7000BC-1000 BC - Several differing Archaic cultures developed in the Northern Panhandle, the Eastern Panhandle, and the Kanawha Valley.
Most of the large game became extinct, and the early hunters either died out or adapted to a culture of hunting small game and gathering edible plants. in 6000 BC
1600 BC-1000 BC - Adena people differed from the Archaic because they organized villages
1000 BC - Marked the beginning of the Early Woodland or Adena culture.
500 BC - 1000 CE - Members of the Hopewell culture began migrating into the Kanawha Valley and erected mounds in the South Charleston and St. Albans area
1000 CE - 1600 CE - West Virginia was occupied by Native Americans of various tribes
1607 - England establishes the Virginia Colony
1669 - John Lederer, German physician in the employ of colonial governor William Berkeley become the first Europeans to see what's now WV. Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, journeys down the Ohio River and lands at several places in what's now WV.
1670s - Exploration of the land now West Virginia begins
1671 - English expedition led by Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam explores the New River valley. It descends the river to Peter's Falls on the future Virginia-WV border and claim for England all the land drained by the New River and its tributaries.
1712 - Baron Christopher de Graffenreid visits the Eastern Panhandle looking for land for Swiss families.
1716 - Lt.-Gov. Alexander Spotswood and an accompanying party penetrate western Virginia to the peaks of the Alleghenies.
1719 - Presbyterians at Shepherdstown founded the first church in WV, the Potomoke Church.
1722 - Virginia government allows families to live rent-free on land owned by the state for ten years to encourage settlers. The Iroquois surrender their claims to land south of the Ohio River including counties in the eastern panhandle.
1725 - Fur traders enter the area west of the Appalachians. John Van Nehne, an Indian trader, explores the northern part of western Virginia.
1727 - Pennsylvania Germans establish a settlement at New Mecklenburg (Shepherdstown).
1730 - First recorded grants of land in WV are made to Isaac and John Van Meter.
1731 - The first permanent settlement in what's now WV is believed to have been made in what's now Berkeley county by Morgan Morgan.
1732 - After 1732, Scotch-Irish, Welsh, and German pioneers begin to settle the western portions of Virginia. Harper's Ferry settled.
1742 - John Howard and John Peter Salley (Salling) discovers coal on a river he named the Coal River near Racine. Thomas Mayberry construct first iron furnace west of the Blue Ridge at Bloomery on the Shenandoah River.
1744 - Territory between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River ceded to the English by Indians of the Six Nations for 400 pounds.
1748 - George Washington surveys land in western Virginia for Lord Fairfax and visits Bath (now Berkeley Springs). The Harpers Ferry carries passengers across the Shenandoah River.
1749 - Jacob Marlin and Stephen Sewell make first recorded settlement west of the Alleghenies near Marlinton. Ohio Company receives a grant of 500,000 acres of land between the upper Ohio River and the Monongahela and Great Kanawha Rivers. Celeron de Bienville buries lead plates along the Ohio River to affirm French claims to that valley and the interior.
1750 - First frontier fort, Fort Ohio, built at Ridgeley, now Mineral County. Thomas Walker, on behalf of the Loyal Company, explores the Greenbrier Valley and enters Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap.
1754 - December 13 - Hampshire county, WV's first county, created from Augusta, Frederick county, formed to provide orderly government for the early pioneers along the upper Potomac. By the time of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), several thousand settlers live in the eastern portion of western Virginia.
1755 - General Braddock marches his army through Jefferson, Berkeley and Morgan counties en route to Pittsburgh where he suffered defeat by the French and Indians. Fort Ashby constructed under the orders of George Washington in what's now Mineral County.
-July 3 - Settlement of Draper's Meadows in New River section attacked by Shawnee Indians and nearly all the settlers are killed or captured.
1757 - Hampshire county, the first in the state, organized.
1758 - The first settlement at present-day Morgantown takes place.
1762 - December 23 - Governor of Virginia signs bills of incorporation establishing the towns of Romney and Mecklenburg (later Shepherdstown), the oldest towns in what's now WV.
