Jimtown, Randolph County, West Virginia

Geography

Jimtown is located in Roaring Creek District of Randolph County on present day County Route 151 (formerly U.S. Route 33), about seven miles west of Elkins, West Virginia.

History

Jimtown was formerly known as Fair Hope for the one-room school (late 1800s – c. 1952) which was located at the present-day intersection of Fair Hope, Findley, and Yeager roads. It was named for James Jefferson "Squire Jim" Phillips (1855–1937), a farmer who served as a justice of the peace for Roaring Creek District and whose family owned a majority of the land that now encompasses the community.

Community

Jimtown is served by the Norton-Harding-Jimtown Public Service District, which provides water services to the area. Major roads include County Route 151, which bisects the community, and Jimtown Road, which connects Jimtown to nearby Coalton.

Phillips Chapel Church

The Phillips Chapel United Methodist Church is the center of the community. The congregation was organized in the early 1940s by Rev. Meade Gutshall and local families. Services were held outdoors, weather permitting. A church was finally constructed in 1951 with the help of many residents of the community who pulled together the funds and their own labor to complete the building. The land on which the church stands was sold to the congregation by the Midland Corporation, aka the West Virginia Coal and Coke Company, for the sum of $1.00 in 1945. Many family reunions and civic groups utilize the church's adjacent park and pavilion.

Church Bell

On September 22, 2007, the school house bell from the old Norton Grade School in Norton, West Virginia, was placed in the steeple at Phillips Chapel. The number 28 C.S. Bell Company steel alloy bell, cast on July 8, 1921, was purchased for the school around 1929 by the West Virginia Coal and Coke Company, the same company which donated the land for the church.

Phillips Cemetery

The Phillips Cemetery was established by the Moses J. Phillips family around the 1870s as a burial ground for the poor and indigent. Civil War veteran, farmer, and coal miner Moses J. Phillips served as a county Overseer of the Poor from 1872 through 1877. The oldest known grave is that of War of 1812 veteran Dudley A. Gibson, which dates back to the year of 1873. Both Union and Confederate veterans of the Civil War are buried there. Many Phillips family descendants, as well as residents of Jimtown, are also resting there.

Residents

Many descendants of town's founders still reside in Jimtown or find themselves connected to the community through family ties, including members of the Broschart, Elmore, Harlan, Miller, and Phillips families, who either reside in Jimtown or participate in their yearly reunions at the Phillips Chapel park and pavilion.