Doddridge County, West Virginia
Doddridge County is a county in the U. S. state of West Virginia. Its county seat is West Union. Doddridge County is part of WV Micropolitan Statistical Area; the area that became Doddridge County, Virginia — now West Virginia — was first settled in the late 1780s by James Caldwell, who owned 20,000 acres of land that included present West Union. Caldwell sold this land to Nathan Davis, Jr and his brothers about 1807, they in turn sold 16,000 acres to Lewis Maxwell, a Virginia Assembly delegate in the 1820s who became a U. S. Congressman. In 1828 Ephraim Bee, Sr and his wife Catherine established a log home on Meathouse Fork of Middle Island Creek, now part of West Union, they built an Inn across the "Creek" at what was called Lewisport, below a blockhouse on the Northwestern Turnpike. The "Beehive Inn" became a popular place for travelers and locals to meet, refresh themselves and re-provision. Bee operated the first local blacksmith shop. According to Ephraim's father, A. A. Bee: "The first bridge across Middle Island Creek was of hewed logs with a center abutment of stones.
In the great flood of 1835 it was washed away". In 1842, a contract was awarded to the well-known civil engineer Claudius Crozet to build a covered bridge at West Union, as part of a series of public works along the Turnpike. Ephraim Bee was by this time a district officer, state legislator and postmaster; as blacksmith, he made all the bolts and bands for the West Union Covered Bridge, completed in 1843. Doddridge County was created in 1845 from parts of Harrison, Tyler and Lewis Counties of what was still Virginia, it was named for Philip Doddridge, the late distinguished statesman of western Virginia, who had spent the greater part of his life in Brooke County. When it was announced the new county would be formed, Ephraim Bee rallied to locate the county seat at Lewisport, but Nathan Davis, Jr, William Fitz Randolph, others, won out in favor of West Union, across the river on the south side. There Ethelbert Bond laid out the town lots in regular fashion on land owned by Davis. Progress of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, on its way from Clarksburg to Parkersburg and bisected the county in 1856.
On the night of March 27, 1858, a fire devastated the town of West Union. West Virginia became a state following the Wheeling Conventions of 1861, after the American Civil War had begun. Maxwell Ridge — named for the Congressman's family — is said to have a cave, used by the Underground Railroad in the years leading up to the Civil War. Another nearby grotto, Jaco Cave, is said to have been used for the same purpose; the county seat of West Union was incorporated on 20 July 1881. Doddridge County’s oil and gas industry was an enormous boon to residents; the county's first oil pool, at Center Point, was discovered and drilled in 1892. This was an extension of the technology and boom of the western Pennsylvania oil and gas fields into Tyler and Doddridge Counties. Many farm owners, sons of farm owners, split their time between their farmwork and the petroleum operations; every local farm benefited from this as free gas was piped to the farmhouses of many landowners. Gas was soon used for heating and cooking, which replaced the wood stoves and kerosene and candles of previous generations.
By 1906, the Ideal Glass Factory opened to take advantage of the abundant natural gas. It was followed by the Doddridge County Window Glass Company; the two plants employed about 300 people. In years a garment factory opened, but closed in the 1970s. A long-remembered flood devastated West Union in June 1950, destroying homes and businesses and killing more than 20 people throughout the county. Today farming, timbering and gas, the business of county government and public education support the area, many people commute to jobs in Salem and Parkersburg, or to the North Central Regional Jail in Greenwood; the Lathrop Russell Charter House, Doddridge County Courthouse, Silas P. Smith Opera House, W. Scott Stuart House are individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. West Union is home to two nationally recognized historic districts: West Union Downtown Historic District and West Union Residential Historic District. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 320 square miles, of which 320 square miles is land and 0.8 square miles is water.
