Editing Grafton, West Virginia (section)

===Turnpike and railroad===
[[File:Photocopied December 1972 from original in collection of Mr. Roy Boliger, Grafton, WV, 1857. VIEW OF GRAFTON, WV. - Northwestern Virginia (BandO) Railroad, Grafton Machine Shop HAER WVA,46-GRAFT,1-1.tif|thumb|left|{{center|Grafton in 1859, from the Historic American Engineering Review – HAER}}]]
John Wolverton Blue (1803–1889) was in charge of the construction of Virginia's [[Northwestern Turnpike]] from [[Aurora, West Virginia|Aurora]] to the Tygart Valley. Visiting the future site of Grafton in 1833, he stayed overnight with the Currents.<ref>Core, Earl L. (1974–84), ''The Monongalia Story: A Bicentennial History'', Parsons, W. Va.: McClain Printing Co., 5 volumes; Vol. III: Discord (1979), pg 117.</ref> According to a local historian, "Blue, upon awakening the next morning, heard the wife of Current sobbing bitterly" over the impending loss of her "cabin home...[and] vegetable and flower garden" because of the planned right-of-way for the road. "Mr. Blue, a Virginian of the old school, was greatly moved...and...an offer of $300 for 900 acres...and their ruined home...was quickly accepted."<ref>Brinkman, Charles (1939–42), ''The History of Taylor County'', Chapt. 13; published in installments in the Grafton ''Sentinel''; 2 May issue. (These newspaper columns, published from April 18, 1939, to June 29, 1942, by the Grafton ''Sentinel'', are compiled by the Taylor County Historical and Genealogical Society in three volumes [Vol. 1, 1989; Vol. 2, 1992; Vol. 3, 1992]. The columns are produced as 890 "chapters" in the reprinted work.) James Current and his wife Margaret (Richardson) (1737–1830) had both died, so the "wife of Current" referred to may have been one of their daughters-in-law.</ref>

This neighborhood (now a suburb of Grafton) became known as Blueville and it — along with the nearby area called "Valley Bridge" (present day [[Fetterman, West Virginia|Fetterman]], or Ward 1) — began to grow after the Turnpike was completed in 1834.<ref>Snider, Joseph Franklin (1945), [https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8410&context=etd "The Early History of Grafton"],  ''Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports''. 7362. (Master's thesis for [[West Virginia University]]), pp 2-3.</ref> Blue also supervised the construction of a (now long gone) covered bridge over the Tygart here at this time.

In 1847, the [[Virginia General Assembly]] passed an act authorizing the [[Baltimore and Ohio Railroad|Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company]] to extend its line to the Ohio River at Wheeling. The city of Grafton owes its existence to the interventions of [[Thomas Haymond|Thomas S. Haymond]] (1794–1869), a lawyer and U.S. Congressman (and future Confederate colonel) from nearby [[Marion County, West Virginia|Marion County]]. According to another local historian, "Haymond never mentioned his county as desiring the [rail]road; but being well acquainted with the geography of north-western Virginia, he quietly got the following clause attached to the bill: 'That the said railroad to be constructed through the territory of Virginia, shall reach or cross the Tygart's Valley River at or within three miles of the mouth of Three Fork Creek in the county of Taylor'".<ref>Core, ''[[Op. cit.]]'', pg 292.</ref> This clause effectively re-routed the line away from Morgantown and forced it to pass through Haymond's hometown of [[Fairmont, West Virginia|Fairmont]]. Grafton, which is perched in unlikely fashion on a very steep hillside at the mentioned confluence, was the accidental beneficiary, also becoming the branch point for the side line north to Morgantown. 
[[File:The old Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station in Grafton, West Virginia, built in 1911, a year before 30 passenger trains a day passed through this B&O junction town LCCN2015631675.tif|thumb|The [[Grafton Downtown Commercial Historic District|Grafton B&O Depot]]]]
The B&O work crews completed the line on January 11, 1852, and the first "iron horse" arrived two days later. This was the first trans-[[Appalachian Mountains|Appalachian]] railroad. The population in 1853 was reported as comprising only eight families,<ref>Wolfe, Howard H. (1962), ''Mother's Day and the Mother's Day Church''; Privately printed (Kingsport, Tennessee); pg 5.</ref> but within a year "Grafton Junction" had emerged as a booming railroad town with several more residences and stores. As the railroad facilities were developed, local land was surveyed for the new town, which was chartered on March 15, 1856, in the Virginia General Assembly.<ref name="Archived copy">{{cite web|url=http://www.graftonwv.org/aboutgrafton.html |title=About Grafton |access-date=October 13, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101028144429/http://www.graftonwv.org/aboutgrafton.html |archive-date=October 28, 2010 }}</ref> The population by this time was 606 people.<ref>Wolfe (1962), ''[[Op. cit.]]''</ref>