HISTORIC EVENTS IN JEFFERSON COUNTY
This section is currently being developed under a plan to include a summary description of important events in the history of Jefferson County. To the extent possible, it is based on articles published in the Magazine of the Jefferson County Historical Society. Additional sources and references will be indicated by footnotes as appropriate. Any comments regarding the completeness or accuracy of this section would be appreciated and should be directed to info@jeffersonhistoricalwv.org. The following topics are proposed for the historic events section. As individual descriptions are completed, they will be added to this section of the web site. .
- Early Settlement of Jefferson County
- French & Indian War: Braddock's March through Jefferson County
- Revolutionary War: The Bee-Line March from Shepherdstown to Boston
- James Rumsey and His Steamboat
- Lewis and Clark Expedition Through Jefferson County
- John Brown's Raid, Trial & Hanging
- Civil War -- multiple events
- Rural Free Delivery established first in Jefferson County
- Founding of the Niagara Movement
- Miners' Trials and the West Virginia Mine Wars
Sample: Rural Free Delivery System. The first rural Americans to receive mail at home were West Virginians. The idea of a Rural Free Delivery system for farmers and others who lived far from cities and towns had been kicked around for several years during the administrations of both presidents Harrison and Cleveland.|
It was the nation's Postmaster General William Wilson who finally delivered on it. Wilson was serving as Postmaster in Cleveland's administration when he picked Jefferson County to be the first in the nation to experiment with the system. It didn't hurt that Wilson was a native son of the Jefferson County town of Charles Town. On October 1, 1896, five carriers began delivering mail in the region. Three operated out of Charles Town and one each from Halltown and Uvilla. The carriers were Harry Gibson, Frank Young, John Lucas, Keyes Strider, and Melvin Strider.
There is no official record of which one of these men is entitled to the honor of being the first Rural Free Delivery carrier in the United States. The Postal Service merely lists all of them as having carried the mail on October 1. Harry Gibson, though, always maintained that he carried mail unofficially for several days in August and September of that year to get acquainted with the work and to find out how long it took to make the rounds. Gibson retired from the service in 1919 and was succeeded by Vesta Watters Jones, the first woman mail carrier in West Virginia and one of the first in the entire United States. While Gibson delivered the mail by horseback, Jones began working the route in a Model T Ford. She remained on the job until she officially retired in 1961. There have only been four rural mail carriers to work the route of Gibson and Jones.
Jefferson County was the first but not the only region to try Rural Free Delivery. A short while after its beginnings in the county, similar routes were established in other states. In all, 15 routes were put into operation in various parts of the country in the month of October 1896. By June 1900, there were 1,214 RFD routes, serving an estimated 879,127 people in nearly every state. Six months later the number of routes had increased to 2,551. These provided mail service to almost 2 million Americans. Rural Free Delivery became a permanent postal service in 1902.
A 1903 movie clip by the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company shows a rural free delivery mailman standing waiting for the area mail to be delivered to him. As the film continues, a horse-drawn wagon marked "Rural Postal Delivery" passes the camera position. The mail is then handed to the waiting postman who boards a two-wheel wagon and drives away.
