Qualla: Harrison County, West Virginia

Harrison County, West Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Snoopywv, CC BY-SA 3.0. John Simpson built the first cabin at the mouth of Elk Creek in 1763 or 1764. He owed a man named Cottrial one quart of salt, a substantial debt in a country with no currency and no nearby supply. When Simpson returned from Winchester with goods to settle the debt, an argument broke out. Cottrial grabbed Daniel Davisson's rifle, which was leaning against the cabin, and aimed at Simpson through the gap between the logs. Simpson moved faster, sprang outside, grabbed the gun from Cottrial's hands, and killed him. It was the first homicide recorded in what is now Harrison County, West Virginia. The settlement that grew from those early cabins became Clarksburg, the county seat - and the county itself, organized in 1784, was named for Benjamin Harrison V, the Virginia governor who would father William Henry Harrison and great-grandfather Benjamin Harrison, two future U.S. presidents.

Image: Snoopywv | CC BY-SA 3.0

Harrison County, West Virginia: Before the Settlers

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jae69376, CC BY-SA 3.0. Indigenous peoples lived in the area now called Harrison County for thousands of years. The most visible surviving evidence is the Oak Mounds, a complex of Hopewell-culture earthen mounds outside Clarksburg, built in the first millennium CE by a sophisticated mound-building socie...

Image: Jae69376 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Harrison County, West Virginia: Carved Out of Virginia

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit historical registry, Public domain. Harrison County was organized in 1784, three years after the British surrender at Yorktown. The territory was partitioned from Monongalia County - itself only eight years old at that point - which had been carved from Augusta County, the enormous original Virginia jurisdiction th...

Image: historical registry | Public domain

Harrison County, West Virginia: Railroads and the Italian Wave

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Umbra Lab, Inc., CC BY 4.0. The Northwestern Turnpike connecting Winchester and Parkersburg reached Clarksburg in 1836, opening the town to eastern markets. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad arrived in 1856, and Harrison County's economic trajectory shifted decisively upward. The railroad made commercial coal...

Image: Umbra Lab, Inc. | CC BY 4.0

Harrison County, West Virginia: The People Harrison County Produced

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Snoopywv, CC BY-SA 3.0. For a small north-central West Virginia county, Harrison has produced a striking number of nationally consequential figures. Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, was born here in Clarksburg in 1824. Joseph Johnson, the only governor of Virginia ever from the trans-Alleghen...

Image: Snoopywv | CC BY-SA 3.0

Harrison County, West Virginia: Harry Powers and The Night of the Hunter

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 3.0 us. The county also produced Harry Powers, one of the more infamous serial killers in early-twentieth-century American crime. Powers operated through lonely-hearts personal ads in the 1920s, corresponding with women who were widowed, divorced, or otherwise vulnerable; he convinced se...

Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 3.0 us

Harrison County, West Virginia: The Modern Corridor

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andre Carrotflower, CC BY-SA 4.0. Modern Harrison County has a population of about 65,921, the seventh-most-populous county in West Virginia. Its economic center of gravity has shifted east from Clarksburg to Bridgeport along the I-79 corridor. The North Central West Virginia Airport at Bridgeport offers commerci...

Image: Andre Carrotflower | CC BY-SA 4.0