| |
| | West Virginia County Histories |
 | | The county, and the county seat, Martinsburg, lay at the northern edge of the Shanandoah Valley, and Martinsburg was very important because the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road ran right through the town. |
 | | Brooke County was named in honor of Robert Brooke (1751-1799), who was educated at the University of Edinburgh, practiced law in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, served in the Virginia General Assembly in 1794 and, later that year, was elected the third Governor of Virginia (1794-1796) by the General Assembly. |
 | | The county's economy become stagnant during the Civil War, and the burning of Guyandotte, one of the county's major population centers, was a major blow to the local economy. |
| www.polsci.wvu.edu /wv/history.html (21274 words) |
|