By james art 
WEBSTER SPRINGS, WV — Perhaps no county in West Virginia is as isolated as Webster County. Entirely mountainous, no highway or U.S. highway penetrates it, and many heavily wooded tracts have not been explored for years except by enterprising hunters and foresters.
Only three percent of its 356,000 acres is in farmland—a remarkably small amount—and almost all of the rest is forested. Its population is estimated at just over 9,000, which ranks it among the least populated counties for its size in West Virginia.
Where it lacks in development, however, it excels in beauty. Six sparkling rivers descend through its deep valleys high among the Allegheny Mountains—the highest of which rises more than 4,000 feet above sea level. Holly River State Park, a preserve in its northern mountains, is considered one of the most exceptional in the state.
Webster is also noted for the fiery, independent constitution of its population, a large portion of which, shortly after the Civil War, was employed in logging, which ranks as the second most dangerous occupation in the world, after deep-sea fishing. Surely such independence is due, at least in part, to a long association with this brutal profession.
But the independent streak was evident from the start in 1860, when Webster was created by the Virginia Assembly, being the last district created before West Virginia seceded from Virginia in 1863. By then, it was clear that the residents of isolated Webster would have to fend for themselves, and they were doing remarkably well.
Historian George W. Summers in the 1940s recounts the events that led to the creation of “Webster State” and those that followed.
“With few inhabitants, little farm land, farther from markets than other timber sections, the country from which Webster County was formed had no great enticement for settlers when the fire of secession swept through the state of Virginia. The Virginia General Assembly, a law passed about 1860, created Webster County, but it was only a paper county, as no steps were taken to put it into effect because of the war.
“West Virginia was then formed, and included Webster county, and the new state had much more important work on its hands than the granting of a county to the mountain tract near the headwaters of Elk. The Confederate state of Virginia exercised no authority over it, and the new northern state neglected it until it became something of an orphan left to its own resources.
“Finding that neither the North nor the South were able or willing to do anything for them in accordance with their ambitions, all the people of the affected territory assembled in a small room and declared that Webster was no longer the county of any state, but is itself the free and independent State Webster.”
While the outside world was dealing with matters of war, here in the mountains, the new Webster State Government was dealing with matters of state, Summers said.
“George M. Sawyer, of Williams River, was proclaimed its governor, and certain other officers were chosen, either at the time their declaration of independence was accepted and proclaimed, or perhaps by appointment of the governor.
“Many laws were passed for self-government, but Webster never took his stand either with the Union or the Confederacy, allowing his men to serve in the army, but strictly minding his own business in every other way.
“Then the war was over and West Virginia was a full state. He ignored Webster’s claims to statehood, passed an act making it a county, and the great sovereign state of Webster was no more. And while the county makes its influence felt in many ways today, Webster State is but a memory, and few remember that it was ever a state.
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