Charles Town Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

As Beavers Return To W.Va. Wetlands, Conservationists Promote Coexistence

Local conservationists are building fences around trees in wetlands across West Virginia and beyond to protect them from beavers and promote coexistence between species.

Donning rain boots and gloves, volunteers trudged across a Charles Town wetland Tuesday to prepare the habitat for a pair of unexpected residents.

Jefferson County’s Cool Spring Preserve is currently home to at least two beavers, possibly mates, according to local conservationists. If trail camera photos did not offer proof enough, their presence is made clear through bite marks on trees and a growing number of dams in Bullskin Run, the local stream.

Beavers are native to wetlands across North America, including those in West Virginia. But they were hunted to near-extinction during the 18th century fur trade. With fewer people hunting them for their pelts, beavers are growing in population across the continent. According to many conservationists, that’s a good thing.

Alison Zak serves as founder and executive director of the Human-Beaver Coexistence Fund. The group develops nonlethal strategies to manage beaver populations across the mid-Atlantic.

Zak said that beavers play a key role in bolstering biodiversity, storing groundwater and filtering pollutants in wetland ecosystems. But they also bring what she describes as “beaver problems,” which fall into two main categories: flooding and tree damage.

When beavers build dams, they can redirect the flow of water and prompt flooding. This can disturb roadways and personal property, so conservationists often fence off culverts so beavers cannot disrupt the flow of water with their dams.

Dams have appeared along Bullskin Run, a stream that cuts through Cool Spring Preserve in Charles Town. Local conservationists say it is the work of a pair of beavers.
*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Beavers can also chew trees that protect rivers from erosion, as well as saplings planted as part of reforestation efforts. In response, conservationists build wire fences around the bases of trees that need to be protected from local beavers.

That is what brought a team of volunteers onto the preserve Tuesday: to help build fences that ensure trees and beavers can coexist in West Virginia and to strengthen wetland ecosystems.

“A lot of people aren’t aware beavers are around unless, all of a sudden, they come across very obvious signs of beavers, maybe even causing problems on their property,” Zak said. “But also, we’re seeing an increase in tolerance toward beavers, and people wanting to use nonlethal management and wanting to coexist.”

Tuesday’s volunteers placed new wire frames around the bases of trees with overly tight fences or no fences at all. They took particular care to cover saplings, and to give trees enough space to grow freely.

KC Walters, associate director of conservation at Potomac Valley Audubon Society, organized Tuesday’s event. She said that coexistence strategies like these help people come together to solve environmental problems.

“It’s not just conservation, and not just about the relationship with wildlife,” she said. “It’s also about the relationships of the human organizations that exist in keeping us all working together for a common goal.”

Zak said she hopes volunteers left Tuesday’s event with a better understanding of how conservation works.

“I hope they got a little taste of how complex it can be, but how also doable it is,” she said.

Lily Davis unlinks segments of an old wire fence around the base of a tree at Cool Spring Preserve in Charles Town.
*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

West Virginia Historians Recognize 100th Anniversary Of Mine War Trials

One hundred years ago, the West Virginia Mine Wars drew to a close as several union organizers were put on trial for treason in the aftermath of the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Recently, Shepherd University’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities worked with mine war museum Coal Country Tours to recognize this overlooked part of history. For the Charles Town treason trials’ 100 year anniversary, panel discussions explored their importance at the school and through a live concert featuring period songs about workers’ rights at Charles Town’s Old Opera House.

After the Battle of Blair Mountain, a notable battle fought between miners and coal companies over labor rights, over 500 union coal miners were indicted on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, and treason against the state. Among those charged were United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) organizers like Bill Blizzard, Frank Keeney, and Fred Mooney.

Though the conflict happened in the state’s southern coalfields, the trials themselves were moved to the other side of the state in Charles Town.

Doug Estepp, who runs Coal Country Tours, says the decision to move the trials was because the area had no prior coal mining history.

