Qualla: Guyandotte

Guyandotte: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Wheeling Intelligencer was not subtle. On November 13, 1861, three days after Union soldiers burned Guyandotte to the ground, the newspaper editorialized that the town "has always had the reputation of being the 'ornaryest' place on the Ohio River... It ought to have been burned two or three years ago." Guyandotte was a Confederate sympathizer town in a region that had voted overwhelmingly to break away from Virginia and form the Union state of West Virginia. A Confederate cavalry raid had been welcomed by the townspeople. The Fifth West Virginia Infantry's response was to burn much of the town. Today Guyandotte is a quiet neighborhood of eastern Huntington, dating back to 1799 and older than the city that eventually absorbed it.

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Guyandotte: The French Beginning

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Guyandotte was founded in 1799 by settlers including descendants of French families - LeTulle, Holderby, Buffington - whose names still appear on the gravestones of the eighteenth-century cemetery in the neighborhood. The land was part of the Savage Grant, a 28,628-acre parcel in...

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Guyandotte: The Secessionist Flag

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When Virginia voted to secede on April 17, 1861, Guyandotte's response came three days later. On April 20, men gathered outside the Planter's Hotel, where Elijah Ricketts and John W. Ong raised a secessionist flag. As W. S. Laidley rested on the sidewalk in front, a shot struck t...

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Guyandotte: The Raid and the Fire

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On November 10, 1861, a Confederate cavalry force of over 700 quickly overtook a Union encampment at Guyandotte. The townspeople celebrated. Over ninety Union soldiers were captured and sent to Richmond for imprisonment. The next morning, the Confederates withdrew, and a detachme...

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Guyandotte: Holderby's Landing Becomes Huntington

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What is now downtown Huntington was, before 1871, called Holderby's Landing - a smaller settlement next to Guyandotte. Marshall College, founded in 1837 as Marshall Academy - a private subscription school later transferred to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1850 - was al...

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Guyandotte: What Remains in the Neighborhood

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Guyandotte today is a residential neighborhood in eastern Huntington, sitting at the confluence of the Guyandotte River and the Ohio. The Madie Carroll House and the Zachary Taylor Wellington House are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the surviving remnant...

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