As we collectively mourn the recent passing of Gordon Lightfoot, it calls to mind the connection between the singer-songwriter’s most famous ballad and Wheeling’s most celebrated park. Read More
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
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
“Sometimes racial prejudice is like a hair across your cheek. You can’t see it, you can’t find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing it because the feel of it is irritating.”-
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson was one of the world’s greatest contralto singers. She toured the planet as a musical ambassador, the toast of monarchs, musical heavyweights, and citizens of every race, while in her own country, she remained a second class citizen. But did you know that before the critical incident that guaranteed her immortality, she visited “Jim Crow” Wheeling as a guest of the Blue Triangle branch of the Y.W.C.A. and Madison School?
Before we get to that, let’s go back to the future. Read More
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
— by Marcia Hartman
Note: This story originally appeared in the March 2021 edition, Volume 6 Issue 6 of The Crossroads magazine, part of The Journal and the Noble County Leader, www.journal-leader.com. Copyright Southeast Publications, Caldwell, Ohio. It is reprinted with permission.
Preview: We talk about taking a leap when someone tries a risky venture. Not many take a leap like Sam McColloch did in 1777! Just one of several adventures across the river in Wheeling.
In 1777, Samuel McColloch (1752-1782) was a major in the local militia and commander of Fort Van Meter located about seven miles north of Wheeling near what is now Clinton, West Virginia — a few miles northeast of Oglebay Park. Samuel served in the militia alongside his brother John. In 1770, the McCollochs emigrated from land they owned on the South Potomac, near where Moorefield, West Virginia is today, and settled on Short Creek where Fort Van Meter was built. The family is thought to have been somewhat more educated than most other early settlers. McColloch served different positions in government during his life and was third in command of the nine militia companies in the Ohio County Militia. (Interestingly, one of the McCollochs’ sisters married Col. Ebenezer Zane, making her a sister-in-law to Betty Zane, who is credited with saving Fort Henry during a later Indian attack.) Read More
— 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
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.”
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
“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.”
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.
