The Blacksville post office opened in 1828, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Dunkard (1830), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
First census: 106 in 18802020 census: 118198 years
Founding year: the first Blacksville post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Blacksville’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The town is named after David Black, a civil engineer from Virginia who came to the area in 1800. Black was eventually able to secure 100 acres (40 ha) of land for $50. Black then requested a patent in the summer of 1829, to lay out 160 acres of his land and sell plots in a move similar to creating a subdivision today. On February 3, 1830, the General Assembly of Virginia passed an act, establishing the town as a Municipal Corporation and naming it Blacksville. During the American Civil War, Blacksville became an unincorporated community on June 20, 1863. With the creation of the U.S. state of West Virginia, the West Virginia Legislature then re-incorporated the town in October 1897.
Passages that mention Blacksville, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Monongalia County, West Virginia, from its first settlements to the present time1883 · page 124Read the page →
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said county ; and tlie further sum of $10,000 for and on behalf of said district of Cass to be subscribed to the capital stock of the Blacksville and Morgantown Eailroad Company,” a narrow-gauge railroad leading from the town of Blacksville to West Morgantown. The proposition submitted to Grant District was to subscribe $40,000 ^ to the capital stock of the West Virginia and Pennsylvania Eailroad Company, a standard-gauge road, to run from a point
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History of Monongalia County, West Virginia, from its first settlements to the present time1883 · page 757Read the page →
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part of the Seventh (constabulary) District in 1801 ; and, in 1831, was the northern and north-western part of the Fourth District. In 1852, it was included in the Seventh (magisterial) District, which took in Blacksville. In 1863, Battelle Township was created, and named for the Bev. Gordon A. Battelle. In 1873, Battelle Township, by change of designation merely, became the present Battelle District.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Blacksville, 1828 to 1930
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (3), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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