“If the trials had taken place down there, it would have probably led to fighting again or trouble at the very least,” Estepp said. “So a change of venue was granted and it was brought to Charles Town in the Eastern Panhandle, far away from the coal fields.”

The first and most publicized trial was that of Bill Blizzard, a union leader who was involved with the Battle of Blair Mountain and other disputes like the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike.

Chuck Keeney, great-grandson of fellow union leader Frank Keeney and history professor at Southern West Virginia Community College, says Blizzard was put on trial first because of his direct involvement at Blair Mountain. Keeney says the coal companies hoped to dismantle the UMWA by targeting notable figures.

“They were hoping that they could delegitimize the UMWA and say that the UMWA itself was a treasonous organization. And then by consequence, labor unions were treasonous organizations,” Keeney said.

An original copy of the petition for the trials’ change of venue with a list of the indicted miners. This is one of the artifacts at Wess Harris’ When Miners March Traveling Museum, which was on display at Charles Town’s Old Opera House Friday evening.

Walter Allen was the only miner convicted of treason. He was granted bail but skipped out and disappeared from the region. Rev. James Wilburn and his son John were also convicted of murder after causing the first casualty at Blair Mountain. The trials eventually moved away from Charles Town during Frank Keeney’s trial, which moved twice to Morgan County and Greenbrier County before ending with no verdict.

Though most of the indicted miners were either acquitted or never tried in court, union membership dropped from around 55,000 members to under 1,000. Estepp calls the trials the final nail in the coffin for the UMWA during that period.

“The UMW was pretty much exhausted, both financially and physically after the march, the strikes, the Battle of Blair Mountain. And so what was left of the treasury was basically expended,” Estepp said.

Judge David Hammer, of the 23rd Judicial Circuit Court, says that even though the trials destroyed the union, the conflict eventually resulted in more federal protections for workers like the National Labor Relations Act and the Mine Safety and Health Act. His office is in the same courthouse where Blizzard was tried.

Copy of the original jury list for Bill Blizzard’s trial, stored at the Jefferson County Courthouse.

“So many of the concerns that were at the forefront in 1922, have actually been resolved by federal action. So looked at from that perspective, the mine wars did have a tremendously beneficial purpose,” Hammer said.

Though the trials happened a century ago, Keeney argues its legacy still matters today. He says the more West Virginia’s history is understood, the more its people can take pride in their home state.

“If you’re from West Virginia, and you’ve lived here your whole life, it’s kind of a state with an inferiority complex. And the trials themselves are trials that show people that are defiant,” Keeney said.

The courtroom inside the Jefferson County Courthouse as it appears today. Aside from some cosmetic changes and technological upgrades, this is the same room where the mine war trials were held a century ago.

The Jefferson County Courthouse where the Blizzard trial was held is still intact today. Much of the courtroom still resembles what it looked like a century ago. Copies of jury lists and affidavits from the original trial are kept at the courthouse, but the original documents are stored at West Virginia University.

Book Details Groundbreaking African American Horse Trainer in W.Va.

The first African American woman licensed as a racehorse trainer in the United States learned her trade in West Virginia at the Charles Town Racetrack.

Author Vicky Moon explores the story in her new book, “Sylvia Rideoutt Bishop Had A Way With Horses: A Pioneering African American Woman’s Career Training Race Horses.” She is honored at an annual race at the Charles Town Racetrack called the “Sylvia Bishop Memorial Stakes Race.”

Moon spoke with Eric Douglas over Zoom about Bishop’s life and career.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Douglas: Tell me a little bit about Silvia. You got to know her fairly well in the last few months of her life. Tell me about the kind of person she was.

Moon: I met her in 2004, it was about August. By Christmas of that year, she died. We had every week together. I would go over and sit with her, and she would show me photographs of the horses that she had trained. We got along because I talk horse and she talks horse and I just don’t think very many writers would be able to do that. Not only that, maybe it was woman to woman, I can’t answer that. But we got along and we spoke the same language. She was, first of all, unassuming, but she didn’t mind telling me. “Oh, I was the first black woman in the United States to train racehorses.” Her greatest asset was that she wasn’t cocky about it at all. She remained a woman that you would meet on the street.

