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.

Post Offices 



Maps