Fayette County, West Virginia

Fayette County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Fayetteville
Year Organized: 1831
Square Miles: 664

Court House:

100 N Court Street, PO Box 307
County Courthouse
Fayetteville, WV 25840-1200

Etymology - Origin of County Name

In honor of the Marquis de Lafayette

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

Early History of Fayette County, West Virginia

Fayette County was created by an act of the Virginia General Assembly in 1831 from parts of Greenbrier, Kanawha, Logan and Nicholas counties. It was named in honor of the Marquis (Gilbert Motier) de LaFayette (1757-1834), French military hero and American ally during the American Revolutionary War.

An expedition led by Captain Thomas Batts, Thomas Wood and Robert Fallam were the first Englishman to reach the present site of Fayette County. They reached the Kanawha Falls on the afternoon of September 16, 1671. Walter Kelly was the first English settler in the county, arriving in 1773. Soon afterwards, he was killed by Indians for trespassing on their hunting grounds. The following year, William Morris, Sr. became the first permanent English settler in the county, building a cabin at Cedar Grove at the mouth of Kelly's Creek in 1774.
The next group of settlers arrived around 1790 on the present site of Ansted. These were a group of "squatters" who lacked legal title to the land. Among them were the families of James Lykens, William Parrish, James Taylor, and Bailey Woods.

The first county court was held in 1831 at the Miles Manser general store which stood near Ansted, named for the British geologist David T. Ansted who owned the land on which the town was located. It served as the county seat until 1837 when the county's residents voted to make Fayetteville the permanent county seat.

Fayetteville was settled by Abraham Vandal in 1818 and was originally called Vandalia. When Vandal platted the land in 1836 he named the city in honor of the Marquis de LaFayette. The town was incorporated in 1883. The original county court house was constructed in 1838 after the town approved a tax levy of $1,500 for its construction "near the dead chestnut tree in Vandal's rye field." The use of indirect firing, now in universal use in militaries across the globe was first used in Fayetteville during the Civil War. From: West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia, compiled by Hardesty.

Neighboring Counties:

East: Greenbrier County
North: Clay County
Northeast: Nicholas County
Northwest: Kanawha County
Southeast: Summers County
Southwest: Raleigh County

Cities and Towns:

- Ansted	town	Incorporated Area
- Fayetteville (County Seat)	town	Incorporated Area
- Gauley Bridge	town	Incorporated Area
- Meadow Bridge	town	Incorporated Area
- Montgomery	city	Incorporated Area
- Mount Hope	city	Incorporated Area
- Oak Hill	city	Incorporated Area
- Pax	town	Incorporated Area
- Rainelle	town	Incorporated Area
- Smithers	city	Incorporated Area
- Thurmond	town	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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