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This house contains the original foundation, chimney, and logs of an earlier log cabin built on this site by Beverly pioneer Edward Hart. Edward was the son of John Hart of New Jersey, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Edward Hart relocated here in 1788 following his service in the Revolutionary War. He built the original log courthouse and jail and operated a tavern, a cooper's shop, a carpenters shop and a tannery.In 1855, Edwin D. Chenoweth built this existing house around the remains of Edward Hart's log cabin. Dr. George W. Yokum purchased the home and lived here during the Civil War. He built the north addition to the house for his medical office and library.In 1861, Dr. Yokum spend three months at the federal prison Camp Carlile in Wheeling for treating Confederate soldiers after the Battle of Rich Mountain.

The site of the original log cabin belonging to Edward Hart, the son of John Hart, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from New Jersey.The property also belonged to Dr. Edwin Chenoweth in the 1850s and was eventually purchased by Dr. George Yokum who treated Confederate soldiers here after the Battle of Rich Mountain.

Edward Hart House

Situated in the heart of the Tygart River Valley, Beverly, West Virginia served as the seat of Randolph County for over a century after its foundation in 1786. The first European colonists arrived to the area in 1753, but it take another twenty years before more permanent communities formed. The town in particularly noteworthy for its role in the American Civil War. Because of its strategic location along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, Beverly became the focus of much attention from both Union and Confederate forces. After the 1861 Battle of Rich Mountain, Federal troops under General George B. McClellan occupied the town, an occupation that continued throughout much of the war. Later, the town became the center of controversy within the county itself during the Randolph County "Courthouse Wars" of the 1890s, when residents of Beverly and Elkins fought over the location of the county seat. Beverly lost that struggle, but its citizens continued to work to maintain their community's prominence in the area. They were particularly hard hit by the Great Depression, but ultimately recovered with assistance from federal New Deal programs. The Beverly Heritage Center, opened in 2012 as part of a partnership between Historic Beverly Preservation, the Rich Mountain Battlefield Association, and the Staunton-Parkersburg Alliance, currently serves as the centerpiece of ongoing efforts to preserve this history for generations to come.

In 1900,&nbsp;Dr. Humboldt Yokum founded and opened the Beverly Bank, which is now a part of the Beverly Heritage Center on Court Street.&nbsp;The bank&nbsp;was not able to survive the banking crisis of the early 1930s, but Humboldt passed away&nbsp;on September 29, 1920 and did not see the demise of his bank. His resting place is located in the Beverly Cemetery in Randolph County, West Virginia.&nbsp;&nbsp; Dr. Yokum's house was located on the west side of Main Street in the town of Beverly.&nbsp; The house was built in 1890 with 2 1/2 stories. Some of the many features of the house included a slate hip roof with a three-sided hipped gable dormer, a two-story cylindrical turret with scallop fishscale shingle siding and a one-story wrap-around porch. Dr. Yokum's office was located just south of his house with a wood shingle mansard roof with gable dormers. The concrete porch which is now on the house was a modern-day addition to the location. He did not put windows on this house due to the fact that he wanted to provide privacy for whoever he was caring for inside. After Dr. Yokum died, this house was turned into a residence by his wife and was used for rental income.&nbsp; Dr. Yokum was a key figure in the Randolph County Courthouse War of the 1890s. Beverly, WV, had been the&nbsp;Randolph&nbsp;County seat since the county's founding in 1787, but with the development of the railroad junction in Elkins, the county seat had to be moved. Industry and commerce flourished after the incorporation of Elkins in 1890, therefore there was a movement to replace the county seat. In hopes of keeping the county seat position, Beverly built a new courthouse in 1894, however the new building was destroyed by fire&nbsp;in 1897.&nbsp;This fire was extremely&nbsp;suspicious seeing as there was a second movement to relocate the county seat immediately after the building burned down. The Elkins community felt so strongly about moving the county seat that they gathered with weapons and fire with the intent of moving the records themselves.&nbsp;<blockquote> “Bands of armed men were trained to defend their towns,” says the Elkins version of the story. “Beverly residents heard of the plan and gathered to defend the courthouse and town” is the view from Beverly.1</blockquote>Dr. Humboldt Yokum was able to talk down the Elkins protesters, and ultimately avoided bloodshed. It seems as though Dr. Humboldt was neutral to the situation because he owned properties in both Beverly and Elkins and did not want to see harm done in either town. In the end the county seat was moved to Elkins in 1899. The Beverly courthouse is now a prominent feature in the Beverly Heritage Center.&nbsp;

This Queen Anne style home was built by Dr. Humboldt Yokum, a son of Dr. and Mrs. George W. Yokum, in 1890.  Humboldt went to West Virginia University and Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia to further pursue his studies, graduating from Jefferson in 1885.  Humboldt grew up in the house next door to this two story home in Beverly, WV. The building just south of the Humboldt House was Dr. Humboldt's office and was built to mimic the style of his home. The Humboldt Yokum House is located in the Beverly Historic District and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Humboldt Yokum House

