City Governement 1886/ History on line about Wheeling Wv.

In 1794 a post route was established between Morgantown and Wheeling, and as early as 1810 several small manufacturing plants were located in Wheeling. During the same time period the town had 115 dwellings, 11 stores, two potteries, a markethouse, a printing office, and a book store and library. The mail stage from Philadelphia, PA to Baltimore, MD arrived to the town of Wheeling twice a week by way of Pittsburg, PA and Wellsburg, VA (present-day WV), and thence westward; the mail was dispatched once a week on horses.

The National Road was completed from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, West Virginia in 1818 and for some time afterward, was the western terminus of the road. In 1849 the Wheelin Suspension Bridge was completed across the Ohio River at Wheeling, extending the road to the west.

The first manufacturing of window glass took place in Wheeling, in about 1820. During the 2nd-quarter of the 19th Century Wheeling became the national center for the manufacturing of cut (iron) nails, made from iron produced locally.

In 1848 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) began construction of a rail line between Cumberland, MD and Wheeling, VA (now West Virginia), a 200 mile long route over the Allegheny Mountains through the roughest region that had ever been traversed by a railroad in the US. Work began from both ends; westward from Fairmont and eastward from Wheeling. On December 24, 1852, the last spike was driven at Roseby's Rock, 18 miles east of Wheeling. Between Cumberland and Wheeling, eleven tunnels had been bored and 113 bridges constructed. The bridge completed across the Monongahela River, was then the largest iron bridge in America. At Tunnelton, the route passed through the Kingwood Tunnel, the longest railroad tunnel which had yet been constructed in the world. The first through train from the Atlantic coast to the Ohio River arrived at Wheeling on January 1, 1853, carrying the president of the B&O and distinguished guests and officials.

Because Wheeling was loyal to the Union during the Civil War, the first convention of delegates from the counties of northwestern Virginia met in Wheeling, May 13, 1861, which inaugurated the movement that resulted in the admission of West Virginia into the Union in 1863.

Wheeling was the capital of West Virginia from 1863 to 1870, when it was moved to Charleston. In 1875 the seat of government was again moved to Wheeling, and it remained there until 1885, when it was again changed to Charleston.

Wheeling's success as a industrial and manufacturing center was largely due to the abundance of cheap fuel in the area combined with the availability of water and railroad transportation systems needed to ship finished goods to market.

By the mid-1870's, Wheeling had a population of over 30,000 and several manufacturers producing cigars, malt liquors, glass, and various manufactured forms of iron. Six iron and nail factories located in Wheeling employed 2295 workers, producing 17,359 kegs of nails per week or about 902,200 per annum, with a market value of about $4,000,000 annually. Rolling mills for the manufacture of railroad bar, rod, hammer iron, sheet iron, bridge iron, and bolts were located in the town, as were two spike mills producing 50,000-60,000 kegs per annually. Wheeling's foundaries and machine shops employed 475 workers, while 60 persons were employed in extensive machine shops of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Six large glass works employed 869 workers (including some women), and the amount of their products exceeded $600,000 per annum.

During the same era, two breweries were in operation, producing beer and ale, as was a distillery that produced 150 gallons of whiskey per day. Additional industries located in the town included two oil refineries, six tanneries, carriage and wagon factories, cigar and tobacco factories, a woolen mill, merchant flouring, sawing planing mills and sash factories, marble works, a calico printing establishment, drug laboratories, furniture, copperware, and harness and trunk factories. In addition, first class steamboats were built and completely finished in Wheeling shops.

Street cars were introduced in Wheeling in 1866, and by 1880 connected the extremities of the city and furnished a means of communications with all the towns lying within a radius of five miles from the city's center.

The Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company, of Wheeling, WV, originated outdoor advertising in 1890, when they began painting Mail Pouch Tobacco signs on bridges and barns across the nation.

By the mid-1920's there were over over 200 industrial concerns in the city, employing over 9000 workers. The first radio station in West Virginia, WWVA, went on the air in Wheeling, WV in 1926. During the same era, a street-railway system and interurban lines linked Wheeling with its neighboring cities, with additional lines crossing the Ohio River serving cities in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Ship Building In Wheeling 

1816-The Washington was built at Wheeling, WV for Henry Shreve and four partners. The 150-foot-long, 400-ton stern-wheeler set the pattern for future steamboats, with a shallow hull, horizontal boilers on the main deck, passenger cabins on the second deck, twin smokestacks and a pilot house. Shreve named his passenger cabins after states of the union, calling them staterooms.

