Bob Powell, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Rebel Spy Nancy Hart Leads Raid at Summersville: July 25, 1862

According to tradition, Rebel spy Nancy Hart led a Confederate raid on the Union position at Summersville in Nicholas County on July 25, 1862. Hart was only in her late teens at the time.

Early in the Civil War, she’d worked closely with the Confederate Moccasin Rangers as a scout and spy. Captured in Braxton County in the fall of 1861, she convinced Northern troops of her innocence. After being released, she returned to the Confederate lines with inside information on Union troop movements.

In the summer of 1862, she was again captured by Northern forces and held as a prisoner in Summersville. However, she persuaded a young guard into letting her examine his pistol. She then shot him to death and escaped. She returned a week later with 200 Confederate troops to capture Summersville.

After the war ended, her husband, Joshua Douglas, returned from Confederate service. The couple settled first in Greenbrier County and later in Webster County. Nancy Hart Douglas died in 1902 at about age 60 and was buried at Mannings Knob, in Greenbrier County near the Webster County line.

Camp Washington Carver Dedicated: July 26, 1942

Camp Washington-Carver was dedicated as West Virginia’s black 4-H camp on July 26, 1942. Named for Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver, the camp is located at Clifftop in Fayette County.

It was the first 4-H camp for African-Americans in the country, and its Great Chestnut Lodge is the largest log structure in West Virginia and one of the largest in the nation.

The camp was built under two New Deal programs: the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps. It originally included the lodge, a guest cottage, a water tank, a pond, two dormitories, a swimming pool, and a bathhouse.

During the years of racial segregation, Camp Washington-Carver sponsored summer 4-H camps, Boys and Girls State, Boy Scout and Girl Scout camps, mining and home economics camps, and church camps for African-Americans. It also served as an off-campus learning center for West Virginia State College (now University) until 1979.

Since 1979, Camp Washington-Carver was has been managed by the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, which hosts various reunions throughout the summer as well as the popular Appalachian String Band Music Festival.

Mine Safety Academy Opens: August 17, 1976

The National Mine Health and Safety Academy opened at Beaver, near Beckley, on August 17, 1976. The 80-acre campus, which can accommodate 600 students, is the largest in the world devoted solely to mine safety and health.

It is the central training facility for federal mine inspectors and mine safety professionals, with a stated goal of reducing accidents and improving miners’ health and safety.

In addition to coal miners, the academy also serves those who mine sand and gravel, gold, silver, copper, uranium, and other minerals.

The academy is operated by the Mine Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. About 28,000 students attend annually—an average of 200 to 300 daily. In response to growing international concern about mine health and safety, the academy has expanded to address the health and safety of miners worldwide. Cooperative programs allow representatives and inspectors from other nations to participate in health and safety classes, training programs, and activities. International visitors to the National Mine Health and Safety Academy have included delegations from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, China, Thailand, and South Africa.

Nobel Prize Winner Nash Born in Bluefield: June 13, 1928

Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash Jr. was born in Bluefield on June 13, 1928. The math prodigy excelled at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University) and Princeton University.

One of his mentors was professor John von Neumann, who helped develop the computer and the hydrogen bomb. Nash focused his studies on game theory, which examines rivalries in the context of theoretical math. His 1950 doctoral thesis transformed the field of economics by applying game theory to business competition.

Nash became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but his career was interrupted by sudden illness. In 1959, he was hospitalized for schizophrenia. He isolated himself for more than 20 years, giving up teaching and math altogether.

In the 1980s, Nash’s schizophrenia faded away as quickly as it had come on. In 1994, Nash was honored with the Nobel Prize in Economics and, in 1998, was the subject of a best-selling biography, A Beautiful Mind, which was later made into an Oscar-winning movie.

In 2015, John Nash and his wife, Alicia, were killed in an automobile accident on the New Jersey Turnpike. He was 86.

Reformer Coin Harvey Born: August 16, 1851

Social reformer William Hope ‘‘Coin’’ Harvey was born at Buffalo in Putnam County on August 16, 1851. He was a teacher, lawyer, silver miner, politician, land speculator, geologist, and bestselling author.

Harvey attended Buffalo Academy and Marshall College (now Marshall University) before becoming a lawyer. He opened his first law practice in Huntington at age 19.

In 1883, Harvey went to Colorado and worked as a silver prospector and miner. He soon became an advocate for “free silver,” a populist cause that called for abandoning the gold standard and returning to the free coinage of silver. After 10 years in the West, he moved to Chicago, where he wrote the million-selling Coin’s Financial School, earning Harvey his nickname.

Harvey suggested many populist reforms, including the abolition of taxes, rent, interest, and profits. In 1900, he moved to Arkansas and began building an extensive retreat and vacation resort along with a huge pyramid where his ideas could be preserved. In 1932, he received more than 50,000 votes for president as a candidate of the Liberty Party.

William “Coin” Harvey died in 1936 at age 84.

James Edward Watson Born: August 2, 1926

Businessman James Edwin Watson died in Fairmont on August 2, 1926, at age 67. He was the son of James Otis Watson, one of the first coal operators in northern West Virginia.

In 1852, James Otis Watson and future West Virginia founder Francis Pierpont opened a mine near Fairmont and shipped the first coal from Western Virginia on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

James Edwin Watson took over his father’s coal interests in 1885, at age 26. Over the next decade, he and his in-laws from the Fleming family acquired several more coal companies and renamed the enterprise Fairmont Coal Company.

In 1903, Fairmont Coal was bought out by the Consolidation Coal Company. The Watson and Fleming families soon acquired a majority interest in Consolidation Coal, which became one of the nation’s largest corporations. James Edwin Watson is also remembered for building High Gate in Fairmont. Erected in 1910, it’s one of West Virginia’s largest and most luxurious mansions. The house was sold to the Sisters of St. Joseph after Watson’s death to be used as a nursing home, and it was later a funeral home.