Found these two little articles in our local newspaper, The Lafayette Daily Courier, Lafayette, Indiana (Tippecanoe Co.) August 21, 1861: The New State of Kanawha The Provisional Convention in session at Wheeling yesterday, adopted the ordinance creating a new State, reported by the select committee on the division of the State, by a vote of fifty to twenty -- The ordinance provides for the election of delegates to a convention to form a constitution, at the same time the question for or against a new State shall be submitted to the people within the proposed boundary. The election is to be held on the 24th of October next. The name of the new State is to be Kanawha. The utmost harmony prevailed in the convention. The convention will adjourn tomorrow. August 28, 1861: The New State of Kanawha The thirty-eight counties included in the new state of Kanawha have an aggregate population of 281,786. The whole population of Virginia in 1861 was 1,593,199, including 495,826 slaves, leaving a white population of 1,097,373. There are only 6,288 slaves in the new state, so that in losing this population of 281,000, Virginia loses about one-fourth of her white inhabitants. Even though the next article isn't related to Kanawha, or to my own county, I thought you might get a chuckle out of it. I laughed out loud when I read it in the library! October 4, 1861: A man in Lacrosse, a few days ago, rushed to the river swearing that he would drown himself. When he had waded in to the depth of his waist, his wife, who had followed him, seized him by the hair, and then, as Brick Pomeroy describes it, she "pulled him back till they reached a place where the water was about two feet deep where she pulled him over backward, soused him under, and pulled his head up again. 'Drown yourself (down he went) leave me to father the brats, (another plunge), get drunk, (another souse); and start for the river, (another dip), better use water instead of rotgut, (another dip and shake of his head); I'll learn you to leave me a widow, and all the men at the war.' After sozzling him to her heart's content, she led him out a wetter if not a better man, and escorted him into the house and closed the door."