Editing Barbour County, West Virginia (section)

===Settlement and formation===
The first white settlement in present-day Barbour County was established in 1780 by Richard Talbott – along with his brother Cotteral and sister Charity – about {{convert|3|mi|km|spell=in}} downriver from the future site of Philippi.<ref>The Talbotts settled at the mouth of Hacker's Creek. [[Hu Maxwell|Maxwell, Hu]] (1899), ''The History of Barbour County, From its Earliest Exploration and Settlement to the Present Time'', [[The Acme Publishing Company]], [[Morgantown, West Virginia|Morgantown, W.Va.]] (Reprinted, [[McClain Printing Company]], [[Parsons, West Virginia|Parsons, W.Va.]], 1968.), pg 473.</ref> At this time the region was still a part of [[Monongalia County, West Virginia|Monongalia County]], Virginia. The region had had no permanent [[Native Americans in the United States|Indian]] settlements and so conflicts with Native Americans were relatively infrequent in the early days. Nevertheless, the Talbotts were obliged to leave their homestead several times for safety and twice found it necessary to retreat back east of the Alleghenies, returning each time. No member of this eventually large family was ever killed by Indian attacks.<ref>Maxwell, ''Op. cit.'', pg 474.</ref>

Over time, parts of the future Barbour County were included in the newly created Harrison (1784), Randolph (1787), and Lewis (1816) Counties. Barbour County itself was created in 1843 and named for the late Virginia politician and [[jurist]] [[Philip P. Barbour]] (1783–1841). (Barbour had served as a [[United States Congress|U.S. Congressman]] from Virginia, Speaker of the House, and Associate Justice of the [[United States Supreme Court]].) The settlement of [[Philippi, West Virginia|Philippi]]  – formerly "Anglin's Ford" and "Booth's Ferry" – was [[platted]], named, and made the [[county seat]] in the same year; it was chartered in 1844. By the 1850s, when a major [[Philippi Covered Bridge|covered bridge]] was constructed at Philippi to service travellers on the [[Beverly-Fairmont Turnpike]], the county's population was approaching 10,000 people.

The first newspaper in the county was the ''Barbour Jeffersonian'', published starting in August 1857 and running only to about June 1861. It was put out by Thompson Surghnor (1820-1864).<ref>Barbour County Historical Society (1979), ''Barbour County, West Virginia...Another Look''; Taylor Publishing Company, pg 30.</ref>