Some History About Sistersville, WV
Sistersville has quite an interesting background also. In 1802 Charles Wells floated down the Ohio from Wellsburg in a flatboat to start a little settlement here known, to begin with, as Well's Landing. The Wells family was a prolific lot. They started Wellsville in Ohio about a hundred miles upriver from here and Charles founded Charles-town or Wellsburg almost 70 miles up. Charles had 10 children by his first wife and another 12 by a second after her death. According to family tradition the twentieth child was christened Twenty Wells and the twenty first child was known as Plenty Wells. I'm sure her mother thought she was, although the baptismal records indicate she was baptized Caty Adams Wells. The family came down river perhaps because things had gotten too crowded for them and they needed to spread out. Anyway, Mr. Wells came to own all the land five miles up and five miles down either side of his landing site along the Ohio. That was room enough for even twenty-two children.

Besides his family, Charles brought with him equipment for a horse-powered mill and set up residence about a mile south of what is now the center of town. The first store in the area was started in his home, he held county court there and a ferry was established across the Ohio here which has run off and on ever since. It is still the only way across the river for a dozen miles in either direction. Wells Landing became a regular center for back woods commerce with a gristmill, thread wheel and a sawmill. One of the oldest buildings is still standing today by the ferry landing. It once served as a tavern and store. Now it is a warehouse but is slowly being renovated. Welkin, the Wells family home, is at the Southern end of town next to the golf course. The current house was built by a son of Charles and served as an oil company office for many years before it once again became a residence.

Charles died in 1815. He divided his large estate among all his children but that year two daughters, Delilah Wells Grier and Sarah Wells McCoy laid out part of the family land in lots to create the village of Sistersville; which it was so renamed in their honor. Portions of the Wells estate adjoin Diamond Street where the town hall is today. There are about 1900 people in Sistersville today but the original hovered around 300 inhabitants for many years. After all, until 1884 when the railroad came through the only way here was by birth, flatboat, steamboat and ferry! Even the roads, such as they are, are a relatively recent addition.

Sistersville is about 15 miles South of the Mason Dixon line and tiny Sistersville's families were divided during the Civil War. Virginia joined the Confederacy in 1861 and 21 members of the Sistersville Blues militia went off to fight the North along with the instruments of their drum corps. Abraham Dickinson, one of the residents, didn't much like the Confederacy though and so, together with delegates from around the region, went up to the Wheeling Convention in 1863 to organize the separate state of West Virginia which was to be loyal to the North. Then, because of the Draft Act of 1864, another 30 of Sistersville citizens went to serve with the Union army fighting their own relatives and friends on the battle lines. In Sistersville feelings ran strong and deep. The proud confederate flag of the local militia was hidden under some wallpaper in a local home so, though it could not be seen, it was always raised. The Presbyterian congregation quit meeting during the War believing that, "The less said the better." The Underground Railroad was active with two homes in town sheltering runaway slaves. One even had a tunnel that ran out from the basement to the Ohio River.

The first oil well of the great Sistersville oil field was drilled here on August 11, 1891. The bringing in of the Pole Cat well, which pumped water for a year before it pumped oil, brought in a sudden influx of oil men, drillers, leasers, speculators, followers, floaters, wild-catters, and hangers-on. This quickly boomed Sistersville from a rural village of 300 people to a rip-roaring, snorting, metropolis of 15,000 people almost overnight. Imagine, if you will, the entire countryside covered with oil derricks, 2500 of them by one count. Trees were cut down for wood and houses were torn down to make room for these oil style drilling derricks, one of which, the Little Sisters Well, you can see down by the ferry landing. At the same time, shacks and tents were thrown up to help house the people. In those days the orchard was full of people living under the trees with the barest of coverings against the elements. Houseboats lined the riverbanks on both sides of the river for a mile or more. They were moored so closely together that you could travel from one end to the other without going ashore. These helped to feed and sleep the people and at the same time furnished liquor, amusements and entertainment of every kind to suit the tastes of those seeking it. Nearly every houseboat seemed to have a speakeasy, gambling room, or worse.

There was conspicuously little in the way of a proper temporary residence for the genteel and important guests in town. Another Wells family member, Ephraim Wells, a grandson of Charles, came to the rescue with this marvelous hotel opened a little over a hundred years ago on January 15th, 1895. With the hotel's opening, Sistersville became not only a boomtown, but a place of importance on the social circuit. There was a grand opera house in addition to the saloons and theaters and the vaudeville acts would travel the circuit from Pittsburgh to Sistersville and Cleveland. Sadly, most of that disappeared in two great fires some years ago. The Wells Inn was the place for the rich to stay and indulge in elegance.

Welcome to the restored Historical Wells Inn. Some of you will choose to stay here, but all of us will be dining here Saturday evening in the Black Gold Room. Sunday morning we will be returning for a wonderful breakfast before we start our journey back to St. Marys.