Steam Whistles

Steamboats did not always have steam whistles. Before that, bells had been used for passing signals and other communication between boats. According to Way's Packet Directory, the 1844-built REVENUE had the first steam whistle installed on a steamboat. Other sources are mentioning the MINGO CHIEF in the same year. Today whistle signals are still accepted as official passing signals on the rivers, but radio has replaced their function as required method of communication between boats.

The sound of whistles is varying tremendously. There are high tone, single note sounds, deep, sonorous 3-chimes, combinations of usually three single-tone whistles and much more different variants of steam whistles.

WHEELING'S LEADING PRODUCT

No city in the world no community large or small, in America or Europe, makes as many nails as Wheeling. The manufacture of nails was begun in Wheeling in 1834 with fourteen machines. In 1847 the first mill in the West built exclusively for the manufacture of nails was erected here with forty machines. From that early beginning this branch of manufacture has grown and widened until it has not only outstripped all other local industries, but has also placed Wheeling above all competing points in this line. The following tabular statement shows the production by kegs of nails in the different States from 1881 to 1884, inclusive:

	1881	1882	1883	1884
Pennsylvania	1,914,606	1,949,406	2,430,552	2,231,676
Ohio	800,655	796,857	1,210,700	1,310,715
West Virginia	1,241,102	1,023,711	1,827,484	1,093,611
Massachusetts	522,889	592,276	677,840	557,195
Illinois	352,643	462,956	526,108	712,650
Indiana	326,496	394,687	413,380	443,234
Virginia	127,586	109,806	161,279	207,676
California	-------	-------	111,500	120,332
New Jersey	218,521	360,340	333,107	305,307
Alabama	-------	-------	20,000	100,000
Kentucky	66,000	149,882	144,686	41,522
Tennessee	94,495	171,413	212,358	120,164
Wisconsin	------	-------	--------	162,851
Colorado	------	16,103	62,269	55,914
Nebraska	31,667	60,100	65,000	40,000
New York	2,756	165	11,768	14,500
Maine	-----	------	7,806	------
Total	5,794,206	6,147,097	7,762,737	7,581,379

The only nail mills in Ohio outside of those just over the river are at Ironton, Niles and Portsmouth. Until within a year there was a nail mill at Clifton, this State, but this has been removed. In the production of Ohio in the table nine mills shared. Of these the Bellaire, Laughlin and Junction furnished at least one third. West Virginia had six mills, and Wheeling five including Benwood. It perhaps may be necessary to explain that the mills at Bellaire, Martin's Ferry and Mingo are really Wheeling concerns, controlled by Wheeling capital. The Jefferson mill, at Steubenville, the Spaulding mill, at Brilliant, and the Belfont, at Ironton, are also partially owned here. But for the purpose of the comparison it is desired to make it is just to credit Wheeling with one third of the production of Ohio and five sixths of that of West Virginia. She really made more. Ohio is credited with a production of 1,310,715 kegs in 1884, one third of which is 436,905; West Virginia with 1,098,611, five sixths of which is 015,510. Thus the real product of Wheeling is seen to have been in 1874, 1,352,415, then that of any State except Pennsylvania, which has mills in eight or ten towns. The nail production of Pittsburgh does not nearly approach that of Wheeling. The factories of this city produce forty percent, approximately stated, of all the nails made west of Pittsburgh.

Below is a carefully prepared statement of the relative capacity and production of the mills located or owned in Wheeling, excluding the Jefferson, Spaulding and Belfont, referred to above:

		Machines
Junction, at Mingo	----------	126
Laughlin, at Martin's Ferry*	----------	226
Top(Wheeling Iron and Nail Co.)	----------	180
Riverside	----------	224
Belmont	----------	152
LaBelle	----------	142
Benwood	----------	173
Bellaire	----------	125
Total	----------	1,298

*When its factory, now in process of erection, is completed.

This gives an average of over 162 machines to a mill, 50 percent above the general average the country over. There is no larger nail works in existence than the Riverside, of this city. The Laughlin factory, as projected, will contain two machines more than the Riverside. These eight mills with 1,208 machines, have a daily capacity of 12,331 kegs of 100 pounds of nails each, making the possible product per week of five and a half days 67,820, or over 4,000,000 kegs in a year. The legitimate demand of the country in a year is placed by experts at a little over 5,000,000 kegs, so that it would be possible for Wheeling to make 80 percent of all the nails used in America. The estimated capacity has been proportionately exceeded here. For instance, in one week several years ago the Top mill factory cut 6,826 kegs of nails with 105 machines, a daily average of over ten kegs for each machine. Without taking a careful csnsus of each mill it would not be possible to give any exact figures as to the number of men employed by these mills. A conservative estimate places the number of men and boys on the pay rolls in the aggregate at 5,000.