U. S. Route 50 West Virginia Route 18 West Virginia Route 23 Wetzel County Harrison County Lewis County Gilmer County Ritchie County Tyler County As of the 2010 census, the population was 8,202; as of the census of 2000, there were 7,403 people, 2,845 households, 2,102 families residing in the county. The population density was 23 people per square mile. There were 3,661 housing units at an average density of 11 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 98.31% White, 0.27% Black or African American, 0.31% Native American, 0.15% Asian, 0.14% from other races, 0.82% from two or more races. 0.57% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 2,845 households out of which 32.50% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.30% were married couples living together, 10.30% had a female householder with no husband present, 26.10% were non-families. 22.50% of
1910 United States Census
The Thirteenth United States Census, conducted by the Census Bureau on April 15, 1910, determined the resident population of the United States to be 92,228,496, an increase of 21.0 percent over the 76,212,168 persons enumerated during the 1900 Census. The 1910 Census switched from a portrait page orientation to a landscape orientation; the 1910 census collected the following information: Full documentation for the 1910 census, including census forms and enumerator instructions, is available from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. The column titles in the census form are as follows: LOCATION. Street, road, etc. House number. 1. Number of dwelling house in order of visitation. 2. Number of family in order of visitation. 3. NAME of each person whose place of abode on April 15, 1910, was in this family. Enter surname first the given name and middle initial, if any. Include every person living on April 15, 1910. Omit children born since April 15, 1910. RELATION. 4. Relationship of this person to the head of the family.
PERSONAL DESCRIPTION. 5. Sex. 6. Color or race. 7. Age at last birthday. 8. Whether single, widowed, or divorced. 9. Number of years of present marriage. 10. Mother of how many children: Number born. 11. Mother of how many children: Number now living. NATIVITY. Place of birth of each person and parents of each person enumerated. If born in the United States, give the state or territory. If of foreign birth, give the country. 12. Place of birth of this Person. 13. Place of birth of Father of this person. 14. Place of birth of Mother of this person. CITIZENSHIP. 15. Year of immigration to the United States. 16. Whether naturalized or alien. 17. Whether able to speak English. OCCUPATION. 18. Trade or profession of, or particular kind of work done by this person, as spinner, laborer, etc. 19. General nature of industry, business, or establishment in which this person works, as cotton mill, dry goods store, etc. 20. Whether as employer, employee, or work on own account. If an employee— 21. Whether out of work on April 15, 1910.
22. Number of weeks out of work during year 1909. EDUCATION. 23. Whether able to read. 24. Whether able to write. 25. Attended school any time since September 1, 1909. OWNERSHIP OF HOME. 26. Owned or rented. 27. Owned free or mortgaged. 28. Farm or house. 29. Number of farm schedule. 30. Whether a survivor of the Union or Confederate Army or Navy. 31. Whether blind. 32. Whether deaf and dumb. Special Notation In 1912 and 1959, New Mexico, Arizona and Hawaii would become the 47th, 48th, 49th and 50th states admitted to the Union; the 1910 population count for each of these areas was 327,301, 204,354, 64,356 and 191,909 respectively. On this basis, the ranking list above would be modified as follows: First 42 ranked states - positions unchanged New Mexico, Arizona, Hawaii, Wyoming and Alaska; the original census enumeration sheets were microfilmed by the Census Bureau in the 1940s. The microfilmed census is available in rolls from the National Records Administration. Several organizations host images of the microfilmed census online, along which digital indices.
Microdata from the 1910 census are available through the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Aggregate data for small areas, together with electronic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System. 1911 U. S Census Report Contains 1910 Census results Historic US Census data census.gov/population/www/censusdata/PopulationofStatesandCountiesoftheUnitedStates1790-1990.pdf
Time in the United States
Time in the United States, by law, is divided into nine standard time zones covering the states and its possessions, with most of the United States observing daylight saving time for the spring and fall months. The time zone boundaries and DST observance are regulated by the Department of Transportation. Official and precise timekeeping services are provided by two federal agencies: the National Institute of Standards and Technology; the clocks run by these services are kept synchronized with each other as well as with those of other international timekeeping organizations. It is the combination of the time zone and daylight saving rules, along with the timekeeping services, which determines the legal civil time for any U. S. location at any moment. Before the adoption of four standard time zones for the continental United States, many towns and cities set their clocks to noon when the sun passed their local meridian, pre-corrected for the equation of time on the date of observation, to form local mean solar time.
Noon occurred at different times but time differences between distant locations were noticeable prior to the 19th century because of long travel times and the lack of long-distance instant communications prior to the development of the telegraph. The use of local solar time became awkward as railways and telecommunications improved. American railroads maintained many different time zones during the late 1800s; each train station set its own clock making it difficult to coordinate train schedules and confusing passengers. Time calculation became a serious problem for people traveling by train, according to the Library of Congress; every city in the United States used a different time standard so there were more than 300 local sun times to choose from. Time zones were therefore a compromise, relaxing the complex geographic dependence while still allowing local time to be approximate with mean solar time. Railroad managers tried to address the problem by establishing 100 railroad time zones, but this was only a partial solution to the problem.
