This week in West Virginia history: April 13 through April 19
NOTE: Please CLICK HERE to read an important message from WV Humanities Council Executive Director Eric Waggoner.
April 9, 2025
Charleston WV – The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
April 13, 1873: Lawyer, diplomat and 1924 Democratic candidate for president John William Davis was born in Clarksburg. Davis argued 141 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. His last case was one of the most controversial, when he argued in 1952 to continue racial segregation in South Carolina.
April 13, 1951: Sculptor Bill Hopen was born. The Sutton artist’s works appear in government buildings, museums, churches, and hospitals around West Virginia, across the nation, and abroad.
April 14, 1774: Surveyors met at the mouth of the Kanawha River to establish military bounty claims in Kentucky. They became involved in several skirmishes with Indians in the region. This was the start of Dunmore’s War, the name given to the conflict in the Ohio Valley in the spring of 1774.
April 14, 1945: Twenty people were killed when a commercial airplane on its way to Morgantown flew off course and crashed into the side of Cheat Mountain.
April 15, 1872: Peter Godwin Van Winkle died in Parkersburg. Van Winkle was a member of the Governor’s Council of the Reorganized Government of Virginia, 1861-63, under Gov. Francis Pierpont. On August 4, 1863, Van Winkle was elected as one of West Virginia’s first two U.S. senators.
April 16, 1829: Jacob Beeson Jackson was born in Parkersburg. In 1881, he became West Virginia’s sixth governor.
April 16, 1894: Leonard Riggleman was born in a Randolph County cabin. As president of Morris Harvey College (now University of Charleston), he moved the school to Charleston in 1935 and led the college to accreditation in 1958.
April 16, 1923: Arch Moore was born in Moundsville. He was the first governor in 100 years to serve a second term, and he returned later for a third. He also was the second former governor to serve federal prison time.
April 17, 1827: Outdoorsman William “Squirrelly Bill” Carpenter was born on the Elk River near the mouth of Laurel Creek. Carpenter guided prominent West Virginians, including Gov. MacCorkle, through the wonders of the Elk Valley.
April 17, 1871: West Virginians approved the Flick Amendment, which allowed former Confederates to vote. The amendment also applied to people who had been formerly enslaved, but they had been enfranchised already by the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
April 18, 1861: At the beginning of the Civil War, retreating U.S. troops set fire to the national armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry to keep them out of Confederate hands. However, Virginia militia extinguished the flames and sent much of the weapon-making equipment south before destroying the site in June 1861.
April 18, 1912: The Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912–13 began when coal operators rejected the demands of their unionized workers for a wage increase. The strike that followed was one of the most dramatic and bloody conflicts in the early 20th century labor struggles in southern West Virginia known as the Mine Wars.
April 19, 1896: Writer Melville Davisson Post was born in Harrison County. His best-known works are the Randolph Mason series, published in three volumes, and the more successful collection, Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries.
April 19, 1902: Author Jean Lee Latham was born in Buckhannon. She wrote a number of children’s books, including Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, which won the 1956 Newberry Award.
e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia is a project of the West Virginia Humanities Council. For more information contact the West Virginia Humanities Council, 1310 Kanawha Blvd. E., Charleston, WV 25301; (304) 346-8500; or visit e-WV at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