1763 - Harper's Ferry incorporated. The British government forbids occupation of lands west of the Alleghenies.
1764 - General Horatio Gates, who was second in command to George Washington, settles in Jefferson County until 1790.
1765 - Clarksburg settled.
1766 - Survey of Mason-Dixon Line reaches western boundary between Maryland and western Virginia. After raids by Delaware and Mingo Indians destroyed it, a new community of Morgantown founded by Zackquill Morgan (son of Morgan Morgan) in 1766-1767.
1767 - Ice's Ferry, Monongalia County, settled by Frederick Ice. His son Adam, born the same year, was the first white child born in the Monongahela Valley. .
1768 - The Iroquois cede lands north of the Little Kanawha River to the British in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. The first recorded flood of the Ohio River. The Vandalia Company (or Walpole Co.) organized and includes all of present WV west of the Allegheny Mountains and eastern Kentucky. Isaac Williams, noted spy and hunter, founds Williamstown.
1769 - Hundreds of settlers begin to enter the WV area. Wheeling founded by Col. Ebenezer Zane and his brother.
1770 - George Washington makes a note in his journal that he saw coal on a visit to his lands in the Ohio and Kanawha valleys. "Harewood," the home of Colonel Samuel Washington, the brother of George Washington, was built in Jefferson County near Charles Town. James Madison later married Dolly Payne Todd there.
1771 - John Floyd discovers natural gas in the Kanawha Valley.
1772 - George R. Clark explores Ohio and Kanawha rivers. February - Berkeley county created from Frederick county. Simon Kenton, adventurer and border scout, and two companions spend the winter in camp on the Elk River near Charleston. They were the first white men to live there.
1774 - William Morris, Sr., becomes the first permanent English settler in Kanawha county, building a cabin at Cedar Grove at the mouth of Kelly's Creek. Morris bought the land abandoned by Kelly killed by Indians for trespassing on their hunting grounds. Fort Fincastle (renamed Henry, in 1776) built at Wheeling. Prickett's Fort built near Fairmont.
- October 10 - The Battle of Point Pleasant between Virginia settlers and militia and a confederacy of Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandot, Cayuga, and other Indian tribes led by Cornstalk. The Virginians win the battle, concluding the campaign known a Lord Dumnore's War, and extract a treaty from the Indians that forces them to give up much of the disputed land.
1775 - Gas discovered near Charleston.
1776 - Western Virginia petition the Continental Congress to establish a separate government for their region. A church established on what's now the Meadowbrook Road, on SR 24 in Harrison County.
- October - The Virginia General Assembly establishes the town of Bath (Berkeley Springs). County government west of the Alleghenies begins as Ohio and Monongalia counties are formed from the district of West Augusta.
1777 - Indian warfare begins and continues throughout the American Revolution.
- September - Indians unsuccessfully besiege Fort Henry.
- November 10 - Indian chieftain Cornstalk, his son, and Chief Red Hawk are murdered by whites at Fort Randolph.
1778 - October - Greenbrier county created from Botetourt, Montgomery county. Martinsburg laid out by Adam Stephen, an American Revolutionary military leader.
1782 - A Revolutionary War battle fought at Wheeling. The British and Indians attack Fort Henry.
- September 10 - Second siege of Fort Henry.
1783 - Settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains attempt to create a new state called "Westsylvania."
1784 - Mason and Dixon's line accepted as Virginia-Pennsylvania border.
- July - Harrison county created from Monongalia county.
1785 - Rehoboth Church, said to be the first Protestant church west of the Alleghenies, built near Union in Monroe County. (However, see an entry in 1776.). Andrew Ice started the first authorized ferry in western Virginia.
1786 - December 10 - Hardy county created from Hampshire county.
- October - Charles Town chartered by the Virginia General Assembly, laid out on 80 acres of land owned by Charles Washington, the youngest brother of George Washington. The town's name was originally Charlestown.
1787 - October - Randolph county created from Harrison county. First publication printed within the state is a pamphlet by James Rumsey, A Short Treatise on the Application of Steam, which may have been printed in Shepherdstown.
