Gerrardstown, West Virginia

Gerrardstown is an unincorporated community village located along W.Va. Route 51 in Berkeley County in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle region in the lower Shenandoah Valley.

Gerrardstown

Middletown
unincorporated community
Gerrardstown
Location within the state of West Virginia
Gerrardstown
Gerrardstown (the United States)
Coordinates: 39°22′13″N 78°5′44″W
Country United States
State West Virginia
CountyBerkeley
EstablishedNovember 22, 1787
Founded byJohn Gerrard
Population
 (2010)
 • Total4,024
Time zoneUTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
 • Summer (DST)UTC-4 (EDT)
ZIP codes
25420
Area code(s)304, 681

History

Originally established as Middletown on November 22, 1787 by an act of the Virginia General Assembly,[1] Gerrardstown was laid off by David Gerrard on Mill Creek, a tributary if Opequon Creek. Gerrard was the son of Baptist minister John Gerrard (for whom the town was named in 1787, the year of his death).[2] It served as the site of the Mill Creek Baptist Church, the first Baptist church west of the Blue Ridge Mountains and member of the Ketocton Association.[3] Gerrardstown was designated as a National Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Many of the village's original buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries remain. According to the 2010 census, the Gerrardstown community has a population of 4,024.[4]

Sites on the National Register of Historic Places
Site Year Built Address Listed
Campbellton (Captain James Campbell House) circa 1780 CR 37 1980
Cool Spring Farm (Zackquill Morgan House) 1761 Runnymede Road (CR 26) 1994
Gerrardstown Historic District 18th-19th centuries WV 51 and Virginia Line Road 1991
Hays-Gerrard House (Gerrard House) 1743 Congress Street 1985
Marshy Dell (Gilbert and Samuel McKown House) late 18th century WV 51 1984
Mountain View Farm (Washington Gold House) 1854 CR 51/2 1984
Oban Hall (Mary Park Wilson House) 1825 CR 51/2 1985
Prospect Hill (William Wilson House) 1795 WV 51 1984

Continental Brick Protests

In May 2008, Continental Brick applied to the Berkeley County Planning Board to open a massive 100 acre quarry, "North Mountain Shale, LLC," in Gerrardstown. The community instantly protested the approval of the building permit, due to the harsh amounts of pollution that would be blown into the air, and the possibility of nearby Mill Creek being polluted. Some residents of Gerrardstown use spigots to deliver water from Mill Creek. Parents in the Gerrardstown and Inwood areas protested because of the air pollution that could be harmful to children while on the playgrounds at nearby schools Gerrardstown Elementary School and Mountain Ridge Intermediate School.[5]

As of 2012, the state of West Virginia has cleared the way for the mining operation. http://www.potomacriverkeeper.org/updates/press-release-wv-surface-mine-board-approves-quarry-permit-despite-strong-local-opposition

Notable residents
  • George M. Bowers, was an American politician who represented West Virginia in the United States House of Representatives.

References
  1. "Hening's Statutes at Large, Volume 12, Chapter LXX". www.vagenweb.org. Retrieved 2017-03-05.
  2. http://bradleyrymph.com/genealogy_gerrard-john.pdf
  3. various Baptist sources listed in http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=bobbuckles&id=I00918
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2020-02-13. Retrieved 2019-04-26.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. http://northmountain.org/information%5B%5D



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