Ment 1930

Manufactures.

There was a sharp drop in manufacturing following 1929. In 1930 there were 1,483 establishments employ ing 85,289 wage-earners at a total of $115,259,081 in wages and producing an output valued at $512,010,502. In 1933 the estab lishments had decreased to 887, or almost half, and wage-earners had decreased to 67,950, wages had fallen almost 5o%, amount ing to $60,399,840, and the value of products was close to one half its value in 1929, or $262,466,988. By 1935 the number of establishments had risen to 1,045, the number of wage-earners to 77,550, total wages to $80,306,879, and value of products to Leading, with a value of in 1935, were the products of the I 2 steel works and rolling mills of the State. Prod ucts of the 42 glass factories were second with a value of $40, 500,213. Other leading industries in order of value of output were : chemicals, $37,292,613 ; pottery, including porcelain ware. petroleum refining, $10,305,313; bread and other bakery products, $9,244,833 ; stamped and pressed metal products, $8,740,214 ; lumber and timber products, $8,154,297; coke oven products, $7,918,550; wholesale meat packing, $7,656,574; steam railroad repair shops, $6,481,213 ; leather, tanned, curried and finished, $6,437,779. Wheeling, Huntington and Parkersburg were the chief industrial centres of the State.

The State is rich in power resources which should have much to do with the future growth of industry. The vast coal re sources are close at hand. Natural gas in many instances furnishes a still cheaper power. Finally, with one exception, the State has greater potential water-power in her rivers than any State east of the Mississippi river.

Transportation and Commerce.

Railway development in West Virginia has been due largely to the exploitation of the coal and lumber. The mileage increased from 2,228 in 1900 to 4,046 in 1930, then decreased to 3,928 in 1935. Despite the competi tion of trucks less railroad mileage has been abandoned than in other States. Since the issue of bonds to the amount of 000 in 1930, road building has proceeded with great rapidity. Of the 4,514m. in the State system in 1935 there. were 3,907m. paved and 607m. graded or partly graded. Motor vehicles in creased in number from 217,589 to 249,287 in 1935. The river and its branches are used for the shipment of coal.

History.

The western part of Virginia was not explored until long after considerable settlements had been made in the east. In 1671 Abraham Wood, able trader and frontiersman, sent out a party under Capt. Thomas Batts, which ascended the Roanoke river in south-western Virginia and crossed near its headwaters to the New river, a westward flowing stream. This river they descended to the* point where it breaks through Peter's mountain at Peter's falls on the Virginia-West Virginia boundary. The pass was later to be one of the chief highways of early western trade and settlement. Other explorations in the 17th century are un known. Doubtless after 1700 pioneer traders with the Indians

frequently penetrated the Potomac region above Harper's Ferry, but with the exception of Van Metre, who in 1725 traversed the valley of the South Branch, they left no record. In 1726 or 1727 the first known cabins in the State were built at Shepherdstown by some Germans from Pennsylvania who crossed the Potomac at the "Old Pack Horse Ford" and by Morgan Morgan on Mill Creek in Berkeley county. Within a few years other settlers from Pennsylvania and Maryland settled on various creeks flow ing into the Potomac as far west as the South Branch. In 1736 an exploring party traced the Potomac to its source. Advance up the South Branch was rapid. The diary kept by George Washington, who between 1748 and 1751 surveyed much of this land for Lord Fairfax, recorded many squatters, largely of Ger man origin, in the region. The insecurity of title on the Fairfax grant prompted many to go still higher up the branch and its forks into Pendleton county. By 175o a few of the frontiersmen were crossing the Allegheny divide into the Greenbriar and other rivers whose waters eventually reached the Ohio. Christopher Gist, a surveyor in the employ of the first Ohio company, in i751- 52 explored the country along the Ohio river north of the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Later the Ohio company, merged with the Walpole company, sought to secure from the king the forma tion of a 14th colony with the name "Vandalic." The westward advance was abruptly terminated by the outbreak of the French and Indian War (1754-63) and many of the settlements were forced back by Indian depredations. At the close of this war the English king, hoping thereby to prevent future conflicts with the Indians, issued (1763) a proclamation forbidding further settle ment beyond the divide until arrangements could be made with the Indians, but this proclamation was ignored Between and 1774, when settlement was again temporarily stopped by Indian attacks, it is estimated that the line of settlement advanced across the Alleghenies and through the wilderness to the Ohio at an average rate of 17 m. per year. The valleys first settled were those of the Monongahela, Greenbriar and the New Rivers and thence down the Great Kanawha to the Ohio. By 1775 it is esti mated that there were 30,00o people in the West Virginia region. In the face of this relentless advance the savages grew more hos tile. The result was Dunmore's War of 1774. The governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, led a force over the mountains, and co operating with a body of militia under Gen. Lewis, dealt the Shawnee Indians under Cornstalk a crushing blow at Point Pleas ant (q.v.) at the junction of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. During the Revolutionary War which followed closely, the settlers in West Virginia were generally active Whigs and many served in the Continental army.