1788 - Virginia ratifies federal Constitution; WV, as part of Virginia, becomes part of United States.
- November 14 - Kanawha county created from Greenbrier & Montgomery county; Pendleton county created from Augusta, Hardy, Rockingham county. The first permanent white settlement built at what's now Charleston. The settlement occurred around Fort Lee, at the present intersection of Brooks Street and Kanawha Boulevard.
1789 - Daniel Boone commissioned lieutenant colonel of the Kanawha Militia. The road from Winchester reaches Clarksburg.
1790 - The Potomak Guardian and Berkeley Advertiser, western Virginia's first newspaper, published in Shepherdstown, by Nathaniel Willis. In 1791 the newspaper was moved to Martinsburg. In 1799, Nathaniel Willis moved to Martinsburg and began the Martinsburg Gazette. First US census shows population of WV at 55,873.
1791 - Daniel Boone elected as a delegate to the Virginia Assembly. He walked the entire way to Richmond to take his seat.
1792 - June 30 - The first post office in what's now WV established at Martinsburg.
1794 - Peter Tarr constructs the first iron furnace west of the Alleghenies at King's Creek, in the northern panhandle. "Mad Anthony" Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers (Ohio) halts Indian attacks in WV.
- December 19 - Charlestown (Charleston) established by the Virginia General Assembly. Population 35 living in seven houses.
1795 - Daniel Boone leave Kanawha Valley.
1796 - November 30 - Brooke county created from Ohio county
1797 - The second WV newspaper, the Impartial Observer, established at Shepherdstown. The same press printed the first book printed in WV, The Christian Panoply, in the same year. Harman Blennerhassett purchases an island in the Ohio River near Parkersburg, where he built his famous mansion.
1798 - December 21 - Wood county created from Harrison county. Mecklenburg renamed Shepherdstown by the Virginia Assembly.
1799 - January 14 - Monroe county created from Greenbrier county.
1800 - By 1800 there are 78,000 people in what's now WV, with 35,000 west of the Alleghenies. There are 13 counties, 8 post offices, and at least 19 incorporated towns.
1801 - January 8 - Jefferson county created from Berkeley county.
1803 - The Monongalia Gazette and Morgantown Advertiser becomes the first newspaper west of the Alleghenies.
1804 - January 2 - Mason county created from Kanawha county.
- January - The Monongalia Gazette and Morgantown Advertiser published at Morgantown.
1805 - Harman Blennerhassett and Aaron Burr plotted to conquer territory of the US south of the Ohio River on an island in the Ohio River (Blennerhasset Island).
1806 - First salt well drilled in Great Kanawha Valley, increasing production from 150 to 1250 pounds a day by 1808.
1807 - Wheeling's first newspaper, the Repository, published.
1808 - Lewisburg Academy (later the Greenbrier Military School) opens its doors to boys, according to WV Yesterday and Today by Conley and Stutler.
1809 - January 2 - Cabell county created from Kanawha county.
1810 - Western Virginia protests unequal representation in Virginia legislature. Oil discovered. Parkersburg adopted as the new name for the town previously known as Newport and Stokeleyville.
Clarksburg's first newspaper, the Bye-Stander, published.
1814 - December 16 - Tyler county created from Ohio county. Linsly Institute established at Wheeling. (Old capitol building of WV.). The Monongalia Academy established at Morgantown.
1815 - James Wilson discovers the nation's first natural gas well near the present Capitol in Charleston.
1816 - December 18 - Lewis county created from Harrison county.
1817 - Kanawha Salt Company, first trust in United States, organized. The first bank in what's now WV, the Northwestern Bank of Virginia, opens.
1818 - The Cumberland Road (or National Road) completed from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling.
- January 19 - Preston county created from Monongalia county.
- January 30 - Nicholas county created from Greenbrier, Kanawha, Randolph county. Charles Town renamed Charleston. First commercial coal mine near Fairmont opens.
1820 - March - Morgan county created from Berkeley, Hampshire county. Charleston's first newspaper, the Kenawha Spectator, published.