Prior to the original jail’s construction in 1790, prisoners in the area of Beverly were held in the home of the sheriff. During the court session of 1789, however, local resident Edward Hart was awarded a contract for the building of a log structure on the west side of what is now Main Street to serve that purpose. Edward arrived to the area of Beverly from New Jersey after the conclusion of the American War of Independence. His father, John Hart, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence from that state. During the New Jersey campaign of 1776, Hart invited the Continental Army under General George Washington to camp on his farm in Hopewell and on at least one occasion dined with the commander-in-chief. In retaliation, British forces under General William Howe drove Hart and his family into hiding. After several months of living in caves and out in the open, Hart was able to return to his home in the wake of the Continental victory at Princeton on January 3, 1777. Unfortunately, in his absence British troops had destroyed his home and much of his property, and the months of hard living eventually caused Hart’s death in 1779. His sons Edward and Daniel traveled west, eventually settling in Beverly, where Edward completed construction on the town’s first jail. Though he was meant to complete the jail within a month, it eventually took a full year and the assistance of the sheriff in raising $26 for its completion (approximately $725 today). Within a decade, this first jail proved unable to meet the needs of Beverly, which had grown considerably since becoming the seat of the new county of Randolph. So, in 1813, the court once more ordered the construction of a new jail, this time contracted to William Marteny and William Steers for the price of $250 (almost $3300 today). This new structure on the east side of Main Street was two stories tall with four-foot-deep foundations. Built of stone, it had four cells: two on the first floor for regular prisoners and two on the second floor for debtors, who were allowed to travel about town during the day. It was in this jail that local legend Robert Ferguson was housed after his frequent disruptions of the county court sessions across the street. Ferguson, a local farmer and Blacksmith, was known throughout town for having shod the horse of General George Washington during the Whiskey Rebellion while he was a resident of Greene County, Pennsylvania. Ferguson, who was reported to be six feet tall and weigh two hundred pounds, was also known locally for his feats of strength, being able to drink directly from whiskey barrels that he held aloft above his head and upon one occasion carrying the corpses of a bear, two cubs, and five turkeys home on his own after a hunting trip. By far his favorite hobby was to sit in attendance at the Old Beverly Courthouse and pass the time drinking, behavior that led to his arrest on a number of occasions after swearing at the judge and then subsequently swearing again once the judge had held him in contempt. Every time he was arrested and transported to the jail across the street he would return a few short minutes later with the bars of the cell window in his hands. He had, after all, been given the contract for manufacturing the bars and knew exactly how to remove them. Like the 1790 jail, the 1813 structure eventually proved inadequate to Beverly’s needs as well. So, in 1841 Randolph County began construction on a third house for its inmates, this time on Walnut Street. This brick structure, built by William T. Clark and Alexander K. Holloway, contained two cells on the first floor and two on the second. One of the cells on the second floor was reserved for women prisoners and did not have bars, while the other on the second floor was an iron cage four feet smaller than the room itself that was used for dangerous prisoners and those with mental illnesses. This jail is especially notable for its association with J.F. Phares, the “bogus State Sheriff of Randolph County,” as Confederate sympathizers referred to him during the Civil War.<a href="#_ftn1" target="_blank">[1]</a> Phares was the sheriff of the county under the Reorganized or Provisional State of Virginia prior the formation of West Virginia in 1863, a Unionist that worked to maintain law and order for the federal government after the secession of Virginia from the United States. Phares played a particularly prominent role during the Jones-Imboden Raid of 1863. The Jones-Imboden Raid was intended as a last-ditch effort by the Confederate Army to prevent the formation of West Virginia and secure the region once more for the Confederacy. In planning the campaign, Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered Generals William E. Jones and John D. Imboden to target sheriffs like Phares in the hopes that they might disrupt the Unionist state government’s ability to enforce its authority. So, when Confederate troops reached the area of Beverly in 1863 they targeted Phares before reaching the town. Though they shot him through the lungs Phares was able to escape their grasp and reach Beverly in time to warn the Federal troops stationed there, who in turn were able to resist the Confederate advance long enough to warn their compatriots in the raiders’ ultimate destination of Philippi. Through their association with individuals like Hart, Ferguson, and Phares, the jails of Beverly enjoy a unique series of connections to broader processes of US history. Windows into Revolutionary America, life in antebellum Appalachia, and the Civil War in West Virginia can all be found within a one block radius of the center of town. Visitors interested in this history can stop by the sites of the former jails or visit the Beverly Heritage Center nearby. <a href="#_ftnref1" target="_blank">[1]</a> Maxwell, 259.

The former jail building on Walnut Street in Beverly, West Virginia is the third such structure to house inmates in the community’s history. The first, a log structure completed in 1790 on the west side of Main Street, was quickly found inadequate to the town’s needs and was replaced by a stone structure on the other side of the street in 1813. The jail building on Walnut Street replaced the second jail in 1841 and remained Randolph County’s jail until the construction of one in the new county seat of Elkins in 1913. The 1841 jail and its predecessors are associated with prominent individuals from the town’s history, most notably Edward Hart (son of Declaration of Independence signer John Hart), local legend and frequent inmate Robert Ferguson, and J.F. Phares (the “bogus” sheriff). The 1841 jail is currently under renovation and historic objects from the building are on display at the Beverly Heritage Center.

Old Beverly Jail

The small town of Beverly, nestled in the Allegheny Mountains, was the gathering point for Confederate troops early in the Civil War. The Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike connected to the B&amp;O Railroad, which made Beverly a strategic crossroads between the North and South. As a result, both armies were anxious to control the territory. In 1861, Union General George B. McClellan led a surprise attack at the Battle of Rich Mountain. Although he demonstrated what would become a common tendency to fail to push his advantages into a stunning defeat of the Confederacy, his forces were able to secure control of the region. The Union controlled Beverly throughout the remainder of the war. The four buildings that make up the museum are connected by a gallery with an enterance in the back of the building that makes the heritage center handicap accessible. The Beverly Bank opened at this location in 1900, but was not able to survive the banking crisis of the early 1930s and closed without reopening. The neoclassical building and with its signature arched windows and doorway survives to the present thanks to the efforts of local citizens and preservationists.The 1854 Bushrod Crawford building is a frame residence built shortly before the Civil War, and has significance as Union General McClellan’s headquarters after he won the Battle of Rich Mountain. The Hill Store building was built connecting the Courthouse and the Crawford building around 1907, and represents commercial development in the Beverly in the early 1900s. Last, but not least is the Randolph County Courthouse in the center of the complex. This building cost approximately $1200 to build, including $35 for hinges and other ironwork paid to Solomon Collett when he completed the building in 1815.1Two of the earliest settlement families in the Beverly area were the Robert Files and David Tygart families. They arrived in 1753, but soon conflicts originating from the the French and Indian War forced these families to flee the area. Settlers of European descent returned in 1772, when Caption Benjamin Wilson led a group of nine families to the area. James Westfall was one of the nine original patriarchs, and in 1790, his twenty-acre plat was divided into one-half acre town lots. Planning for what would become the town of Beverly included the construction of a jail, courthouse, business district, and schoolhouse. Construction of the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike began in 1840. By 1847, Beverly was a town that sat at a major crossroad. It was also destined to be a strategic point during the Civil War due to its connecting point to the North and South. Beverly became a gathering and staging point for Confederate troops at the start of hostilities. General Robert E. Lee ordered 1,000 muskets to be sent to Beverly to support the pro-Confederate volunteers being recruited in that area. The shipment never made it to Beverly, however, as the Union Army captured Confederate supplies when they routed Confederate partisans in the Battle of Phillipi on June 3, 1861. On July 11, 1861,  General George B. McClellan's successful surprise attack on Rich Mountain and his army's ability to control the turnpike led to the withdrawal of Confederate troops from the area. Union troops dug trenches around Butcher Hill (Mt. Isner) and built numerous fortifications around the town. Troops also utilized homes and public buildings throughout the town, especially during the winter months of occupation. The Lemuel Chenoweth House was one of many used to house officers and care for the sick and wounded. This home is located next to the Beverly covered bridge and is open for tours. Despite the Southern sympathies of many residents throughout the area, Beverly and the surrounding area would be controlled by the Union for most of the war. However, Confederate raiders were able to persist throughout the area, making the Civil War in this section of West Virginia a local affair that divided residents during and after West Virginia secured statehood on June 20, 1863.  The museum offers exhibits the history of Beverly, West Virginia is preserved by the Historic Beverly Preservation Group, Beverly ONTRAC Community Development Program, Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation, Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike Alliance, and the Randolph County Historical Society. Bi-annually the Historic Beverly Preservation organization hosts Beverly Heritage Days, which features home tours, food, music, and a living history of the town. More information can be obtained at the Rich Mountain Visitors Center on Court Street or at the Blackman-Bosworth Store/Museum located on Main Street.

