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.
June 4, 1971: A former Boone County coal miner hijacked a plane from Charleston and demanded to be flown to Israel. At Dulles Airport near Washington, he allowed the passengers and flight attendant to dismount but held the pilots and flight engineer at gunpoint for hours before they disarmed him. It is West Virginia’s only documented hijacking.
June 4, 1975: Clark Kessinger died in St. Albans, Kanawha County. Kessinger was among the most prolific and influential fiddlers of the 20th century.
June 5, 1859: A great frost killed crops in Preston County. The fields were replanted with hardy buckwheat, which became a staple crop, celebrated in the annual Buckwheat Festival in Kingwood.
June 5, 1915: Four young people were killed at Rock Springs in Hancock County when the Old Mill ride caught fire.
June 6, 1919: Historian Otis Rice was born in Hugheston, Kanawha County. Rice was named West Virginia’s first Historian Laureate in 2003.
June 6, 1954: Award-winning children’s author Cynthia Rylant was born in Hopewell, Virginia, but spent much of her youth in Raleigh County and earned degrees from Morris Harvey College (now University of Charleston) and Marshall University. Her first book, When I Was Young in the Mountains (1982), is about growing up in southern West Virginia.
June 6, 1979: One of the oddest events in state history occurred when an old Douglas DC-6 cargo plane carrying 12 tons of marijuana plummeted over a hillside at Kanawha (now Yeager) Airport in Charleston. Hundreds of bales of marijuana spewed from the plane before it caught fire. Onlookers looted much of the marijuana before law enforcement officials could dispose of it.
June 6, 1989: During the Pittston strike, about 60 miners embarked on a four-day march from Logan County to Charleston, following the reverse path of the 1921 Armed March.
June 7, 1905: Fiddler David Frank “French” Carpenter was born in Clay County. A notable member of a famous musical family, he learned most of his music directly from his father, Tom, the “fiddling preacher.” He influenced the great fiddler and fellow Clay Countian Wilson Douglas.
June 7, 1926: An explosion at a sand mining operation in Morgan County killed six men. Their deaths were the inspiration for the ballad “The Miner’s Doom.”
June 9, 1915: Storyteller Bonnie Starkey (Collins) was born in Doddridge County. In her 50s and 60s, the “Belle of Doddridge County” honed her storytelling skills and became a popular entertainer at the Morris Family Old-Time Festival, Stonewall Jackson Jubilee, state Folk Festival, Mountain State Art & Craft Fair, and Vandalia Gathering.
June 9, 1927: Karl Dewey Myers was named the state’s first poet laureate by Governor Howard Mason Gore. Myers held the post for 10 years.
June 10, 1775: The Berkeley County Riflemen were organized by Capt. Hugh Stephenson of Shepherdstown, in response to a call for Revolutionary War soldiers by Gen. George Washington.
June 10, 1921: Labor leader Daniel Vincent Maroney was born on Cabin Creek, Kanawha County. Maroney served as international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union from 1973 to 1981.
