Andrew's world West Virginia history

     The 'ber months are among us now, so I thought I would write a little about one of WV's most popular fall attractions, The Pumpkin House in Kenova, WV. The house. The house itself is the homestead of Joseph Miller, built in 1891. Joseph S. Miller (1848-1921) was a prominent citizen of WV. He was an attorney and  served many years of his life in local government, served as WV auditor, was appointed as commissioner of the IRS and ran for Governor of WV in 1884  (he dropped out of the race). Joseph became good friends with president Grover Cleveland and Cleveland actually spent the night at the house once. The fact about Joseph Miller that I love is his daughter's name was Lavalette and that's where the town of Lavalette, WV got it's name... But that's the topic for another day Since Joseph Miller, other prominent members of the town have resided in the house, including current owner Ric Griffith who served two terms as Mayor of Kenova and is currently a state

Here is our beautiful capitol building, which is the second one in Charleston. Construction on this building was started in 1924 and was completed in 1932, by famous architect Cass Gilbert. The building houses the state legislature as well as the Governor's office and the offices of several other government officials. The picture looks to be taken from the UC side of the river. Edit- its actually the fourth Capitol building in Charleston and sixth one overall in WV

      Everybody knows (or should know) about the namesake of the village of Sod by now, Samuel O'Dell Dunlap. I think theres a very important settler that often gets over looked though.      I'm sure you've read the sign at the mouth of Cobbs creek that says it was named for Fleming Cobbs.       Fleming B. Cobbs, Sr. Was a famous scout, born December  23rd, 1767 in Albemarle county, Virginia and died January 10th, 1846 at the age of 78 in his cabin at the mouth of Davis creek in kanawha county, Virginia.        Fleming was an Indian scout for the US army and was stationed at fort Lee, which stood at the mouth of the Elk river in present day Charleston (I wrote about fort Lee in a previous post).       In his book, the first 200 years of Cobbs creek , Dave McCormick says "his job was to travel up and down the Kanawha and Ohio valleys checking for indian sign, from May until October"       He goes on to tell about how Fleming apparently had a lean to around where th

     I normally try to stay relevant with this blog, but today I'm gonna talk about some American history, rather than West Virginia history.      Yesterday was July 4th, the anniversary of when our founding fathers signed the declaration of independence... Or did they?      Well, yea, they did sign it but not on the day you might think. The second continental Congress did meet on July 4th, 1776 and the declaration was approved that day but most of the 56 delegates didn't actually sign until August 2nd, 1776. E. Harrison, July 4th, 2012, 9 things you may not know about the declaration of independence, history.com Signing of the declaration of independence, education.nationalgeographic.com     

      Photo sourced from wikipedia.org       How do you celebrate WV DAY? Do you? Well, either way, you should at least have an idea of what happened...      Ok, I've already made a post about the Wheeling conventions of 1861. So, you should already know about the restored government of Virginia.       Now, were in 1862 on this timeline. Senator Waltman Willey of the restored government of virginia submitted a bill to congress for the admission of West Virginia to the Union in May of 1862. He proposed an amendment to the bill calling for West Virginia to amend their constitution to include the gradual emancipation of slaves in the state. On July 14th, the senate approved the bill, with statehood conditioned on approval of the Willey amendment, and the house approved the bill in December. Lincoln signed the bill on December 31st. March 26th, 1863, west virginia ratified their revised constitution and on June 20th, 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that West Virginia would

     You may have read my post about mother's day, and saw the spoiler alert about father's day. That's right, father's fay originated here in West Virginia, too.      In a church in Fairmont, Wv on July 5th, 1908 people gathered for a church service in honor of the father's who had died in the mine explosions in Monongah on December 6th, 1907. This church service was only two months after the first mother's day service in Grafton.       The following year, a woman from Washington state got involved, inspired by west virginia mother's day creator Anna Jarvis. It wasnt until 1966 that it became a nationally recognized holiday. History.com editors, December 30th, 2009, father's day, history.com Cristy, May 21st, 2020, few people know that father's day was created by a mining accident in west virginia in the 1900's, onlyinyourstate.co      Photo from timeswv.com