| History
of Jefferson County
The
earliest permanent white settlement in the area probably occurred
in the second decade of the 18th century.
Land speculators Jost Hite and John and Abraham VanMeter acquired
large tracts in the Northern
Neck of Virginia, including present day Jefferson County. Land was
sold to German and English immigrants,
many of them arriving from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
Shortly thereafter, other settlers
arrived from the Tidewater area of Virginia, bringing their plantation
culture with them. Many of the
later arrivals received land grants from Thomas Lord Fairfax, who
had inherited the Northern Neck
of Virginia from his mother. When
the earliest settlers and those holding grants
from Fairfax began to lay claim to the same property, Fairfax instituted
a suit against Hite in 1749.
The suit was not settled until 1786, when the Hites were awarded
title to numerous Fairfax grants
in the Lower Shenandoah Valley.
During the 1740's and 1750's
George Washington surveyed several plats in the Jefferson County
area for Thomas Lord Fairfax.
Using his surveying fees, he purchased his first piece of land from
Robert Rutherford on the Bullskin
in present day Jefferson County.Washington's
brothers also acquired land here,
and the family flourished in the area until the Civil War. More
Washington descendants are buried
in Jefferson County than in any other place in America. Several
homes built by Washington family
members still grace the countryside.
The settlement of the area from
the north and east by Germans, English, and Scots-Irish and the
arrival from the south of Virginia
planters created a cultural mix that persisted for much of the county's
history. Planters and farmers,
some owning slaves, lived and worked side by side. The slave population
was not large and was concentrated mostly on a few plantations.
Shepherdstown and Harpers Ferry
developed strong economic ties with Baltimore and Hagerstown, Maryland,
Martinsburg, and Philadelphia.
Charles Town and Smithfield maintained ties with Winchester and
points to the south. These differences
prompted West Virginia novelist and historian Julia Davis to characterize
Jefferson County as the "Alsace-Lorraine of Virginia."
For most of its history, Jefferson
County's economy has been primarily agricultural, with the area
producing grain and other crops
for export in the 18th and 19th centuries and orchards playing an
important role in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. Due to the limestone deposits than underlie
much of the county, limestone
quarrying has also served as an important source of revenue. Deposits
of iron ore spurred the development
of an iron industry along the Shenandoah river as early as 1742
and at Friend’s Orebank along the Potomac River east of Bakerton
in the 1760’s. When it closed during World War I, Friend’s Orebank
was the oldest operating iron mine in West Virginia. Two of the
most important events that shaped the future of Jefferson County
were George Washington’s establishment of the Federal Armory at
Harpers Ferry in 1799 and the arrival of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
in 1834. Partly because of the military and economic importance
of the Armory, the B & O Railroad was routed through Harpers Ferry,
a factor that influenced the decision in 1863 to include Jefferson
County in the new state of West Virginia rather than in the secessionist
state of Virginia. John Brown’s decision to raid Harper’s Ferry
was influenced in part by the supplies available at the Armory,
its proximity to defensible positions in the mountains, and the
belief that the slave population would rise up and support the insurgents.
Martin Robinson Delaney, born in Charles Town, worked with John
Brown in the framing of Brown’s provisional constitution. During
the Civil War, Delaney became the first African-American field officer.
Most of the county’s residents sided with Virginia when the state
seceded from the Union. Confederates from Jefferson County were
heavily represented in the 12th Virginia Cavalry and the 2nd Virginia
Infantry (Stonewall Brigade). Disenfranchised because of their support
of the Confederacy, residents were unable to prevent the transfer
of the court house from Charles Town to Shepherdstown in 1865. The
county seat was returned to Charles Town in 1871, but relations
between the two towns remained cool for decades. Jefferson County’s
economy, particularly its growing industrial base, was hurt by the
Civil War. The Armory was not reopened after the war; and part of
its facilities were used to establish an educational institution
for African Americans, Storer College, in 1869. Shepherd Normal
School, established in Shepherdstown in 1871, later became Shepherd
College. In 1944 Congressman Jennings Randolph introduced legislation
to Congress authorizing the purchase of land in Harpers Ferry for
establishment of a park. Harpers Ferry National Historic Park grew
out of this effort. Storer College was absorbed into the park when
it closed its doors in 1960. Two of the three treason trials conducted
in the United States were held in the Jefferson County court house.
The first trial was of abolitionist John Brown and the raiders who
survived the 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. A second series
of treason trials was held at the same site in 1922. Defendants
included Bill Blizzard, who allegedly led coal miners from Marmet
toward Logan culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain. With the
opening of the Charles Town Racetrack in 1933, Jefferson County
became the first track in the state to offer parimutuel betting.
The racetrack is still one of the major employers in the area. Other
large employers in the county include Royal Vendors, AB&C, Badger
Fire Protection, and Halltown Paperboard Company. Jefferson County’s
population was 39,000 in 1995.
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