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West Virginia Society
Sons
of the American Revolution |
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West Virginia hosted the National Congress in Huntington in 1947.
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New River between Gauley Bridge and Hawks Nest State Park, WV Pioneers who settled in what is now Virginia and West Virginia played an important role in securing and maintaining America's freedom from the British. On October 10, 1774, patriots from Southwest Virginia under the command of Col. Andrew Lewis met a Shawnee and Mingo Indian force led by Chief Cornstalk at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, a place called Point Pleasant. In 1908, the United States Senate declared that the Battle at Point Pleasant was the first battle of the Revolutionary War. Robert Dean Wood describes his 7th great-grandfather, Samuel Crowley, as the first man to die at Point Pleasant, hence the first man to die in the Revolutionary War. The Point Pleasant Battle Monument was dedicated in 1909. And, on September 11, 1782, eleven months after Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, about 40 British soldiers and 260 Indian warriors under the command of Captain Pratt and George Girty attacked Fort Henry near present day Wheeling, West Virginia. Colonel Ebenezer Zane was in command of the fort. The siege lasted two days and ended with the Indians and their British leaders fleeing back across the Ohio River. The last shot fired by a British soldier in America in the 1700's was fired at old Fort Henry. Thus the Revolutionary War began and ended in what is now West Virginia.
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