National Register Listing

Philippi Historic District

a.k.a. See Also:Peck-Crim-Chesser House;Barbour County Courthouse;P

Roughly bounded by Pike, High, Walnut, Wolfe, Main, Wilson Sts., and Tygart Valley River, Philippi, WV

The Philippi Historic District is composed of commercial and residential resources that form, under criterion c, a significant ensemble of 19th and early 20th-century architecture in a small Appalachian county seat centered about a distinctive town square. These resources include a highly significant structure, the 1852 Philippi covered bridge, and street furniture such as iron for retaining walls. The historic district has achieved additional significance under Criterion A as the site of the first land battle of the American Civil War, and as the focal point in and about the town square of long-standing political and governmental operations of the town and Barbour County.

Philippi, the county seat of Barbour County, is located on the Tygart Valley River, named after David Tygart, an early settler in the Beverly area, and was chartered in 1844 and incorporated in 1905. The first settlers of the area were Richard, Cotteral, Charity Talbot, and their mother. They settled on Hacker's Creek two miles northwest of the present town of Philippi in 1780. The first settlement on the present site of the town was built in 1780 by William Anglin when he located his cabin on the track of 400 acres he owned. The place initially called Anglin's Ford, passed through the hands of John Wilson, Daniel Booth, Judge Duncan, Eli Butcher, Elmore Hart, Thomas H. Height, and William Wilson, who, in 1843, laid out the plan for the town of Philippi. Under the ownership of Daniel Booth in 1800, the town's name was changed to Booth's Ferry. The ferry played an important part in transportation across the river until the covered bridge was built in 1852. Meanwhile, the town again changed hands and at the time Barbour County was formed in 1843, it belonged to William F. Wilson and William Shaw.

The town was renamed Philippi for Phillip Pendleton Barbour, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. It was originally to be named Phillipa- the feminine form of Phillip in conformity with the Latin language. But because of misspellings and misunderstanding of the origin of the name (confusing it with the ancient city in Macedonia) the city was finally named Philippi.
The first land battle of the Civil War was fought here on June 3, 1861, and is known as the "Philippi Races" because of the speed with which the Confederate forces under colonel George A. Porterfied retreated when routed at dawn by Federal troops under colonel B. F. Kelley. The attack was launched by the Federals to protect and retain control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the main line of communication between Washington and the West.

Philippi is also the home of Alderson-Broaddus College, a co-educational Baptist-affiliated institution established in 1873.

Local significance of the district:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1990.