Beverly Heritage Center preserves and operates a museum complex composed of four neighboring historic buildings: Beverly Bank, Randolph County Courthouse, Hill Building, and the Bushrod Crawford building. The idea to create this historic complex by connecting these four buildings by adding walkways and creating museum exhibits began in the 1990s, when local citizens and historic preservationists considered a variety of plans to revitalize the historic town and promote heritage tourism. Thanks to grants and donations, construction began in 2004 and was completed in 2012. Visitors to the complex are now able to tour each of these four buildings and view exhibits related to the area's Native inhabitants, the arrival of pioneer settlers, the Battle of Rich Mountain, the creation and importance of the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnmpike, the Civil War battles of central West Virginia, and daily life in this small community throughout the late 19th and 20th century. 


Beverly Heritage Center

The Bushrod Crawford House, named for its original occupant, served in both commercial and residential capacities in the early years of its existence, built to capitalize on the booming trade that came to Beverly with the arrival of several turnpikes during the period and to house one of the town’s most prominent citizens. The house also played a prominent role in the American Civil War, however. Because Beverly and the surrounding county stood at the intersection of several strategically important thoroughfares between eastern and western Virginia (and the north and south), the Federal government made a particularly forceful effort to keep it from joining the rebellion. After his victory in one of the earliest actions of the war, the 1861 Battle of Rich Mountain, Union General George B. McClellan utilized Crawford's home as his headquarters during his brief stay in Beverly. Crawford himself had fled south with the arrival of Federal troops to the area, but when the Confederacy surrendered he returned to his home and remained until his death in 1893. Over a century later, in the early twenty-first century, the building gained new life as part of the Beverly Heritage Center.The Bushrod Crawford House has a number of architectural features that make it a fairly representative example of the Federal style popular in the mid-nineteenth century. The unornamented, symmetrical façade and gabled roof are particularly noteworthy, as were the multipaned windows included in the design prior to its renovation in the early twenty-first century. Built in a front-facing “L” shape, the four-bay portion of the two-story structure facing Court Street served as the Crawford brothers’ store while the remainder functioned as Bushrod’s residence. Brick chimneys in the center of each wing heated the building prior to the addition of modern upgrades and store patrons had access to a front porch on both levels. When the building was constructed circa 1850, the Crawfords no doubt hoped to profit from the increased trade and traffic brought to Beverly with the construction of the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike in 1847 and the Beverly-Fairmont Turnpike five years later. Given the store’s prime location on Court Street and the Crawford brothers’ prominence in Beverly, it is likely that they were able to do just that. After all, the Crawfords had deep ties to Beverly as one of the earliest families in the area and Bushrod himself had served in a number of public capacities throughout the 1840s (among them the position of tax, collector, constable, and captain of militia). With the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States in 1860, however, the Crawfords’ luck took a dramatic turn. As slave states in the south began to secede from the Union in the months after Lincoln’s election in November, calls to follow suit in Virginia succeeded in forcing the establishment of a special convention to address the matter in the state capital of Richmond. While the eastern counties of Virginia largely supported secession, the issue was more muddled in the west and Randolph County was no exception. Like many of the western counties large-scale agricultural slavery had failed to take root in Randolph, where the mountainous terrain had precluded the establishment of grand plantations like those in the east. As a result, most of Randolph County’s slaveholders purchased slaves as house servants rather than field laborers. Consequently the electorate was almost evenly split on the issue of secession, with a slight majority favoring separation from the Union as a means of ensuring the institution’s survival and a slight minority believing that the Constitution contained sufficient safeguards to ensure the failure of any challenge the new president might pose to its continuance. When the state government called the Secession Convention in 1861 Bushrod Crawford stood as candidate for the pro-secession faction in Randolph County, ultimately losing to John N. Hughes (a Conditional Unionist who eventually voted in favor of secession after Lincoln called for the raising of 100,000 militia troops to quell the southern rebellion). In the plebiscite that followed the secession convention’s resolution in favor of joining the Confederacy, Randolph County’s citizens supported the decision by a majority of nineteen votes.Because of its location along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, however, Randolph County (and Beverly in particular) was of too much strategic importance for the Union to allow to join Virginia in the Confederacy. By controlling that road, which ran from the Shenandoah Valley to the Ohio River, Federal troops could cut one of the most prominent rebel states in half while keeping a key route between the eastern and western theaters of the war open for the transport of soldiers and supplies. So, when General Robert E. Lee (then commanding the Virginia militia) assigned General Robert S. Garnett to organize Confederate forces in western Virginia and Garnett in turn occupied strategic positions at Rich Mountain and Laurel Hill along the turnpike, Union General George B. McClellan (then commander of the Department of the Ohio) marched to meet him. After a detachment of Union soldiers under General William Rosecrans routed the Confederate forces under Lieutenant Colonel John Pegram at the Battle of Rich Mountain by launching an attack through the woods at their rear, Garnett withdrew with the majority of his men from Laurel Hill and McClellan moved to occupy Beverly. During his few days in the town, he utilized Bushrod Crawford’s house as his headquarters and afterwards the building continued to serve as the telegraph office for the Union troops stationed in the area. With a few notable exceptions (the Jones-Imboden Raid of 1863 and the Rosser Raid of 1865) those troops held the town for the large majority of the war, ensuring the area’s inclusion in the new state of West Virginia formed in 1863. Throughout this period Beverly residents were prevented from leaving the town without official passes from its military occupants, though according to Thomas Arnold (General Stonewall Jackson’s nephew and a local Confederate sympathizer) the Federal soldiers generally treated residents relatively well. Regardless, the occupation ended with the closure of hostilities in 1865, and those who had fled the occupation were permitted to return. Among them was Bushrod Crawford, who took up residence in his former home once more and lived there until his death in 1893.In the early twenty-first century the house became part of the Beverly Heritage Center, which combined it with three adjacent buildings (the Old Beverly Courthouse, Hill building, and former Bank of Beverly) through the construction of a rear addition. The center, which came out of plans set in motion in 2004 by a group of local organizations that included Historic Beverly Preservation, the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation, and the Staunton-Parkersburg Alliance, opened in 2012 as a museum and community center dedicated to historic education and preservation in Beverly and the surrounding area.

Built circa 1850 in the Federal architectural style popular in the mid-nineteenth century, the Bushrod Crawford House is one of four buildings owned and operated by the Beverly Heritage Center on Court Street in Beverly, West Virginia. Bushrod, along with his brother Absalom, operated a store in the portion of the building facing the street, while Bushrod resided in the other half. The Crawford brothers were both strong secessionists in the leadup to the American Civil War, with Bushrod running as the pro-secession nominee to represent Randolph County at the 1861 Virginia Secession Convention (an election Conditional Unionist John N. Hughes ultimately won). When Federal forces under General Gorge B. McClellan occupied Beverly after the Battle of Rich Mountain that same year, the Crawfords fled to eastern Virginia and McClellan claimed Bushrod’s home as his headquarters during his brief stay in the town. After the war, Bushrod returned to reclaim the building and lived there until his death in 1893. The structure is now part of the Beverly Heritage Center, a museum and community center dedicated to historical education and preservation in Randolph County. The center is open Sunday to Thursday, 11 AM to 5 PM and Fridays and Saturdays from 10 AM to 6 PM.

Bushrod Crawford House

When Aries Hill had his general store constructed on Court Street in 1907, he sought to participate in ongoing efforts to promote trade and business in the town after the “Randolph County Courthouse War” of the 1890s, a struggle between the rapidly growing town of Elkins and Beverly itself for control of area politics. His store, built in the Neoclassical Revival style, evidently did well, and when Hill died from pneumonia in 1923 he was one of the most prosperous and influential men in Beverly. Hill’s experiences are representative not only of the efforts of former Confederates to reintegrate into West Virginia society after the Civil War, but also those of Beverly more generally as it worked to find a new place for itself in the changing political landscape of an Elkins-led county government. Aries Hill arrived in Beverly, West Virginia shortly after it lost its status as the seat of Randolph County to nearby Elkins, which rose to that position in 1899 after years of political strife, occasional violence, and the presumed 1897 arson of a new courthouse building constructed in Beverly three years earlier. Eager in the wake of that conflict’s resolution to head off their town’s anticipated regional diminution, Beverly’s residents sought to encourage an economic revival in their town with the construction of a series of prominent new buildings that effectively reworked the architectural landscape of the area. Among these structures were the Masonic Lodge, the International Organization of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) Hall, the Beverly Store, and the Hill building itself. While these structures embraced a variety of architectural features, the Hill building is in the Neoclassical Revival style. The pediment (triangular shape at the top of the building’s facade) and metal cornices (ornamental molding) are particularly representative of this style, as are the pressed metal “stones” on the left and right edges of the building simulating pilasters (rectangular columns). Together with the structure’s double storefront, these features made the Hill building an eye-catching sight on Court Street during its heyday in the early twentieth century. As a result Hill’s business prospered, and he eventually became one of the town’s most notable citizens.Aries Hill was not always as fortunate as he had become by the end of his life. After his service in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, Hill struggled to establish a successful business in Randolph County. He tried and failed on a number of occasions to obtain a liquor license in the area, where the temperance (anti-alcohol) movement had evidently gained considerable traction in the post-war years. In a particularly low point, Hill shot himself in the finger while inspecting a revolver. After moving to Beverly in 1902 to serve as the clerk of local tavern-keeper John Feight, however, his luck began to turn, and within five years he had opened the new general store next to the Old Beverly Courthouse that would eventually come to bear his name. In a particularly symbolic design choice, Hill’s new store not only replaced the clerk’s office that once occupied a wing of the courthouse but obscured a portion of the courthouse itself as well. The new county courthouse in Elkins had replaced the one in Beverly and the town’s residents, it seemed, were ready to move on.While a slight majority of the Randolph County electorate supported the Confederacy in the Civil War, the post-war years in that area progressed in much the same manner as they did in others throughout the new state of West Virginia. Hill’s struggles to find a place for himself as a Confederate veteran in a Union state were fairly typical of those experienced by many of his compatriots, especially during the years of Reconstruction. A majority of West Virginians were at the very least Unionists, often members of the Republican Party, and increasingly supportive of the efforts of Progressive reformers who supported temperance. Hill’s eventual decision to move away from the liquor business reflected an acknowledgment that such enterprises were becoming less and less popular not only in Randolph County but across the state. The success he experienced after that decision, early in the twentieth century, was in large part a result not only of his choice to become the proprietor of a “respectable” business but of a larger shift in West Virginia’s political landscape as well that tended toward support for the reintegration of former Confederates into society.The Hill building thus serves as a window into the history of both Beverly in the wake of the “Courthouse War” of the 1890s and West Virginia at large in the wake of the Civil War. As part of the Beverly Heritage Center, however, it also serves as a central component in the area’s historical community. Formed in the early twentieth century through a cooperation between Historic Beverly Preservation, the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation, and the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike Alliance, the Beverly Heritage Center is key to local efforts at historical education and preservation.

Built in 1907 to serve as a general store for Randolph County businessman Aries G. Hill, the Hill building was one of four adjacent structures on Court Street combined with a rear addition to become the Beverly Heritage Center in 2012. The building, which includes design features characteristic of the Neoclassical Revival architectural style popular at the time, replaced a wing of the Old Beverly Courthouse that served as a clerk’s office during Beverly’s time as the seat of Randolph County. After his service as a Confederate soldier during the American Civil War, Hill bounced around Randolph County searching for new economic opportunities before settling in Beverly as saloon-keeper John Feight’s clerk in 1902. By the time of his death in 1923 Hill had become one of the most prominent citizens of the area, and his former business (opened five years after his arrival in the town) is noteworthy as a product of the architectural renaissance in Beverly at the turn of the twentieth century. The Hill building became part of the Beverly Heritage Center in the early twenty-first century, which is open Sundays to Thursdays from 11 AM to 5 PM and Fridays and Saturdays from 10 AM to 6 PM.

