Lewis Magisterial District is one of ten magisterial districts in Mason County, West Virginia, United States. The district was originally established as a civil township in 1863, and converted into a magisterial district in 1872."Division of the County into Townships", in Hardesty's Biographical Atlas of Mason County, West Virginia, H.H. Hardesty & Co., New York, Toledo, and Chicago (1882). In 2020, Robinson District was home to 5,635 people.

Geography Lewis District is located at the confluence of the Ohio River and the Great Kanawha, in the northern part of Mason County. To the north, it is bounded by Robinson District, to the east by Cooper District, to the south by the Kanawha River, and to the west by the Ohio. On the south side of the Kanawha are Arbuckle and Clendenin Districts, and across the Ohio to the west are Addison Township and the northernmost part of Gallipolis Township, both in Gallia County, Ohio.

At just under nineteen square miles, Lewis is the smallest of Mason County's ten magisterial districts. Like most of Mason County, the majority of Lewis District is hilly, but there are broad river bottoms in the eastern and southeastern parts of the district. On the eastern side of the district, the bottom land is occupied by the city of Point Pleasant, the district's only incorporated community, and the county seat.United States Geological Survey, Topographical Maps, West Virginia–Ohio, Point Pleasant Quadrangle (ed. Sept. 1908).

Besides Point Pleasant, the only other community in Lewis District is the unincorporated village of Hickory, the site of Hickory Chapel, and a post office from 1874 to 1906.United States Post Office Department, Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–1971, West Virginia, Mason County. A former village, Heights, was absorbed into Point Pleasant during the mid-twentieth century. The original settlement was just north of the boundary with Robinson District, but it gradually extended southward into Lewis District until it reached the northern end of Point Pleasant.United States Geological Survey, Topographical Maps, West Virginia–Ohio, Gallipolis, Ohio Quadrangle (ed. 1958, revised 1975, 1983)."Heights, W.Va.", in History of Mason County, West Virginia, Walworth Publishing Company (1987), pp. 422, 423.

The main streams in Lewis District are Crooked Creek and Threemile Creek. Crooked Creek flows through the northern part of the district, and at the base of the hills east of Point Pleasant. Until the 1940s, Crooked Creek formed the eastern boundary of Point Pleasant, flowing into the Kanawha River about half a mile above its confluence with the Ohio. As part of the flood control projects following the 1937 Ohio River flood, a flood wall was constructed around the Point Pleasant riverfront, and Crooked Creek was diverted into the Ohio River north of the floodwall. The former right-hand fork of Crooked Creek still flows into the Kanawha through the original mouth of the creek. A smaller run flows into the Kanawha about half a mile above the old outlet of Crooked Creek. Threemile Creek flows through the southeastern part of the district, emptying into the Kanawha three miles above Point Pleasant. Besides these, Oldtown Creek, most of which lies in Robinson and Cooper Districts, flows through the northwest corner of Lewis District before joining the Ohio.

There are two main highways in Lewis District. West Virginia Route 2 runs south along the Ohio River from Point Pleasant to Huntington, and eastward through the hills to Ravenswood, in Jackson County. West Virginia Route 62 runs southeast along the Kanawha from Point Pleasant to Buffalo in Putnam County, and northward along the Ohio River, through Mason City, Hartford, and New Haven, before joining Route 2 at Mount Alto in Jackson County. Other important routes in Lewis District include Jericho Road, which traverses the center of the district from Point Pleasant to Hickory, where it meets Route 2; and the western end of Sand Hill Road, which travels through the middle of the county from Point Pleasant to Letart.

Two railroads meet at Point Pleasant. The first, once part of the Kanawha and Michigan Railroad, followed the course of the Kanawha River from Charleston, and crossed the Ohio to Kanauga, Ohio, where it originally joined the Hocking Valley Railroad. Completed in 1885, the railroad bridge was the first span crossing the Ohio at Point Pleasant; the original bridge was replaced in 1919. This line is currently leased by the Kanawha River Railroad from Norfolk Southern, and carries freight from southeastern West Virginia to central Ohio.Watco Companies, Kanawha River Railroad Map, retrieved October 16, 2019. A second line, formerly part of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, now CSX Transportation, follows the Ohio River for the length of the county, between Huntington and Ravenswood, crossing the Kanawha just east of Henderson and Point Pleasant.

In the early twentieth century, three ferries carried passengers between Point Pleasant, Henderson, and Kanauga. These became obsolete with the construction bridges spanning the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. The Silver Bridge, between Sixth Street in Point Pleasant and Kanauga, was built in 1928; it famously collapsed in 1967, and was replaced by the Silver Memorial Bridge, built two years later, and a mile downstream, in Clendenin District. The Shadle Bridge was built in 1931 between Viand Street in Point Pleasant, and Henderson on the south side of the Kanawha. It was replaced by the Bartow Jones Bridge in 1998.

