Beginning in the late eighteenth century and for a period of several decades, the island was called Amberson’s Island. This is a reference to a squatter named John Amberson. In 1785, he had attempted to organize the large community of squatters along the river into a legal form of government, even issuing a proclamation for an election looking toward framing a constitution. “All men have an undoubted right to pass into every vacant country … Congress is not empowered to forbid them.” Since everything north and west of the Ohio River at this time constituted Indian Lands, squatters taking this land represented illegal seizure. Congress, worried about the possibility of this illegal seizure leading to open warfare with the local tribes, sent soldiers into the valley to break up the squatter settlements. Fort Harmar, near Marietta, was part of this effort. Though Amberson never owned the island, it none the less was referred to as Amberson’s Island as late as 1818.
The first transfer of the island occurred when Joel Buffington bought the island from Kentuckian John Pearce Duvall in 1797 for 5 shillings. It is unknown when Duvall might have acquired the island, but that he owned it is unsurprising; according to local historian Sue Proctor Miller, he was a wealthy and “active land speculator with a preference for Ohio River islands for he owned several of them in the mid and upper Ohio Valley as early as the 1770’s. In addition he possessed thousands of acres as an assignee of numerous settlers. Duvall served on the board of commissioners appointed to adjust the claims to unpatented lands, and was elected a member of the Virginia legislature.”
Sue Proctor Miller continues (in her statement of significance on the application for the islands place on the National Register):
“What Joel acquired in 1797 was 150 acres of extremely fertile soil which supported an enormous stand of virgin timber. On September 25, 1803, Thomas Rodney, while en route down the Ohio to assume a federal judgeship in the Mississippi Territory, was shipwrecked on “Amberson’s Island” in front of the Buffingtons’ farmhouse where he was forced to spend the night and part of the next day while his boat was being repaired. While this was being done, Joel Buffington entertained his visitor by taking him for a stroll in the island’s woods where the judge was astonished by the monstrous size of the trees he saw. One black walnut measured 22 and a half feet in circumference, but even it was dwarfed by a hollow sycamore Buffington had left standing in one of his fields which extended 16 feet in diameter and a gigantic 48 feet in circumference.
“In July 1807, the Irish doctor Fortescue Cuming left a brief account of the island which he observed while on his way downriver bound for New Orleans: ‘… we came to Buffington’s island, which is partly cultivated and is about two miles long. Though tat on the left is the ship channel, we chose the one on the right, as it presented a long narrow vista, which promised the strongest current: We found it however very shallow, but beautifully picturesque.’ This demonstrates that by 1807 Joel Buffington’s name had begun to displace that of the long-departed John Amberson, although the latter’s died hard. Meriweather Lewis in 1803 wrote of passing Amberson’s Island, and as late at 1818 Cramer’s Navigator referred to the island by its original name.
“One of the unique features of the island at this time was a floating mill, the earliest in this section of the river, which was operated ca. 1810 in the island’s Ohio channel by one Uriah Gandee. The mill was patronized by all the settlers for a distance of twenty miles which made the island a center of area life.
“By 1830, the long occupancy of the Buffingtons on the island was drawing to a close. Joel died March 17, 1821, leaving his estate to be divided among his many children. The family’s holding were vast – as one local resident later recalled, the Buffingtons ‘owned all the land.’ In recognition of the size and extent of their property, the stretch of Ohio shore in the neighborhood of the island came to be known as ‘Buffington’s Fields.’ At one time there existed there a boat landing called ‘Buffington.’
“In 1833, Joel’s son Joseph began to purchase his brothers’ and sisters’ shares in the island, a consolidation made with the goal of selling the property. Two years later, the process was completed and on August 8, 1835, Joseph Buffington and his wife Chloe sold the entire island to James Williamson of Jackson County for $2,300. Thus with this quiet legal transaction, the island’s pioneer era ended. Yet an even more exciting time in its history lay just ahead, one containing events so spectacular that they would eclipse, and more than eclipse, all those that had gone before.
“During the years immediately prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, Buffington Island became one of the stations on the Underground Railroad. Slaves fleeing from their masters in Virginia either would row across the Ohio or, in low water, wade on the excellent ford which stretched across the river from Virginia to a point below the head of the island, and secret themselves on the island until Ohio abolitionists would arrive to conduct the escaped slaves on the remainder of their journey toward Canada.”
The islands place in history mostly a product of geology: a layer of rock created a ridge across the river bottom which, during drier months, was dependably a shallow ford. Consequently, anyone in the vicinity wishing to easily cross the river would aim to do so at Buffington Island.
By the time of the civil war, the island had become home to the river pirates Armstrong and Lockwood. Armstrong lived on the island in the early 1860’s and probably hijacked boats and crews after they became stranded on the island’s sand and gravel bar. Lockwood was identified as a “pirate of Buffington Island” by the Wheeling Intelligencer in 1863. He was turned over the Sheriff of Meigs County that same year after killing John Brady on the steamer St. Patrick.
The island is probably most famous for its affiliation with Morgan’s Raid and the Battle of Buffington Island, which remains the site of the only naval battle to be fought in West Virginia. General John H. Morgan, after his famous foray into Ohio, planned to cross the Ohio River into West Virginia at Buffington Island and receive assistance from Confederate sympathizers. The river would normally have been only two feet deep in this area in July, making it an easy ford. Unfortunately for Morgan, thunderstorms swelled the river’s depth to over six feet, making a safe ford impossible. He was unexpectedly met by ironclad gunboats of the Union navy, including the Imperial, Moose, Victory, Reindeer, Springfield, and the steamer Allehany Belle, that traveled up the narrow back channel between the island and Ohio to cut off Morgan’s cavalry, raking the Ohio shore with cannon fire. 3,000 Union troops on shore then moved in and a battle took place on the Ohio shore opposite the island. Sandwiched between naval shelling and the Union army, 120 Confederate men were killed and over 700 were captured (about 1,100 of Morgan’s men managed to make a scattered retreat into the hills, leaving their artillery behind, fleeing north to eventually be captured near Pennsylvania). The Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, placed a fieldstone memorial north of the island on the Ohio shore to mark the battle area.
The most significant battle at Buffington Island, though, may be the one which occurred over a century later. In 1939 and 1951, Pfaff and Smith Builders Supply Company had purchased the island, and by 1975 the company had begun dredging away the head of the island, which greatly upset those who valued the island’s historic significance. By the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the company sought to dredge away the whole of Buffington Island for its sand and gravel. Meigs County historian Gayle H. Price noted in a 1978 newspaper article, “Buffington’s Island has a romance equal to that of many other historical islands and it is regrettable to see it dug away for gravel and thus another phase of our history goes into oblivion for the sake of commerce.” Eleven state and local Historical Societies desperately attempted to get the island on the National Register of Historic Places. From testimonials by those who lived in the vicinity of the island, it’s clear preserving the natural splendor and recreational benefits of the island were just as important as saving the historic resource. Though the island never made it onto the National Register, the battle caught the attention of the US Fish and Wildlife Service as they prepared to create a National Wildlife Refuge in the mid-Ohio Valley.
Island Access: Ravenswood public access ramp off SR 68 in Ravenswood, WV
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