Coalsmouth, Tacket, Young, and More
Article by Stephen Capeheart in The WV Historical Magazine Quarterly
I will be using many articles from the West Virginia Historical Magazine Quarterly now that I know it is readily available. For some reason, I thought it was restricted. It was published by the West Virginia Historical and Antiquarian Society and is now owned by the Internet Archive (archive.org). The digital file here presented was published by the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. I am sharing this particular article because it mentions some folks we’ve already been reading about, and I think this article will provide some new information about them: the Tackets and Youngs, was well as other names that may be familiar. To read more about the Tackets and Youngs, sign in at FamilySearch.org, and then look for the book The Tackets in Kanawha County Virginia.
Coalsmouth was the original name of St. Albans and was the location of Fort Tacket. Reddit has a simple timeline of St. Albans (Coalsmouth) history. I only included the years through 1872 because that is when Coalsmouth was renamed St. Albans. The article that follows goes beyond the events at Tacket’s Fort and explains how Coalsmouth was settled and developed. For many of you, this will be boring, but for those whose ancestors settled here, there is likely to be some meaningful genealogical information.
The map below was provided by textbooks.lib.wvu.edu.
The article that follows, which is entitled “Coalsmouth,” was published in January 1905. Here is a map, published on this site a few days ago, that may be helpful.
Below is a photo of the Kanawha River at St. Albans, published by Tim Kiser on Wikipedia.
Interesting history of Coals Mouth, I lived on Coal River at Tornado during the 80s. There was the remains of a old grist mill on the riverbank there.