Volume 11 , Issue 11

Fairmont, Marion County, WV

We found this unknown family photo in my Grandmother's treasure chest of genealogy photos. Why Grandma Contance Warwick McGill had it ... I do not know! The backside was dark and you could barely make "Palatine" scratched into the backside. The old photograph is one of those photographs you see on cardboard type photo-backing. When did they start and end doing photographs like that?

We did a Google search for Fairmont, WV and found some history of Fairmont, Marion County, WV.

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Here is some of what we found and you can read the rest of it on my Facebook site: "Fairmont is a city in Marion County, West Virginia, United States. It is the county seat of Marion County[3]. Established in 1820 as Middletown, then in Monongalia County, it was chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1843 as Fairmont, a contraction of "Fair Mountain."

Fairmont is located in the North-Central region of the state, along West Virginia's I-79 High Tech Corridor, about 18 miles southwest of Morgantown, and about 23 miles northeast of Clarksburg.

Fairmont State University, established in 1865, is located in Fairmont. The former head of the art department of the school, Luella Mundel, was the subject of a documentary called American Inquisition by Helen Whitney. Mundel was the victim of blacklisting during the McCarthy era, and the documentary showed how the negative effects of that era reached even smalltown West Virginia. This documentary was the subject of a very famous case about the First Amendment.[5]

Marion County was created by an act of the Virginia Assembly on January 14, 1842, from parts of Harrison and Monongalia counties. The county was named in honor of General Francis Marion (1732-1795), the legendary hero of the American Revolutionary War.

Oral history indicates that in 1808 Boaz Fleming made his annual trek to Clarksburg to pay his brother's Harrison County taxes. While in Clarksburg he attended a social gathering that included Dolly Madison, his cousin. He complained to her about having to travel over a hundred miles each year from his home to pay his Monongalia County taxes and his brother's Harrison County taxes.

Dolly Madison supposedly suggested that he create his own county to save him all that travel. Six years later, Boaz Fleming circulated a petition to do precisely that, naming the proposed county Madison County, in honor of Dolly and President James Madison.

The petition failed to gain sufficient support to be presented to the Virginia General Assembly. He then focused on creating a town near his farm. In 1819, a road was built from Clarksburg to Morgantown. His farm was about halfway between the two, making a good resting point.

He laid out the town on the west side of the Monongahela River in 1819. It was incorporated on January 19, 1820 as Middletown. It is unknown if the town was called Middletown because of its location mid-way between Clarksburg and Morgantown or because Boaz Fleming's first wife, Elizabeth Hutchinson, was originally from Middletown, Delaware.

Middletown was named newly-formed Marion County's first county seat on February 18, 1842. At that time, William Haymond, Jr. suggested that the town's name be changed to Fairmont because the town had a beautiful overlook of the Monongahela River, giving it a "fair mount." The Borough of Fairmont was incorporated in 1843 by the Virginia General Assembly.

In 1838, the town of Palatine was laid out on the east side of the Monongahela River, opposite Middletown. It was settled by Germans from the Palatinate States of southwestern Germany and they named the town after their homeland. It was incorporated in 1867. In 1899, Fairmont, Palatine, and neighboring West Fairmont were merged into a single city.

In 1865, a privately-owned normal school opened in Fairmont to train teachers that would be required to fill the state legislature's mandate of having free public schools in every county. In 1867, Fairmont Normal School was accepted as one of three normal schools owned and operated by the state of West Virginia. In 1917, the school was named Fairmont State Teachers College and is currently known as Fairmont State College.

In 1793, Jacob Paulsley built a home on the east side of the Monongahela River in present-day Fairmont. At that time, most of the future city was a dense, laurel thicket.

When Middletown was formed in 1820, its initial trustees were: John S. Barns, John W. Kelley, Josiah Wolcott, John W. Polsley, Jesse Ice, Benoni Fleming and Thomas Fleming. John S. Barnes served as mayor.
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