Nov. 21, 1810: Allen Taylor Caperton was born in Monroe County. Caperton served in
the Confederate Senate during the Civil War and in the U.S. Senate from 1875 to 1876.
Nov. 22, 1910: Fire destroyed the academic building at Concord College. By the next
morning, community leaders had arranged to teach the 300 students in rooms throughout the
town of Athens.
Nov. 22, 1926: Selva Lewis “Lew” Burdette Jr. was born in Nitro. Burdette, an
outstanding professional baseball player, spent most of his career with the Milwaukee Braves.
He won three games in the 1957 World Series to help defeat the New York Yankees.
Nov. 23, 1962: Roman Catholic Bishop John Joseph Swint died. He was a great builder
of religious institutions in the Diocese of Wheeling.
Nov. 24, 2008: Former Governor Cecil Underwood died in Charleston. Underwood, West
Virginia’s 25th and 32nd governor, had the distinction of being the state’s youngest and oldest
chief executive.
Nov. 24, 2015: For her accomplishments in the field of mathematics and science,
Katherine Johnson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.
Johnson worked for NASA calculating trajectories for manned space flights.
Nov. 25, 1896: Athlete Clinton Cyrus Thomas was born in Greenup, Kentucky. He
starred in the Negro Leagues in the days when Major League Baseball was segregated. Thomas
settled in Charleston after his playing days and had a long career in West Virginia state
government.
Nov. 26, 1952: A fire on the evening before Thanksgiving at the Huntington State
Hospital killed 14 patients, with three more patients later dying from their injuries. Huntington
State Hospital is known today as the Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital.
Nov. 26, 1861: The Constitutional Convention of 1861-63 was convened in Wheeling.
The convention provided the foundation for state government in preparation for statehood.
Nov. 26, 1953: Politician Shelley Moore Capito was born in Glen Dale, the daughter of
future congressman and governor Arch Moore. In 2001, she became the second woman ever to
represent West Virginia in Congress and, in 2015, the first woman from the Mountain State to
serve in the U.S. Senate.
Nov. 27, 1848: African American educator William H. Davis was born. As a teacher of
Black children in Malden, his most famous student was Booker T. Washington. In 1888, Davis
was nominated as an independent candidate for the gubernatorial election—to date, the only
Black person so honored in West Virginia history.
Nov. 27, 1933: Daniel Boardman Purinton, a faculty member and president of West
Virginia University, died. He was an early and strong supporter of co-education.