1821 - December 21 - Pocahontas county created from Bath, Pendleton, Randolph county.
1823 - The Christian Baptist, WV's first religious newspaper, begins publication.
1824 - January 12 - Logan county created from Cabell, Giles, Kanawha, Tazewell county.
1825 - Marquis de Lafayette and his son arrive in Wheeling on a tour of the US
1829 - Virginia counties west of the Allegheny Mountains protest a constitution that favors the slave-holding counties in representation.
1830 - The Wheeling Gazette proposes separation of western Virginia from eastern Virginia.
1831 - Slavery debates magnify divisions in Virginia's political and social thought. Fayette county created from Greenbrier, Kanawha, Logan and Nicholas county
- March 1 - Jackson county created from Kanawha, Mason, Wood county.
1833 - A cholera epidemic strikes the Wheeling district, killing 23 in one day.
1834 - Ohio Mining Company, the first commercial coal company in the Kanawha Valley, incorporated.
1835 - March 12 - Marshall county created from Ohio county.
- October 14 - John Templeton, John Moore, Stanley Cuthbert, and Ellen Ritchie are charged with illegally teaching blacks to read in Wheeling.
1836 - First railroad reached the state at Harpers Ferry. Wheeling incorporated.
- January 15 - Braxton county created from Kanawha, Lewis, Nicholas county.
- June - Railroad bridge into Harpers Ferry from Maryland completed.
1837 - March 17 - Mercer county created from Giles, Tazewell county. Marshall Academy (later Marshall University) established in Guyandotte (later named Huntington).
1838 - April 4 - Virginia Assembly creates Town of Beckley.
1840 - Bethany College, WV's oldest degree-granting college, founded by Alexander Campbell, under the control of the Christian church.
1841 - The Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike completed, extending from Staunton, Virginia, to Parkersburg.
1842 - January 18 - Wayne county created from Cabell county; Marion county created from Harrison, Monongalia county.
1843 - March 3 - Barbour county created from Harrison, Lewis, Randolph county
- February 18 - Ritchie county created from Harrison, Lewis, Wood county. Fairmont so named.
1844 - January 19 - Taylor county created from Barbour, Harrison, Marion county.
1845 - February 4 - Doddridge county created from Harrison, Lewis, Ritchie, Tyler county; Gilmer county created from Kanawha, Lewis county.
1846 - January 10 - Wetzel county created from Tyler county.
1847 - March 11 - Boone county created from Cabell, Kanawha, Logan county. The first telegraph line reaches WV, when a tap wire from a main line on the western side of the Ohio River put into use at Wheeling.
1848 - January 15 - Hancock county created from Brooke county
- March 11 - Putnam county created from Cabell, Kanawha, Mason county
January 19 - Wirt county created from Jackson, Wood county.
1849 - October 30 - The 1010-foot Wheeling Bridge completed. From 1849 until 1851 it was the longest bridge in the world; it was blown down in 1854.
1850 - January 23 - Raleigh county created from Fayette county
- January 26 - Wyoming county created from Logan county.
1851 - Joseph Johnson of Bridgeport becomes the only governor of Virginia to come from the western sector and the first to be chosen by popular vote. New constitution grants concessions to the west.
- March 26 - Upshur county created from Barbour, Lewis, Randolph county. Pleasants county created from Ritchie, Tyler, Wood county.
1852 - The Intelligencer, the oldest daily newspaper in WV established in Wheeling.
- December 24 - Completion of the B&O Railroad to Wheeling. Work on the line had begun in 1828. When it was completed, it stretched 370 miles from Baltimore to Wheeling and was the longest railroad in the world.
1854 - Wheeling Bridge blown down by high winds. (New span completed in 1856.)
1856 - March 5 - Calhoun county created from Gilmer county.
- March 7 - Tucker county created from Randolph county.
- March 11 - Roane county created from Gilmer, Jackson, Kanawha county.
1857 - Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reaches Parkersburg.
1858 - February 28 - McDowell county created from Tazewell county.
- March 29 - Clay county created from Braxton, Nicholas county. Woodburn Female Seminary located at Morgantown.
