History

A TIMELINE

• December 1762: Shepherdstown established by act of the Virginia House of Burgesses in what would become part of eastern Berkeley County 10 years later. Continued settlement prompted Virginia lawmakers to pass bills creating Harpers Ferry (1763), Bath (1776), Martinsburg (1778), Charles Town (1786), Gerrardstown (1787), Darkesville (1791) and Smithfield, now known as Middleway, (1798) in Berkeley County- all before the formation of Jefferson and Morgan counties. Bolivar was founded in 1825, followed by Hedgesville in 1836 and Ranson in 1910.
• May 15, 1772: Berkeley County is established by an Act that divided Frederick County, Virginia into three distinct counties. Berkeley County was created from the northern end of Frederick County and Dunmore County (renamed Shenandoah County in 1778) was created from the southern end. Berkeley County, as originally created, then contained all land in what is now Jefferson County and a large portion of Morgan County to Warm Springs Ridge, including the Town of Bath. While John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, (Lord Dunmore), gave his assent to the legislation on April 11, 1772, the Act contains the May 15 effective date.
• March 18, 1774: George Washington leases 125 acres in the County to William Bartlett for the planting of 100 peach trees and 100 winter apple trees in the “Barrens of Bullskin” in the Kabletown area of what was then eastern Berkeley County and now Jefferson County. It became part of Jefferson County when the new county was formed in 1801. Bartlett’s annual rent was six pounds in Virginia currency payable at Mount Vernon, Christmas Day. The Washington-Bartlett venture is regarded as the beginnings of horticultural history of Berkeley County and West Virginia.
• July 1775: The “Bee Line March” of Berkeley County Riflemen to Cambridge, Mass., began in Shepherdstown. Led by Captain Hugh Stephenson, the 98-man unit made the trip within 25 days in response to George Washington’s call for soldiers at the start of the Revolutionary War. Stephenson was among a number of notable Continental Army officers who resided in the Berkeley County area, including Adam Stephen, Horatio Gates, Charles Lee, William Darke, Henry Bedinger and Daniel Morgan.
• July 1, 1776: Jacob Hite, one of Berkeley County’s founding fathers and rival of Martinsburg founder Adam Stephen, was killed by Cherokees in Greenville County, SC. Hite moved south after he lost a bid to make his “Hitetown,” now Leetown in what is now Jefferson County, the seat of Berkeley County government.
• December 6, 1776: The town of Bath at the Warm Springs was created. Frequented by George Washington, and commonly known today as Berkeley Springs, the Virginia General Assembly’s act for establishing the town mandated “one large and convenient spring suitable for a bath, shall be … for the publick use and benefit, and for no other purpose whatsoever.” The town of Bath became the county seat for Morgan County when lawmakers created it from western Morgan County and eastern Hampshire County in 1820.
• December 3, 1787: James Rumsey demonstrates the first steam-powered boat in the Potomac River near Shepherdstown. Rumsey, who lived in the town of Bath (now known as Berkeley Springs), was a pioneer in boiler technology. His inventions, such as the water-tube boiler, are still used to this day. A man of many trades, Rumsey was also commissioned by George Washington to build a house and stable for him.
• June 25, 1788: Berkeley County delegates William Darke and Adam Stephen at the Virginia Convention vote to ratify (89-79) the U.S. Constitution. Established on December 9, 1791, the village of Darkesville, south of Martinsburg (and Darke County, Ohio), is named for Darke.
• June 15, 1796: President George Washington signs off on purchase of land for federal armory and arsenal in Harpers Ferry, in what then part of Berkeley County. Selected by Washington, the 125-acre site bounded by the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers was purchased from the heirs of Robert Harper for $7,016.66. The firearms manufacturing facility and storehouse was targeted in 1859 by abolitionist John Brown in an attempt to initiate a major slave rebellion.
