How West Virginia Almost Became the State of Kanawha

West Virginia was meant to be the State of Kanawha, and voters had already backed a new state by that name when delegates in Wheeling dropped it in 1861. They picked West Virginia instead, which kept the name of the state they were breaking away from.

The State of Kanawha

In August 1861, a convention at Wheeling took up the idea of splitting off the western part of Virginia. On August 20, as Virgil A. Lewis records in his 1889 History of West Virginia, it passed an ordinance “that a new State, to be called the State of KANAWHA, be formed.” That’s how Lewis prints it, in capital letters.

Kanawha wasn’t the first idea. Granville Davisson Hall, who lived through all this and wrote about it in The Rending of Virginia in 1902, says an earlier draft called the new state “New Virginia,” until Peter G. Van Winkle got it changed to “Allegheny.” The name in the final ordinance, Hall says, was “a concession” to Van Winkle and to Lewis Ruffner. The ordinance set a vote on the split for October 24, and the voters backed it, 18,408 to 781, Lewis says.

“Too much Kanawha”

When the delegates elected to write a constitution met on November 26, 1861, they started out writing it for Kanawha. Then, on December 3, Lewis writes, the first section of the first article was read: “The State of Kanawha shall be and remain one of the United States of America.” Harmon Sinsel of Taylor County moved to strike out “Kanawha.”

Hall’s account of the debate is the fun part. Sinsel wanted to keep Virginia in the name, because it suggested the mother of the Savior and because the old state had been “named for the Virgin Queen.” James H. Brown of Kanawha County answered that the queen’s “vestal character” was “not so well attested as some other facts in English history.” Granville Parker said there’d be “too much Kanawha.” There was already a county by that name, two rivers, and a county seat called Kanawha Court-House, and he worried about the mail getting mixed up.

Daniel Lamb wanted nothing to do with Virginia’s name. He told the convention there was “nothing in the conduct of Virginia that entitled her to give us a name.” Waitman T. Willey said his voters wouldn’t want the new state at all without Virginia in the name. Van Winkle compared the doubters to the Israelites who’d crossed the Red Sea and already missed Egypt. And Gordon Battelle wanted “a fresh name.”

West Virginia wasn’t a brand-new idea, either. Hall says Chapman J. Stuart of Doddridge County had moved back in August to strike out Kanawha and put in “West Virginia,” and he told the convention his voters had backed the split “with a protest against the name.”

The vote

Hall thought the delegates didn’t have the power to change a name the voters had already approved, and he says so. But the motion passed, 30 to 14. Then the convention filled in the blank. Lewis lists the roll call: West Virginia got 30 votes, Kanawha 9, Western Virginia 2, Allegheny 2, and Augusta 1. If you look at the list, Sinsel is with the majority, and Lamb, Battelle, and Van Winkle are among the nine who stuck with Kanawha.

You can guess where the new name came from. Henry Gannett’s 1905 government bulletin on American place names doesn’t give West Virginia an entry of its own, but for Virginia it says, “named for Elizabeth, Queen of England.” We tell that story in How Virginia Got Its Name. West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863. So a state born from a fight with Virginia ended up with Virginia in its name, because the delegates who wanted a clean break from the old name lost the vote.

Sources & further reading

• Virgil A. Lewis, History of West Virginia (1889). The convention reassembling at Wheeling on August 6, 1861, and the ordinance adopted “on the 20th” (p. 372); “a new State, to be called the State of KANAWHA, be formed” (p. 373); the October vote, 18,408 for the new state and 781 against (p. 375); the constitutional convention called for November 26, 1861 (p. 376); December 3, “The State of Kanawha shall be and remain one of the United States of America,” Sinsel’s motion, and the vote of 30 to 14 (pp. 377–378); the roll call: West Virginia 30, Kanawha 9, Western Virginia 2, Allegheny 2, Augusta 1 (p. 378); West Virginia in the Union on June 20, 1863 (p. 392).
• Granville Davisson Hall, The Rending of Virginia (1902). George McC. Porter’s suggestion that he “write the history of the events then transpiring around us” (p. 299); “it seemed to the writer then, and does yet” (p. 354); Van Winkle’s motion to strike out “New Virginia” and substitute “Allegheny” (p. 356); the ordinance’s name “Kanawha,” “a concession” to Van Winkle and Ruffner, and the vote set for October 24 (p. 374); the official vote, “18,408 for division, to 781 against” (p. 388); the 1,591 of Willey’s “constituents” who “had voted they wanted to erect the new State of ‘Kanawha’” (p. 399); the convention meeting on November 26, 1861 (p. 391); Sinsel, “named for the Virgin Queen”; Brown’s reply, the queen’s “vestal character,” “not so well attested as some other facts in English history”; Parker’s “too much Kanawha,” the county, two rivers, and “Kanawha Court-House” (p. 397); Lamb, “nothing in the conduct of Virginia that entitled her to give us a name” (p. 398); Willey’s constituents (pp. 398–399); Van Winkle and the Israelites (pp. 399–400); Stuart’s August motion for “West Virginia” and his voters’ “protest against the name” (p. 402); Hall’s view that the convention lacked the authority (p. 403); Battelle’s “a fresh name” (pp. 403–404); “Kanawha” struck out, 30 to 14, and “West Virginia” substituted with 30 votes (p. 404).
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905), p. 311. “Virginia; one of the original thirteen States, named for Elizabeth, Queen of England.” There is no separate entry for West Virginia.
• U.S. Census Bureau, state codes (2020). Lists West Virginia’s permanent federal place-name record number (GNIS 1779805).