Virginia-West Virginia Boundary

In April, 1861, a special convention in Richmond finally authorized a state vote on secession from the Union. Respresentatives from western Virginia counties opposed the decision. They responded by holding a separate convention in Wheeling, and proclaimed the "Restored Government of Virginia."

This culminated decades of intrastate sectional strife.

Had the official split occurred 90 years earlier, the boundary may have been the crest of the Blue Ridge. Had the Civil War occurred in 1850, then West Virginia may have included what is now the Ninth Congressional District. Once the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad was built, connecting Southwest Virginia with Tidewater ports, subsistence agriculture was replaced with a cash economy based on tobacco. As part of the cultural change, slavery became more common in the region - and of course the counties went into debt to help finance the railroad. The boundary commission that recommended what counties should be included in the new state purposefully excluded those counties with a heavy debt load...

The 1863 Constitution of West Virginia said:1
The following counties, formerly parts of the State of Virginia, shall be included in, and form part of, the State of West Virginia, namely: The counties of Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Marion, Monongalia, Preston, Taylor, Pleasants, Tyler, Ritchie, Doddridge, Harrison, Wood, Jackson, Wirt, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmer, Barbour, Tucker, Lewis, Braxton, Upshur, Randolph, Mason, Putnam, Kanawha, Clay, Nicholas, Cabell, Wayne, Boone, Logan, Wyoming, Mercer, McDowell, Webster, Pocahontas, Fayette, Raleigh, Greenbrier and Monroe.

And if a majority of the votes cast at the election or elections held, as provided in the schedule hereof, in the district composed of the counties of Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, and Morgan, shall be in favor of the adoption of this Constitution, the said four counties shall be included in, and form part of, the State of West Virginia; and if the same shall be so included, and a majority of the votes cast at the said election or elections, in the district composed of the counties of Berkeley, Jefferson and Frederick shall be in favor of the adoption of this constitution, then the three last mentioned counties shall also be included in, and form part of, the State of West Virginia.

(Weston, WV, is the last place where Virginia helped finance a public facility in the western counties - a state mental hospital in 1860. The site is near the modern I-79/US 33 interchange.)

Incidentally, the Virginia-West Virginia boundary is still not final in some places. In 1991 (yes, 1991...) the Virginia and West Virginia legislatures appropriated money for a boundary commission to look at 15 miles of fuzzy border between Loudoun County, Virginia and Jefferson County, West Virginia. Why? The Virginia attorney general had an assault prosecution thrown out of court. Because the boundary is so fuzzy, they couldn't prove the crime took place in Virginia.

Regarding the shift of Berkeley and Jefferson coounties to West Virginia in 1866, which Congress approved over the objections of the Commonwwealth of Virginia:2

Virginia protested what it viewed as the unconstitutional alteration of its border. Proponents of West Virginia argued that Virginia, having seceded from the Union, could not now claim protection under the Constitution. Virginia countered that the federal government's claim that a state could not secede was the reason for the Civil War and, therefore, the federal government could not abrogate Virginia's constitutional rights. Virginia may have been right but, in the wake of so much bloodshed, it could not win the sympathy of the U. S. Supreme Court.

How Virginia Split Into "East" and West Virginia (But With Only Three Shenandoah Valley Counties, and Without Southwest Virginia)

Links

References

1. The Constitution of West Virginia, http://www.vahistory.org/reconfiguring/constitution.htmla> (last checked August 10, 2010)
2. Stein, Mark, How the States Got Their Shapes, p.286, Smithsonian Books, 2008

Boundaries and Charters of Virginia
Virginia Places