Malden Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

WVSU Holds Archaeological Field School In Malden

The historic Hale House in Malden is the site of WVSU’s archaeological field school.

West Virginia State University (WVSU) is having its archaeological field school at the historic Hale House in Malden in eastern Kanawha County. For four weeks, students have been digging up West Virginia history for their History 399 class.

“We do a field school which is a learning experience for the students,” said Michael Workman, class instructor. “They learn some of the basic techniques of archaeology. This is, however, historical archaeology and that we use not only what we can dig, but also historical records.”

Student Keyira Curtis (left) and field coordinator Carl Demuth look at plans for the day.

*Credit: Jack Bailey/West Virginia State University*

WVSU students and faculty sit down for a meeting about the dig site.

*Credit: Jack Bailey/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

The Hale House is believed to have once been the house of Kanawha Valley politician, Dr. John Hale. Hale was the owner of the largest salt works in North America, supplying salt to the thriving meat packing center of Cincinnati. After the collapse of the salt business in the 1870s, he ventured into brick making machinery, the Bank of the West in Charleston, which he helped organize, as well as the city’s first gas company.

The archaeological dig project came about after a chance meeting with Bob Maslowski, a consultant, and Lewis Payne at Dickinson Salt-Works.

“We came up with the idea of getting a field school started at Dickinson Salt Works and maybe, have it turn into a long-term project,” said Maslowski “As it turned out, this particular site came up and we decided to start the excavations here, at the Hale House. We thought originally that it was occupied by John Hale who was a famous historian and salt maker and we haven’t been able to substantiate that, but it is one of the early houses in Malden and in the Kanawha Valley.”

Hale helped initiate the move of the state capitol to Charleston in 1870 and headed a group of investors who built the capitol building in 1871. Hale also became the mayor of Charleston that same year.

Students search for lost items from Kanawha Valley history.

*Credit: Jack Bailey/West Virginia State University*

Carl Demuth is the field coordinator for the project and an adjunct professor at Marshall University. He said it is important for students to learn about the lives of people in history.

“There’s not many other opportunities you have to be the first person to hold something that no one else has touched in fifty, a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years, and that’s what a lot of these students are doing,” Demuth said. “Working with these students lets them have the chance to embrace their own heritage and history in a way that’s a little bit different and, you know, that’s really why I’m out here.”

November 27, 1848: African-American Educator William H. Davis Born

African-American educator William H. Davis was born in Columbus, Ohio, on November 27, 1848. As a young man of 15, he enlisted in the Union Army and served in a Light Guard company that helped protect President Abraham Lincoln.

After the Civil War, Davis settled in Malden—about 10 miles east of Charleston—and became a school teacher. Malden was an important center of African-American history and culture because of the large number of black laborers who worked in the saltworks there. His most famous pupil was a young Booker T. Washington, who would go on to become the nation’s most prominent black educator.

In 1870, Davis became principal of the black grade school in Charleston, a position he served in for 24 years. He was also an active member of the African Zion Church in Malden and the First Baptist Church in Charleston.

In the 1930s, Davis was a guest of honor at the Booker T. Washington anniversary celebration at Tuskegee University in Alabama, the famed college founded by Washington.

William H. Davis died at his home in Charleston in 1938 at age 89.

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.