Editing Philippi, West Virginia (section)

==History==
===Settlement===
The first white settlement in present-day [[Barbour County, West Virginia|Barbour County]] was established approximately three  miles downriver from the future site of Philippi in 1780, at which time the area was still part of western [[Virginia]] and included within [[Monongalia County, West Virginia|Monongalia County]]. The earliest settlers on the section of bottomland that would one day become Philippi were William Anglin  (as early as 1783 or '84) and Daniel Booth (1787). A [[Ford (crossing)|ford]] existed here as early as 1789 which served the road that had recently been surveyed between [[Beverly, West Virginia|Beverly]] and Sandy Creek. Anglin was the original owner of the land upon which Philippi stands, hence the earliest known name for the locality — Anglin's Ford. Booth also owned and operated a commercial [[ferry]] here in the 1790s, thus the area's second popular designation — Booth's Ferry.<ref>{{cite book | author = Maxwell, Hu| title = The History of Barbour County, From its Earliest Exploration and Settlement to the Present Time, The Acme Publishing Company, Morgantown, W.Va. (Reprinted, McClain Printing Company, Parsons, W.Va., 1968)|year = 1899| pages = 276}}</ref> William Friend Wilson married Booth's daughter and built a wool and grain mill on the river in 1818.

In 1825, the first post office in the region (that would later become Barbour County) was established by Henson Lewis Hoff (1805-1890), an expeditious young man who had just arrived from [[Loudoun County, Virginia|Loudoun County]]. Hoff settled at Cherry Hill, just west of the current city limits of Philippi. After Hoff became the postmaster, the community that would become Philippi was known as "Hoffsville" and remained so until 1841 when the name "Philippa" was first considered.<ref>Martin, Joseph (1835), ''New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia''; Reprinted in 1968 in ''West Virginia Heritage'', Vol 2, pg 21; West Virginia Heritage Foundation; Richwood, W.Va. (Unfortunately, the ''Gazetteer'' does not provide any details for "Hoffsville" as it does for other villages in the area, except that Richmond was 253 miles away and Washington, DC 236 miles away.)</ref><ref>"Place Names in West Virginia": [https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/placenames/placnamh.html H], [https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/placenames/placnamp.html P]; [[West Virginia Archives and History]] website</ref>

===Founding and naming===
In March 1843, the vast Harrison and Randolph Counties of western Virginia were carved up into several smaller political units, among them Barbour County, which included Hoffsville. In 1899, [[Hu Maxwell]] described the April 1843 founding and official naming of the new county seat:
<blockquote>
"The county seat of Barbour was located at the place where Philippi now stands before there was a town and before the place was named. It was then a farm belonging to William F. Wilson, and the locality had long been known as Booth's Ferry. The land was first the property of William Anglin, and in succession was owned by John Wilson, Daniel Booth, Ely Butcher, Elmore Hart, Thomas H. Hite and William F. Wilson, who divided it into lots and disposed of the most of it within a few years of the establishing of the county seat. The county was named after [the Virginia lawyer and jurist] [[Philip P. Barbour]], and it was the intention of the county court when it selected a name for the town to honor the given name of Mr. Barbour; giving it the feminine form, however, in conformity with the [[Latin language]]. The feminine of [[Philip (name)|Philip]] is [[Philippa]], and it was meant that such should be the name of the town. But because of misspellings and a misunderstanding of the origin of the name (confounding it with [[Philippi]], an ancient city) the name finally took the form which it now has. On April 5, 1843, the third day of the first county court, it is 'ordered that the county seat of this county be known and called PHILLIPPA'. Except that the name has too many 'l's' the form was proper, according to what was originally intended. Later the name became Philippi, but even then it was oftener misspelled than spelled correctly."<ref>Maxwell, ''Op. cit.'', pg 279.</ref>
</blockquote>
As Maxwell implies, [[Paul of Tarsus|St Paul's]] ''[[Epistle to the Philippians]]'' and the ancient [[Battle of Philippi]] were no doubt influential in the final form of the name.<ref>There was an earlier town in [West] Virginia known as "Philippi". The settlement at the confluence of the [[Kanawha River|Kanawha]] and [[Coal River (West Virginia)|Coal Rivers]] was laid out in 1816 and so named after Philip Thompson, an early settler to the area. The name was afterwards changed to Colesmouth (due to the area and river having been discovered by Samuel Cole). It was later incorporated as Kanawha City (1868) and finally given its current name, [[St. Albans, West Virginia|St. Albans]], in 1872.</ref> Philippi was established by charter in 1844.

In 1852 [[Lemuel Chenoweth]], an Appalachian [[architect]] and [[carpenter]], built a [[covered bridge]] in Philippi to provide a link on the [[Toll roads in the United States#History, funding through toll|turnpike]] running between [[Beverly, West Virginia|Beverly]] and [[Fairmont, West Virginia|Fairmont]]. The [[Philippi Covered Bridge]] spelled the end of the commercial ferry operation and is still the town's prominent landmark.

