Appalachian Community Histories – English, McDowell County: Perryville, the Lost Courthouse, and the Thomas Mine
English is a small community in the Dry Fork country of McDowell County, West Virginia. Modern maps give little indication that this quiet place once stood near the center of county government. Before Welch became the county seat, before the Norfolk and Western Railway opened the coalfields to industrial development, and before company towns spread through the valleys, the settlement known as Perryville grew around one of McDowell County’s earliest courthouses.
The community has appeared under several names. Perryville, Peeryville, and Peerysville all occur in historical records, while the West Virginia State Archives identifies Peerysville or Peeryville as the earlier community now known as English. These changing names reflect more than spelling variations. They represent the transformation of an isolated courthouse settlement into a coal and postal community associated with the Flat Top Coal Mining Company and the Thomas Mine.
English never became one of McDowell County’s largest coal towns. Its importance rests instead in the unusual number of county transformations that passed through the same narrow valley. It was connected to McDowell County’s earliest courts, the struggle over the location of the county seat, the arrival of organized coal development, and the eventual decline of the institutions that had once sustained rural communities throughout southern West Virginia.
Before There Was an English
Long before the community was called English, settlers were moving into the valleys that would become McDowell County. The rugged landscape offered little level ground. Mountains divided families and settlements, while creeks and river branches provided the most practical routes through the region.
Mathias and Lydia Harman are generally identified as the first residents of European descent to settle within the present boundaries of McDowell County. They established themselves along Dry Fork around 1802. Other settlers gradually followed, but the region remained sparsely populated for decades. Even in 1860, McDowell County contained only about 1,535 people.
Life centered on scattered farms, family networks, gristmills, trails, and waterways. There were few roads and no developed town capable of serving naturally as the center of county government. When McDowell County was created in 1858, officials had to build its legal institutions almost from the ground up.
The future English stood within this early Dry Fork landscape. At the time, however, the place was more commonly associated with Perryville or one of its spelling variations. The community’s importance would come not from its population but from its connection to the courts.
A New County in 1858
The Virginia General Assembly created McDowell County on February 20, 1858, from territory that had previously belonged to Tazewell County. The county was named for James McDowell, a former governor of Virginia.
According to the National Register nomination for the McDowell County Courthouse, the act creating the county ordered that the village of Perryville serve as the county seat. That statement suggests that Perryville possessed a legal claim to county-seat status from the beginning, even though later records show that the location of the courthouse remained unsettled for years.
The first session of the McDowell County Circuit Court did not meet in a formal courthouse. It convened on August 23, 1858, at the home of George W. Payne on Dry Fork near the present community of English. The meeting connected the future English area to county government even before a permanent courthouse had been completed.
Holding court in a private home was not unusual in a newly organized Appalachian county. Officials needed a place to hear cases, record decisions, collect taxes, approve roads, appoint officers, and conduct the ordinary work of government. A residence could temporarily serve those purposes, but a permanent courthouse represented legitimacy, stability, and local influence.
Where that courthouse would stand soon became a source of controversy.
The Courthouse Contest
The Civil War interrupted the development of McDowell County’s government. The county occupied a difficult position in a divided border region where transportation was limited and political loyalties were complicated. After the war, county leaders again faced the question of where the courthouse should be located.
The principal contest involved Perryville and the area near the mouth of Mill Creek, later known as Wilcoe. According to the McDowell County Commission’s history, the West Virginia Legislature settled the dispute in 1866 by placing the county seat near Mill Creek. A log courthouse was constructed there.
The decision did not end the controversy. Perryville remained a rival for the seat of government, and the courthouse was eventually established near the mouth of Reedy Springs Branch in the Big Creek District. Town lots were laid out around the site, and a settlement grew as residents came to conduct business with county officials.
The courthouse gave Perryville an importance far beyond its size. Court days brought attorneys, witnesses, defendants, jurors, officeholders, landowners, merchants, and travelers into the community. Deeds were recorded there. Estates were settled there. Taxes, elections, road petitions, criminal charges, and civil disputes all passed through the county’s official records.
The courthouse was not simply a government building. In a rural county without a dominant commercial center, it created the foundation around which a town could develop.
