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Thanks for bringing me up to date on the history of West - By God - Virginia. I also wondered how and when it came about. Now, I'm wondering how and when the Eastern Pandhandle came into existance. I am a new resident of Ranson/Charles Town and it seems we are a bit out of place as far as West Virginians are concerned. Since this area is more contiguous with Virginia and Maryland than with West Virginia, how and when did it happen? (I'm NOT complaining, mind you. I'm just interested in history. I LOVE WV - people, history, climate, scenery - I am from Illinois - NO history there!)
Those counties in the eastern panhandle wanted to remain a part of Virginia but other interests divided them with the new state. They sent their sons to the confederacy and fought tooth and nail against the north...
Berkeley, Hampshire, Hardy, Jefferson, and Morgan Counties were forced to reluctantly join the new Unionist state of West Virginia in 1863 so that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad along the Potomac River would remain safely in Union hands. Shortly after West Virginia gained statehood, Mineral and Grant counties were created from Hampshire and Hardy in 1866.
It probably was also important for the armory at Harpers Ferry to remain in Union territory.
I think the Rich Rodriguez (spell?) mess helped get us on the map.
Used to be when we traveled and said we were from WV, people would say "oh, I've been to Richmond".
Last winter we were traveling out of the country and when we said we were from WV, Americans and non-Americans would start into a discussion on the whole Rodriguez thing.
Guys may not know geography but they sure know their football.
Last edited by vec101; 06-06-2008 at 08:22 PM..
Reason: typo
After reading all this wonderful information about West (By God) Virginia, Has me thinking that perhaps all the derogatory comments that everyone says is about Western Virginia, and not our wonderful state of West Virginia!!! And By God I think I'm right!!!!
People in Europe have had a recent awareness of the existence of West Virginia because a techno version of Country Roads became VERY, VERY, HUGELY popular over there. In fact in the World Cup in Germany back in '04, many instances of stadiums filled with international spectators would break into a mass singing of the song when it was played over the stadium PA system. Don't believe me? Click this link --> Part 1 and Part 2. And another, too. (Warning...this is the most surreal thing ever...)
It was quite an amazing phenomenon there for a while.
An homage to this entire deal was actually very subtly put into that Mothman Prophecies movie a few years back. Richard Gere's character gets lost in a car and heads into a gas station for directions. He asks where he is and the attendant says "Point Pleasant, West Virginia." And what does Gere's character do? He traces the area around Roanoke on a map with his finger looking for the city. He doesn't realize he was looking at the wrong state until the gas attendant corrects him. Such a great thing to put in there....because only 1.8 million people get it....haha.
Now I gotta learn how to say kanaw but spell kanawha. Whose idea was that?
That would be some of our Native American heritage. You'll find a lot of Native American words used for rivers and even some cities here. Ohio, Kanawha, Guyandotte, all with Native American origins. You'll also find, if you research, that a lot of our major roads in the state were actually animal and/or Native American trails. Route 60 is the best example of this here. It was known as the buffalo trail and gradually became larger and more important as travel expanded.
I think it's neat to see these types of names across the country as well and how they evolved. The funniest one that I've ever heard about is where Chicago got its name. Chicago was actually derived from the native american word that meant something like "place that smells" according to a history on the city I had watched one time. Here's an exerpt from an article that explains this
"During the mid 1700s, the Chicago area was inhabited primarily by Potawatomis, who took the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox who had controlled the area previously. The name Chicago originates from "Checagou" (Chick-Ah-Goo-Ah) or "Checaguar" which in the Potawatomi language means 'wild onions' or 'skunk'. The area was so named because of the smell of rotting marshland wild leeks (ramps) that used to cover it."
Funny how we use words sometimes and never think of their original meaning.
So are we to expect the next major flood of immigration to be from Croatia? And it's not like they change the words, to Croatian Mama, for example. They want their Country Roads to take them home, to West Virginia!
They do need some practice, though. They know the chorus pretty well, but I heard a lot of "La-la-laaaa, la-la-laaaa" during the verses. That wouldn't cut it at Mountaineer Field.
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