Sewell, West Virginia

From West Virginia (WV) Cyclopedia

A historic community in Fayette County in the heart of the New River Gorge, Sewell was originally known as Bowyers Ferry, named for Peter Bowyer, who established a ferry in about 1798. Bowyer is also credited with being the first white settler to build a cabin in the New River Gorge.

The community's name was later changed to "Sewell" in honor of Stephen Sewell, who with Jacob Marlin were the first Europeans to settle in Pocahontas County, at present-day Marlinton, WV, about 60-miles northeast of the gorge. Sometime after 1751, Sewell came across Big and Little Sewell Mountains to explore the area in the plateau above present-day Sewell, but was apparently killed by Indians in about 1756 near present-day Rainelle, WV.

According to local tradition, Sewell was the crossing point across New River used by various Native American tribes long before the arrival of European settlers. The Sewell crossing point was said to have been part of a Indian trail connecting a trail along Lower Loop Creek to another well-traveled Indian trail, the Midland Trail, now US-60.

In 1785, an act of the Virginia Assembly authorized the building of a wagon road from Lewisburg, WV, to the Kanawha Falls on New River. Roughly following native trails, this "Old State Road" was completed in 1790. An iron-truss wagon bridge was built across New River at Sewell in about 1900, just downstream of the old ferry crossing, but was destroyed by a flood only a 21 days after being built and was never replaced. The bridge was built at a cost of $18,500.

In 1873, the Longdale Iron Co., a manufacturer of pig iron in Allegheny County, VA, acquired a tract of land around Sewell, opening a mine at Sewell Depot that same year. The Sewell operation was the first in the gorge to experiment in the burning of coke, finally adopting the beehive oven design in 1874, at which time they build a battery of 50 coke ovens. In the years that followed, the company expanded its coking operation to 196 ovens, making the Sewell plant the largest coking plant in the gorge. Sewell's population in 1910 was 410 according to the W.Va. Geological Survey (1919). In 1920 the town's population was 525.

The impressive stone walls of old coke ovens and other ruins of mining and railroading operations once operating at Sewell still stand amid the forest, and are often visited by tourists taking white water rafting trips down the New River. The site can also be accessed by Babcock State Park Forest Road 804, which is regularly closed to vehicular traffic but can be hiked from the parking area at the park's Glade Creek Gristmill.

Elevation: 1040 feet
Population: 0
Longitude: -81.0211
Latitude: 37.9972

Topo map (http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=37.9972&lon=-81.0211) of Sewell, WV and vicinity

Variant Name(s)

Bowyers Ferry, West Augusta