Douglas: Sylvia was really interesting because she’s African American and a woman and she started training thoroughbred racing horses in the 1930s.

Moon: The track opened in Charlestown in 1933 and she was born in 1920. So in 1934, at the age of 14, she went over there and started, as most people do, male or female, as a groom, a hot walker, cleaning the stalls, doing whatever, but taking it all in every minute.

Douglas: So she was breaking ground on two different levels in the horse business.

Moon: Absolutely, she was breaking ground. The greater challenge was as a woman. And that still exists today. I’ve calculated how many women trainers there have been recently at the track. In Charles Town there was about 10 percent on a Saturday night not too long ago. At Gulfstream, in Florida, on the same day, the percentage was six percent. I travel not just to Charles Town, but I spend winters in Florida. I go to Saratoga. Very rarely do you see a woman as a trainer. You see a woman as a groom, a hot walker, a pony rider, but not as a trainer.

Douglas: You made a great point in the early part of the book about her first connection with a pony, through a pony ride. The cover art of the book is a picture of her on a pony ride in the neighborhood. And that started her on this lifelong journey.

Moon: You know, I was so fascinated with that pony ride because evidently there’s others in the horse business, who can remember such a ride. A man would come around with his pony in the neighborhood, and it really wasn’t much of a ride, it was more of a “sit on the pony and get your picture taken for 25 cents.” And the fact that this photo survived was phenomenal.

Douglas: She went on to eventually become a trainer but she was also an owner. I was struck as much by the fact that she was owning these horses and buying and selling.

Moon: Yeah, I don’t think it was unusual for other people to do the same thing, because they have these claiming races where you put up money or whatever. One particular time, the horse was about done out, according to the owner, who was with Silvia. So she took the horse as her own. And then the horse started to win again.

The book “Sylvia Rideoutt Bishop Had a Way With Horses: A Pioneering African American Woman’s Career Training Race Horses” is available through Amazon.

This story is part of a series of interviews with authors from, or writing about, Appalachia.

Jefferson County Police Embrace New Training To Improve Communication Skills, Recognize Bias

As the nation continues to grapple with conversations over police brutality and racism, some police departments are trying to tackle the problem by teaching better communication skills and recognizing bias among their officers.

Police in Jefferson County recently completed a two-day training focused on de-escalation, implicit bias and racial profiling.

About two dozen police officers gathered inside a spacious room, upstairs in the Charles Washington Hall in downtown Charles Town last week. They all work in Jefferson County. Most of them are city police in Charles Town, with some from Ranson and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Most of the police at the training were white men, but three were women, including one who was Black.

These officers came together to learn skills in de-escalation, which means to approach confrontations with respect, empathy and calm communication.

Cpl. Jason Newlin, who’s white, has 18 years of policing experience, most at the Charles Town Police Department. He said the last time he had training in de-escalation was in 2002.

“I think training like this will show the general public that we’re making an attempt to retrain our thought process and, you know, retraining the way that certain situations can be handled in the way that we speak to people,” Newlin said. “Every human being, whether they’re on the right side of the law or not, have an expectation to be treated with dignity and respect.”

Annual de-escalation training isn’t mandatory in Charles Town, but some West Virginia cities, such as Morgantown, do make it mandatory. Newlin said he thinks training in de-escalation and racial profiling need to happen more often.

“Technology advances, why shouldn’t our training? We have to shoot our guns twice a year to maintain state qualifications for weapons that some have never ever had to use in the field,” he said.

But they don’t receive regular training in communication skills, which Newlin points out, is one of the things they use most.

All police officers in West Virginia are required to have 16 hours of state-approved, in-service, or continued education training annually, according to Charles Town Police Chief Chris Kutcher. It’s department heads, like him, who decide what these annual trainings will include.