Hill Building

Constructed at a cost of approximately $1200 in 1815 (around $16,600 now), the two-story brick structure that once served as the courthouse for Randolph County became part of the Beverly Heritage Center in 2012. From 1815 to 1894, all county court business took place at the courthouse. When West Virginia senators Henry Gassaway Davis and Stephen Benton Elkins founded the nearby town of Elkins in 1890 to service the West Virginia and Pittsburgh Central Railway and it began to outpace Beverly demographically, however, calls to move county business out of the by then outdated facilities of the Beverly courthouse quickly mounted. In an effort to keep the courthouse in their town Beverly’s residents constructed a new courthouse in 1894, but it burned down three years later. By the end of the century, the conflict over the location of the courthouse and county seat resolved in Elkins’ favor. The building gained new life, however, as part of the new Beverly Heritage Center in the early twenty-first century. A product of cooperative efforts beginning in 2004 between Historic Beverly Preservation, the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation, and Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike Alliance, the Beverly Heritage Center opened its doors in 2012 after combining the old courthouse with the adjacent Hill building, Bushrod Crawford House, and former Bank of Beverly with a rear addition. The center serves as a museum and community center dedicated to historical education and preservation in Beverly and the surrounding area.  Prior to the completion of the Old Beverly Courthouse in 1815, court sessions for Beverly and the surrounding area took place in a log structure built between 1788 and 1798. The needs of the local legal community quickly outpaced that building, however, and it remained in use for only three years after its construction. From 1803 to 1808 court sessions were held in various houses around town, including those of John Wilson and Nicholas Gibson. In 1808, Jonathan Hutton, Samuel Ball, and Matthew Whitman received appointments as a committee to contract for the construction of a more permanent home for the county’s court. Their specifications for the building were exacting: the new courthouse was to be thirty feet wide with stone floors, brick walls, and joint shingles that formed a circle at the back, the first floor was to be twelve feet high and the second eight, and there was to be a fifteen-foot square clerk’s office on the southwest corner. When construction completed in 1815, those expectations had largely been met, and the new courthouse in Beverly stood as one of the earliest such structures built in what is now the state of West Virginia. At the time of its construction the Neoclassical architectural styles popularized by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson had largely failed to reach the western counties of Virginia and as a result the courthouse in Beverly followed the Federal style (evidenced by its plain features and absence of pilasters, or rectangular columns). Upgrades in 1826 and 1838 added a cupola at the center of the courthouse’s roof and an office for the circuit clerk, though the cupola was later removed and the clerk’s office replaced by the Hill building next door in 1907. The construction of the Hill building not only replaced the clerk’s office but obscured a portion of the old courthouse’s façade as well, a development that in many ways reflects the changes in the structure’s fortunes in the preceding decade. Those changes came about in large part with the founding of Elkins by Senators Henry Gassaway Davis and Stephen Benton Elkins in 1890. Davis and Elkins were both prominent figures in the railroad, coal mining, and timber industries in the late nineteenth century, Davis as a self-made millionaire who began in the railroad business as a brakeman and Elkins as the husband of Davis’ daughter Hallie. The two worked together to expand Davis’ business ventures throughout the region that encompassed Randolph County and the neighboring counties of West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland, but increasingly focused on the town of Elkins after Davis retired there from the U.S. Senate. Though they did not officially form the town until 1890, the community of Leadsville had existed at the same site for quite some time and had already begun to grow in size with their construction of the West Virginia and Pittsburgh Central Railway there in 1889. Within a few short years Elkins’ population had outpaced that of Beverly and showed little sign of slowing, a fact that translated into growing calls for the relocation of the county seat to the new town. The conflict that arose between Elkins and Beverly over the issue reached a fever pitch late in the decade when the matter was taken into the courts and the residents of the former began to fear that it would not be resolved in their favor. Acting on that fear, they gathered weapons and marched on Beverly to physically remove the county’s court records from the Old Beverly Courthouse. Their opponents responded in kind, resulting in a tense standoff in which bloodshed was avoided only through the efforts of a group of Beverly citizens led by Dr. Humboldt Yokum that convinced the Elkins party to return home and await the decision of the court. Ultimately, that decision fell in Elkins’ favor and when the county seat moved out of Beverly the old courthouse remained as the only reminder of its town’s former status.The history of the Old Beverly Courthouse reflects the larger narrative of its community’s progress over the course of the nineteenth century. Built in the first decades of that period during the town’s early prosperity and vacated over eighty years later as industry began to shift to other areas of the county, the courthouse serves as a window into the political and economic history of Randolph County and West Virginia more generally in the early years of their existence. The structure is also noteworthy as an early example of courthouse architecture in what was then the western portion of the state of Virginia and offers a unique opportunity to consider the Federal style’s popularity prior to the spread of Neoclassicism. While these characteristics make the building a central feature in the history of Beverly, Randolph County, and the surrounding state, however, its inclusion in the Beverly Heritage Center in the early twenty-first-century has ensured its status as an integral component of the local historical community.

Completed in 1815 in the Federal style, the Old Beverly Courthouse is one of four buildings owned and operated as part of the Beverly Heritage Center on Court Street. The building remained in use from the date of its construction until 1894, when the residents of Beverly constructed a new courthouse in a bid to keep the seat of Randolph County from moving to Elkins during the “Courthouse Wars” of the 1890s. After the new courthouse burned down under suspicious circumstances three years later, however, the county court records returned to the old courthouse, where they remained until the county seat moved to Elkins permanently at the end of the century. The history of the former courthouse reflects the fortunes of the town in the nineteenth century from its most prosperous years in the early decades to its eclipse by other communities in the decades that followed. 

Old Beverly Courthouse

As
one of the four historic buildings on Court Street that the Beverly Heritage
Center owns and operates as a museum and community center, the Beverly Bank
building plays a unique role in local efforts at historical education and
preservation. It has long enjoyed noteworthy status in the community of Beverly
as one of several buildings constructed in the early twentieth century that
rewrote the landscape of the town and leant it its current appearance. The Beverly Bank building, along with the Hill building,
Masonic Lodge, Beverly Store, and International Organization of Odd Fellows
(I.O.O.F.) Hall, rose during the same period, lending the town a more Neoclassical architectural bent throughout the twentieth century. When the bank closed
in 1933 during Franklin Roosevelt’s first “bank holiday” the town’s economic
circumstances were not sufficient to merit its reopening. In the twenty-first
century, however, the building gained new life as one of four adjacent
structures on Court Street that became part of the Beverly Heritage Center.&nbsp;

The
Beverly Bank building has a number of architectural features that make it a
fairly representative example of the Neoclassical Revival style that was
popular through the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. The metal balustrade and triangular pediment on the structure’s
front and sides are particularly noteworthy, as are the arched windows and
rectangular columns ending in ball finials (decorative ornamentation at the top
or end of an architectural feature). The entire building is of glazed brick, a
more cost-effective building material at the time of its construction but one
that detracts from the structure’s Neoclassical character (which generally
sought to replicate the uniform, unbroken lines of Greek and Roman architecture
like the Parthenon and Pantheon). Still, as the intended financial center of
Beverly’s much-hoped for twentieth-century Renaissance the Beverly bank sought
to live up more to its function that its form, which it did for nearly three
decades while its town’s residents sought to recapture the influence their
community enjoyed in the surrounding area during the previous century.

During
that century, the nineteenth, Beverly served as the county seat of Randolph
County and a major thoroughfare for regional trade via the Staunton-Parkersburg
Turnpike that ran through town. When West Virginia senators Henry Gassaway Davis
and Stephen Benton Elkins collaborated in the 1890s to establish the town of
Elkins less than ten miles away as a railroad hub servicing the West Virginia
Central and Pittsburgh Railway, however, Beverly began to lose ground
economically to its new and rapidly expanding northern neighbor. Built&nbsp;next
door to the Beverly courthouse the year after the county seat was moved to Elkins, the new Bank of Beverly was largely intended as a means of making up for community's losses to Elkins.