1859 - The Rathbone Well, the first successful well drilled purposefully for oil in WV, was drilled on Burning Springs Run in Wirt County. Martinsburg incorporated.
- October 16 - John Brown raid the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
- December 2 - John Brown hanged in Charles Town.
1860 - The 1860 census shows Charleston's population 1,520. A commercial oil well drilled at Burning Springs.
Webster county created from Braxton, Nicholas, Randolph county.
1861 - During the Civil War WV contributes about 32,000 soldiers to the Union Army and about 10,000 to the Confederate cause. Union victories drive the Confederate forces out of the Monongahela and Kanawha valleys.
- April 17 - The Virginia state convention votes to secede from the Union, contingent on approval by popular vote.
- May 13- 15 - Delegates from 25 counties meet at the First Wheeling Convention, repudiating the secession from the Union.
- May 23 - Virginia's ordinance for secession ratified, but a majority of voters in the western counties voice opposition.
- June 3 - The first land battle of the Civil War fought at Philippi, according to one accounting.
- June 11-25 - The second Wheeling convention formally restores the government of Virginia on a loyal basis and chooses Francis H. Pierpont of Fairmont as governor. (After two senators, selected by this government to represent the Unionists of Virginia, had been accepted by Congress the new statehood movement formally began.)
- August 6 - Second Wheeling convention reconvenes.
- August 20 - Second Wheeling convention adopts a dismemberment ordinance that provides for the formation of a new state to be called Kanawha.
- October 24 - In a public referendum, voters overwhelmingly support creation of a new state, to be called Kanawha.
- November 11 - Union troops burn the town of Guyandotte in Cabell County in retaliation for a raid by the Confederate cavalry.
- November 26 - Second Wheeling convention reconvenes, changes name of new state to WV, begins to draft a constitution, and extends the boundaries of the new state.
1862 - January - Seven men meeting in Parkersburg form the Colored School Board of Parkersburg, W. Va., and organize a day school for black children, the first public school for blacks in WV.
- April - Voters approve the new Constitution for WV.
- May 13 - The legislature of the "Restored Government of Virginia" petitions the US Congress for admission.
- May 23 - Union troops defeat Confederates at Lewisburg.
- July 14 - Senate pass the WV Statehood bill, changing the slavery provision of the WV Constitution to allow for the gradual emancipation of slavery.
- September 13 - Battle of Charleston and after which the city occupied by Union troops.
- December 31 - President Lincoln approves the act of admission to the Union, to take effect upon the insertion into the State constitution of a clause that would provide for the gradual emancipation of slaves.
1863 - Parkersburg incorporated.
- April 20 - President Lincoln issues a proclamation admitting WV to the Union after a 60-day waiting period.
- April 27 - Confederate General William Jones attempts to burn the suspension bridge over the Monongahela River.
- April 29 - Jones defeats Union troops at Fairmont and burns the library of Francis H. Pierpont.
- June 20 - WV admitted to the Union as 35th state. The new state begins to function as Arthur I. Boreman of Parkersburg inaugurated at Wheeling as the first governor.
- July 15 - Governor approves an act giving blacks the same rights to criminal trial as whites, but denying them the right to serve on a jury.
1864 - First WV popular vote for President: Lincoln, 23,152; McClellan, 10,438
1865 - First free public school in state opens in Charleston.
- February 3 - Governor approves an act abolishing slavery, providing for the immediate emancipation of all slaves.
- April 9 - The Civil War ends.
1866 - The state constitution amended to deny citizenship and suffrage to all persons who had supported the Confederacy. Moundsville selected as the site for the state penitentiary. Mineral county created from Hampshire county; Grant county created from Hardy county. A hospital for the insane completed at Weston, the first public institution in the state.
- May 24 - Voters ratify constitutional amendment denying citizenship to all who aided the Confederacy.
- June 9 - The Monongalia Academy and the Woodburn Female Seminary are offered to the Legislature for use as a college. (In the following year, the Legislature accepts the offer, establishing the Agricultural College of WV.)