• April 22, 1799: Davy Crockett came to work for Gerrardstown, W.Va. farmer John Gray after a falling out with his father over dropping out of school in his home state of Tennessee. Crockett was paid 25 cents a day. Crockett ventures to what is now Berkeley County is detailed in an autobiography published in 1834.
• October 26, 1801 – Jefferson County was created from Berkeley County. The Act for dividing the County of Berkeley was passed by Virginia lawmakers on Jan. 8, 1801, but did not take effect for several months.
  March 16, 1803 – Meriweather Lewis arrives in Harper’s Ferry, gathered supplies for eventual expedition with William Clark and their exploration of the western U.S. after the Louisiana Purchase.
• September 26, 1816: David Hunter Strother, a well-known journalist and illustrator is born in Martinsburg. Strother, who went by the pen name “Porte Crayon,” documented his experiences in the Civil War while serving as a topographer in the Union Army. Strother, aided by a surveyor, laid out the Green Hill Cemetery in Martinsburg in 1854.
• February 8, 1820: Morgan County is formed from parts of Berkeley and Hampshire counties by Act of the Virginia Legislature.
• December 1836: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reaches Harper’s Ferry, before extending to Martinsburg in Berkeley County and Sir John’s Run in Morgan County in 1842.
• 1851: William Smith “Peach Billy” Miller, who is considered to be the father of modern commercial orchard development in West Virginia, planted his first orchard of 16 acres near Gerrardstown. At the close of the Civil War, Miller had nearly 4,000 peach trees and several hundred apple trees in production. By 1889, West Virginia apple production had reached about 4.5 million bushels.
• June 1, 1858: The Artists’ Excursion aboard the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad makes stops in Harper’s Ferry, Martinsburg and Sir John’s Run near Berkeley Springs en route to Wheeling, WV as part of publicity trip to promote the railroad’s railway system across the Allegheny Mountains.
• October 1859: Abolitionist John Brown leads raid on the U.S. Armory & Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry with the goal of sparking an insurrection against the oppression of slavery. After being held down by local militia from Berkeley and Jefferson counties, Brown took refuge in the arsenal’s engine house where he and others with him were captured by the U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee.
• December 1859: Charged with treason against the state of Virginia, murder and slave insurrection, John Brown was placed on trial in Charles Town, and ultimately sentenced to death for his crimes and hanged.
• May 1861: Residents of Jefferson County vote to join other Virginia counties in secession from the United States. Berkeley and Morgan counties vote against secession.
• October 22, 1862: W.C. Quincy wrote to B&O Railroad Co. President Garrett describing the destruction of the railroad in Berkeley County by Confederate troops during the Civil War.
• September 20, 1862: Battle of Boteler’s Ford along the Potomac River near Shepherdstown follows the Battle of Antietam, ending the Maryland campaign of Gen. Robert E. Lee.
• January 1, 1863: The Emancipation Proclamation is issued by President Lincoln, declaring slaves in Jefferson County and other counties and jurisdictions controlled by the Confederacy to be free. “Berkley” County and 48 other future counties of West Virginia are listed as an exception to the famous Executive Order. West Virginia abolished slavery in February 1865.
• April 7, 1863:  Confederate spy Belle Boyd of Martinsburg, was taken into custody by Union forces and held at the Berkeley County Courthouse. “I wonder if I’ll be shot tomorrow,” Boyd apparently wrote in a Berkeley County Chancery book. Several months after her release in December 1863, Boyd volunteered to carry Confederate papers to England via ship. The ship was stopped on May 10, 1864, and Boyd eventually managed to escape, first to Canada, then to London where she married Hardinge, one of the Union naval officers who had seized the ship. Boyd died in Kilbourn, Wisc., on June 11, 1900 while touring the U.S.
• July 14, 1863: Gen. Robert E. Lee, in retreat after the Battle of Gettysburg, crossed the Potomac River with Confederate troops at what is now Falling Waters, W.Va. While waiting to cross, Union troops charged in a surprise attack from the east, and Gen. James J. Pettigrew, already wounded at Gettysburg, was mortally injured near the Daniel Donnelly house north of the road. Pettigrew later died at the home of John Boyd in Bunker Hill.
