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"Mad Ann" Bailey

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A pic a friend and I took of the grave of Ann Bailey when we visited Point Pleasant in 2022 “Mad Ann” Bailey was a famous frontierswoman. History.com names her one of the 7 gutsiest women on the American frontier, in a March 2018 article.    I went to Ann Bail ey Elementary, where I think I was misinf ormed about who A nn Bailey really was , or maybe after all these years, I just don’t fully remember what I was taught. In any event I was surprised to re-learn about Ann Baily in recent years.   Ann Hennis came from Liverpool, England around 17 61 to Virginia. She was an educated woman. She married her first husband, Richard Trotter , in Virginia. Richard was a Sh enandoa Valley settler. He also participated in and survived General Edward Braddock’s disastrous expedition of 1 755 (a major event in the French and Indian war) . Richard was killed in Lord Dunmore ’s war AKA The Battle of Point Pleasant . I covered Lord Dunmore’s war in deta il in my book, Ce...
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Butter crazy

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A picture I took of a man stirring Apple butter at Roscoe Village (Ohio) in 2014        Recently I had an experience making apple butter and pumpkin butter. I have been talking about doing it for several years now, but it seems like something always came up and I ended up just buying a jar or someone would give me a jar that they made. Well, this year my mom and I finally got around to doing it ourselves, I have made and canned a lot of things with my mom over the years. We've done everything from our own hot sauce to just canning home grown vegetables.      Apple butter and pumpkin butter are both a pretty big thing here in West Virginia, so I thought I'd share with you a little history on it. See, some of the earliest settlers in what is now West Virginia were known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. The Pennsylvania Dutch weren't actually Dutch at all, they were a group of German immigrants (and immigrants from other German speaking countries like Switzerla...
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Celebs in little ol WV

Usually this blog is all about historical West Virginia but today we have some current events to discuss. You probably heard about Bam Margera making a random stop in Charleston the other day. I'm not even sure how many people saw him, he just posted on his Instagram that he got his morning skate session in Charleston, WV, along with a pic of him at the skate park under the interstate. This is huge to me because I've been a huge fan of his since the early days of jackass in 1999 or 2000. I'm honestly surprised that Brandon AKA Bam isn't here more often actually, since he lives one state up (Pennsylvania). So, now theres only one question - what will he do next? (Whatever the fuck I want) Viva la bam fans will get it. In other news, actress Halle Berry celebrated her birthday in the mountain state. I saw on Instagram (how did we survive before IG?) that Rock City Cakes made her birthday cake. What an honor
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I debunked my first story.

     The other day, I ran across a story that I wanted  to believe. I even shared it on my personal Facebook because I was so excited about it. Apparently, somebody had asked an AI powered search engine (not too sure which one) what the most haunted place in Lincoln County, WV was. It told them a story about the Lincoln County courthouse in Hamlin being haunted by the ghost of a former sheriff who was murdered in the building. Now when I read that, it seemed exciting, boring old Lincoln County just got a little cooler but since then I had time to do a little research. I thought I'd be able to find accounts of witnesses and people who claim to have seen something that might lead them to believe the courthouse is in fact haunted. but no, nothing, not one claim. So, I wondered about the Sheriff that was murdered. There appears to be no truth to that either. The closest thing I was able to find to that was the Sheriff of Lincoln County was killed in a car wreck in 1970. ...
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Exciting stuff

If you've noticed a bit of a decline in blog posts over the past several months, it's because this blogger has been trying something a little different. I've been writing a book! Just something I had to get out of my system and now I can mark "author a book" off my bucket list. I actually had dreams of getting it published by a publishing company. I found out a lot about the publishing industry this year, it's not what you think. If you're really lucky, you'll get a literary agent (which you almost have to have if you want traditional publishers to see your manuscript) and if you're really, really lucky one of the publishers will like your book. Now, you'll get an advance that ranges from $1-$10,000.00. after that, you dont get anything until the publisher has got their money back from them advance. Now, you start getting royalties, which is probably gonna be about 30%. Thats option one. Option two is you self publish. Now, thesedays there are ...
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West Virginia is for lovers

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       Charleston, WV just had it's first emo/ pop punk festival on July 13th, 2024. J.T. Woodruff of the band Hawthorne Heights said "it's hard to bring an emo festival to West Virginia because it's not mainstream and we didn't know how many people would show up" But there was a huge turnout. West Virginia has a huge music scene, despite being a small state. We truly don't get the shows we deserve. These weren't fans just getting into the music, most were fans like myself who have been fans of these bands for at least 20 years.  J.T. also said "I'd like the record to show that I'm from West Virginia" he went on to talk about how he had to move three hours away (Dayton, Ohio) to play music because back then there was no talent in West Virginia. But now there was enough talent to put together a whole stage [All day] I guess that means we should be proud of our little state. J.T. who sings lead vocals and plays rythym guitar...
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Daniel Boone's ten years (or more) in the Kanawha Valley

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Photo sourced from britannica.com        Daniel Boone was an amazing man by anyone’s standards. He was a noted frontiersman and has certainly earned his spot in history books. Most books overlook the ten years he spent in the Kanawha Valley, though. I don’t know if that's because most historians and biographers of his just don’t think it was interesting enough to write about or if it just isn’t widely known, who knows?    In any event, he lived in a cabin not far from Fort Clendenin or Fort Lee as it was later renamed and would eventually become the City of Charleston. There's a park, on the opposite side of the river from where he lived, he lived on the south side of the river, which nowadays I guess you could say is the U.C. side or the Kanawha City side .  Nothing is left of his cabin, but the park which was named in his honor does have the Ruffner cabin, which is said to be the oldest extant structure in the Kanawha Valley, it also has the Cr...
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