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Welcome to Tyler County, West
Virginia History and
Genealogy
Presented by West Virginia Trails
History and Genealogy

Transcribed by C.
Anthony From History of West
Virginia, in Two Parts by Virgil A. Lewis 1889
Tyler county was formed from Ohio, by Act of
December 16, 1814, by which the boundaries were defined as follows:
Beginning at the southwest corner of the Pennsylvania line; thence a due
west course to the Ohio river: thence with said river to the Wood county
line; thence with said line to the line dividing Monongalia from Ohio
county; thence with said line to the Pennsylvania line, and with it to the
beginning."
The commissioners to locate the seat of justice for the
new county were Dudley Evans and Levi Morgan of Monongalia, Moses
Congleton and Samuel Chambers of Brooke, and Benjamin Robinson and David
Davidson, Jr., of Harrison.
The county was named in honor of John
Tyler, who was born in James City county, Virginia, February 28,
1747. He graduated at William and Mary College, then studied law in
the office of Robert Carter Nicholas at Williamsburg. He was long a
member of Assembly, and commanded a body of Charles City troops during the
Revolution. In 1780, he became a member of the Council of State,
and, December 1, 1808, was elected Governor of Virginia. Before his
term expired President Madison appointed him to the judgeship of the
District Court of the United States for Virginia, in which capacity he
served until his death, January 6, 1813. He was the father of John
Tyler, tenth President of the United States.
Middlebourne was
established a town by legislative enactment January 27, 1813, on the lands
of Robert Gorrell, then in Ohio county, with William Wells, Sr., Joseph
Martin, Joseph Archer, Thomas Grigg, Daniel Haynes, William Delashmult and
Abraham S. Birckhead, trustees. The town was incorporated February
2, 1839.
Charles Wells, The Pioneer - One of the first pioneers on
the banks of the Ohio, below Wheeling, was Charles Wells, who settled near
the present site of Sistersville in 1776. Here he was residing in
1812, when he was visited by a Pittsburg gentleman, who the same year
published a work descriptive of the Ohio Valley. From it we extract
the following:- "Mr. Charles Wells, Sen., resident on the Ohio river,
fifty miles below Wheeling, related to me while at his home in October,
1812, the following circumstances: 'That he has had two wives (the last of
which still lives, and is hale, smart, young-looking woman) and twenty-two
children, sixteen of whom are living, healthy, and many of them married
and have already pretty large families. That a tenant of his, a Mr.
Scott, a Marylander, is also the father of twenty-two, the last being
still an infant, and its mother a lively and gay Irish woman, being
Scott's second wife. That a Mr. Gordon, an American German, formerly
a neighbor of Mr. Wells, now residing on Little Muskingham, State of Ohio,
has had by two wives twenty-eight children. Mr. Gordon is near
eighty years old, active and hale in health.' Thus these three
worthy families have had born to them seventy-two children, a number
unexampled perhaps in any other part of the world, and such as would make
Buffon stare when he ungenerously asserts, as do several other writers of
Europe, that 'animal life degenerates in America.'"
Tyler was the
only West Virginia county created during the Second War with Great
Britain. The first court held for the new county convened Monday,
January 9, 1815, at the residence of Charles Wells, just below the present
site of Sistersville, near where the residence of Ephraim Wells now
stands. The justices composing it were Joseph Martin, Jeremiah
Williams, Presley Martin, Joseph McCoy, William Wells, Abraham S.
Birckhead, John Nicklin, Ephraim Martin, John Whitten and Bazil
Riggs. The first officers were as follows: Sheriff, Joseph
Martin; Deputy Sheriff, Abner C. Martin; Clerk Superior Court, Moses W.
Chapline; Clerk County Court, Abraham S. Birckhead; Prosecuting Attorney,
Moses W. Chapline; Commissioner of the Revenue, Moses Williamson.
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