I have a copy of the First Records 1745 -1834 of Shrosebeary on "September 6 1789 ""Then did the body of this Church Remove from Shrosebeary in order to settle in the state o Virginey"" and the first Mettinting at Salem was on May 13 1792 . below is a part of the story you can find on the Salem WV web page . HISTORY OF SALEM IN 2000 WORDS OR LESS City of Salem Harrison County, West Virginia by Dorothy Davis (1996) ". Randolph, from New Jersey, had never ventured into the state of Virginia, let alone Harrison County, where the land lay. Across the Pennsylvania border from Woodbridgetown, where Randolph lived, was a group of settlers newly arrived from New Jersey and members of the Seventh Day Baptist Church. Randolph belonged to the denomination. Some of the settlers kept coming to tell him that they were dissatisfied with their land on White Day Creek in Monongalia County. They wanted to push on to new territory. " IF YOU ARE WILLING TO TAKE A CHANCE," Randolph told them, "I have a deed for 400 acres you can take with you to find the land in the headwaters of the Monongahela River. " The settlers decided to start out. The chance the would-be settlers took was greater than their innocence let them know. No one before the Battle of Fallen Timbers in Ohio in 1795 would try to live beyond the West Fork River of the Monongahela River System. Forts protected people east of the river, but west of the river was Indian territory. Chance saved the settlers who were at the site they named "New Salem" in 1791. After the Indian menace ended in 1795 on Tenmile Creek, a tributary of the West Fork River, an Indian told the settlers that his people could have wiped out the people in New Salem, but refrained from the slaughter for one reason: the settlers wore jackets, pantaloons and hats which told the Indians that they were from Pennsylvania or New Jersey. The Indians hated the Virginians who wore hunting shirts and coon-skin caps. Indians called the Virginians "Long Knives" and killed all of them they could. But the settlers were glad to have eight members of the Virginia Militia stationed in the blockhouse they had built during the winters of 1792-93 and 1793-94. Samuel Fitz Randolph followed the settlers to New Salem in 1793 and immediately set about to have the town incorporated by the Virginia Assembly in 1794.