Ultimately,
however, such efforts simply could not stand up to the economic onslaught
brought by the arrival of the Great Depression. West Virginia was among the
hardest hit by the economic downturn that followed the collapse of the stock
market in 1929 and Beverly was no exception. The initial federal and
state-level responses to the crisis, led by the Republican Party that occupied
the White House under President Herbert Hoover and the governor’s seat in
Charleston under William G. Conley, came under increasing fire from Democrats
who accused their opponents of a failure to acknowledge the gravity of the
situation. Their accusations found a receptive audience among a state- and
nationwide electorate suffering from an unprecedented level of unemployment,
and the Democratic Party swept Republicans out of office in landslide victories
across West Virginia and the broader United States. The 1932 election resulted
in the ascendance of Franklin Roosevelt to the presidency and Herman Guy Kump
to the Mountain State’s governorship. Together, they enacted a sweeping series
of economic reforms that imposed stricter regulations on the banking industry
and provided a financial safety net for those impacted most by the Depression.&nbsp;One of their first moves in office was the announcement of a “bank holiday,”
intended in large part to stem the tide of so-called “bank runs” (during which
patrons withdrew the entirety of their savings from local banks, leaving their
community’s financial institutions in dire straits and largely incapable of
operating effectively). Roosevelt announced his first “bank holiday” for
federally-certified banks on March 5, 1933 and recommended that state governors
consider doing likewise for institutions with state-level certification.&nbsp;Kump,
whose wife was from Beverly, quickly followed suit, and although Roosevelt
largely succeeded in convincing American citizens to once more trust their
banks with a radio address on March 12 (the first of his famous “fireside
chats” as president), West Virginia was a different story. There Kump
discovered that the incumbent commissioner of banking, L.R. Charter, had
allowed every bank in the state to reopen regardless of individual
circumstances. So, he replaced Charter with Bluefield banker Waitman C. Given
on March 24, who began closing banks that he deemed incapable of maintaining
financial solvency. The Beverly Bank was among those that Given closed during
this period. After that, the economic circumstances of Beverly and the surrounding area continued to worsen. In response, the federal government established a Civilian Conservation Corps camp nearby (Camp Tygart) to offer area residents employment as well as an affordable housing complex on over 2,500 acres of land&nbsp;named the Tygart Valley Homestead. 

While Beverly itself was able through such efforts to get back on its feet after the Depression, the&nbsp;Beverly Bank building took several more decades to find&nbsp;a new purpose. It did so&nbsp;in the early twenty-first
century as part of the Beverly Heritage Center opened in 2012.
The center, which resulted from a collaboration beginning in 2004 between
several community organizations that included Historic Beverly Preservation,
the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation, and the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike
Alliance, serves the town as a museum and community center. A rear addition
built prior to the opening of the center combines the former bank building with
the adjacent structures of the old Beverly Courthouse, Hill building, and
Bushrod Crawford house, all of which are situated along Court Street. As a
window into the political and economic history of Beverly, the bank building
stands as a unique reminder of the experiences of a community struggling to
survive the impact of devastating legal and financial upheavals. As part of the
Beverly Heritage Center, it serves as a testament to that community’s revival
in the following decades.

Built in 1900 in the Neoclassical Revival style to house Beverly, West Virginia’s first bank, the former Bank of Beverly building is now one of four buildings owned and operated by the Beverly Heritage Center on Court Street. In operation for a little over three decades, the bank closed during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first “bank holiday” in March of 1933 and never reopened. From 2004 to 2012 a number of community organizations devoted to preserving the history of Beverly and the surrounding area collaborated in the establishment of the Beverly Heritage Center, which combined the bank building with the adjacent Old Beverly Courthouse, Hill building, and Bushrod Crawford house with the construction of a rear addition. As part of the heritage center, the Beverly Bank building is central to historical interpretation in the area. It also, however, serves as a window into the community’s past on its own merits, both through its association with its first president (Dr. Humboldt Yokum) and through its connection to the era of the Great Depression. Anyone interested in this history can learn more by visiting the Beverly Heritage Center, which is open Sunday to Thursday, 11 AM to 5 PM, and Friday and Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM.

Former Bank of Beverly

Reflecting the sentiment of many area residents, two of Chenoweth's sons fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. And like many other structures in Beverly, the Chenoweth home was used to billet Union soldiers immediately following the Union's capture of the city from local Confederate partisans.&nbsp;Lemuel Chenoweth is best known as the architect of many of the early&nbsp;covered bridges that appeared throughout this section of&nbsp;West Virginia. Chenoweth was awarded the contract to build three bridges along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike in the 1840s, an important route which served as the gateway&nbsp;to the West for many pioneer families. The Phillipi Covered Bridge built by Chenoweth is a famous landmark in Barbour County, West Virginia.&nbsp;<blockquote>"The story goes that Chenoweth rode to Richmond, VA on horseback with his hickory wooden model bridge stuffed in his saddle bag to bid for the job as bridge builder, but he was met with architects with their nicely polished and professional displays. His plain wooden model was hardly anything in comparison. He placed his model between two chairs, and then stood on his little bridge and called for the others to do the same with theirs. Not one would do it, and the self taught engineer and architect returned to Beverly, WV with the contract to build the bridges."1</blockquote>Union and the Confederate Army forced moved quickly to&nbsp;control the turnpike upon the start of the war.&nbsp;On January 11, 1865, during&nbsp;the last&nbsp;big battle in Randolph County, Confederate General Thomas L. Rosser led several hundred Confederate soldiers in an&nbsp;attack against a Union&nbsp;camp near&nbsp;Beverly. During this attack, Lemuel Chenoweth's covered bridge was burned. Chenoweth rebuilt the bridge in 1872-73.&nbsp;Lemuel Chenoweth was born in Randolph county Virginia (West Virginia)&nbsp;in 1811. He married Nancy Ann Hart, daughter of John Hart, who was&nbsp;one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The Chenoweths had thirteen children including two&nbsp;sons who&nbsp;served in the Confederate Army. Major Joseph Hart Chenoweth served under Stonewall Jackson and was mortally wounded in battle. Union troops controlled Beverly during the war and&nbsp;soldiers guarding the entrance to the town&nbsp;often used the Chenoweth home to warm themselves. It was during one of these visits that Chenoweth's daughter, Harriet Elizabeth, met Union soldier&nbsp;Thomas Jefferson Edwards. The pair&nbsp;married after the war.Both Nancy and Lemuel Chenoweth&nbsp;are buried in the Beverly Cemetery about one half mile north of the Chenoweth House. June 16th is "Chenoweth Day" in Randolph County in celebration of the renowned bridge builder's birthday.

This two-story homestead was built in 1856 by renowned bridge builder Lemuel Chenoweth. Upon entering this homestead museum, visitors are taken back to the late 18th century with authentic furnishings from the period and exhibits that tell the early history of the community. The home has been restored to match its original appearance thanks to the efforts of local preservationists and museum curator Randy Allan. The homestead overlooks the Tygart River and the Beverly bridge, constructed by Lemuel Chenoweth himself.