[[File:TownofPhillippi1861.jpg|thumb|{{center|''Town of Phillippi'' (1861)}}]]

===Civil War===
{{main|Battle of Philippi (West Virginia)}}
Philippi was the scene of the first land battle of the [[American Civil War]], on June 3, 1861. The battle was promptly lampooned as the "Philippi Races" because of the hurried retreat by the Confederate troops encamped in the town. (The battle is [[American Civil War reenactment|reenacted]] every June during the town's 'Blue and Gray Reunion.')

At daylight on June 3, two columns of Union forces under the command of Col. [[Benjamin Franklin Kelley]] and Col. [[Ebenezer Dumont]], with perhaps 3,000 men, arrived from [[Grafton, West Virginia|Grafton]] and attacked about 800 poorly armed [[Confederate States Army|Confederate]] recruits under the command of Col. [[George A. Porterfield]]. The Union troops had marched all night through a heavy rain storm to arrive just before daylight. The surprise attack — from the heights of "Battle Hill" to the northwest — awakened the sleeping Confederates. After firing a few shots at the advancing Union troops, the Southerners broke lines and began running frantically to the south, some still in their bed clothes.

The Union victory in a relatively bloodless battle propelled the young [[Major General (United States)|Major General]] [[George B. McClellan]] into the national spotlight, and he was soon given command of all Union armies. The battle also inspired more vocal protests in the Western part of Virginia against secession. A few days later in [[Wheeling, West Virginia|Wheeling]], the [[Wheeling Convention]] nullified the Virginia ordinance of secession and named [[Francis H. Pierpont]] governor. These events eventually resulted in the separate statehood of West Virginia.

[[File:Bird's Eye Philippi.jpg|thumb|{{center|''Bird's Eye View of Philippi, West Virginia, 1897''}}]]

===Later history===
Philippi was [[incorporation (municipal government)|incorporated]] by act of the [[West Virginia Legislature]] on 1 February 1871. The first railroad{{dash}}the Grafton and Greenbrier, a [[Narrow-gauge railway|narrow-gauge]]{{dash}}arrived at Philippi on 25 January 1884. Three years later the line was extended to Belington and in 1891 it became a [[standard gauge]] when it was acquired by the [[Baltimore and Ohio Railroad|B&O]]. In 1904, citizens passed a bond issue permitting the city to begin generating electricity for the first time by gas.<ref>Mattaliano, Jane K. and Lois G. Omonde (1994), ''Milestones: A Pictorial History of Philippi, West Virginia, 1844-1994'', [[Virginia Beach, Virginia]]: [[The Donning Company Publishers]], pp 97-99.</ref>

In 1901, Broaddus College (founded in 1871 in [[Winchester, Virginia]] and later located in [[Clarksburg, West Virginia]]) relocated to "Battle Hill", overlooking Philippi. In 1932, Broaddus merged with Alderson Academy (itself founded in 1901 in [[Alderson, West Virginia]]), whereupon these two Baptist institutions became Alderson–Broaddus College. (The institution changed its name to the current "[[Alderson Broaddus University]]" in 2013.)

In 1905 a new [[Barbour County Courthouse]] was completed. It was designed by J. Charles Fulton in a monumental [[Romanesque Revival]] style. The building contractor was J.P. Conn.

Rail activity at Philippi peaked in the 1920s when as many as six passenger trains, along with mail and freight, transited the town daily. The automobile brought about a decline in the local railroad service, however, and the final passenger train made its last stop in Philippi in 1956.<ref>Mattaliano, ''[[Op. cit.]]'', pg. 115.</ref>

Throughout its history, Philippi has suffered from [[floods]] because of its proximity to the river and the relatively low elevation of most of the town. The [[1985 Election day floods|most damaging of these]] came in November 1985. The town has since adopted a [[flood plain]] management plan.

On July 31, 2023, the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission revoked Alderson Broaddus University's ability to confer degrees after the end of the year, and ordered to it cease admitting students, due to its "rapidly deteriorating financial condition".<ref>{{cite news |first= Brad |last= McElhinny |url= https://wvmetronews.com/2023/07/31/emergency-meeting-renewed-over-imminent-material-financial-loss-at-alderson-broaddus/ |title= State officials revoke authorization from Alderson Broaddus, order the start of a wind-down |publisher= wvmetronews.com |date= July 31, 2023}}</ref> On the same day, the university's board of trustees voted to close the university.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/02/us/west-virginia-alderson-broaddus-university-closes-students/index.html |title= Financially struggling university in West Virginia closes down, leaving students scrambling |first= Mitchell |last= McCluskey |publisher= [[CNN]] |date= August 2, 2023 }}</ref>