The Society published the first edition of The Magazine of the Jefferson County Historical Society in December 1935, and The Magazine has been published annually since then making it the longest continually published county annual in West Virginia. From 1935 until the present, The Magazine has had six editors (see sidebar).

Readers of The Magazine became accustomed to seeing a profile of our county’s namesake Thomas Jefferson, facing left, on the opening page. In 1950 The Society added the credo “No man is fit to be entrusted with the control of the present who is ignorant of the past, and no people who are indifferent to their past need hope to make their future great” to The Magazine. An additional credo appeared in 1993 when The Magazine Editor added “History by apprizing them of their past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of man; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume, and, knowing it, to defeat its views.” The credo was revised once again in 2010 when the quote “No man is fit…” was retired and attribution to the quote “History by apprizing…” was attributed to Thomas Jefferson from his Notes on the State of Virginia. The Editor added the quote “It is history that teaches us to hope” attributed to Robert Edward Lee who was writing to Charles Marshall in 1870.

The Society maintains an inventory of back issues of The Magazine. They were included in the move to Happy Retreat and are now stored in bookshelves in our office. Each is still in print and is available for purchase from the Society.