Wheeling manufacturers were the pioneers in introducing soft steel as a material for making nails. Today iron nails are almost entirely superseded by steel. Yet it is less than four years since Mr. Frank Hearne, of the Riverside Company, and other Wheeling nail manufacturers made the first experiments in the rolling of Bessemer steel into nail plate and the cutting from it of nails. The first nail plate was rolled at Pittsburgh and cut into nails at the Riverside factory. The experiment was a distinguished success. At once a corporation of representative of the leading nail mills here was formed to erect a Bessemer steel plant to supply all with metal. Some of them held back, and the scheme failed. Then Mr. McCourtney, of the Bellaire mill, commenced the erection of a steel plant. He was closely followed by the Riverside Company. Later the Messrs. Laughlin and their fellow stockholders erected one to supply the Junction.

The Benwood Nail Works and its predecessor, the Virginia mill, dates back to 1847. It was the second iron works and the first exclusive nail manufactory in Wheeling, and the first mill devoted exclusively to making nails west of the mountains. It was organized by E.M. Norton, E.W. Stevens, John Hunter, William Fleming and Robert Morrison & Co. The mill was located first on the present site of the B. & O. Company, and the mill sought a new site on the McMechen farm, four miles south of the city, between the B. & O. track and the river. The track comprises 12 acres and the coal privileges of 100 acres additional was acquired at the same time. Work on the new mill was commenced in 1852 and completed in 1853. The owners consituted a firm under changing titles until 1864, when the plant was sold by a decree of court, and purchased by a company which reorganized as the Benwood Iron Works.

The site of the Benwood mill was chosen with reference to facilities of transportation, and the selection proved a wise one. It originally adjoined the Baltimore & Ohio road and river. The completion of the Central Ohio road, and the construction of the Baltimore & Ohio bridge over the Ohio river, and later the extension of the Pittsburgh, Wheeling & Kentucky Railroad to that point, and the building of the Ohio River Railroad have made the position of the Benwood mill one of the most commanding in the Ohio Valley.

The Company has always maintained its office in this city. It is now located on Fourteenth street near Water, Main and South. It blast furnace at Martin's Ferry, though not of large capacity, is one of the most successfully operated in this vicinity, the output of iron being in gratifying ratio to the consumption of raw material. This furnace formerly consumed ore from the Company's own land, not far distant, but this ore was abandoned for Superior ores, not being rich enough to pay to smelt it.

When the mill was located at Benwood, that now flourishing and populous suburb of Wheeling was a farm. The company built a number of tenement houses, thus forming the nucleus of the present considerable town of Benwood. Its property steadily increased in value as the town grew, the facilities increased and the city extended in its direction. A part of its real estate was recently sold to the Wheeling Steel Company, of whose fine plant the Benwood company is a third owner, and the original projector. The plant adjoins its factory on the east.

The old Virginia mill started with forty machines, an immense equipment in those days. The Benwood Company in its early history added ten acres to its original tract, and trebled its coal territory. Mr. Norton retired in 1866. Since that time the office of President has been successively filled by the late C. Oglebay, A.W. Campbell, Alexander Laughlin, L.S. Delaplaine and the present incumbent, John G. Hoffman, Sr., Major Loring has filled the position of Secretary since the organization of the company. Mr. George Wise is Assistant Secretary.

By 1866 the capacity of the mill had been enlarged to 65 machines. In 1876 the mill was burned, but at once rebuilt on a larger scale, the new factory being of fire brick and iron throughout, and one of the most admirable mill structures in the country. The new building was 300x120 feet in dimensions, and had 124 machines. An additional factory building of the same substantial and approved character as the old, was completed last year, and the number of machines increased to 173, with daily a capacity of about 1,700 kegs of nails.

An illustration of the almost phenomenal success which has attended the manufacture of nails in Wheeling is furnished by the fact that the Benwood mill, paying, with other local factories, much larger wages than competing factories in the East, yet declared dividends in the seven years from 1866 to 1872, inclusive aggregating over 186 percent. Of these 135 percent were paid in cash and 51 in new stock. Thirty-five percent was calculated on this new stock.

The management of the Benwood has been charecterized by that even balance between enterprise and conservatism which builds the solid manufacturing structures which are Wheeling's pride. None of the Wheeling mills except the Riverside exceeds her in extent or capacity; no mill anywhere produces nails of better quality. The completion of the Wheeling Steel Plant gives her all the advantages enjoyed by any nail manufacturing concern, and she possesses certain special advantages attendant upon her location and her early start in the business. The fire of the centennial year was a blessing in disguise, being the means of giving the company an enlarged and modernized establishment in the lead in many respects in her department of industry.