Lemuel Chenoweth House

Laura Jackson was born on March 27, 1826, in Clarksburg, Virginia (West Virginia) to Jonathan and Julia Beckwith Neale Jackson. The Jacksons had four children, but lost one to disease. Jonathan Jackson died of typhoid fever a day before Laura’s birth. Laura Jackson was alone to care for their surviving children, Thomas (Later known as "Stonewall”), Laura, and Warren. Laura Jackson married Blake Woodson. The new family struggled financially and Laura and Thomas were sent to live with uncles on the late Johnathan’s side of the family in Jackson Mill (West Virginia). Warren was sent to live with some of Julia’s family members. Julia Jackson passed away during childbirth in 1831 and Warren passed away in 1841 after suffering from tuberculosis. This left Laura and Thomas the only living members of the original Jackson family. Laura and Thomas formed a bond as they endured an insecure and sad childhood. Thomas left home in 1842 to enroll in the United States Military Academy at West Point, but the two remained close for some years and wrote to one another often. In 1844, Laura Jackson married Jonathan Arnold and they bought this home in 1845 for $1500. The couple had four kids and opened their home as a private school for several area families. The children were instructed by a governess that stayed in the home. Once the Civil War broke out their home became more than a school for the children. Several of the people living in the town of Beverly were sympathetic to the southerners, including Jonathan Arnold, who was originally a Whig. Therefore, when the Union took control of the town after the Battle of Rich Mountain just five miles away on July 11, 1861, several people moved away. Despite her husband’s new political leaning, Laura stayed a Unionist and provided medical attention to the wounded Union troops inside her own home. Union soldiers stayed in Beverly during most of the war and Laura continued to help heal Union troops wounded in any conflicts that occurred close to the town throughout the war. Union troops talked fondly of her and praised her for her loyalty to the Union.Prior to the Civil War, Stonewall visited the Arnolds in their home on several occasions. However, when the war broke out Laura and Stonewall’s close relationship ended when she remained a Unionist and he became a general for the Confederate Army. The two never settled their differences before Stonewall’s death in 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville. It is not clear if Laura had any regrets about the deterioration of the close relationship she had with Stonewall and his death because she never spoke of it. She never stopped being a Unionist and did not speak to any Jackson relatives.The differences in political opinions between Laura and her husband became too much for the marriage and in 1870, Jonathan divorced Laura. Laura left Beverly and went to live in Buckhannon, WV; her ex husband continued to live in the home they had shared until he passed away in 1883. Laura was remembered and honored for her wartime efforts in the years after the war. In 1897, she was named an honorary member of the assembled Society of the Army of West Virginia. In 1905, she went to a gathering of the 5th West Virginia Cavalry, who resided in Beverly after the Battle of Rich Mountain. The veterans gave her the title of Mother of the Regiment, due to the medical attention she gave to their wounded comrades. On September 4, 1911, Laura passed away at her daughter-in-law’s house and was laid to rest in Heavner Cemetery in Buckhannon, WV. Today, the house Laura shared with Jonathan is part of Historic Beverly. In 1883, A.D. Barlow purchased two lots from Jonathan Arnold’s relatives, adding a store above the south wing of the house. A fire burned this part of the home in the 1940s and Barlow’s daughter disposed of the south wing. His daughter also added a porch, made changes to the windows, and blocked a door that was on the second story of the home. Four rooms that were a part of the home when the Arnolds lived in it are still there today.

The Jonathan Arnold House was the home of Laura Jackson Arnold, sister of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. A strong Unionist, Laura opened her home to Union troops during the Civil War. Laura helped heal the wounded while also providing shelter and food. Prominent figures, like Union General George McClellan, passed through the home during the Civil War. Laura and her brother Thomas had once been very close, but due to their differing views on the question of secession, their relationship became antagonistic and the two never resolved their differences before Thomas's death in 1863. Because of her assistance to federal forces, Laura was praised by Union troops during the war and remembered with great respect and admiration by Union veterans after the war.

The Jonathan and Laura Jackson Arnold House 

Early records indicate that a Presbyterian congregation has existed in the area now known as Beverly, West Virginia since 1772. At that time, Beverly and the surrounding communities that came to form Randolph County were ministered to by a Reverend Charles Cummins. According to local accounts Cummins attended services in Beverly and elsewhere armed with a rifle (as did many of his worshippers), the fear of Indian attacks being so great that the congregants deemed such preparations a necessity. Reverend Cummins remained in the area of Randolph County for eight years, when the Reverend Edward Crawford replaced him. Crawford in turn continued in his capacity as Presbyterian minister to the area until 1819 before the Reverend Areta Loomis took his place. It was under Reverend Loomis that the Beverly congregation formally joined the Presbyterian Church’s hierarchy as part of the Lexington Presbytery in 1825. It would take another twenty-four years, for the congregation to build their church on Main Street, which was completed under the guidance of Reverend Enoch Thomas in 1859. The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 spelled that first church’s doom, however. Within two years of its construction, it had been dismantled by the federal troops that occupied the town of Beverly after the Battle of Rich Mountain. Because of its location along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, Beverly stood at the center of a key thoroughfare for the transportation of military goods and personnel from east to west. Despite the fact that the town voted in favor of secession by a slim majority during the Virginia plebiscite of 1861 its strategic importance motivated Union forces under General George B. McClellan to occupy it, which they did after defeating Confederate troops under Colonel John Pegram at Rich Mountain on July 11 of that year. That occupation lasted throughout the war, necessitating the construction of permanent shelters for the Union troops there. Along with the Beverly United Methodist Church and several other buildings in the community the Beverly Presbyterian Church built two years earlier was torn apart, its materials finding their way into the small wooden huts the troops built for themselves as winter quarters. Those same huts were the first to face the brunt of a Confederate attempt to regain control of the town on January 11, 1865. Early in the morning of that day, three hundred Confederate cavalrymen under General Thomas Rosser surprised the 8th and 34th Ohio Regiments under Colonel Robert Youart before reveille. Rosser, who had crossed through snow-covered mountains in the dead of winter to reach the town, managed to arrive there the morning after a ball that had kept many of the Union officers and their soldiers up late the previous night. As a result the Confederates encountered little resistance and swept their opponents from the location of the Beverly Presbyterian Church to the current site of the Mt. Iser Cemetery, capturing 580 prisoners and briefly occupying the town. Cut off from supplies and facing the possibility of retaliation from Union forces nearby, however, Rosser chose to withdraw his men and leave it to be reoccupied by federal troops. The Rosser raid was the last Confederate effort to regain territory in the new state of West Virginia prior to the surrender of General Robert E. Lee in April of 1865. After the war many of Beverly’s residents with southern sympathies returned to the town, having fled en masse during the Battle of Rich Mountain in fear of retaliation from federal troops. Beverly Presbyterian Church’s minister prior to the war, Reverend Enoch Thomas, was among those who departed, but did not reoccupy his position with the cession of hostilities. Instead, the Reverend Robert Scott (a Confederate sympathizer from Missouri) took up the position of Presbyterian minister to Randolph County and was the primary driving force behind the construction not only of the current Beverly Presbyterian Church but the Presbyterian churches of Elkins and Huttonsville as well. Although the church’s congregation attempted on several occasions to petition Congress for reimbursements related to the federal destruction of their house of worship during the war, their requests were refused on the grounds of their extensive ties to the Confederacy. So, the second Beverly Presbyterian Church was built from funds donated by the congregation itself. The structure that eventually rose on Main Street was built in the Victorian Gothic style, its most distinctive feature being the gabled and disproportionately sized steeple. This steeple contains the belfry where the congregation placed its original bell upon the building’s completion in 1873, the only portion of the first church to survive the Civil War.