• February 1863: Berkeley and Jefferson Counties vote to join the new state of West Virginia. Outcome subsequently disputed and challenged in a court case filed by the state of Virginia. Virginia’s legal challenge contesting the transfer of the two counties ended with a 6-3 Supreme Court decision in 1871.
• 1865: County seat of Jefferson County moved to Shepherdstown over post-war disagreement as to whether the county should be part of Virginia or West Virginia. The county seat was returned to Charles Town in 1871.
• 1869: Storer College is established at Harper’s Ferry by Freewill Baptists as part of effort to educate freedmen after the Civil War, becoming the only college open to African Americans in West Virginia.
• 1871: Shepherd College, now Shepherd University, is established in Shepherdstown, WV.
• July 14, 1877: The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 begins in Martinsburg after the B&O Railroad cut wages for the third time in a year. Railway workers responded by uncoupling trains and preventing them from leaving. West Virginia Gov. Henry Mathews sent in the National Guard to restore train services, but the soldiers refused to fire. The governor then called upon President Rutherford B. Hayes for federal troops. The strike spread to Pittsburgh, Chicago, and St. Louis before it ended later in the summer of 1877.
• May 7, 1893: Ward Hill Lamon, President Lincoln’s friend and personal bodyguard, dies and is buried in Gerrardstown, near where he was raised in Bunker Hill. Born in Summit Point in Jefferson County, Lamon took on the personal task of protecting Lincoln. It is said that on the night of Lincoln’s inauguration, Lamon slept in front of the president’s bedroom door with pistols and a Bowie knife at hand. Lamon was also commissioned as U.S. Marshal for Washington D.C. by Lincoln.
• 1896:  J.R. Clifford starts the Pioneer Press, the Mountain State’s first African American newspaper. Clifford, West Virginia’s first African American attorney, also filed the first successful legal challenge of segregated schools in West Virginia.
• October 1, 1896: Rural Free Delivery of mail in the nation is launched in Charles Town, WV by U.S. Postmaster William Wilson, a Jefferson County native.
• February 1, 1898: Future West Virginia Congressman George Meade Bowers of Berkeley County is nominated to be the next Fish Commissioner by President McKinley. Bowers, who served in Congress from 1915 to 1923, is the most recent of 16 residents and natives of Berkeley County to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives since Alexander White served in the First & Second Congress from 1789 to 1793.
• August 15-19, 1906: First meeting of The Niagara Movement in the U.S. is held at Storer Collage at Harper’s Ferry. The organization was the precursor for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
• April 1922:  Bill Blizzard becomes first of a handful of men to be tried at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Charles Town, WV, stemming from the coal mining labor-related conflict known as West Virginia Mine Wars and Battle of Blair Mountain
• 1923: Shepherd Field, which is now commonly known as the Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport, is established. The airfield is the oldest in West Virginia and currently has longest runway of any airports in the Mountain State.
• July 15, 1939: James Rumsey Bridge across the Potomac River at Shepherdstown opens.
  1966: Twenty-six miles of Interstate 81 is completed through Berkeley County.
• March 25, 1969: Groundbreaking held for the construction of James Rumsey Technical Institute near Hedgesville. JRTI has served the county for over 40 years in academic and technical education.
• 1984: Blue Ridge Outlet Center opens in the former Crawford Woolen and Cassimere Mills complex. The outlet center attracted thousands of shoppers to the area with its 50 stores, restaurants and other amenities.
• 2000: U.S. brokered Israeli-Syrian peace talks held in Shepherdstown between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Faroak al-Shaara. President Bill Clinton served as mediator.
• 2001: Classes begin at new campus for Community & Technical College of Shepherd in Martinsburg. After relocating from Shepherd University campus, the institution was officially renamed Blue Ridge Community & Technical College on July 1, 2006. Blue Ridge CTC relocated to a permanent campus in Berkeley County in 2012.