Weather service chief Cleveland Abbe had needed to introduce four standard time zones for his weather stations, an idea which he offered to the railroads. Operators of the new railroad lines needed a new time plan that would offer a uniform train schedule for departures and arrivals. Four standard time zones for the continental United States were introduced at noon on November 18, 1883, when the telegraph lines transmitted time signals to all major cities. In October 1884, the International Meridian Conference at Washington DC adopted a proposal which stated that the prime meridian for longitude and timekeeping should be one that passes through the centre of the transit instrument at the Greenwich Observatory in the United Kingdom; the conference therefore established the Greenwich Meridian as the prime meridian and Greenwich Mean Time as the world's time standard. The US time-zone system grew from this, in which all zones referred back to GMT on the prime meridian. In 1960, the International Radio Consultative Committee formalized the concept of Coordinated Universal Time, which became the new international civil time standard.
UTC is, within about 1 second, mean solar time at 0°. UTC does not observe daylight saving time. For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT, but GMT is no longer defined by the scientific community. UTC is one of several related successors to GMT. Standard time zones in the United States are defined at the federal level by law 15 USC §260; the federal law establishes the transition dates and times at which daylight saving time occurs, if observed. It is the authority of the Secretary of Transportation, in coordination with the states, to determine which regions will observe which of the standard time zones and if they will observe daylight saving time; as of August 9, 2007, the standard time zones are defined in terms of hourly offsets from UTC. Prior to this they were based upon the mean solar time at several meridians 15° apart west of Greenwich. Only the full-time zone names listed below are official. View the standard time zone boundaries here; the United States uses nine standard time zones.
As defined by US law they are: From east to west, the four time zones of the contiguous United States are: Eastern Time Zone, which comprises the states on the Atlantic coast and the eastern two thirds of the Ohio Valley. Central Time Zone, which comprises the Gulf Coast, Mississippi Valley, most of the Great Plains. Mountain Time Zone, which comprises the states and portions of states that include the Rocky Mountains and the western quarter of the Great Plains. Pacific Time Zone, which comprises the states on the Pacific coast, plus Nevada and the Idaho panhandle. Alaska Time Zone, which comprises most of the state of Alaska. Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone, which includes Hawaii and most of the length of the Aleutian Islands chain. Samoa Time Zone, which comprises American Samoa. Chamorro Time Zone, which comprises Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Atlantic Time Zone, which comprises Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands; some United States Minor Outlying Islands are outside the time zones defined by 15 U.
S. C. § exist in waters defined by Nautical time. In practice, military crews may
West Virginia Route 31
West Virginia Route 31 is a north–south state highway in the northwestern portion of the U. S. state of West Virginia. The northern terminus of the route is at the Ohio state line on the Williamstown Bridge over the Ohio River; the southern terminus is at West Virginia Route 16 in West Virginia. The northernmost extent of the route from West Virginia Route 14 near Interstate 77 Exit 185 southeast of Williamstown to the Ohio state line is not signed
Thomas Ritchie (journalist)
Thomas Ritchie of Virginia was a leading American newspaper journalist and publisher. He read law and medicine, instead of practicing either, set up a bookstore in Richmond, Virginia in 1803, he bought out the Republican newspaper the Richmond Enquirer in 1804, made it a financial and political success, as editor and publisher for 41 years. The paper appeared three times a week. Thomas Jefferson said of the Enquirer: "I read but a single newspaper, Ritchie's Enquirer, the best, published or has been published in America." Ritchie wrote the stirring partisan editorials, clipped the news from Washington and New York papers, did most of the local reporting himself. For 25 years he was state printer, a method by which his political friends subsidized their most articulate voice. Ritchie was a leader of the "Richmond Junto" that controlled the Republican state committee with Ritchie's relatives Spencer Roane and Dr. John Brockenbrough of the Virginia State Bank. Richmond was a violent frontier town.
Controversial rival journalist and Jefferson opponent James T. Callender was found drowned in three feet of water in 1803. Nonetheless, Ritchie set up a press and began advocating restrictions on free blacks as well as slave manumissions. Lawyer and Richmond Enquirer founding editor Meriwether Jones died in a duel on August 3, 1806. John Daly Burk and Skelton Jones both died in duels before completing a projected four volume history of Richmond. Ritchie editorialized against South Carolina and Georgia reopening the transatlantic slave trade, for U. S. intervention in the War of 1812. Political rivals could find themselves excoriated in the press, President James Monroe was not immune. A faction of the Democratic-Republican party, once nicknamed the quids and thought more radical than Jefferson, grew pro-slavery, anti-foreigner and anti-Catholic over time. Committed to democratic reform in representation of the western counties and full manhood suffrage, Ritchie promoted the 1829 Virginia state constitutional convention.