History

Although there is abundant evidence of Indian presence in the lands that would become Mason County prior to the arrival of Europeans, including by various groups of Mound Builders, by the mid-eighteenth century the area was largely uninhabited. This was likely due to pressure from the Iroquois Confederacy, which pushed most of the aboriginal inhabitants west of the Ohio. A notable exception in Mason County was a Shawnee town near the mouth of the Great Kanawha, which still existed in colonial times, and was known to the colonists as "Oldtown". An important Indian road, the Buffalo or Kanawha Trail, followed the north bank of the Kanawha through present-day Lewis District.Otis K. Rice and Stephen W. Brown, West Virginia: A History, Second Edition, University Press of Kentucky (1993), pp. 9, 10.

Early exploration French and Dutch traders had visited the Ohio Valley before 1700,Rice, West Virginia, p. 13. but there is no definite record of exploration in Mason County until 1742, when Virginians John Howard and John Peter Salling followed the Kanawha to its mouth.Rice, West Virginia, p. 19. Competing claims to the Ohio Country by France and Britain following the conclusion of King George's War led to the expedition of Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville, who traveled the length of the Ohio in 1749, burying lead plaques stating France's claim to the territory at the mouths of the river's principal tributaries.Rice, West Virginia, p. 21. One such plaque was buried at the future site of Point Pleasant on August 18, 1749.Expedition of Celoron to the Ohio Country in 1749, C.B. Galbraith, ed., F.J. Heer Printing Company, Columbus, Ohio (1921), pp. 40, 41. During the winter of 1750 and 1751, Christopher Gist explored both sides of the Ohio on behalf of the Ohio Company of Virginia. Gist reached the mouth of the Kanawha, now in Lewis and Clendenin Districts, but no attempt was made to settle in Mason County until after the French and Indian War.

The land that would become Mason County, West Virginia was first surveyed in 1772 by a team led by George Washington; his brother, Augustine, had been one of the organizers of the Ohio Company. The team surveyed a tract of 51,302 acres, just over eighty square miles, lying between Letart Falls on the Ohio, and the mouth of Threemile Creek on the Great Kanawha, including most of Lewis District, most of Robinson, and all of Waggener and Graham Districts. The land was patented to them on December 15, 1772, by Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, on behalf of King George III. Most of Lewis District consists of a 9,000 acre section allocated to Andrew Lewis, and accounting for the majority of the roughly 12,109 acres now lying in the district. The balance includes submerged land in the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, as well as a parcel of land in the southeastern portion of the district, east of the mouth of Threemile Creek, not included in the original survey.Deed from King George III, by Lord Dunmore, to George Muse, Adam Stephens, Andrew Lewis, Peter Hog, John West, John Polson, and Andrew Waggener, December 15, 1772, recorded in Mason County Deed Book 21, folios 115–118, January 29, 1868 (F.W. Sisson, recorder)."Lands Located in Mason County Prior to the Revolution", in Hardesty's Atlas of Mason County.

Indian warfare

An outbreak of hostilities between the colonists and the Indians led to Lord Dunmore's War in 1774. In the course of this conflict, Governor Dunmore ordered a regiment of Virginia Militia, under Colonel Andrew Lewis, to proceed to the mouth of the Kanawha, where he arrived on October 6. Although Dunmore sent instructions to Lewis to cross the Ohio and rendezvous with the governor's army near Chillicothe, his men were reluctant to abandon their strategic position—on land that Lewis himself claimed—and they set about constructing a fort at the present site of Point Pleasant. Here they were attacked by a force of Indians led by Chief Cornstalk on October 9. After a hard-fought battle, Cornstalk's men retreated, leaving the Virginians victorious in the only major battle of the war.Rice, West Virginia, pp. 33–35.

Cornstalk subsequently made peace with the colonists, but while visiting Fort Randolph to warn the garrison of an alliance between the Shawnees and the British, the soldiers seized him and his son, Elinipsico, and two other Shawnees in retaliation for the murder of two militiamen by unknown Indians. The prisoners were subsequently murdered by the soldiers, over the protests of Captain Matthew Arbuckle.Rice, West Virginia, p. 41. Although Indian forces appeared before the fort over the winter and again in May 1778, there were no major battles. Indian raids into the area continued as late as 1792, after which the growing number of settlers and their defenses deterred further incursions."Events from 1777 to 1804", in Hardesty's Biographical Atlas of Mason County.

Lewis District and Point Pleasant

The first settlers at Point Pleasant referred to it as "Shawneetown", due to the nearby Indian village at the mouth of Oldtown Creek, but as the Indians abandoned their settlement, the Virginians began to call their new village "Point Pleasant"."Point Pleasant", in Hardesty's Biographical Atlas of Mason County. Among the early settlers was Daniel Boone, who had been a scout for Colonel Lewis during Dunmore's War, and subsequently settled in Kentucky. He came to Point Pleasant in 1788, and opened a trading post. He was named Lieutenant Colonel of the Kanawha County Militia, and served a term in the Virginia House of Delegates beginning in 1791. He returned to Kentucky in 1795.John M. Faragher, Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer, Holt, New York (1992).