Parkersburg, the county-seat, is a neat village, beautifully situated on the Ohio at the mouth of the Little Kanawha, 335 miles northwesterly from Richmond, 94 below Wheeling, 12 below Marietta, and 264 miles above Cincinnati. It is the most flourishing river village in the state, below Wheeling: it contains 9 mercantile stores, a bank, 1 newspaper printing office, 2 steam grist and 2 steam saw mills, 1 steam carding factor, 1 iron foundry, 2 extensive tanneries, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Episcopalian, and 1 Methodist church, and a population of about 1,100. A turnpike, about 280 miles in length, has lately been finished from Winchester to Parkersburg; and it is contemplated to continue the Baltimore and Ohio rail-road to this place.
Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Virginia… (Charleston, SC: William R. Babcock, 1852), 516.