A modernizer, Ritchie came to promote extensive state internal improvements. In national politics, Ritchie's influence rested first on an alliance with New York Senator Martin Van Buren, they both promoted William H. Crawford's presidential candidacy in 1824, next that of Andrew Jackson in 1828. Ritchie favored the "Old Republican" "principles of'98,'99" against what he considered the corrupting influence of Henry Clay and the divisive tactics of John C. Calhoun, whose nullification and Southern-party policies Ritchie detested. Late in his life, Ritchie supported gradual emancipation. In the 1844 US presidential election, Ritchie supported James K. Polk because of Polk's support for the annexation of Texas. Polk brought Ritchie to Washington to edit the national paper The Union. Ritchie supported the Compromise of 1850, but the new paper never was as influential as the Enquirer. Meanwhile, Ritchie had lost his Virginia base, as his son and namesake took over the Richmond Enquirer. In 1846, Thomas Ritchie Jr. killed Richmond Whig founder and editor John Hampden Pleasants in a duel.
Charles H. Ambler, Thomas Ritchie: A Study in Virginia Politics Pearson, C. C. "Ritchie, Thomas" in Dictionary of American Biography, Volume 8
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is the center of the Greater Richmond Region. Richmond was incorporated in 1742 and has been an independent city since 1871; as of the 2010 census, the city's population was 204,214. The Richmond Metropolitan Area has a population of 1,260,029, the third-most populous metro in the state. Richmond is located at the fall line of the James River, 44 miles west of Williamsburg, 66 miles east of Charlottesville, 100 miles east of Lynchburg and 90 miles south of Washington, D. C. Surrounded by Henrico and Chesterfield counties, the city is located at the intersections of Interstate 95 and Interstate 64, encircled by Interstate 295, Virginia State Route 150 and Virginia State Route 288. Major suburbs include Midlothian to the southwest, Chesterfield to the south, Varina to the southeast, Sandston to the east, Glen Allen to the north and west, Short Pump to the west and Mechanicsville to the northeast; the site of Richmond had been an important village of the Powhatan Confederacy, was settled by English colonists from Jamestown in 1609, in 1610–1611.
The present city of Richmond was founded in 1737. It became Dominion of Virginia in 1780, replacing Williamsburg. During the Revolutionary War period, several notable events occurred in the city, including Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech in 1775 at St. John's Church, the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom written by Thomas Jefferson. During the American Civil War, Richmond served as the second and permanent capital of the Confederate States of America; the city entered the 20th century with one of the world's first successful electric streetcar systems. The Jackson Ward neighborhood is a national hub of African-American culture. Richmond's economy is driven by law and government, with federal and local governmental agencies, as well as notable legal and banking firms, located in the downtown area; the city is home to both the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, one of 13 United States courts of appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, one of 12 Federal Reserve Banks.
Dominion Energy and WestRock, Fortune 500 companies, are headquartered in the city, with others in the metropolitan area. After the first permanent English-speaking settlement was established in April 1607, at Jamestown, Captain Christopher Newport led explorers northwest up the James River, to an area, inhabited by Powhatan Native Americans; the earliest European settlement in the Central Virginia area was in 1611 at Henricus, where the Falling Creek empties into the James River. In 1619, early Virginia Company settlers struggling to establish viable moneymaking industries established the Falling Creek Ironworks. After decades of territorial conflicts with native tribes, the Falls of the James became more to white settlement in the late 1600s and early 1700s. In 1737, planter William Byrd II commissioned Major William Mayo to lay out the original town grid. Byrd named the city "Richmond" after the English town of Richmond near London, because the view of the James River was strikingly similar to the view of the River Thames from Richmond Hill in England, where he had spent time during his youth.
The settlement was laid out in April 1737, was incorporated as a town in 1742. In 1775, Patrick Henry delivered his famous "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" speech in St. John's Church in Richmond, crucial for deciding Virginia's participation in the First Continental Congress and setting the course for revolution and independence. On April 18, 1780, the state capital was moved from the colonial capital of Williamsburg to Richmond, to provide a more centralized location for Virginia's increasing westerly population, as well as to isolate the capital from British attack; the latter motive proved to be in vain, in 1781, under the command of Benedict Arnold, Richmond was burned by British troops, causing Governor Thomas Jefferson to flee as the Virginia militia, led by Sampson Mathews, defended the city. Richmond recovered from the war, by 1782 was once again a thriving city. In 1786, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was passed at the temporary capitol in Richmond, providing the basis for the separation of church and state, a key element in the development of the freedom of religion in the United States.
