One River, One Region: Reading Belmont County’s Centennial History

Part One of “Across the River: A Centennial Reflection on Belmont County”

In 1903, A. T. McKelvey published Centennial History of Belmont County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens. The substantial volume looked back across the county’s first century, gathering accounts of its towns, schools, churches, industries, transportation routes, public officials, reformers, and residents.

For our Foundation, however, the book represents more than the history of a neighboring Ohio county. It offers another perspective on the history of the Upper Ohio Valley—a region whose communities were separated by state lines but joined by the river.

Wheeling, Bellaire, Bridgeport, Martins Ferry, St. Clairsville, Colerain, and Barnesville did not develop in isolation. People crossed the Ohio River to work, worship, trade, attend meetings, visit family members, and pursue opportunity. Ferries were eventually joined by bridges and railroads, but the human connections came first.

The Ohio River was both a boundary and a corridor.

Before West Virginia’s creation in 1863, the river divided the free state of Ohio from Virginia, where slavery remained legal. That distinction gave the waterway enormous meaning. For an enslaved person escaping from Virginia, crossing the river into Ohio could be a critical step toward freedom—but it did not guarantee safety. Federal fugitive-slave laws permitted capture even in free states, while those who offered assistance risked arrest, violence, or abduction themselves.

The Belmont County centennial history preserves remarkable accounts of that borderland. It tells of Benjamin Lundy witnessing enslaved people being driven through Wheeling before carrying his antislavery commitment to St. Clairsville. It records the work of Black conductors Richard Naylor, Samuel Cooper, Henry Cooper, and Thomas Pointer along an Underground Railroad route beginning near Martins Ferry. It describes early public education for Black children in Bridgeport and the eventual admission of those children into the community’s formerly white schools.

The book also records the creation of African Methodist Episcopal churches in Bellaire, Barnesville, and St. Clairsville. These congregations were more than houses of worship. They were institutions created and sustained by Black residents who needed places of spiritual refuge, leadership, education, organization, and mutual support.

Each of those stories belongs within the history of the Upper Ohio Valley.

Reading a Centennial History Carefully

A centennial history is both a record of the past and a reflection of the era in which it was written.

McKelvey’s volume contains names, dates, recollections, institutional histories, and local traditions that might otherwise have disappeared. Its chapter on the Underground Railroad is especially valuable because it was contributed by Ellis B. Steele, who identified himself as a former conductor.

At the same time, the book was published in 1903. Its language and assumptions reflect that period. Like many county histories, it devotes considerable attention to political leaders, property owners, businessmen, military officers, and people considered “representative citizens.” The experiences of women, laborers, poor families, immigrants, Native people, and Black residents appear less consistently.

Even when Black history enters the narrative, it is sometimes told through terminology or perspectives we would not use today. In this series, historical terms will be retained only when necessary to explain or quote the original source. Otherwise, we will speak of Black residents, enslaved people, and freedom seekers in language that recognizes their humanity and agency.

Claims of local “firsts” will also be identified as claims made by the 1903 history unless they can be confirmed through additional records.

Looking Across the Water

The value of this book rests partly in its ability to change our map.

If we study Wheeling without examining the communities across the river, we see only part of the story. The river carried commerce, but it also carried ideas. Antislavery organizing, religious movements, educational reforms, labor, industry, and family relationships traveled between its banks.

The histories of Belmont County and Wheeling repeatedly meet in the middle.

That is the purpose of this series: to cross the river, recover the people whose stories deserve greater attention, and understand the Upper Ohio Valley as the interconnected region it has always been.

-T

Research note: This series is based principally on A. T. McKelvey’s 1903 Centennial History of Belmont County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens.