor struggles in southern West Virginia, collectively known as the Mine Wars.
April 19, 1896: Writer Melville Davisson Post was born in Harrison County. His best-known works are the Randolph Mason series, published in three volumes, and the more successful collection, Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries.
April 19, 1902: Author Jean Lee Latham was born in Buckhannon. She wrote a number of children’s books, including Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, which won the 1956 Newberry Award.
April 20, 1823: General Jesse Lee Reno was born in Wheeling. He graduated from West Point in 1846, with another cadet from western Virginia, Thomas J. Jackson, later known as “Stonewall.” Reno was the highest-ranking officer from present West Virginia killed in the Civil War.
April 20, 1863: President Lincoln issued a proclamation that in 60 days, West Virginia would become a state. This occasion was marked 100 years later during the state’s Centennial celebration with a special ceremonial session of the West Virginia legislature on April 20, 1963, in Wheeling.
April 20, 1909: Fiddler Melvin Wine was born near Burnsville, Braxton County. A favorite of old-time music enthusiasts nationally, he was chosen as a National Heritage Fellow in 1991 by the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest recognition given to a folk artist in the United States.
April 20, 1939: Poet Irene McKinney was born in Belington, Barbour County. Governor Gaston Caperton appointed her state poet laureate in 1993, and she served in that capacity until her death in 2012.
April 21, 1908: Musician Phoeba Cottrell Parsons was born in Calhoun County. Parsons’s traditional clawhammer banjo style, unaccompanied ballad singing, riddles and storytelling have influenced countless numbers of younger musicians.
April 21, 1936: President Franklin Roosevelt established the Jefferson National Forest. The West Virginia portion of this forest includes about 19,000 acres in Monroe County.
