Historic Parkersburg (West) Virginia

Historic Parkersburg (West) Virginia. Fort Boreman Historical Park. In 1773 Robert Thornton claimed 400 acres on the north bank of the Little Kanawha River where he built a cabin and cultivated land in the area that is now downtown Parkersburg. Thornton sold his claim to Capt. Alexander Parker for $50 in 1785. The area was permanently settled in 1785 by Capt. James Neal and others from Springhill Township, Fayette County, PA. First chartered by the Virginia Assembly in 1800 as Newport, the town was named Parkersburg in 1810 and was chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1820., In the years before the Civil War, Parkersburg became the terminus of two state roads, the Northwestern Turnpike, completed in 1838, and the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, finished in 1847. In 1857, the Northwestern Virginia Railroad, the southern trunk of the B&O Railroad, was completed to Parkersburg. The absolute necessity of protecting the turnpikes and the railroad made Parkersburg one of the most strategic spots in the state during the Civil War., At the beginning of the Civil War, Parkersburg had a population of 2,500. The completion of the southern branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1857 increased the population of Parkersburg, then the largest Ohio River town between Wheeling and Cincinnati., Arthur I. Boreman of Parkersburg served as West Virginia's first governor from 1863 to 1869. In his inaugural address, Boreman called the new state a "child of the rebellion." He served in the U.S. Senate from 1869 to 1875.