“Let’s face it, we know what’s going on in the country. It’s a hot topic. You know, as the chief, I felt now is a really good time to look at our de-escalations, look at our racial profiling,” Kutcher said. “My focus with this is to give the officers some tools, things to think about when they’re out interacting with our public here in Charles Town.”

Kutcher said this was the first training held by his department that took such an in-depth look at de-escalation, racial profiling and bias.

The training was led by Silver State Consulting, a law enforcement and police training group based in Las Vegas, Nevada. They focused the first day on de-escalation techniques for addressing verbal confrontations. They emphasized the importance of speaking calmly, asking questions, like “how can I help?” and being respectful at all times.

The second day, police officers learned about implicit, or unconscious, bias and racial profiling. The instructor emphasized that everyone has implicit bias and discussed ways to recognize when this is a problem.

“When you’re being trained to be a law enforcement officer, you’re trained on how to do the job, but you’re not trained on how to interact with people,” said Robert Woolsey, the owner of the Silver State Consulting group who led the two-day training in Charles Town. Woolsey is also a former police officer and police chief.

He said police are the public face of government, so it’s hugely important for them to have good people skills and remain positive while interacting with the community.

“Most people see a police officer every single day, but they never see their mayor or their governor or the president of the United States,” he said. “And so, as a very visible presence in the community, it’s something that needs to be taught. We just never thought to do it. We never really put the emphasis on how to communicate and how to interact with folks.”

Woolsey said criminal justice reform as a whole is necessary to address the problems of racism and the high incarceration rate of people of color. He said recognizing mental health issues among police officers, suspending them when necessary and training in de-escalation and racial profiling are keys to a better policing system.

At least one other West Virginia police department, Morgantown, held a similar training earlier this year. According to a department spokesperson, Morgantown holds de-escalation and anti-bias training annually.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting also reached out to the Charleston, Wheeling and Huntington Police Departments for comment on their own de-escalation training, but they did not immediately respond for comment.

May 6, 1812: Activist and Physician Martin Delany Born in Jefferson County

Activist and physician Martin Delanywas born a free African-American at Charles Town in Jefferson County on May 6, 1812. When Delany was 10, his family had to flee Charles Town for violating a Virginia law that forbid educating blacks. They settled in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Delany eventually moved on to Pittsburgh, where he became a medical assistant.

In 1843, Martin Delany founded and published an abolitionist newspaper that struck a profound tone against slavery. Four years later, he shut down the paper to become co-editor of Frederick Douglass’s newspaper, the North Star. After attending Harvard Medical College in 1850, Delany returned to Pittsburgh and opened a medical practice.

During the 1850s, he became involved with the Underground Railroad and moved to Canada. In 1858—the year before John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry—he brought Brown together with other abolitionists in Canada. However, Delany had no direct involvement in the raid.

In 1865, Martin Delany was commissioned a major in the U.S. Colored Troops—the only African-American officer to be given a field command during the Civil War. He died in Ohio in 1885 at age 72.

April 1, 1788: The Clendenins Start Their Journey to Kanawha Valley

On April 1, 1788, George Clendenin, along with family members and about 30 Greenbrier County Rangers, departed from present Lewisburg to make a new home for themselves in the Kanawha Valley. The previous year, Clendenin had purchased about 1000 acres of unsettled land, which would eventually become the heart of Charleston.

Upon their arrival, Clendenin’s group built a two-story fort and sturdy cabins to protect against Indian attacks. The stockade, originally called Clendenin’s Fort, was later renamed Fort Lee to honor Virginia Governor Henry Lee.

That same year, Clendenin pressured the Virginia General Assembly to create Kanawha County from parts of Greenbrier and Montgomery counties. In 1794, he convinced the Assembly to establish 40 acres of his land as the town of Charlestown, named in memory of his father. The name caused confusion, though, because of the other Charles Town—in Jefferson County. So, the Kanawha County town was eventually changed to Charleston.

By the mid-1790s, the Clendenin family had become frustrated with the government in Richmond. They sold their Charleston landholdings to Joseph Ruffner, whose family would soon make a fortune in the Kanawha Valley salt industry.