The Courthouse Dates Do Not Agree
The precise chronology of Perryville’s courthouse remains uncertain because the surviving published sources disagree.
The West Virginia State Archives place-name index identifies Peerysville or Peeryville as the county seat from 1868 to 1870. The National Register nomination for the present McDowell County Courthouse states that a two-story log courthouse was built at Perryville in 1872. The West Virginia Encyclopedia also identifies Perryville, now English, as the county seat in 1872. The McDowell County Commission’s historical account places the move to the mouth of Reedy Springs Branch in 1874.
These dates cannot all describe the same event in exactly the same way. One source may be referring to a legal designation, another to the beginning of construction, another to the completion or first use of the building, and another to the formal transfer of county business. That explanation is plausible, but it remains an interpretation rather than a proven resolution.
The McDowell County minute books and order books should therefore be treated as the final authority. Those records may establish when land was acquired, when construction was authorized, when contractors were paid, when court sessions began, and when the records were physically transferred. Until those entries are examined together, the safest conclusion is that Perryville became the center of county government during the years following the Civil War and that a two-story log courthouse was operating there by the early 1870s.
Preserving the disagreement is more accurate than forcing the evidence into a single date.
Perryville Becomes McDowell County’s First Town
The courthouse encouraged the development of Perryville at a time when McDowell County had few recognizable towns. The county government account describes Perryville as McDowell County’s first town, a place that grew after lots were laid out around the courthouse.
Its buildings were probably modest. The courthouse itself was constructed of logs, as was the earlier courthouse near Wilcoe. The community would have depended on the roads, paths, and waterways connecting scattered families to the seat of government.
Perryville’s population did not need to be large for the settlement to matter. Its importance came from function. A person who needed to record a deed, obtain a marriage license, appear before a judge, settle an estate, pay a fee, or petition county officials had reason to travel there.
This was the courthouse period of the community’s history, when Perryville served as a political and legal center rather than an industrial settlement. That distinction separates English from many later McDowell County communities created almost entirely around coal operations.
Perryville existed before the railroad transformed the county.
The Railroad Changes McDowell County
During the 1870s and 1880s, outside investors acquired extensive mineral and timber interests in southern West Virginia. McDowell County contained some of the richest coal deposits in the Appalachian region, but its isolation made large-scale development difficult.
That changed when the Norfolk and Western Railway entered the county. By 1892, the railroad crossed McDowell County and connected its coal reserves to national markets. New mines, camps, tipples, company stores, and transportation centers appeared along the rail lines. Workers arrived from other Appalachian counties, the American South, and Europe.
The railroad altered the balance of power within McDowell County. Communities located near rail transportation gained advantages that older courthouse settlements did not possess. Welch occupied a more central position within the expanding industrial county and had direct railroad access.
Perryville had grown because of the courthouse. Welch was growing because of the railroad and coal.
The difference determined the future location of the county seat.
The Courthouse Moves to Welch
In 1892, McDowell County voters considered moving the county seat from Perryville to Welch. The election became controversial, with accusations of fraud surrounding the result.
According to the West Virginia Encyclopedia, James A. Strother and Trigg Tabor secretly removed the county records from Perryville and carried them to Welch. The transfer ensured that county business would continue at the new location even while opponents disputed the move.
The National Register documentation for Welch connects the relocation directly to the county’s changing economy. The Norfolk and Western Railway had brought rapid coal development, and Welch offered both railroad access and a more central location for the expanding population.
When the records left Perryville, the community lost the institution that had created its regional importance. Court officials, lawyers, jurors, landowners, and political leaders increasingly traveled to Welch. Businesses serving courthouse traffic had less reason to remain. Perryville did not disappear, but it could no longer depend on county government as the foundation of its economy.
The community was entering a new period. Its future would be tied to coal.
From Perryville to English
The exact date when Perryville became known as English has not been firmly established. The West Virginia State Archives identifies Peerysville or Peeryville as the earlier name for English and directs researchers looking for Perryville to the Peeryville entry.
The different spellings may reflect handwriting, pronunciation, local usage, postal decisions, or clerical interpretation. Perryville may have been named for a Perry or Peery family, but the records examined for this article do not establish the origin with certainty. The reason the later name English was selected also requires additional documentation.
