Bob Powell Published

Ebenezer Zane Born Near Moorefield: October 7, 1747

Ebenezer Zane's homestead.
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Pioneer Ebenezer Zane, born on October 7, 1747, near present-day Moorefield settled at the confluence of Wheeling Creek and the Ohio River with his brothers Jonathan and Silas, Zane settled in 1770, and later laid out the town of Wheeling. An advocate for education in western Virginia In 1787, he helped establish Clarksburg’s Randolph Academy, supposedly the oldest school of its kind west of the Alleghenies.

He represented Ohio County when the Virginia convention of 1788 met to consider ratification of the Constitution, which Zane supported, and he laid out the town of Wheeling in 1793. Three years later he received permission to open a road, long called Zane’s Trace, from Wheeling to Limestone (now Maysville), Kentucky. The town of Zanesville, Ohio, is named for him.