Charleston W.Va. (WVDN) – The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
Nov. 23, 1962: Roman Catholic Bishop John Joseph Swint died. He was a great builder of religious institutions in the Diocese of Wheeling.
Nov. 24, 2008: Former Governor Cecil Underwood died in Charleston. Underwood, West Virginia’s 25th and 32nd governor, had the distinction of being the state’s youngest and oldest chief executive.
Nov. 24, 2015: For her accomplishments in the field of mathematics and science, Katherine Johnson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. Johnson worked for NASA calculating trajectories for manned space flights.
Nov. 25, 1896: Athlete Clinton Cyrus Thomas was born in Greenup, Kentucky. He starred for various teams in the Negro leagues in the days when Major League Baseball was segregated. Thomas settled in Charleston after his playing days and had a long career in West Virginia state government.
Nov. 26, 1952: A blaze on the evening before Thanksgiving at the Huntington State Hospital killed 14 patients, with three more patients later dying from their injuries—making it the deadliest fire on record in West Virginia history. Huntington State Hospital is known today as the Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital.
Nov. 26, 1861: The Constitutional Convention of 1861-63 was convened in Wheeling. The convention provided the foundation for state government in preparation for statehood.
Nov. 26, 1953: Politician Shelley Moore Capito was born in Glen Dale, the daughter of future congressman and governor Arch Moore. In 2001, she became the second woman ever to represent West Virginia in Congress and, in 2015, the first woman from the Mountain State to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Nov. 27, 1848: African American educator William H. Davis was born. As a teacher of Black children in Malden, his most famous student was Booker T. Washington. In 1888, Davis was nominated as an independent candidate for governor—to date, the only Black person so honored in West Virginia history.
Nov. 27, 1933: Daniel Boardman Purinton, a faculty member and president of West Virginia University, died. He was an early and strong supporter of co-education.
Nov. 28, 1864: In a local skirmish north of Moorefield, Rosser’s Confederate cavalry and McNeill’s Rangers rebuffed a raid by Union Col. R. E. Fleming and spared the South Branch Valley from destruction. The battlefields are part of the Middle South Branch Valley rural historic district.
Nov. 28, 1890: Colonel Hubbard W. Shawhan was born in Kentucky. As West Virginia’s first official State Forester and first director of the state Conservation Commission, Shawan oversaw the purchase of 102,000 acres of mountain lands and the development of the state’s first parks and forests.
Nov. 29, 1921: The actress Dagmar was born Virginia Ruth Egnor in Lincoln County. Her acting career took off in 1950 when she was hired to be on NBC’s “Broadway Open House,” the network’s first late-night television show.
Nov. 29, 2001: Writer John Knowles died in Florida. Knowles, born in Fairmont, attained literary fame in 1959 with his first novel, A Separate Peace.
e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia is a project of the West Virginia Humanities Council. For more information contact the West Virginia Humanities Council, 1310 Kanawha Blvd. E., Charleston, WV 25301; (304) 346-8500; or visit e-WV at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
