Born Drusilla Petticord on March 4, 1865 on a West Liberty farm, she grew up to become Mrs. Drusilla “Drucie” Petticord Bauer-Turner, a respected baseball “authority” and Wheeling’s most formidable and perhaps West Virginia’s only female baseball “magnate.” Read More
From Irish Row to Corktown
The Wheeling Irish
How did so many Irish immigrants end up in the United States and in Wheeling?
There were many waves of immigration. But the biggest one related to the Gaelic -mostly Catholic- Irish, was caused by starvation.
In oversimplified terms: by the mid-19th century, the tenant farmers and working poor of Ireland had become dependent on the potato crop for survival. Starting in 1845, an insidious potato blight resulted in crop failure after crop failure. People starved. Read More
Celebrating Freedom: Wheeling’s “Juneteenth” in Context
In recent years, Wheeling has joined the national celebration of Juneteenth, with the 2022 version featuring events at the Ohio County Public Library, YWCA, Market Plaza, and Heritage Port. See details.
Juneteenth is a celebration of the liberation of Texas slaves in execution of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which applied only to slaves held in states in rebellion—that is, Confederate states. On June 19, 1865, roughly 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas and announced that “the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as ‘Juneteenth,’ by the newly freed people in Texas.” Source.
Juneteenth was made a federal holiday on June 19, 2021. Wheeling had already begun marking the day a few years prior.
But historically, the African American population in the Wheeling area had celebrated “Emancipation Day,” despite the fact that no slaves were freed in West Virginia (which had joined the Union in 1863), by Lincoln’s executive order. The date chosen (probably in hopes of fairer weather) was actually that of the so-called preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, announced on September 22, 1862. The official order would come on January 1, 1863. Read More
Cartooning “Pa Wheeling”
Cy Hungerford Hones His Craft in the Friendly City
— written by Terri Blanchette
Few people in Pittsburgh today know of an institution who once graced their city with his people-centered perspective and sensitivity, and his great talent. Even fewer know that without five pivotal years spent in Wheeling, West Virginia, he would not have become the icon he was. Read More
A History of Wheeling’s 4th of July Celebrations
245 years ago, on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, announcing the colonies’ separation from Great Britain. A year later, in the most populous city in the “United Colonies” where the Declaration was signed, Philadelphians marked the first anniversary of American independence with a spontaneous celebration, which is described in a letter by John Adams to his daughter, Abigail.
“My dear Daughter Philadelphia, July 5th, 1777 Yesterday, being the anniversary of American Independence, was celebrated here with a festivity and ceremony becoming the occasion. I am too old to delight in pretty descriptions, if I had a talent for them, otherwise a picture might be drawn, which would please the fancy of a Whig, at least. The thought of taking any notice of this day, was not conceived, until the second of this month, and it was not mentioned until the third.”
4th of July Celebrations in Wheeling
Though surveyor William Crawford, writing in 1772 to George Washington, reported that settlers were arriving to the area “in such numbers the like was never seen,” by July 4th, 1777, Wheeling was still little more than an outpost on the western frontier of the colonies. By the time the first federal census was taken in 1790, the population of Wheeling was approximated to be between 200 and 250 residents. Eight years later, Tarleton Bates, a law clerk and newspaper publisher in Pittsburgh described a visit in his journal in 1798, writing that Wheeling consisted “principally of one street [and] about 60 houses one good looking brick one & 5 or 6 taverns —The Inhabitants appear tolerably Genteel & were they not Virginians might pass for decent people.” When Merriwether Lewis passed through in 1803, he wrote of Wheeling, “this is a pretty considerable Village contains about fifty houses…” Though Lewis’s estimation of houses in the village would indicate little growth had occurred, the federal census of 1800 recorded a doubling of Wheeling’s population to 500 residents. In 1806, the same year Wheeling was officially incorporated as a town, Thomas Ashe, author of Travels in America, counted “about two hundred and fifty houses; ten of which are built of brick, eighteen of stone, and the remainder of logs.”
It is a year later that the earliest mention of a 4th of July celebration in Wheeling has been found (if anyone knows of an early record, please let us know). The description of the July 4th, 1807 festivities was printed by Wheeling’s first newspaper, the Wheeling Repository, a weekly which had a short publication run from March 5, 1807 to November 5, 1808. Read More
Angels of the Wards: All-Star Nurses of Wheeling
“Nurses are there when the last breath is taken, and nurses are there when the first breath is taken. Although it is more enjoyable to celebrate the birth, it is just as important to comfort in death.” —Christine Belle
Throughout its storied history, Wheeling has been blessed with the dedicated service of numerous brave and caring nurses.
