Philippi, West Virginia

Philippi (pronounced 'FILL-uh-pea') is a city in Barbour County, West Virginia. The population was 2,870 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Barbour County, and lies along the Tygart Valley River. In 1861 the Battle of Philippi took place here.

Philippi is the home of Alderson-Broaddus College, a four-year liberal-arts college affiliated with the American Baptist Churches.

The town has a weekly newspaper, The Barbour Democrat.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.9 square miles. Most of the town is located in a valley, but part of it, including the college campus, is on the hill above.

A railroad line runs through Philippi, but is now used only by freight trains, passenger rail service having been discontinued in 1957 (the old passenger-rail station has been turned into a museum). The town also has a private airport.

History

Founding & Naming

The first white settlement in present-day Barbour County was established about 2 miles upriver from the future site of Philippi in 1780, at which time the area was still part of western Virginia.

In 1899, Hu Maxwell described the 1843 founding and naming of the town itself:

"The county seat of Barbour was located at the place where Philippi now stands before there was a town and before the place was named. It was then a farm belonging to William F. Wilson, and the locality had long been known as Booth's Ferry. The land was first the property of William Anglin, and in succession was owned by John Wilson, Daniel Booth, Ely Butcher, Elmore Hart, Thomas H. Hite and William F. Wilson, who divided it into lots and disposed of the most of it within a few years of the establishing of the county seat. The county was named after [the Virginia lawyer and jurist] Philip Pendleton Barbour, and it was the intention of the county court when it selected a name for the town to honor the given name of Mr. Barbour; giving it the feminine form, however, in conformity with the Latin language. The feminine of Philip is Philippa, and it was meant that such should be the name of the town. But because of misspellings and a misunderstanding of the origin of the name (confounding it with Philippi, an ancient city) the name finally took the form which it now has. On April 5, 1843, the third day of the first county court, it is 'ordered that the county seat of this county be known and called PHILLIPPA'. Except that the name has too many 'l's' the form was proper, according to what was originially intended. Later the name became Philippi, but even then it was oftener misspelled than spelled correctly."

As Maxwell implies, St Paul's Epistle to the Philippians was no doubt influential in the final form of the name. Philippi was established by charter in 1844.

Later History

In 1852 Lemuel Chenoweth, a well-known Appalachian architect and carpenter, built a covered bridge in Philippi to provide a link on the turnpike running between Beverly and Fairmont. The Philippi Covered Bridge continues to be the town's prominent landmark.

Philippi was the scene of an early, minor battle in the Civil War, the Battle of Philippi or the "Philippi Races." The town promotes itself as the scene of the 'first land battle of the Civil War', but there were several other skirmishes at roughly the same time that have been assigned this title. The Philippi battle was the occasion of the war's first amputation after a Confederate soldier was hit in the leg by a cannonball. (The battle is reenacted every June during the town's 'Blue and Gray Reunion.')

The town was incorporated by act of the West Virginia Legislature on  February 1, 1871.

Throughout its history, Philippi has suffered from floods because of its nearness to the river and the relatively low elevation of most of the town. The most damaging of these came in November 1985, when much of downtown Philippi was destroyed. The town has since adopted a flood plain management plan.

Economy

Philippi's economy was originally based on coal mining and the railroad industry, but both have declined severely since the mid-20th century. The town's major employers now include Alderson-Broaddus College and Broaddus Hospital. Many inhabitants work in the service industry, education, and family farming.

Sites of Interest

The Barbour County Historical Museum, located in the former railway station, displays artifacts from throughout the region's history, with a particular focus on the 19th century. By far the most famous of these are the Philippi mummies, the bodies of two female asylum inmates that were artificially preserved in 1888 by local doctor Graham Hamrick, who was interested in mummification techniques.

Philippi Covered Bridge, located at the junction of US routes 250 and 119 in downtown Philippi. Site of the first land battle of the Civil War. This is the only twin-barreled covered bridge located on a federal highway in the United States. It is also the one of the longest covered bridges in the country.

Other local attractions are Adaland Mansion, the home of a nineteenth-century lawyer that has been restored to its historic state, and a one-room school that is preserved on the Alderson-Broaddus campus.

Unusually for a town of its size and location, Philippi is home to a Maronite hermitage, Our Lady of Solitude.

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