Grafton (West Virginia)

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Grafton
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad station in Grafton
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad station in Grafton
Location in West Virginia
Grafton (West Virginia)
Grafton
Grafton
Basic data
Foundation : 1856
State : United States
State : West Virginia
County : Taylor County
Coordinates : 39 ° 21 ′  N , 80 ° 1 ′  W Coordinates: 39 ° 21 ′  N , 80 ° 1 ′  W
Time zone : Eastern ( UTC − 5 / −4 )
Residents : 5,386 (as of 2006)
Population density : 566.9 inhabitants per km 2
Area : 9.8 km 2  (about 4 mi 2 ) of
which 9.5 km 2  (about 4 mi 2 ) is land
Height : 312 m
Postal code : 26354
Area code : +1 304
FIPS : 54-32716
GNIS ID : 1554590

Grafton is a place in the US state of West Virginia , county seat of Taylor County . Grafton, which covers an area of ​​around 9.8 km² and is 312 m above sea level on the Tygart Valley River , is where Mother's Day originated .

History and sights

The place is said to be named after John Grafton, an engineer on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad . Grafton was officially founded in 1856 and has 5386 inhabitants ( as of 2006 ).

The only two national cemeteries in the United States located in West Virginia are located in Grafton : the Grafton National Civil War Cemetery (created in 1867 for Union soldiers of the American Civil War near the older Maple Avenue Cemetery, which also has numerous civil war dead; 1982 in the National Register of Historic Places; funerals are no longer held there today), as well as the West Virginia National Cemetery , which opened in 1987, about five miles west of Grafton. Grafton prides itself on being one of the first places in the United States to celebrate Memorial Day . A memorial was erected in Grafton for Bailey Brown, allegedly the first Union soldier to be killed in the Civil War.

On May 10, 1908, the third anniversary of Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis ' death , the first official Mother's Day was celebrated in Grafton at the instigation of her daughter Anna Marie Jarvis : After a sermon by Pastor Harry C. Howard in the (classicist style) St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church gave Anna Jarvis five hundred white and red carnations, her mother's favorite flowers. The red carnations were meant to honor the living mothers, the white to the dead. Today this day is officially recognized as the first Mother's Day. Although Anna Jarvis had already given out carnations to other mothers on the Sunday after the second anniversary of her mother's death, a second Sunday in May (May 12, 1907), it was not until 1908 that a prayer was dedicated to all mothers for the first time at her insistence . As a reminder, Grafton Church was declared an International Mother's Day Shrine and a National Historic Landmark in October 1992 . Five structures and sites in total are listed in Grafton on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) (as of March 12, 2020). Anna Marie Jarvis was born in the small town of Webster, about four miles south of Grafton. There is now an Anna Jarvis Birthplace Museum there. Hillary Clinton attended the 2008 Mother's Day celebrations .

To the south of Grafton, around Tygart Lake , lies the Tygart Lake State Park , which has been developed for tourism , and a few miles north of the city is the smaller Valley Falls State Park .

Personalities born in Grafton

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Search mask database in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed March 12, 2020.
    Weekly List on the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed March 12, 2020.
    Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: West Virginia. National Park Service , accessed March 11, 2020.