1867 - Legislature establishes the Agricultural College of WV in Morgantown. Lincoln county created from Boone, Cabell, Kanawha, Putnam county. Fairmont State College established. (It developed from the Fairmont Academy, which was founded in 1852.). Storer College established at Harpers Ferry to educate former slaves.
- January 16 - Legislature ratifies the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
1868 - The Agricultural College of WV renamed WV University.
1869 - February 10 - Charleston named the seat of government "on and after April 1, 1870." (The seat shifted to Wheeling in 1875 but restored to Charleston permanently in 1885.)
- March - Preston County Courthouse burns; all records are destroyed.
- March 23 - WV State Senate ratifies the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by a vote of 10 to 6, with 6 either absent or abstaining. (The previous day, the House of Delegates ratified the amendment by a vote of 22 to 19.)
1870 - Charleston incorporated. 1870 census: WV's population 442,014. School for the Deaf and Blind established at Romney. Huntington founded as the western terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad by Collis P. Huntington, president of the railroad. The Legislature establishes West Liberty State College.
- April 1 - The state capitol moved from Wheeling to Charleston.
- October 3 - The first brick street in the world laid in Charleston.
1871 - The Flick Amendment to the state constitution adopted, granting suffrage to all male citizens regardless of race. Summers county created from Fayette, Greenbrier, Mercer, Monroe county.
- April 27 - All persons stripped of their voting privileges in 1866 have their citizenship restored.
1872 - Victorious Democrats formulate a new constitution at Charleston; it is ratified by the voters.
An act of the Legislature establishes a branch normal school at Concord for the training of teachers. The school became Concord College. Hotel constructed in Charleston for those doing government business.
1873 - Chesapeake and Ohio Railway completes its line across the state, from White Sulphur Springs to Huntington. Kanawha Chronicle (now the Charleston Gazette) established. Also known as the Kanawha Gazette and the Daily Gazette. Joseph Harvey Long purchases the Huntington Herald. He installed and operated the first sterotype and linotype in WV.
- March 12 - Governor approves acts authorizing that only white males over the age of 21 could serve on juries.
- June 11 - Charleston Mayor Snyder and the city council appoint Ernest Porterfield as a police officer, the first black to receive a public job in Kanawha County and possibly WV. Within one hour, the remainder of the white police force, including Chief Rand, resigned. Rather than ask for Porterfield's resignation, Snyder hired a new force.
1875 - State capital moved to Wheeling.
1876 - Broaddus College moves from Winchester, Virginia, to Clarksburg. (In 1909 the college moved to Philippi. It was later combined with Alderson Junior College to become Alderson-Broaddus College.)
1877 - July - Governor Mathews sends the state militia to Martinsburg, where Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers had been stopping trains to protest wage cuts. When many militia members sympathized with the strikers, President Rutherford B. Hayes dispatched federal troops to break the first national labor strike. The strike spread to Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and New York.
-August 7 - In a public referendum, state residents decide whether Charleston, Clarksburg, or Martinsburg to become the permanent site of the capital.
1879 - The first oil pipeline in WV completed, running 15 miles from Volcano to Parkersburg. Later in 1879 the town and the oil field at Volcano were burned. The Bloch brothers begin the manufacture of Mail Pouch tobacco at Wheeling. In Wheeling, telephone line installed between the two Behrens grocery stores, apparently the first telephone connection in WV.
- October - Taylor Strauder decision, the US Supreme Court had found the WV law forbidding blacks from serving on juries to be unconstitutional
1880 - Governor Mathews sends militia to Hawks Nest to stop the state's first major coal strike. 1880 census: WV's population 618,457. A telephone exchange installed in Wheeling, the first in the state.
- June 22 - Beckley's first newspaper, the Raleigh County Index (later the Raleigh Register), begins publishing.
- September 27th - "Weston Sanitarium Incident" Dr. Argent, then-Malkavian Primogen, organizes a substantial portion of his Clan in the city of Morgantown to aide him in his "devine calling". His calling he said, was to cleanse the city with fire and madness. He organized his followers at the hospital and began a campaign of ghouling the most violently psychotic patients in preperation for unleashingleashing an armed mob of lunatics, fed on vampiric vitae, to raze the city. Through unknown means Prince Worthington discovered this foul plot and had Dr. Argent staked out for the sun upon his confidant return to town for court, mere nights before his plot was to be executed. It was due to this event that the Prince will not allow a Malkavian to sit upon the Primogen council.
