Qualla: Barbour County, West Virginia

Barbour County, West Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. In 1990, private developers offered the citizens of Barbour County, West Virginia between four and six million dollars a year for the next three decades. The deal: accept up to 200,000 tons of out-of-state garbage every month into a county landfill. At the time, Barbour County's entire annual budget was about one million dollars. The voters said no. That decision tells you something important about this small Allegheny Plateau county along the Tygart Valley River: the population, about 15,465 at the 2020 census, has always been willing to forgo money on principle. It is also the kind of county where the Civil War's first land engagement was fought - and where Confederate soldiers, surprised by Union troops at dawn, ran for the hills in their nightclothes.

Image: Public domain

Barbour County, West Virginia: From Anglin's Ford to Philippi

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first white settlement in present-day Barbour County was made in 1780 by Richard Talbott, his brother Cotteral, and sister Charity - about three miles downriver from the future site of Philippi. The Talbotts left their homestead several times when conflicts with Native Americ...

Image: Valerius Tygart | CC BY-SA 3.0

Barbour County, West Virginia: The Philippi Races

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. On June 3, 1861, two columns of Union forces under Colonels Benjamin Franklin Kelley and Ebenezer Dumont - about 3,000 men total - arrived from Grafton after marching all night through heavy rain. They attacked roughly 800 poorly armed Confederate recruits under Colonel George A....

Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5

Barbour County, West Virginia: The College on Battle Hill

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bga5km, CC BY-SA 3.0. For 114 years, from 1909 to 2023, Barbour County's largest employer and cultural anchor was Alderson-Broaddus, the Baptist college that became a university. It occupied Battle Hill above Philippi - the very high ground from which Confederate troops had fled in 1861. In 1968, the ...

Image: Bga5km | CC BY-SA 3.0

Barbour County, West Virginia: Tygart, Tributaries, and Coal

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most of Barbour County drains through the Tygart Valley River, which traverses the county from south to north and supports its three largest settlements: Philippi, Belington, and Junior. The Buckhannon River, the West Fork River, and various creeks feed in along the way. The west...

Image: Valerius Tygart | CC BY-SA 4.0

Barbour County, West Virginia: Famous Sons and the Chestnut Ridge People

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Haem85 at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 1.0. Barbour County's notable residents make a strange list. Ted Cassidy, born in Pittsburgh in 1932 and raised in Philippi, became Lurch and the disembodied Thing on the 1960s television series The Addams Family. Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, who lived in the county for several years, co-...

Image: User: (WT-shared) Haem85 at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 1.0