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| https://www.mapsof.net/west-virginia/west-virginia-county-map |
Back in June, when I did a post for West Virginia Day, Kris asked the following question in one of her comments: "I am curious as to how the boundaries were made--in looking at a map, the panhandles seem to be oddly placed and like they should be part of a different state." I gave a vague answer because I wasn't really sure how we ended up with two panhandles myself. I've done a little research, so now I'm going to try to answer her question. Better late than never, right?
First of all, it's complicated and confusing, but I'm going to try to simplify it so it makes sense.
As you all know, West Virginia was once part of Virginia. In the early times, Virginia had a far western boundary. After the Revolution, Congress encouraged the donation of land to the United States. So, Virginia gave up Kentucky and everything west of the Ohio River. However, they still wanted access to the Ohio River, so they kept the Tug Fork and Big Sandy Rivers since those rivers flow into the Ohio. That forms some of the western boundary—the non-panhandle part.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania and Virginia had overlapping land claims and had a big dispute about the western border between them. The border ended up just west of Pittsburg, leaving the little silver of land in the north - The Northern Panhandle. BTW, Pittsburg is where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers come together to form the Ohio River. If you haven't figured it out by now, the Ohio River was very important in the country's westward expansion. It was a navigable river that flowed into the Mississippi River.
The eastern part of Virginia, the Tidewater and Piedmont regions, had rich farmland and plantations run on slave labor, which we have all heard about. The western, mountainous part of Virginia had subsistence farming and few, if any, slaves. There was no need. However, representation in the legislature was based on population, which included the slaves in the count, even though they had no rights and were considered property. So, using these numbers, the western part of the state had little say about what went on. Western Virginia tried to secede a couple of times to no avail.
Then the Civil War happened. Virginia was a Confederate State, but the western part had mixed loyalties. In 1861, Union troops crossed the Ohio into Virginia, attacked the Confederate forces in the mountains, and eventually occupied the area. Western Virginia saw this as an opportunity and seceded from Virginia to the Union. The extent of the Union occupation at that time determined the state's eastern border.
That is, except for the end of the eastern panhandle, which was still loyal to the Confederacy and did not vote to secede. Congress recognized the new state of West Virginia and voted to give it three additional western Virginia counties: Morgan, Berkley, and Jefferson. These counties had rich farmland and the B & O Railroad, which Congress thought the new state needed to support itself. Of course, Virginia was not happy about that and protested, but lost when the Supreme Court ruled against them in 1871.
There. Does that make sense to anyone but me? My apologies to the historians out there who are cringing at my simplified version of the state's history.
Until next time...
Notes:
Most of this was summarized from Wikipedia and Mark Stein's book How the States Got Their Shapes.