1881 - February 3 - The governor approves a bill allowing all eligible voting citizens, including blacks, to be jurors.
1882 - The Wheeling electric light plant begins operation. A telephone exchange installed in Parkersburg. Hatfield-McCoy feud erupts.
1883 - The building of the Norfolk and Western Railroad brings railway service to McDowell, Mercer, and other counties in southern WV. The first long distance line in the state constructed, to connect Wheeling to Pittsburgh. A telephone exchange installed in Charleston.
1884 - The Ohio River floods Huntington. Telephone exchanges are installed in Huntington and Moundsville.
1885 - Charleston becomes the permanent state capital. The National Gas Co. of WV established, producing gas from northern panhandle wells...
September 27th, 1885 - Prince Constantine is dead. His Majesty met the Final Death after leaveing mysteriously in the middle of a most important court. The Seneschal and Harpy were left to deal with not only the question of His Majestys death but also an influx of Kindred (mostly from London) to the domain.
The night became even more mysterious when a servant to one of the Tremere was staked through the chest and burned, aparently by the smae party responsable for the death of the Prince. Despite these unpleasent circumstances, the Camarilla of Morgantown carried on with the grace and dignity one would expect from Kindred of such excellent breeding.
October 18th, 1885 - Victor Moore, the Toreador Primogen invited all Kindred in the city to attend a salon in an attempt to relieave some of the political stress concerning the death of the Prince. The evening was a smashinf success at first, attended by many Kindred of almost every clan in the city. A prestigious guest, Justine DiAngelo Constantine, the "sister" of the late Prince was sent by her sire from New York to Morgantown to attend the event. She was to see how the investigation of his death was being conducted and report back to New York.
An hour after the festivites were underway the guests were shocked when Ms. Constantines head was flung at one of the ballroom windows. Needless to say the sight of this and a glimpse of the culprit escapeing into the night sent all who witnessesed the event into a rage. The muderer escaped into the night, leaveing only the scent of a distinct German perfume and his ghastly calling card.
Later in the night the rest of her remains were returned in a suitably gruesome manner and two Gangrel managed to be cought flat-footed by the killer, only to be saved oddly enough by a posse of Malkavians lead by Alexandra Cray and Mr. Neil.
Having discovered a vital clue among the gore that was once a Ventrue, Barnabas Micheals and Victor Moore lead a small coterie to the former (?) haven of Dr. Henry Argent. There in they discovered the Doctors hidden study and his personal journals, a room that was nothing short of a charnel house, and a severly psychologicaly damaged ghoul. The investigation was hampered further when the house was mysteriously set afire as the coterie was gathering the Doctors notes...
October 25th, 1885 - Mateo ve la Cruz, the new Prince of Morgantown. The former Seneschal, backed by his own Clan as well as the Brujah and Gangrel took the seat without any opposition. Victor Moore, the former Toreador Primogen sits as his Seneschal in these troubled nights.
A duel of honor was carried out by two Brujah, Anita and Brian O'Doyle. The result was Sheriff O'Doyle the winner in a rather decisive show of strength. During the short duel however several Tremere were found observeing the event, with no aparent motivation...
The evening also found the city electing its first Scourge, one Prescott Winston. Few know what Clan he calls his own and even fewer are aware of his intentions, save his promise to serve the Prince and the city dutifully in that rather dubious position.
Little obvious in-roads were made to discover the murderer at large, but covert actions were no doubt taken.
As the night wore on the vampires of Clan Tremere found themselves beset on all sides as several of their carefully laid plans were upset by accusations of attempted forced blood-oaths, conspiring against the Prince and several other Kindred and even satanic rituals. The Clan weathered the "bad press" with grace and dignity, no doubt takeing careful note of all those who stood to oppose them...