The Presbyterian church on Main Street in Beverly, West Virginia is the second such structure that has stood at that location, although a Presbyterian congregation has existed in the area since 1772. Built between 1869 and 1873 in the Victorian Gothic style, the current Beverly Presbyterian Church replaced an earlier building constructed in 1859. The congregation’s first church did not last long, being dismantled by federal troops for use in the construction of huts for winter quarters during their occupation of the town in the American Civil War. The huts in the immediate vicinity of the dismantled Presbyterian church’s former location on Main Street were the first attacked during Confederate General Thomas Rosser’s 1865 raid on Beverly, making the site of additional interest to the town’s Civil War history. The Beverly Presbyterian Church is currently open Tuesday to Thursday from 11 Am to 9 PM, Friday and Saturday from 11 Am to 10 PM, and Sunday from 10 AM to 3 PM.

Beverly Presbyterian Church

The Methodist congregation of what is now Beverly, West Virginia formally organized in 1786, the same year that the Virginia Assembly voted to form Randolph County and name Beverly as its seat. Although the congregation’s first church, a log building on Court Street, was built at an unknown date it was most likely shortly after the congregation’s formation since early records indicate it was in this structure that Bishop Francis Asbury preached during his visit to the town in 1788. One of the Methodist Episcopal Church’s two first bishops in the United States, Asbury was a key figure in the Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival characterized by enthusiastic faith gatherings, a deemphasis on traditional church hierarchies, and the prioritizing of a more personal relationship to the divine. Asbury traveled throughout the borderlands of the British colonies and later United States over the course of forty five years as a preacher in North America, during which time he founded several schools for Methodist ministers and kept a detailed journal that remains one of the best sources on life in the Appalachians in the late eighteenth century. In one such journal entry he records his visit to the area that is now Beverly, characterizing the community’s inhabitants in starkly negative terms: “good moralists they are not, and good Christians they can not be unless they are better taught.”<a href="#_ftn1" target="_blank">[1]</a> After Asbury’s visit to Beverly the next itinerant Methodist preacher in the town was the Reverend Lorenzo Dow, who traveled extensively throughout the region in the early 1830s. Dow, another prominent figure of the Second Great Awakening, traveled first across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom before returning to preach across the Appalachian region. During his time in the UK Dow caused considerable controversy for his hypnotic manner of speaking and unkempt dress, as well as the enthusiastic response of the worshippers who attended the camp meetings he held in both England and Ireland. Upon his return to the United States Dow began preaching across the southern United States, where he was noted for appearing without warning in towns from Virginia to Georgia simply to announce that he would return for a revival on the same date the following year. While his staunch opposition to slavery often made him unwelcome in such towns, it appears from local accounts that he was welcomed enthusiastically by the residents of Beverly on the several occasions that he appeared there. Shortly after Dow’s visits to the area, the Reverend Samuel Clawson arrived to preach a sermon to the Methodist congregation there. Noted for his eccentricities in the pulpit, Clawson preached across the Pittsburgh area before joining the West Virginia Conference after the new state’s formation in 1863. During his time in the Beverly area, Clawson made a particularly strong stand against the spread of Primitive Baptist Universalism in the community. Practitioners of this theology (which argued against the existence of Hell) were known colloquially as “No Hellers” and could be found in entrepots across Appalachia, where they were noted for interrupting the sermons of preachers who threatened their congregation with the torments of eternal damnation. Upon hearing that one of those entrepots was located in Beverly, Clawson proclaimed in his sermon to the Methodists of the town that if the “gang here who call themselves ‘No Hellers’…speak to me here tonight or any other time, I will knock you higher than the Tower of Babel.”<a href="#_ftn2" target="_blank">[2]</a> So, on that occasion, apparently, the No Hellers held their tongues. The Methodist congregation to which these preachers spoke lost their original church building during the American Civil War when federal troops occupying Beverly dismantled it and used the materials to build small wooden huts as their winter quarters. After the war the congregation constructed a temporary replacement for their original church at the same location, which in turn lasted over two decades before Beverly’s Methodists could afford to build better accommodations. This they did in 1890 on Main Street across from the Beverly Presbyterian Church. This church, the structure still in use today, was built in the Gothic Revival style. The decorative finials on the columns at the church’s front is especially representative of this style, as are the pointed arches and drip molding over the structure’s windows. <a href="#_ftnref1" target="_blank">[1]</a> Bosworth, 274.<a href="#_ftnref2" target="_blank">[2]</a> Bosworth, 272.

The Beverly United Methodist Church is the third structure to serve as a house of worship for the Beverly, West Virginia’s Methodists since European colonists arrived to the area in the late eighteenth century. The first, a log structure built on Court Street at an unknown date, was dismantled by federal troops occupying the town during the Civil War for use as building material in the construction of winter quarters. The second, at the same location, rose shortly after the war in 1867 and lasted until the construction of the current building on Main Street in 1890. The Methodist congregation of Beverly has hosted a number of prominent preachers during its time in existence, most notably Bishop Francis Asbury in 1788, the Reverend Lorenzo Dow in the 1830s, and the Reverend Samuel Clawson shortly thereafter. Through its connection to these individuals, the Beverly United Methodist Church and its congregation serve as a window into the development of the Methodist denomination in the area and nationwide. The church is currently open during regular services on Sundays.

Beverly United Methodist Church

According to the&nbsp;Historic Beverly Preservation Association,&nbsp;&nbsp;the Beverly cemetery is the oldest public cemetery west of the Allegheny Mountains. The earliest burials at this site were&nbsp;Nicholas Wolfe and Isaac Springfield in 1768. James Westfall's land patent in 1772 included the cemetery. Colonel Archibald Earle purchased the land in 1832 and transferred the cemetery site to the town of Beverly&nbsp;before his death in 1842.&nbsp; Veterans of almost every war (excluding recent conflicts) and many early pioneers are buried at the site,&nbsp;including Lemuel Chenoweth,&nbsp;famous covered bridge builder, and Herman Guy Kump, 19th governor of West Virginia. The Beverly Cemetery is listed in the National Register as a contributing resource to the Beverly Historic District.The cemetery is divided into sections, with the newest graves located on the northern side of the property, and the oldest graves located in the center, and along the western side near the Tygart river. Many of the oldest graves are in poor shape, with a majority of the gravestones being knocked over and without legible inscriptions. However, there are many gravestones still legible, and are burial sites for soldiers of all wars. In 2009, vandals were reported as spray painting and knocking over historic gravestones. The Beverly Cemetery has been raising funds to restore these headstones.&nbsp;

The Beverly Cemetery is located in the town of Beverly, WV, a short distance north of the commercial center, and is located within the Beverly Historic District. It is surrounded by few residences and vacant lots surrounding it to the north, east and south. The rippling Tygart Valley River and wooded areas are on the western side of the property. Beverly Cemetery is a rectangular section of land containing over 300 graves dating from 1768 to the modern era.

Walking Tour of Historic Beverly, West Virginia

Edward Hart House

Introduction

Backstory and Context

Sources