The transition appears to have occurred during the decades when McDowell County was changing from a rural courthouse society into an industrial coalfield. By the early twentieth century, English was the recognized postal and business name used by coal companies and state officials.
The old name survived mainly in accounts of the courthouse controversy. English became the name associated with mines, workers, homes, schools, and mail service.
The Flat Top Coal Mining Company
One of the clearest contemporary references to industrial development at English appeared in the Bluefield Evening Leader on May 16, 1908. The newspaper reported the organization of the Flat Top Coal Mining Company at English, McDowell County. The company intended to operate coal and coke properties and was incorporated with stated capital stock of $50,000.
A June 1908 report in the Engineering and Mining Journal provided additional details. The company had acquired a large tract of coal land and planned to open a mine and construct a substantial operating plant. Its office was located at English.
The company’s officers included W. H. Thomas as president, L. C. Hansbrough as vice president, O. M. Deyerle as secretary and treasurer, and J. G. Thomas as general superintendent. Its coal was to be marketed through the Flat Top Fuel Company of Bluefield.
These reports show that English had become more than an old courthouse site by 1908. It was now a business address within the expanding Pocahontas coalfield. Capital, land ownership, mine construction, transportation, and coal sales linked the community to Bluefield and the larger industrial economy.
The company’s mine became known as the Thomas Mine. The available records do not establish whether it was named for W. H. Thomas, J. G. Thomas, another member of the Thomas family, or an earlier local name. The relationship is suggestive, but the naming should not be stated as fact without company correspondence, deeds, or incorporation papers.
The Thomas Mine at English
Official reports of the West Virginia Department of Mines confirm the connection between English, the Flat Top Coal Mining Company, and the Thomas Mine.
The state mine directory for the period ending in 1918 listed the Flat Top Coal Mining Company as the operator, Thomas as the mine, and English as the post office. The same directory showed that English also served as the postal address for another nearby operator, demonstrating that the community functioned as a local center for more than one mining interest.
The following annual report again listed the Thomas Mine at English. Production tables credited the Flat Top Coal Mining Company with 23,759 tons of coal during the reporting period.
The figure indicates a working commercial mine, although the Thomas operation was smaller than the enormous complexes that made McDowell County nationally famous. English did not develop into another Gary, Keystone, or Coalwood. Its mining history was more limited in scale, but no less important to the families whose lives depended on the operation.
For those residents, English was not primarily the former county seat. It was home. The rhythms of life followed mine shifts, school terms, church gatherings, company employment, weather, illness, births, marriages, and deaths.
The old courthouse period faded from living memory as the coal community took its place.
Homes, Schools, and Community Memory
Photographs identified in local McDowell County collections preserve parts of English that official reports do not describe. Images labeled as Flat Top homes at English appear to document surviving company housing. A school photograph identified as the English Grade School’s third and fourth grades during the 1949-1950 school year may preserve the names and faces of children from the community near the height of McDowell County’s population.
Such photographs are valuable primary evidence, but their captions and dates should be checked against school records, newspapers, property maps, and information supplied by former residents. Community-contributed photographs often preserve scenes that formal archives overlooked, yet later identifications can contain mistakes.
English likely appeared more often in county newspapers than its small size would suggest. Mine accidents, school programs, church services, road conditions, elections, marriages, deaths, and visits between families commonly filled the community columns of coalfield newspapers.
The McDowell Times, McDowell Recorder, Welch Daily News, Industrial News, Big Creek Home News, and Bluefield Daily Telegraph offer promising paths for reconstructing this part of the community’s history. Their pages may reveal the people who transformed English from a place on a map into a lived community.
English Near the Height of the Coalfields
McDowell County reached its greatest population in 1950, when nearly 100,000 people lived within its borders. The county’s mines had attracted thousands of workers and supported a dense network of communities through the valleys.
English existed within that larger coalfield world, but its history remained distinct. The community carried the memory of a period that predated the industrial boom. A resident could live near the remains or remembered location of an early courthouse while also depending on a twentieth-century mining economy.
That overlap gave English two historical identities.
