History
Located in southeastern West Virginia in the Kanawha Valley, Fayette County was formed from parts of Greenbrier, Kanawha, Logan, and Nicholas counties by an 1831 act of the Virginia General Assembly. 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 courthouse 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 first native settlers in central West Virginia were the Mound Builders, also known as the Adena. Remnants of the Mound Builders' civilization have been found throughout West Virginia, in and around Robson, Dothan, Kincaid, Lively, and Ramsey.
In the late 1500s and early 1600s, the several thousand Huron Indians that inhabited present-day West Virginia were driven from the state by members of the powerful Iroquois Confederacy.
In 1744, Virginia officials purchased ownership to West Virginia from the Iroquois with the Treaty of Lancaster, reducing the Iroquois Confederacy presence in the state. During the mid-1700s, the English made it clear to the various Indian tribes that they intended to settle the frontier, while the French were more interested in trade. Although the Iroquois Confederacy officially remained neutral during the French and Indian War, many individuals actually sided with the French. Although the French lost the war and ceded all of its North American property to the British, many of the Indians continued to view the British as a threat to their sovereignty and continued to fight. Fearing further tension between Native Americans and settlers, England's King George III issued the Proclamation of 1776, prohibiting settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains.
Many land speculators, including George Washington, violated the proclamation by claiming vast acreage in western Virginia. In 1768, the Native American group of the Six Nations signed the Treaty of Hard Labour and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix along with the Cherokee, relinquishing their claims on the territory between the Ohio River and the Alleghenies to the British, and therefore opening present day West Virginia to settlers.
European Pioneers and Settlers
Accompanied by Percute, and Indian guide, an expedition led by Captain Thomas Batts, Thomas Wood, and Robert Fallam were the first Englishmen to reach the site of present-day Fayette County. They reached the Kanawha Falls on the afternoon of September 16, 1671, and held a simple ceremony honoring King Charles II and Virginia's Governor William Berkley, who had commissioned the expedition.
In the late 1700s, a group of “squatters” who did not hold legal title to the land arrived in what is today Ansted. These squatters included the families of James Lykens, William Parrish, James Taylor, and Bailey Woods.
Other Unique Historical Facts
The first county court ever to be held in Fayette was at Miles Manser's General Store in 1831. The store stood near Ansted, which was named for the town's land owner, British geologist David T. Ansted.
Most of Fayette County's residents supported the Confederacy during the Civil War, primarily because they believed in state's rights. At that time, less than five percent of the county's residents were slaves.
In 1861, after an invasion from Brigadier General Jacob Cox, the ill-equipped and poorly trained Confederate forces abandoned Charleston and retreated into the Kanawha Valley. This withdrawal made Fayette County the focal point of both the Union and Confederate activities in West Virginia.
Robert E. Lee, during his stay in Kanawha Valley, began growing his famous white beard, and first saw his famous military horse “Traveller” while on Sewell Mountain.
In 1895, a preparatory school for West Virginia University was founded in Montgomery. After being converted to a trade school in 1917, its name was changed to the West Virginia Institute of Technology. Popularly nicknamed West Virginia Tech or the “M.I.T.” of the Mountains, the West Virginia Institute of Technology continues to serve the people of West Virginia today.
