Editing Pendleton County, West Virginia (section)

==History==
By the 1740s, the three main valleys of what became Pendleton County had been visited and named by white hunters and prospectors. One of the hunters, a single man named Abraham Burner, built himself a log cabin about a half mile downstream of the future site of [[Brandywine, West Virginia|Brandywine]] in 1745. He was the county's first white settler. A local historian recorded that: <blockquote>The site ... [was] on the left bank of the river, and near the beginning of a long, eastward bend. From almost at his very door his huntsman's eye was at times gladdened by seeing perhaps fifty deer either drinking from the steam or plunging in their heads up to their ears in search of moss.<ref>Morton, Oren F. (1910), ''A History of Pendleton County, West Virginia'', [[Franklin, West Virginia]]. Reprint (1974) by [[Regional Publishing Company]], [[Baltimore]], pp 31-32.</ref></blockquote> By 1747, immigrants were impinging on the (future) borders of Pendleton from two directions: the larger community was mostly [[German American|Germans]] moving up the valley of the [[South Branch Potomac]]; the lesser consisted mainly of [[Scotch-Irish American|Scotch-Irish]] moving northwest from [[Staunton, Virginia|Staunton]] up into the headwaters of the [[James River]]. In an April 1758, surprise raid of Fort Seybert and nearby Fort Upper Tract occasioned by the [[French and Indian War]] (1754–63), most of the 60 white settlers sheltering there were massacred by [[Shawnee]] and [[Lenape|Delaware]] warriors and the forts were burned.

Pendleton County was created by the Virginia General Assembly in 1788 from parts of [[Augusta County, Virginia|Augusta]], [[Hardy County, West Virginia|Hardy]], and [[Rockingham County, Virginia|Rockingham]] counties and was named for [[Edmund Pendleton]], a distinguished Virginia statesman and [[jurist]]. Pendleton County was split between Northern and Southern sympathies during the [[American Civil War]]. The northern section of the county, including the enclave in the [[Smoke Hole Canyon|Smoke Hole community]] was staunchly Unionist. In June 1863, the county was included by the federal government in the new state of West Virginia against the wishes of many of the inhabitants. That fall, Union [[Brigadier General|General]] [[W.W. Averell]] swept up the South Branch valley, and destroyed the Confederate [[saltpetre]] works above Franklin.<ref>[[West Virginia Writers Project]] (1940), ''Smoke Hole and Its People: A Social-Ethnic Study''; [[Charleston, West Virginia]]: State Department of Education; Reprinted (pp 101-132) in: Shreve, D. Bardon (2005), ''Sheriff from Smoke Hole (and Other Smoke Hole Stories)'', [[Fredericksburg, Virginia]]: [[The Fredericksburg Press, Inc]], pg 118.</ref>

In the months following the state's establishment, West Virginia's counties were divided into [[civil township]]s, with the intention of encouraging local government. This proved impractical in the heavily rural state, and in 1872 the townships were converted into [[minor civil division|magisterial districts]].<ref>Otis K. Rice & Stephen W. Brown, ''West Virginia: A History'', 2nd ed., University Press of Kentucky, Lexington (1993), p. 240.</ref>  Pendleton County was divided into six districts: Bethel, Circleville, Franklin, Mill Run, Sugar Grove, and Union. Except for minor adjustments, these magisterial districts remained largely unchanged until the 1990s, when they were consolidated into three new districts: Central, Eastern, and Western.<ref>[[United States Census Bureau]], [[United States Census|U.S. Decennial Census]], Tables of Minor Civil Divisions in West Virginia, 1870–2010.</ref>

Pendleton County and the surrounding area were hit by severe flooding in November 1985. At [[Franklin, West Virginia|Franklin]], the [[county seat]], the South Branch of the [[Potomac River|Potomac]] crested at 22.6 feet, more than fifteen feet{{efn-lr|At Franklin, flood stage begins at only seven feet.}} above flood stage in the shallow riverbed.<ref name="dwhite">West Virginia Gazette: "Remembering the '85 floods" (D. White) November 4, 2010</ref>  Sixty-two people were killed in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, in what became known as the "[[1985 Election Day floods]]" in Virginia, or the "Killer Floods of 1985" in West Virginia. According to the [[National Weather Service]], thirty-eight of the deaths occurred in Pendleton and [[Grant County, West Virginia|Grant]] Counties, West Virginia.<ref name=dwhite/>  Twenty-two people were killed in [[Virginia]], and there was one fatality each attributed to the flooding in [[Maryland]] and [[Pennsylvania]].

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