Category Archives: Wheeling WV History
BOOKS by WHEELING AUTHOR John Bowman
John Bowman Author, Historian, West Virginia History Hero and Steamboat Model Builder. John’s writings concentrate on Wheeling’s boat history. Wheeling began building boats, Barges, Bateaux, Flatboats, Keelboats, and Pirogues in 1774, the first Ohio River city to build boats, and the third settlement on the ‘Western Rivers’ to have a boat building industry. ‘Western Rivers’ […]
Read MoreSTEAMBOATS BUILT IN WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA 1815 – 1900 by John Bowman
Wheeling began building boats, Barges, Bateaux, Flatboats, Keelboats, and Pirogues in 1774, the first Ohio River city to build boats, and the third settlement on the ‘Western Rivers’ to have a boat building industry. ‘Western Rivers’ are rivers that flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Red Stone Old Fort now Brownsville, Pennsylvania was building boats […]
Read MoreTHE ZANE’S PATH TO WHEELING IN 1769 by John Bowman Celebrating in 2019 Wheeling’s 250th Anniversary
In the late summer of 1769, brothers Silas, Jonathan, and Ebenezer Zane left Red Stone Old Fort Pennsylvania, and traveled over a path, well known to frontier scouts, Indian traders and Indians alike, and made claim to land that would one day become Wheeling. The Zanes were not the first white men to lay claim […]
Read More2220 Market Street Wheeling Fremder-Treiber House
In 1868, Edward Fremder a painter-glazer and recent émigré; along with his wife Anna Marie and mother Louisa Fremder from the Hessian area of Germany, built this two-story, four-room brick house on a lot Edward had purchased from the Caldwell’s in 1866. The rather unique separated front entries accommodated privacy for two families. Edward’s mother […]
Read MoreROPE MAKING AND ROPEWALK IN WHEELING, WV by John Bowman 2018
One of the offshoots of boat building ‘Wheeling’s First Major Industry’ was the need for rope, and much rope was needed for the boat trade. Circa 1802 is the earliest mention of rope making in Wheeling. Michael Graham employed a few young men manufacturing rope at his ‘ropewalk’ (rope manufactory) listed as along Wheeling Creek. […]
Read MoreWHEELING, WV STREET NAMES; HISTORIC (1815) STREET NAMES & CURRENT (1873) STREET NAMES by John Bowman 2018
Listed are Wheeling’s First Streets and for whom or what they were named. This fit Wheeling greatly for nearly half a century and then the following happened. In July of 1873, the City of Wheeling renamed its streets at a great cost to Wheeling businesses. Some named streets became numbered streets, and numbered streets were […]
Read MoreWHEELING MANUFACTURED PAPER AND TURNED IT INTO LEATHER ‘LEATHEROID’ INVENTED IN WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA by John Bowman 2018
WHEELING MANUFACTURED PAPER AND TURNED IT INTO LEATHER ‘LEATHEROID’ INVENTED IN WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA by John Bowman 2018 Shelves of books with their Leather Binding’s look great but you just know that many of the books bindings aren’t really leather. Faux leather book bindings, and artificial leather that we find covering many products are manufactured […]
Read MoreBOAT BUILDING WHEELING’S FIRST MAJOR INDUSTRY Book by John Bowman
BOAT BUILDING WHEELING’S FIRST MAJOR INDUSTRY With Early WHEELING History Including Maps of Streets, Businesses and Dwellings CELEBRATING WHEELING’S 250th ANNIVERSARY Book by John Bowman $19.95 Available on Amazon.com Books, and at Wheeling’s ‘Artisan Center’. The Zane Brothers Founded Wheeling in 1769. A full and complete history of this is chronicled in the first part […]
Read MoreWHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA’S First Official TOWN ‘CLOCK and BELL’
WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA’S First Official TOWN ‘CLOCK and BELL’ John Bowman 2018. Source: Bowman, John “Bills of Lading Freight on Board Wheeling West Virginia” 2012 Wheeling, WV page 152, And…WHERE IS THE “CLOCK and BELL” NOW? CLOCK History: In 1835, the first official Town ‘Clock‘ of the city of Wheeling, Virginia (West Virginia) was placed […]
Read More“BONNIE BELMONT” Book by Judge John S. (Salisbury) Cochran,1907 with history by John Bowman 2017
I believe this is a picture you will never see anywhere else…all three “BONNIE BELMONT” Editions together in one photo. “BONNIE BELMONT A Historical Romance of the Days of Slavery and the Civil War” Cochran, Judge John S. 1907, Wheeling, W. VA. Press of Wheeling News Lithograph Co. BONNIE BELMONT is perhaps is the […]
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