It was Perryville, the courthouse town.
It was English, the coal and postal community.
Neither identity completely erased the other.
Decline and the Loss of Local Institutions
Mechanization, mine closures, declining employment, and population loss transformed McDowell County after the middle of the twentieth century. Communities that had depended on nearby mines gradually lost jobs, stores, schools, and transportation services.
The decline of a small community rarely occurred through a single dramatic event. Instead, institutions disappeared one at a time. A mine reduced employment or closed. Families moved in search of work. School consolidation sent children farther from home. Businesses lost customers. Houses stood empty. The post office became one of the last remaining public institutions carrying the community’s name.
The United States Postal Service discontinued the English post office on November 9, 2002. English remained an acceptable place name for addresses using the War ZIP Code, preserving the community’s identity even after the local office closed.
The postal closure echoed the courthouse removal more than a century earlier. In both cases, an institution that brought people into English was transferred elsewhere. The community survived, but its official functions diminished.
What the Records May Still Reveal
Much of English’s history remains buried in records that have not been fully examined.
The McDowell County minute and order books may resolve the courthouse chronology. Deeds could identify the courthouse property, the owners of early Perryville lots, and the transfer of mineral rights to coal companies. Surveyor records may reconstruct the roads, creeks, boundaries, and neighboring farms that existed before industrial development.
Federal census schedules could reveal the families living near Perryville and English, their occupations, birthplaces, property ownership, and household relationships. Mine reports may document production, employment, accidents, inspections, and changes in ownership at the Thomas Mine. Naturalization papers could identify immigrant miners who settled in the area.
Newspapers may preserve stories that never entered official histories. School photographs and yearbooks may identify generations of English residents. Probate records could show what families owned, what they owed, and how property passed between generations.
The history of English cannot be recovered from one courthouse account or one coal-company listing. It must be assembled from records created for different purposes and preserved in different institutions.
Why English Matters
English matters because its history challenges the idea that McDowell County began with the coal boom.
Before the railroad, before Welch became the county seat, and before national corporations opened mines throughout the county, Perryville served as a center of law and government. County officials met near Dry Fork. A courthouse rose near Reedy Springs Branch. Town lots were laid out, and McDowell County’s first recognizable town developed around the needs of the court.
After the courthouse moved, the community adapted. Perryville became English. Coal replaced government as the principal source of outside attention. The Flat Top Coal Mining Company established its office there, and the Thomas Mine connected the old courthouse community to the industrial economy of the Pocahontas coalfield.
English never became the largest or wealthiest community in McDowell County. Its significance lies in continuity. The same place witnessed the county’s transformation from an isolated mountain jurisdiction into one of the most productive coal regions in the United States.
Today, little may remain to announce that importance. The courthouse is gone. The mine no longer defines the valley. The post office has closed.
The name English survives, and beneath it survives Perryville, the early county seat that helped shape McDowell County before the coal trains came.
Sources & Further Reading
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Appalachian Counties Served by ARC.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-counties-served-by-arc/
Bluefield Evening Leader. “Flat Top Coal Mining Company.” May 16, 1908, 2. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=BEL19080516.1.2
Engineering and Mining Journal. “Flat Top Coal Mining Company.” June 20, 1908. https://archive.org/details/sim_engineering-and-mining-journal_1908-06-20_85_25
Friedl, Joseph. A History of Education in McDowell County, West Virginia, 1858-1976. Parsons, WV: McClain Printing Company, 1975. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/counties/mcdowell.html
Hennen, Ray V., and Robert M. Gawthrop. Wyoming and McDowell Counties. Morgantown: West Virginia Geological Survey, 1915. https://books.google.com/books/about/Wyoming_and_McDowell_Counties.html?id=TVEgAAAAIAAJ
Library of Congress. “Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/
Library of Congress. “Railroad Maps, 1828-1900.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.loc.gov/collections/railroad-maps-1828-to-1900/
Library of Congress. “Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.loc.gov/collections/folklife-and-landscape-in-southern-west-virginia/
Library of Virginia. “West Virginia Records: West Virginia County Records on Microfilm.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://lva-virginia.libguides.com/west-virginia/county-records
McDowell County, West Virginia. Deed Books and Deed Indexes, 1868-1969. Office of the McDowell County Clerk, Welch, West Virginia. https://lva-virginia.libguides.com/west-virginia/county-records