The Board of Directors of the Benwood is composed of Messrs. John G. Hoffman, Sr., L.S. Delaplain, A.W. Campbell, George B. Caldwell, Jacob Wise, Jacob Berger, Louis C. Stifel and E.W. Paxton. The late Thomas Hughes was the ninth member, and the vacancy caused by his death has not since been filled.

Such a list of names identified with such an institution is a sufficient guarantee that the Benwood will maintain the high position it has taken, and add in increasing measure to the lustre of Wheeling's fame.

The Bellaire Nail Works manufactures Bessemer steel blooms and billets, pig iron and steel nails. This concern is one of the youngest and most lusty of Wheeling's offspring. It has always been owned and operated to a greater or less extent by Wheeling capital and brains, though not so distinctively a Wheeling industry as others separated from the city by the Ohio river. the corporators were Wheeling men - A.L. Wetherald, Thomas Harris, jr., J. Percy Harden, H.L. Beck, H. Hardenstein and George Leasure. The charter was obtained in 1866, and in the fall of that year the company completed its organization with fifty stockholders representing $157,00. Of these stockholders all but Gen. B.R. Cowen, W.G. Barnard, James McCourtney and Fred Schenck were practical operators,

The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Sept. 14, 1886.

Important Events in Ohio County during the 1800s

In 1814, the Linsly Institute (now Linsly School), located in Wheeling, was chartered, and was endowed by Noah Linsly, Esquire. The Linsly School is the oldest preparatory school west of the Alleghenies.

In 1818, Ohio County was transformed into one the nation's most important trading centers and rest stops for pioneers heading west following the extension of the National Road to Wheeling.

On April 17, 1861, the Virginia legislature approved an ordinance of succession from the Union. It authorized a special election, to be held on May 23, 1861, to decide whether to remain in the Union. Union loyalists gathered in Wheeling from May 13-15, 1861 to organize opposition to succession. The meeting has since become known as the First Wheeling Convention. Following Virginia's voters' approval of secession, Union loyalists held another meeting in Wheeling to form a new government loyal to the Union. The Second Wheeling Convention met from June 11-25, 1861. It formed the Restored or Loyal Virginia Government, and named Wheeling its capital. The Second Wheeling Convention met again from August 6-21, 1861 and adopted a dismemberment ordinance calling for an election in 39 counties to form a new state, tentatively called Kanawha. On October 24, 1861, by a vote of 18,408 to 781, the voters in these 39 counties, plus Hampshire and Hardy counties, approved the formation of a new state. A third convention then met in Wheeling from November 26, 1861 to February 18, 1862 to write a constitution for the new state (it met again from February 12-20, 1863 to add a slavery emancipation clause required by Congress as a condition for admission into the Union). The Third Wheeling Convention named the state West Virginia, and added eleven more counties to the state, including several controlled by the Confederacy.

The Ohio County Seat

The first Ohio County court meeting was held on January 16, 1777 at Black's cabin near West Liberty. West Liberty, established on Reuben Foreman and Providence Mounce's land on November 29, 1787, served as Ohio County's seat from 1777 to 1797. At the first court session, Zachariah Sprigg, Thomas Waller, and Daniel McClain were sworn in as justices of the peace, John McColloch was named county sheriff, and James McMechen was named county clerk.

Wheeling became the county seat in 1797. At that time, Wheeling had about 500 residents. The town was platted in 1793 by Colonel Ebenezer Zane and was then known as Zanesburg. The town was officially established on December 25, 1795 by an act of the Virginia General Assembly. It was incorporated on January 16, 1806, and renamed Wheeling. The origin of the city's name is subject to much conjecture. According to John Brittle, who was held captive by Delaware Indians from 1791 to 1796, the town's name originated from the Indian word "Weeling" which means "place of the skull." He claimed that when the first white settlers entered Wheeling Creek they were killed by Delaware Indians. The Indians supposedly beheaded one of the men, placed his head on the end of a pole, and pointed the face toward the river to scare off any other whites that might make their way into the Delaware's territory. Others claim that the city may have been named after a Catholic missionary named "Wheelan."

Wheeling was the site of several firsts, both for the state and for the nation. The first bank in present-day West Virginia, The Northwestern Bank of Virginia, opened in Wheeling in 1817. The first telegraph line to West Virginia reached Wheeling in 1847. The Wheeling Suspension Bridge, completed in 1849 and then the longest in the world, was the first bridge to span the Ohio River. Wheeling was West Virginia's first state capitol until 1870, and regained that honor in 1875 and 1880. The first telephone in West Virginia was installed in Wheeling in 1880 and, in 1890, Wheeling's Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company originated outdoor advertising when they began painting Mail Pouch Tobacco signs on bridges and barns across the nation.