Raleigh
County was
formed from Fayette by act of January 23, 1850,
and named in commemoration of Sir Walter Raleigh.
The act creating the county made the town of
Beckleyville the
county seat. It was incorporated in 1850. Here, in
the village school house, in March, 1850, the
first court convened.
It was composed of the
following named justices:
James Goodall,
Robert Scott,
Samuel L. Richmond,
Robert Warden,
Cyrus Snuffer,
Lucien Davis,
John T. Sarrett,
Benjamin Linkous,
John Stover.
The first county
officers were:
Sheriff, John T. Clay;
Prosecuting Attorney,
Edward W. Bailey;
County
Clerk,
Daniel Shumate;
Circuit Clerk, Alfred
Beckley;
Assessor, John H.
Anderson.
Pioneers.—Among the
early pioneers were:
Vincent Philips,
Samuel Pack,
Samuel Richmond,
Henry Hill,
Joseph Carper,
Sparriel Bailey,
Booker Bailey,
Joshua Roles,
Daniel Shumate, Sr.,
Cyrus Snuffer,
Owen Snuffer,
James Bryson,
John T. Sarrett,
Wilson Abbott,
Lemuel Jarrell,
Jacob Harper,
John Stover
Fielding
Fipps.
General Alfred
Beckley.—The following sketch of General
Beckley was written by himself in 1887, and placed
in the possession of J. C. Alderson, of Wheeling,
who published it in the Register of that city,
soon after the death of the subject, which
occurred May 28,
1888:—
"Alfred Beckley, Sr.,
born in Washington City, on Capitol Hill, on the
26th day of May, 1802, during the first term of
the immortal Thomas Jefferson's presidency. My
father, John Beckley, was the Clerk of the House
of Representatives during the presidency of
Washington, the elder Adams and Jefferson; was in
1783, Mayor of the city of Richmond, and a member
of the Board of Aldermen, Clerk of the House of
Delegates, and Secretary of the Convention of
Virginia on the Constitution of 1788. He was the
warm personal and political friend of Jefferson, and was the first
Librarian of
Congress.
"My father died on the
8th day of April, 1807, and in that year my mother
removed to the city of Philadelphia with
myself, a boy of five years, her only child. She
lived in Philadelphia till some time
in May, 1814, when she removed to Frankfort, Kentucky. While
in Philadelphia, I
was sent to several schools of repute, and in
Kentucky was the
pupil of Kean O'Hara, one of the finest classical
teachers in that State, and became a good Latin
scholar.
In 1819, Mr. Monroe,
then President, and a warm personal friend of my
father, on the application of my mother, through
Gen. William Henry Harrison, gave me the warrant
of cadet of the United States Military Academy at
West Point, N. Y., and this warrant, signed by the
great War Secretary, John C. Calhoun, I keep as a
relic of the past. Upon Gen. Harrison's
invitation, I became an inmate in his family at
North
Bend for
six months, availing myself of the instruction of
Gen. Harrison's private instructor to his
children. In August, the General placing me in the
care of a Mrs. Kinney, and paying my traveling
expenses to West Point out of his own pocket, I
started for West Point, but was taken sick on the
journey, and did not reach the Point till the 25th
of September, 1819, when my class of 1823, had
been at their studies a whole month. I was
examined alone by the academic staff, and admitted
on the 25th of September. I graduated on the 1st
of July, 1823, number nine in a class of
thirty-five, and was commissioned as a Second
Lieutenant of the Fourth Regiment of United States
Artillery on the same day. I served thirteen years
honorably in the United States Army; two years in
Florida,
1824-1826; two years at Old Point Comfort in
West
Virginia, in
the schools of artillery practice; six years on
ordnance duty at the Allegheny arsenal near
Pittsburgh, and two
years in garrison at Fort Hamilton Narrows, New
York.
In 1836, having married
Miss Amelia Neville Craig, daughter of Neville B.
Craig, Esq., editor of the Pittsburgh Gazette, I
resigned my commission as First Lieutenant, and
removed to Fayette county, Va., to improve a body
of unsettled stony lands for my widowed mother and
myself, lying in the southern part (now Raleigh
county). I devoted myself to the building up of
wild lands, was instrumental in the building of
the Giles, Fayette and Kanawha turnpike, and on
the establishment of the new county, now embracing
above 10,000 inhabitants, I was the first Clerk of
the Circuit Court of Raleigh count)-, and in 1872,
the County Superintendent of Schools; was
Treasurer of the School Funds; was the delegate
from the Thirteenth Electoral District of Va. to
the National Whig Convention at Baltimore and
voted for Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuysen as
President and Vice President. In 1876, I was a
delegate at large from West Virginia to the
National Democratic Convention in St. Louis, Mo.,
and in 1877, represented Raleigh county in the
House of Delegates at Wheeling, and was appointed
by that Legislature to deliver, at the evening
session of February 22, 1877, an address on the
character of George Washington, and to read his
farewell address. These duties I performed, and
received the unanimous thanks of the House of
Delegates. I was as warm an advocate for the acts
of that Legislature, eventually placing the State
Capitol at Charleston, as
any other member, and rejoice that our efforts
were
successful.
"In 1849, the General
Assembly of Virginia elected me as Brigadier
General of Militia, creating for me a new
brigadier district. In the civil war of 1861 to
1865, I was called out by General Henry A. Wise,
and served with my brigade in guarding the
fastnesses of Cotton Hill and the ferries of
New river. The
militia rendered poor service, and at my earnest
solicitation General Floyd disbanded the militia
early in 1862, at Jumping Branch. In 1862, Colonel
Hays garrisoned Raleigh Court House with part of
the 23d Regiment of the Ohio Volunteers, and I
came home and surrendered myself to Colonel Hays.
In April, 1862, General John C. Fremont sent a
telegraphic order from Wheeling to Colonel Hays to
arrest me and send me under guard to the
headquarters of the Mountain Department at
Wheeling. I was
started with a guard of a lieutenant, sergeant and
eight privates, but at Charleston General Core
sent back the guard and told the lieutenant to
conduct me honorably to Mountain Headquarters.
After some detention Fremont sent me on to
Camp Chase
prison. I was in Pen No. 2, about a month when
Governor Todd released me on my parole and gave
the United States Quartermaster orders to give me
transportation to Raleigh Court House. I went as a
prisoner under guard and returned as a gentleman,
thanks to good Governor Todd.
Since I left the army,
I have spent half a century in West Virginia, and
have filled many civil offices and been
instrumental in founding a new county and the
improvement of West Virginia, and have ever aimed,
by the grace of God to present a good, religious,
moral, temperance record to my fellow
men.
"I have omitted my
record as a friend of temperance. I had always
kept up a division of the Sons of Temperance at
Raleigh C. H., and think I saved my two eldest
sons by this
means.
"In October, 1839,1
attended the session of the Grand Division of
Virginia of 1839, at Lynchburg, which was composed
of delegates representing 15,000 Sons of
Temperance of Virginia, and I was elected Grand
Worthy Patriarch of the' Sons of Temperance and
served during i860, as Grand Worthy Patriarch.
This I regard as the greatest honor I ever
received from my fellow men. I laid the corner
stone or rather dedicated the monument in honor of
Lucien Munroe, a most distinguished son of the
Order, at Williamsburg.
Va., and then attended the session of the National
Temperance Grand Division at Portland, Me., and
ascended Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and with
my brethren of the National Division we held a
temperance meeting, with a good many sisters of
temperance, on top of the White Mountains.”
[Source: History of
West
Virginia; By Virgil
Anson Lewis; publ. 1887; Transcribed by Andrea
Stawski Pack]