McDowell County, West Virginia. Minute Book, 1859-1902. Office of the McDowell County Clerk, Welch, West Virginia. https://lva-virginia.libguides.com/west-virginia/county-records
McDowell County, West Virginia. Surveyor’s Records, 1859-1867. Office of the McDowell County Clerk, Welch, West Virginia. https://lva-virginia.libguides.com/west-virginia/county-records
McDowell County Commission. Crockett, J. R. “The History of McDowell County.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://mcdowellcountycommission.com/history/
McDowell County Centennial, 1858-1958. Welch, WV, 1958. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/counties/mcdowell.html
National Archives and Records Administration. “1930 Federal Population Census.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1930
National Archives and Records Administration. “1940 Census Records.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940
National Archives and Records Administration. “1950 Census.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://1950census.archives.gov/
National Archives and Records Administration. “Enumeration District Maps for the 1950 Census.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1950/ed-maps
National Park Service. “McDowell County Courthouse.” National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form, 1979. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/19f60278-1d77-4d95-8ebf-6e76119c064d/
Society of Architectural Historians. “Coal Country.” SAH Archipedia. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://sah-archipedia.org/essays/WV-01-0003
Solins, Mrs. Samuel, and Mrs. Paul Jones. McDowell County History: A Pictorial History of McDowell County, West Virginia. Fort Worth, TX: University Supply and Equipment Company, 1959. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/1543
Sowers, Auburn Daniel. Facts About McDowell County, West Virginia. 1912. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/counties/mcdowell.html
United States Board on Geographic Names. “Geographic Names Information System.” United States Geological Survey. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/search/names
United States Census Bureau. Compendium of the Ninth Census, June 1, 1870. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1872. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1872/dec/1870e.html
United States Census Bureau. Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1910: Population, West Virginia. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1913. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/decade/decennial-publications.1910.html
United States Geological Survey. “Historical Topographic Map Collection.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/
United States Geological Survey. Maps Showing Coal Resources of the Amonate Quadrangle, Buchanan and Tazewell Counties, Virginia, and McDowell County, West Virginia. Miscellaneous Field Studies Map 1730. Reston, VA: United States Geological Survey, 1985. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mf1730
United States Postal Service. “Post Offices by Discontinued Date.” Postmaster Finder. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/post-offices-by-disc-date.htm
United States Postal Service. “Post Office Changes.” Postal Bulletin 22099, April 3, 2003. https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2003/html/pb22099/i-sx.html
Virginia. General Assembly. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, Passed in 1857-1858. Richmond: William F. Ritchie, 1858. https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=vaacts
Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives. “Local and Regional History and the Appalachian South Collections.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://spec.lib.vt.edu/collections/
West Virginia Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines for the Year Ending June 30, 1918. Charleston: Tribune Printing Company, 1918. https://archive.org/details/annualreportofde36west
West Virginia Department of Mines. Annual Report of the Department of Mines for the Year Ending June 30, 1919. Charleston: Tribune Printing Company, 1919. https://archive.org/details/annualreportofde37west
West Virginia State Archives. “McDowell County History Sources.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/counties/mcdowell.html
West Virginia State Archives. “Place Names in West Virginia: Peerysville, Peeryville, Perryville, and English.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/placenames/placnamp.html
West Virginia University, West Virginia and Regional History Center. “McDowell County Histories, A&M 3244.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/1543
West Virginia University, West Virginia and Regional History Center. “Census Records.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://wvrhc.lib.wvu.edu/collections/public-records/census-records
West Virginia University, West Virginia and Regional History Center. “W Microfilm Collection.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://wvrhc.lib.wvu.edu/collections/microfilm-and-microfiche/w-microfilm
West Virginia Humanities Council. “McDowell County.” e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/entries/1577
Author Note: English’s history survives in courthouse records, mine reports, maps, newspapers, and the memories of families who called the valley home. Because published accounts disagree about the Perryville courthouse dates, readers should treat the county minute books as the strongest final authority.