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Mason County, West Virginia
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Mason County, West Virginia
Mason County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,453. Its county seat and largest city is Point Pleasant. The county was founded in 1804 and named for George Mason, delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention. Before the Civil War, the county was in the State of Virginia.
Mason County is part of the Point Pleasant, WV-OH Micropolitan Statistical Area.[citation needed]
In the second half of 1749, the French explorer, Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville, claimed French sovereignty over the Ohio Valley, burying a lead plaque at the meeting point of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, naming the place Point Pleasant.
In the Battle of Point Pleasant (October 10, 1774), fought on the future site of the town, over one thousand Virginia militiamen, led by Colonel Andrew Lewis (1720–1781), defeated a roughly equal force of an Algonquin confederation of Shawnee and Mingo warriors led by Shawnee Chief Cornstalk (ca. 1720–1777). The event is celebrated locally as the "First Battle of the American Revolutionary War" and in 1908 the U.S. Senate authorized erection of a local monument to commemorate it as such. Most historians, however, regard it not as a battle of the Revolution (1775–1783), but as a part of Lord Dunmore's War (1774). White settlers may have established their permanent settlement by 1774, for Col. Lewis had established "Camp Point Pleasant" at the time of the Battle and the settlement that followed also took that name.
According to Hardesty's West Virginia Counties (1883), regarding the first white settlers in Mason County south of Point Pleasant:
All that part of the district lying on the Ohio river bottoms above Eighteen-mile Creek, was included in the grant made by Congress to the heirs of General Mercer, who was killed at the battle of Princeton, New Jersey, January 3, 1777, while fighting by the side of Washington; hence the name Mercer Bottom. Who located and surveyed the lands cannot now be learned, but his grandson, Charles Fenton Mercer, of Virginia, afterward put the lands in market and sold them in quantities to suit purchasers. Thomas Hannan, whose name is preserved in that of the district, was the first actual settler – locating in the year 1790. Andrew Fleming and a Mr. Mercer, two hunters, had previously erected a cabin on the land which he purchased, and this was occupied by him until he could build a better one. Soon Jesse George purchased seventy acres of land at the mouth of Flatfoot Creek ... and became the second actual settler. Then came John Hereford, Robert Hereford, Thomas Powell, Edward S. Menager, John Morris — who discovered the first salt water on Kanawha river — George Withers, Robert Cremeans, James George, Rev. John Canterbury ...
The settlement at Point Pleasant did not receive an official charter until 1794. The first road through what later became Mason County was laid out by Thomas Hannan (1757–1835) in 1798 under contract to the federal government. It traversed the distance from present-day St Albans, (West) Virginia to Chillicothe, Ohio. This road (parts are still known as "Hannan Trace Road") is one of the oldest roads in Ohio. It became a main highway connecting Chillicothe and points east during the time when that settlement served as the capital of the Northwest Territory and the first capital of Ohio.
The Virginia General Assembly officially created Mason County from Kanawha County on January 2, 1804. It was named for George Mason IV (1725–1792), known as the "Father of the United States Bill of Rights" and a Founding Father of the United States. By 1810, the total county population stood at almost two thousand people. Before the American Civil War it developed as a river port (farmers upstream on the Kanawha River could ship their goods to Point Pleasant and from there down the Ohio River and sometimes the Mississippi River to market) as well as coal.
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Mason County, West Virginia
Mason County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,453. Its county seat and largest city is Point Pleasant. The county was founded in 1804 and named for George Mason, delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention. Before the Civil War, the county was in the State of Virginia.
Mason County is part of the Point Pleasant, WV-OH Micropolitan Statistical Area.[citation needed]
In the second half of 1749, the French explorer, Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville, claimed French sovereignty over the Ohio Valley, burying a lead plaque at the meeting point of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, naming the place Point Pleasant.
In the Battle of Point Pleasant (October 10, 1774), fought on the future site of the town, over one thousand Virginia militiamen, led by Colonel Andrew Lewis (1720–1781), defeated a roughly equal force of an Algonquin confederation of Shawnee and Mingo warriors led by Shawnee Chief Cornstalk (ca. 1720–1777). The event is celebrated locally as the "First Battle of the American Revolutionary War" and in 1908 the U.S. Senate authorized erection of a local monument to commemorate it as such. Most historians, however, regard it not as a battle of the Revolution (1775–1783), but as a part of Lord Dunmore's War (1774). White settlers may have established their permanent settlement by 1774, for Col. Lewis had established "Camp Point Pleasant" at the time of the Battle and the settlement that followed also took that name.
According to Hardesty's West Virginia Counties (1883), regarding the first white settlers in Mason County south of Point Pleasant:
All that part of the district lying on the Ohio river bottoms above Eighteen-mile Creek, was included in the grant made by Congress to the heirs of General Mercer, who was killed at the battle of Princeton, New Jersey, January 3, 1777, while fighting by the side of Washington; hence the name Mercer Bottom. Who located and surveyed the lands cannot now be learned, but his grandson, Charles Fenton Mercer, of Virginia, afterward put the lands in market and sold them in quantities to suit purchasers. Thomas Hannan, whose name is preserved in that of the district, was the first actual settler – locating in the year 1790. Andrew Fleming and a Mr. Mercer, two hunters, had previously erected a cabin on the land which he purchased, and this was occupied by him until he could build a better one. Soon Jesse George purchased seventy acres of land at the mouth of Flatfoot Creek ... and became the second actual settler. Then came John Hereford, Robert Hereford, Thomas Powell, Edward S. Menager, John Morris — who discovered the first salt water on Kanawha river — George Withers, Robert Cremeans, James George, Rev. John Canterbury ...
The settlement at Point Pleasant did not receive an official charter until 1794. The first road through what later became Mason County was laid out by Thomas Hannan (1757–1835) in 1798 under contract to the federal government. It traversed the distance from present-day St Albans, (West) Virginia to Chillicothe, Ohio. This road (parts are still known as "Hannan Trace Road") is one of the oldest roads in Ohio. It became a main highway connecting Chillicothe and points east during the time when that settlement served as the capital of the Northwest Territory and the first capital of Ohio.
The Virginia General Assembly officially created Mason County from Kanawha County on January 2, 1804. It was named for George Mason IV (1725–1792), known as the "Father of the United States Bill of Rights" and a Founding Father of the United States. By 1810, the total county population stood at almost two thousand people. Before the American Civil War it developed as a river port (farmers upstream on the Kanawha River could ship their goods to Point Pleasant and from there down the Ohio River and sometimes the Mississippi River to market) as well as coal.
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