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November 16, 2018 Dinner Meeting
Monongalia County and the War of 1812 and the The Cheat River Iron Industry presented by Frances Lucretia Van Scoy |
Society Dinner Meetings
2018 Dinner Meeting Schedule: 6:15 PM
Friday, March 16 Friday, May 18 Friday, September 21 Friday, November 16* *(sometimes moved to accommodate church functions!) The Society holds four dinner meetings each year on the third Fridays of March, May, September, and November where a program of historical interest is included. Programs are held at 6:15 PM at the Suncrest (Drummond) United Methodist Church on Van Voorhis Road in Morgantown; ample parking is available. The public and guests are welcome; bring a friend or colleague. Those wishing to join the Society may do so at or after the meeting. The cost of the dinner is $10.00. Persons wishing to only attend the free program, that follows the dinner, are welcome to arrive about 7 PM. Dinner reservations are required, and may be made by calling Ron Ramsey at 304-599-5264. Reservations should be made no later than the Tuesday before the meeting. Payment for dinners can be made at the meeting. The Society must guarantee paying for reservations made, so attendance of those making reservations is greatly appreciated. |
The Henry Clay Iron Furnace at Jackson's Ironworks
Jackson’s Ironworks at Ices Ferry was northern West Virginia’s most significant antebellum ironworks and an important nail production center until its closing in the late 1850s. Located on the east side of the Cheat River at Ices Ferry in Monongalia County, the ironworks was established by Samuel Jackson about 1809 for the manufacture of hand-wrought nails. The works used local ore, limestone, and fuel, and over the next 40 years the operation was expanded into an extensive ironworks complex. Local tradition holds that during the War of 1812 the ironworks supplied iron for shot used in the Battle of New Orleans and shipped nails and plates to Lake Erie for Admiral Perry’s Lake Erie squadron. . . . The once extensive ironworks now lies beneath the waters of Cheat Lake. But for it, and the meager supply of iron which it and a few others in neighboring Pennsylvania could produce, the history of this Country could well have been vastly different. We refer particularly to the Battle of Lake Erie, for the Battle of New Orleans, having been fought after the signing of the peace treaty, was without historical consequences other than to add lustre to the American army. Frances Van Scoy calls herself a semi-native of West Virginia because all of her maternal ancestors were in what is now West Virginia (the Potomac Highlands area) by the 1740s and her voluntary move in 1979 to West Virginia to take a job as a computer science professor at WVU. Her interest in genealogy was ignited by her parents' service as officers of the Van Scoy-Knapp reunion (existed 1903-1962, revived by her in 2003) and by her fifth grade teacher who assigned a genealogy project in her history class. She is a member of three genealogical societies: Daughters of the American Revolution, United States Daughters of 1812, and Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic. Her participation in these organizations has piqued her interest in Morgantown history and she is now conducting several history projects including a collective biography of the 35 young women who graduated from Woodburn Female Seminary (a private Presbyterian high school 1858-1866 whose campus became the initial campus of what is now WVU), the ways in which local residents participated in the War of 1812, and identification of living descendants of local men who served in the military during the War of 1812. |