Most were trained locally at the nursing schools associated with Wheeling Hospital, and the City Hospital (later Ohio Valley General Hospital and still later Ohio Valley Medical Center), as well as the lesser known and short-lived Haskins Hospital.
In recognition of National Nurses Month and Week, what follows is a sampling of just a few notables among these front line “Angels of the Wards.”
Lesser Known Legends of Wheeling
Dr. Marion Theresa Moses
By Linda Comins
Wheeling’s prominent gifts to the world include Dr. Marion Theresa Moses, who was born in the city in the early 20th century and became a national authority on pesticides. She was also the trusted colleague and physician to labor leader Cesar Chavez and the beloved friend and personal physician to social activist Dorothy Day.
Dr. Marion Theresa Moses was born in Wheeling on January 24, 1936. She was the second of eight children born to Maron Moses and Mary Wakim Moses.
Help Us Solve Wheeling History Mysteries!
A Partnership Among Archiving Wheeling, Weelunk, and the Ohio County Public Library Archives
Do you recognize any of the people in these photos?
These are just a few of many historic photos of Wheeling people, places, and things that need to be identified. Weelunk, Archiving Wheeling, and the Ohio County Public Library Archives have teamed up to reach out to Wheeling area residents or people who have lived in the Wheeling area at any time—we need your help identifying the individuals in these photos!
This is an ongoing crowdsourcing project to connect today’s Wheeling community to its historical resources and stories. The more we know about the people in these photos, the more we can uncover important and sometimes forgotten histories of Wheeling.
We Need Your Help
Check out the featured photos on Weelunk’s partner article, here. If you recognize someone, please submit your comment in the entry space below the specific photo on the Weelunk page. The more information you can give us, the more complete the historical record. Please help us by sharing this project far and wide on social media and directly with anyone you know from Wheeling—even if they don’t live here anymore.
The Original Dancing Conductor
Wheeling-Born Musician and Composer Will H. Dixon
Before his untimely death, Wheeling Hall of Fame member Chu Berry famously played tenor sax in Cab Calloway‘s Orchestra from 1937-1941. [1] By the time Berry joined the orchestra, Calloway had already developed his legendary style made famous by appearances in films such as the Betty Boop: Minnie the Moocher short (Paramount Pictures, 1932), Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho (1934), and Stormy Weather (20th Century Fox, 1943), all long before his cameo in the 1980 Universal Studios cult classic, The Blue Brothers. “Clad in white tie and tails, dancing energetically, waving an oversized baton, and singing,” writes Alyn Shipton in his Calloway biography, Hi-De-Ho, “Cab Calloway is one of the most iconic figures in popular music.” [2]
But prior even to Calloway’s birth, Will H. Dixon initiated the style that would lead him to be dubbed the original dancing conductor. [3] James Weldon Johnson – American writer, civil rights activist, and early leader of the NAACP — wrote of Dixon: “All through a number he would keep his men together by dancing out the rhythm, generally in graceful, sometimes in grotesque, steps. Often an easy shuffle would take him across the whole front of the band. This style of directing not only got the fullest possible response from the men but kept them in just the right humour for the sort of music they were playing.” [4] By the time Calloway was born in 1907, Dixon was not only a famed stage conductor, but an accomplished singer, pianist, actor, comedian, playwright, and composer of both popular and classical music.
And he was a Wheeling native. Read More
Archiving Wheeling Presents
Lesser Known Legends of Wheeling: African American Leaders
by Seán Duffy and Erin Rothenbuehler
On February 2, 2021, we presented a Lunch With Books Livestream program exploring the lives, times, and achievements of nine leaders of Wheeling’s African American community during the era of “Jim Crow” segregation, including: barber Henry Boose Clemens; police officer William Alexander Turner; firefighter Ashby Jackson; attorney Harry H. Jones; medical doctors Boswell Henson Stillyard, Julia Katherine Pronty Davis; Robert Maceo Hamlin; and Alga Wade Hamlin; and musician Will H. Dixon.
This post will serve as the penultimate supplement to our livestream video. A profile of Will H. Dixon will follow. Read More