A permanent home for the new government, the Greek Revival style of the Virginia State Capitol building, was designed by Thomas Jefferson with the assistance of Charles-Louis Clérisseau, was completed in 1788. After the American Revolutionary War, Richmond emerged as an important industrial center. To facilitate the transfer of cargo from the flat-bottomed James River bateaux above the fall line to the ocean-faring ships below, an enterprising George Washington helped design the James River and Kanawha Canal from Westham east to Richmond, in the 18th century to bypass Richmond's rapids on the upper James River with the intent of providing a water route across the Appalachian Mountains to the Kanawha River flowing westward into the Ohio eventually to the Mississippi River; the legacy of the canal boatmen is represented by the figure in the center of the city flag. As a result of this and ample access to hydropower due to the falls, Richmond became home to some of the largest manufacturing facilities in the country, including iron works and flour mills, the largest facilities of their kind in The South.
The resistance to the s
Pleasants County, West Virginia
Pleasants County is a county located in the U. S. state of West Virginia. At the 2010 census, the population was 7,605, making it the third-least populous county in the state, its county seat is St. Marys; the county was created by the Virginia General Assembly in 1851 and named for US Senator and Virginia Governor James Pleasants, Jr.. Pleasants County is part of WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 135 square miles, of which 130 square miles is land and 4.4 square miles is water. It is the fourth-smallest county in West Virginia by area. West Virginia Route 2 West Virginia Route 16 West Virginia Route 807 Washington County, Ohio Tyler County Ritchie County Wood County Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge As of the census of 2000, there were 7,514 people, 2,887 households, 2,136 families residing in the county; the population density was 58 people per square mile. There were 3,214 housing units at an average density of 25 per square mile.
The racial makeup of the county was 98.30% White, 0.48% Black or African American, 0.47% Native American, 0.20% Asian, 0.07% from other races, 0.49% from two or more races. 0.37% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 2,887 households out of which 32.70% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 60.10% were married couples living together, 10.40% had a female householder with no husband present, 26.00% were non-families. 22.90% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.30% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.51 and the average family size was 2.93. In the county, the population was spread out with 23.80% under the age of 18, 7.80% from 18 to 24, 28.70% from 25 to 44, 24.80% from 45 to 64, 14.90% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females there were 100.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.20 males. The median income for a household in the county was $32,736, the median income for a family was $37,795.
Males had a median income of $31,068 versus $18,077 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,920. About 10.90% of families and 13.70% of the population were below the poverty line, including 17.80% of those under age 18 and 7.90% of those age 65 or over. As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 7,605 people, 2,861 households, 2,021 families residing in the county; the population density was 58.5 inhabitants per square mile. There were 3,390 housing units at an average density of 26.1 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 97.3% white, 1.3% black or African American, 0.2% American Indian, 0.1% Asian, 0.1% from other races, 1.0% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 0.8% of the population. In terms of ancestry,Of the 2,861 households, 31.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.1% were married couples living together, 9.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 29.4% were non-families, 24.9% of all households were made up of individuals.
The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 2.90. The median age was 42.4 years. The median income for a household in the county was $38,882 and the median income for a family was $54,391. Males had a median income of $52,738 versus $23,750 for females; the per capita income for the county was $18,770. About 6.7% of families and 13.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12.6% of those under age 18 and 10.8% of those age 65 or over. In Pleasants County, there is a single school district including one high school, one middle school, two elementary schools; the county is served by the Mid Ohio Valley Technical Institute, which offers vocational education in a variety of fields. Although Pleasants County, like neighbouring rock-ribbed Unionist and Republican Ritchie and Tyler Counties, voted against secession at the Virginia Secession Convention, during the Third Party System the county voted Democratic. However, from 1900 onwards the county has voted Republican except in strong Democratic election victories, like all of West Virginia it has become rock-ribbed GOP in the twenty-first century as a consequence of de-unionization in the coal industry.
City of Belmont City of St. Marys Arvilla Calcutta Hebron Pine Grove National Register of Historic Places listings in Pleasants County, West Virginia
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West Virginia Route 16
West Virginia Route 31
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Ritchie County, West Virginia
