MOUNTAIN STATE
If one delegate attending the convention of 1863 to determine the name of the new, 35th state being added to the union, had been more persuasive the new state may have been called “Augusta”.
He didn't even come close. In fact, the name "Augusta"received just one vote - which we can assume to have been his own. Even though he failed to influence other delegates present, he had good reason to make the suggestion he set forth.
The general area which now makes up what is called West Virginia was, for about a twenty year period, called Augusta County, Virginia. It was formed at the same time as Frederick County, to the north, in 1745 but it took a few years for things to actually get organized and in the mean time, and interim government prevailed. For a time it was the largest piece of real estate under the adminstration of a county seat. Initally, it was governed from Orange Court House, Virginia, then in 1745 the power was shifted to a group of "magistrates" living west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Staunton, formerly Beveley's Mill Place became the county seat for the entire area called Augusta County. They had been serving for years as the active arm of government in the area as appointed by Royal officials at Orange County Court House, Orange, Virginia.
It territory called "Augusta" was large. To this day, people still find it difficult to believe and to accept the fact that Augusta County was , by far, the largest adminstative unit to be found anywhere in America.
The bounds of Augusta County, Virginia, roughly, embodied the following limitations. If one choses to begin at some point on the Blue Ridge Mountains summit on the eastern side of the County, then he would go south-west down the ridge of that range to the North Carolina border. Then, westward until he came to the Mississippi River. The line then went up that waterway into Minnesota and Wisconsin, took in most of Michigan, all of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. From Ohio it crossed Pennsylvania at the general point of Ft. Duquane (Pittsburgh) and bent southward to go along the buldging edge of the newly created Fredrick County, and gradually worked it 's way across the Shenandoah Valley to the Blue Ridge Range.
To this day it is not uncommon to come across place names all over the affected area echoing the Augusta theme. The celebrated folk festival held each year at Elkins, West Virginia , on-in-and around the campus of Davis and Elkin Coillege, is known far and wide as the "Augusta Festival."
But in naming the 35th state to be admitted to the Union the conference voted heavily in favor of calling it "West Virginia." The choice was symbolic, no doubt, of a First Settlement and Colonial Heritage so many indivudals and families the area did not want to forego entirely.
The name "West Virginia" won with thirty votes.
"Kanawha" followed, then came "Western Virginia", "Allegheny" and that lone vote for "Augusta". Naming a state is not an easy task to undertake. It was especially trying to make such a decision at that point in our history. President Abraham Lincoln agonized until the very last minute to seperate the peoples of the Old Dominion/Virginia. Virginia was to be the only state in the entire nation to suffer the loss of more than one-half of her territory, to bleed upon more battlefields than any of the Confederate states, and also to suffer great losses in a materials sense.
The tremendous expanse of Augusta was diminished by time and events. New counties were fomed in Southwest Virginia, Kentucky and other areas and control from the county seat in Staunton, Virginia was relinquished.
Augusta...an historical chimera.
A.L.M. October 31, 2003 [c644wds]
