Qualla: Hardy County, West Virginia

Hardy County, West Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The river did something strange here. Thousands of years ago, the South Branch Potomac met a long ridge of rock and instead of crossing it the way most rivers cross mountains - with a single notch worn through over time - the South Branch ran through it from end to end. The result is a seven-mile slot called simply The Trough, hundreds of feet deep, walls almost perpendicular, a single narrow channel of water at the bottom. That gorge is one of the geological signatures of Hardy County, West Virginia.

Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hardy County, West Virginia: A Quiet 1786 County

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. Hardy County was carved out of Hampshire County in 1786 and named for Samuel Hardy, a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress. The first European known to visit was John Van Meter in 1725, and the first permanent settlements went in during the 1730s, when the South Branch V...

Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hardy County, West Virginia: A Valley, a River, and The Trough

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The South Branch Potomac River runs the length of the county through what locals just call The Valley. Several miles wide and flanked by high, heavily timbered mountains, the Valley's fertile bottomland has carried Hardy's economy since the 1730s. Corn, wheat, apples, peaches, me...

Image: Public domain

Hardy County, West Virginia: A Pre-Civil War Black Community

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. Hardy County has a rich African American history, including a notable population of free Black families who lived and farmed there before the Civil War. Henry Louis Gates devoted part of his PBS series African American Lives to this community in his Part 2 episode, tracing the lo...

Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hardy County, West Virginia: Moorefield at the Center

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The county seat sits at the very center of the South Branch Valley, on the east side of the junction where the South Fork meets the South Branch Potomac. In 1860 Moorefield was a quiet farming center of roughly 1,500 people, with no bridges over the South Branch. Travelers either...

Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0