PoliticalGraveyard.com
The Political Graveyard: A Database of American History
West Virginia: Secretaries of State


West Virginia Secretaries of State, 1863-2012 (May be incomplete!)
Jacob Edgar Boyers 1863-65 Granville D. Hall 1865-67 John S. Witcher 1867-69 James M. Pipes 1869-71 John M. Phelps 1871-73 Charles Hedrick 1873-77 Sobieski Brady 1877-81 Randolph Stalnaker 1881-85 Henry S. Walker 1885-90 William A. Ohley 1890-93 William E. Chilton 1893-97 William M. O. Dawson 1897-1905 Charles Wesley Swisher 1905-09 Stuart F. Reed 1909-17 Houston G. Young 1917-25 George W. Sharp 1925-33 William S. O'Brien 1933-48 Joe F. Burdett 1959-63 Robert D. Bailey 1965-67 Jay Rockefeller 1969-72 Edgar F. Heiskell III 1973-75 A. James Manchin 1976-84 Ken Hechler 1985-2000 Joe Manchin 2001-05 Betty S. Ireland 2005-09

Events and Candidates (may be incomplete!)

  • 1863 May 28: Jacob Edgar Boyers (Rep), elected unopposed.
  • 1936 Nov 3: William S. O'Brien (Dem), elected; Phil M. Conley (Rep), defeated.
  • 1940 Nov 5: William S. O'Brien (Dem), elected; Mrs. Chauncey D. Hinerman (Rep), defeated.
  • 1944 Nov 7: William S. O'Brien (Dem), elected; Phil M. Conley (Rep), defeated.
  • 1948 Aug 10: William S. O'Brien, died in office.
  • 1948 Nov 2: D. Pitt O'Brien (Dem), elected; A. Sweeney Fleming (Rep), defeated.
  • 1956 Nov 6: D. Pitt O'Brien (Dem), elected; Holt Byrne (Rep), defeated.
  • 1958 Nov 4: Joe F. Burdett (Dem), elected; Helen Holt (Rep), defeated.
  • 1960 Nov 8: Joe F. Burdett (Dem), elected; Carl E. Weimer (Rep), defeated.
  • 1965 May 17: Robert D. Bailey, appointed.
  • 1966 Nov 8: Robert D. Bailey (Dem), elected; John S. Callebs (Rep), defeated.
  • 1968 Nov 5: Jay Rockefeller (Dem), elected; John S. Callebs (Rep), defeated.
  • 1972 Nov 7: Edgar F. Heiskell III (Rep), elected; Thomas A. Winner (Dem), defeated.
  • 1975 Feb 27: Edgar F. Heiskell III, resigned.
  • 1976: Phyllis E. Given (Dem), defeated.
  • 1976 Nov 2: A. James Manchin (Dem), elected; James R. McCartney (Rep), defeated.
  • 1980 Nov 4: A. James Manchin (Dem), elected; Dee Brown (Rep), defeated.
  • 1984 Nov 6: Ken Hechler (Dem), elected; Michele Golden (Rep), defeated.
  • 1988: Ken Hechler (Dem), elected.
  • 1992: Ken Hechler (Dem), elected.
  • 1996: Ken Hechler (Dem), elected.
  • 2000: Joe Manchin (Dem), elected.
  • 2004 Nov 2: Betty S. Ireland (Rep), elected; Ken Hechler (Dem), defeated.
  • 2012 Nov 6: Natalie E. Tennant (Dem), elected; Brian Savilla (Rep), defeated.
  • "Enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard."
    Henry L. Clinton, Apollo Hall, New York City, February 3, 1872
    The Political Graveyard

    The Political Graveyard is a web site about U.S. political history and cemeteries. Founded in 1996, it is the Internet's most comprehensive free source for American political biography, listing 320,919 politicians, living and dead.
     
      The coverage of this site includes (1) the President, Vice President, members of Congress, elected state and territorial officeholders in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories; and the chief elected official, typically the mayor, of qualifying municipalities; (2) candidates at election, including primaries, for any of the above; (3) all federal judges and all state appellate judges; (4) certain federal officials, including the federal cabinet, diplomatic chiefs of mission, consuls, U.S. district attorneys, collectors of customs and internal revenue, members of major federal commissions; and political appointee (pre-1969) postmasters of qualifying communities; (5) state and national political party officials, including delegates, alternate delegates, and other participants in national party nominating conventions; (6) Americans who served as "honorary" consuls for other nations before 1950. Note: municipalities or communities "qualify", for Political Graveyard purposes, if they have at least half a million person-years of history, inclusive of predecessor, successor, and merged entities.  
      The listings are incomplete; development of the database is a continually ongoing project.  
      Information on this page — and on all other pages of this site — is believed to be accurate, but is not guaranteed. Users are advised to check with other sources before relying on any information here.  
      The official URL for this page is: https://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/WV/ofc/sos.html.  
      Links to this or any other Political Graveyard page are welcome, but specific page addresses may sometimes change as the site develops.  
      If you are searching for a specific named individual, try the alphabetical index of politicians.  
    Copyright notices: (1) Facts are not subject to copyright; see Feist v. Rural Telephone. (2) Politician portraits displayed on this site are 70-pixel-wide monochrome thumbnail images, which I believe to constitute fair use under applicable copyright law. Where possible, each image is linked to its online source. However, requests from owners of copyrighted images to delete them from this site are honored. (3) Original material, programming, selection and arrangement are © 1996-2023 Lawrence Kestenbaum. (4) This work is also licensed for free non-commercial re-use, with attribution, under a Creative Commons License.
    Site information: The Political Graveyard is created and maintained by Lawrence Kestenbaum, who is solely responsible for its structure and content. — The mailing address is The Political Graveyard, P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106. — This site is hosted by HDL. — The Political Graveyard opened on July 1, 1996; the last full revision was done on March 8, 2023.

    Creative 
Commons License Follow polgraveyard on Twitter [Amazon.com]