The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
Sept. 15, 1861: In the aftermath of the Battle of Carnifex Ferry, Union forces under the command of Gen. Jacob Cox occupied the area of Spy Rock. Spy Rock is a natural landmark located on U.S. 60, 18 miles east of Hawks Nest.
Sept. 15, 1862: Confederate Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson forced the surrender of a Union garrison at Harpers Ferry prior to the Battle of Antietam. The 12,500 prisoners taken by Jackson was the largest surrender of U.S. Army troops in the war.
Sept. 15, 1875: Henry Hatfield was born near Matewan, Mingo County. As a doctor in the coal camps, he helped secure funding to establish three miners hospitals for the southern part of the state. In 1912, he was elected the state’s 14th governor.
Sept. 15, 1906: Songwriter Jack Rollins was born in Keyser. Rollins wrote the lyrics to “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and “Frosty the Snowman,” two of America’s most popular songs.
Sept. 16, 1876: The town of Milton in Cabell County was incorporated and named in honor of Milton Rece, a large landowner at the time.
Sept. 16, 1926: Writer John Knowles was born in Fairmont. He attained literary fame in 1959 with his first novel, A Separate Peace.
Sept. 16, 1950: Scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. was born in Keyser. Gates is one of the leading Black intellectuals in the United States. His books include Colored People: A Memoir, about growing up in Mineral County. He hosts the popular PBS program Finding Your Roots.
Sept. 17, 1848: Artist Lily Irene Jackson was born in Parkersburg. Jackson was best known as a painter of animal portraits and floral arrangements, and as an advocate for the arts.
Sept. 18, 1947: Historian and journalist Minnie Kendall Lowther died. Born in Ritchie County, she was one of the first West Virginia women to become a newspaper editor.
Sept. 18, 1989: Playwright Maryat Lee died in Lewisburg. She established Eco Theater in Summers County as an indigenous mountain theater, using Summers County people as actors.
Sept. 19, 1862: The two-day Battle of Shepherdstown opened with an artillery exchange between Union and Confederate troops. Following the Battle of Antietam, it ended Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign and helped convince Abraham Lincoln to issue his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
Sept. 19, 1892: William “Bill” Blizzard was born in Cabin Creek, Kanawha County. Blizzard became one of West Virginia’s most influential and controversial labor leaders of the 20th century.
Sept. 20, 1910: Dorothy Johnson Vaughan was born in Kansas City but moved at a young age to Morgantown, where she was valedictorian of Beechurst High School. Like fellow West Virginian Katherine Johnson, Vaughan became a mathematician and computer expert for NASA and made key contributions to the U.S. space program.
Sept. 20, 1914: Ken Hechler was born on Long Island, New York. Hechler served 18 years in the U.S. Congress and four terms as West Virginia’s secretary of state.
Sept. 21, 1895: Samuel Ivan Taylor was born in Mercer County. Taylor was the first member of the West Virginia state police. He was part of the force that faced off against union miners during the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County.
Sept. 21, 1937: The West Virginia Conservation Commission acquired 6,705 acres in Kanawha County to create Kanawha State Forest. Redevelopment of the land, which had been heavily mined and timbered, began the next year by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Sept. 21, 1970: Filming began in Moundsville on the movie Fools’ Parade, based on the novel by Davis Grubb. The filming concluded one month later when Grubb came to Moundsville for a dinner, accompanied by his dog, making the $750 round trip from New York City in a taxi.
