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| Harrison County |
| Monday, 14 May 2007 23:41 | |||
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Thomas Jonathan Jackson, better known as Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson during the Civil War, was born in Clarksburg, the county seat of Harrison County. He was born January 21, 1824. His birthplace is marked by a bronze plaque on a Main Street building, where once stood the small brick house in which he was born. AT 18 he entered the U.S. Military Academy, and graduated 17th in a class of 59. The city is an industrial trading center for area coal mines, oil and gas fields and grazing land. A local glass plant makes marbles that are shipped worldwide. The first white settler was a trapper by the name of John Simpson, who arrived in 1764. By 1772 a number of other settlers had arrived. In 1773, David Davisson took claim to 400 acres of land, which today is where the business district is located. In 1781, the town was named in honor of George Rogers Clark. It was platted in 1784. By 1810 the city had its first newspaper, called "The By-Stander." Clarksburg was a stopping-off point for travelers going west because it was at the western edge of the settled territories. Cattle herds were often collected here for drives westward. Furs and skins were packed here for shipment east. Harrison County is on the Allegheny Plateau. The county is known for its livestock, fruit and tobacco farms, natural and oil wells, bituminous coal, and lumber. Harrison County, located in the north central part of the state, was formed in 1784. Consisting of some 418 square miles in area, the county was named in honor of Benjamin Harrison. This distinguished Virginian was the father of one president of the United States and grandfather of another. His son William Henry Harrison served as the ninth U.S. president, and his grandson, Benjamin, became the 23rd president. Simpson Creek Baptist Church, organized ten years before this area became Harrison County, was the first Baptist church west of the Alleghenies.
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