In 1863 the state was admitted as one of the constellation of states of the union. Virginia had seceded from the union by a majority vote. The strong and indomitable minority citizens of the Old Dominion residing in the western part of it, many of whom were Scotch and Irish descendants and natives of the adjoining states, who had taken up their homes in the valleys and on the hillsides, were loyal to the Union, loved well the flag, and reverenced with an undying affection the builders of the union of states for the greater blessing of the people, and stood firm and unyielding for an indivisible united country. By their hands and brave hearts they built a state stretching from the Potomac to the Ohio river, carved out of the Old Dominion. The war-born daughter of the historical commonwealth proved, in the subsequent years, to be rich in the production of materials in active demand in the marts of commerce, and she now outstrips her mother state in the race for greatness, prosperity, and happiness.
Many regions of the state are mountainous, and the principal industries are lumbering, mining, and oil production. Many of the white people are typical mountaineers and somewhat rough and uncouth in manner, while the negroes, many of them, have drifted from North and South Carolina, Alabama, and other southern states to be employed in the development of these industries.
There are very many respectable farmers, professional and business men, and cultured ladies residing in these almost inaccessible parts; but the rough element in many places predominates, and the order of the day and night is drinking and brawling, ending as a rule in desperate encounters and murder. Most of the white and black inmates of the penitentiary have been and are now composed of the lawless men from these regions, from the time it was only a stockade of ten acres in 1866, when Hon. J. W. McWhorter of the Tenth Judicial District was appointed warden by Governor Boreman. He resigned the position after viewing it. In a letter to Warden Hawk he states it was for the reason that there was not so much as a building erected for the shelter of the inmates, and he thought he could not work the convicts to advantage under the circumstances. The penitentiary has been improved from time to time to the present, by additions, until it is a massive structure of stone and iron, with a high stone surrounding wall. It has 695 inmates at the present writing.
The center, or main building, is built after the old baronial castellated style of architecture, and with its several stories height, it makes an imposing appearance. It is flanked on the north and south by the stone and strongly-barred buildings, wherein the old and first built stone cells and the modern steel ones—900 in all—are placed. Entrance is to be had into the prison proper by means of a round turning iron-barred cage in the main hallway of the central building.
The cell-building halls are kept in a neat and clean condition; the cells are in good sanitary condition and are kept in good order by the inmates, many of whom are artistic in taste and paint and make many fanciful designs as adornments of their small sleeping quarters. The yard, limited in area by the shop, dining-hall, engine and hospital buildings, is artistically laid out in grass-grown plats and flower beds in season. Around the area of space on brick-laid pavements the prisoners are permitted to walk in columns of two according to grade for exercise during the afternoon after working hours, and Sabbath forenoon prior to and after chapel services. At the four corners of the penitentiary walls are stone turrets where armed guards are placed from four o’clock a. m. to 9 p. m.
Upon West Virginia establishing a state government, Wheeling was selected as the capital where the legislature met in session in 1863, with Hon. Arthur I. Boreman as chief executive. The prison was located in 1866 at Moundsville, Marshall Co., then a beautiful village a few miles from the seat of government. The location, for drainage and sanitary conditions, might have been better selected from one of the many surroundings hills than in the midst of the village in the valley on the banks of the Ohio river.
Moundsville has since the location of the penitentiary there, grown into the eighth city in population of the state, and is now a manufacturing and resident town possessing daily and weekly newspapers. Modern improvements prevail, with water and electric light systems and street-car lines connecting with Wheeling and adjoining suburbs. The magnificent mound erected by the Mound Builders many years gone by for the burial of their dead, to be seen near the penitentiary, is one of the attractions to the thousands of persons who visit the locality.
Hon. G. S. McFadden, of Moundsville, was the first active and practical warden of the penitentiary. With the means at hand he made many praiseworthy improvements for the amelioration of the inmates during his incumbency. The condition of the prisoners during the four years past and now, is a vast improvement over the old system. Skilled and humane prison managers for many years were wanting. The condition of the inmates was at times deplorable in the extreme. The methods of punishment in vogue were extremely severe, the work laborious, the clothing of the zebra kind, the lock-step exacting, the supply and kind of food indifferent and bad. The employment of the prisoners on the state account or under contract was unprofitable, and expenses for the prison’s maintenance piling upon the taxpayers, who made just complaint. Loud demands were made by the people of Moundsville and throughout the state, conversant with the deplorable condition of the affairs of their penal institution, for a change.
After Governor Atkinson’s inauguration, March 4, 1897, he appointed Colonel S. A. Hawk as warden of the penitentiary. He was at the time of his appointment a well-known business man of Huntington, Cabell Co. For a number of years he was also known as a popular employee of an Ohio river steamboat running out of Huntington. He was at one time a successful merchant, hotel-keeper, contractor, and during President Harrison’s administration as President he was an official of the Interior Department in charge of the public domain in Arizona Territory.