Tag: Kanawha Valley

January 27, 1933: Folk Artist Connard Wolfe Born in Kanawha County

Folk artist Connard Wolfe was born at Standard in Kanawha County on January 27, 1933. The self-taught sculptor started carving wood and stone after being discharged from the army about 1955. His first significant carvings were stones for a wall and two headstones. Other early works included a gigantic reclining nude carved from a boulder in the hills near his home and two life-sized sculptures in tree trunks: ‘‘Mountain Girl’’ and ‘‘Standing Christ.’’ Both tree sculptures were later destroyed. His most famous surviving works are a bear on the campus of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Montgomery, a beaver at Bluefield High School, and a madonna and child in a Kanawha Valley church.

In addition to his creative works of art, he was also known for his unusual tools, which he made from automobile leaf springs and engine valves. Wolfe played a major role in the craft revival of the 1960s and 1970s, giving demonstrations at fairs and festivals. One of his stone carvings, “The Kiss,” is on display in the West Virginia State Museum.

Connard Wolfe died in 2012 at age 79.

July 11, 1902: Historian John P. Hale Dies

Historian, physician, and businessman John P. Hale died on July 11, 1902, at age 78. The great-grandson of the legendary Mary Draper Ingles, Hale was born in present Virginia before moving to the Kanawha Valley in 1840.

  

He earned a medical degree but decided that medicine wasn’t as lucrative as the booming salt business. By 1860, his salt works, located between Charleston and Malden, was possibly the largest in North America.

When the Civil War began, Hale organized a Confederate artillery battery that fought at the Battle of Scary Creek in Putnam County. He also served as a surgeon in the 1862 battles around Richmond.

After the war, Hale started the first mechanized brick-making in the Kanawha Valley, helped found a bank, and formed Charleston’s first gas company and steam ferry.

He played a major role in getting the state capital moved from Wheeling to Charleston in 1870—after which, he served as mayor and built Charleston’s first luxurious hotel.

He also was an important historian, documenting the Kanawha Valley’s early history and founding a historical society that would evolve into the State Archives and Museum.

December 17, 1861: Henry Ruffner Died

Henry Ruffner died in Malden on December 17, 1861, at the age of 71. He had been one of western Virginia’s most influential citizens. In 1819, at the age of only 29, Ruffner had organized the first Presbyterian denomination in the Kanawha Valley. Then, for nearly three decades, he had taught ancient languages at Washington College and served as the college’s president for 12 of those years.

But his most lasting contribution to history was his opposition to slavery. In 1847, he published what today is commonly known as the Ruffner Pamphlet. In it, he argued that all slaves should be set free gradually over time. Unlike some abolitionists, his gradual emancipation theory wasn’t based on moral grounds. It was more of an economic and social theory. He suggested that slavery was holding back the growth of industry, agriculture, free labor, and education.

In addition, Ruffner was ahead of his time in arguing for a free public education system. He also pushed for equal political rights for western Virginia and asserted that the western counties eventually might need to break away and form their own state.

Claim Forms Being Accepted in West Virginia Chemical Spill

Residents and businesses in nine West Virginia counties left without tap water during a 2014 chemical spill can start filing claims.

According to a website set up to handle claims, forms were being accepted both online and by mail started Wednesday.

A federal judge last month tentatively approved a revised settlement to a class-action lawsuit over the spill that left up to 300,000 people without tap water for up to nine days.

In January 2014, a tank at now-defunct Freedom Industries in Charleston leaked thousands of gallons of coal-cleaning chemicals that got into West Virginia American Water’s treatment plant 1.5 miles downstream.

A final hearing on the settlement is scheduled for Jan. 9 in federal court in Charleston. The deadline for claims submissions is Feb. 21.

Fed Scientists Finish Study of West Virginia Chemical Spill

Federal government scientists have released a final update of their study of the January 2014 chemical spill that temporarily fouled the drinking water supplies of 300,000 Charleston-area residents, reporting no significant new findings.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail cited the report Friday as finding “most of the spilled chemicals had no effects in the studies that were performed” after the spill of a coal-cleaning agent at a Freedom Industries site near the Elk River that year.

The work was conducted by the National Toxicology Program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The newspaper said scientists found any potential for negative health effects would only occur at significantly higher doses than residents would have had in their water under a health advisory set up after the spill.

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