Triadelphia: First Town in West Virginia

Chartered on July twenty-ninth, eighteen twenty-nine, Triadelphia is one of the oldest chartered towns in what is now West Virginia. The name comes from the Greek word for three brothers. Colonel Josias Thompson donated the land for the town site, and the name honored his three sons.

The town grew because the National Road ran through it, and the taverns here were the first stage stop west out of Wheeling. Coaches from Baltimore and Philadelphia came through carrying passengers and mail bound for Ohio and beyond. When the National Road fell quiet, Triadelphia survived on nearby coal.

The highway traffic is still here, now in the form of Interstate Seventy. The town sits just off the road it owes its existence to, still technically a municipality, one of the quieter old towns along the National Road.