CHARLESTON – The following events occurred on these dates in West Virginia history. For more information, visit e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.

October 27, 1879: Howard B. Lee was born in County Wirt. He was elected state attorney general in 1924 and served eight difficult years. His tenure saw the dismissal of a state auditor, the anarchy of prohibition and labor unrest in the coalfields.

October 28, 1972: Brad Paisley was born in Glen Dale. In 2010, Paisley received the Artist of the Year award from the Country Music Association.

October 29, 1861: Confederate troops withdraw from Charleston, never to return. At the start of the war Charleston was a city in Virginia with great sentiments for the Southern cause, but the ease of river access to Ohio and the difficulty of traveling by land to old Virginia doomed the Confederate attempts to secure the Kanawha Valley.

October 29-30, 2012: In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, heavy, wet snow fell over West Virginia. With accumulations approaching 40 inches, it exceeded all of the previous known snowstorms of October.

October 30, 1825: Randolph McCoy was born in Logan County. In 1878, McCoy accused a cousin of Anderson ” Devil Anse ” Hatfield of stealing a pig. It was the first episode of the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

October 31, 1877: Herman Guy Kump was born in Capon Springs, in the county of Hampshire. He was the 19th Governor of West Virginia, from 1933 to 1937.

October 31, 1940: West Virginia University basketball player and coach Gale Catlett was born in Hedgesville. Catlett coached WVU to 13 20-game seasons before retiring in 2002.

October 31, 1946: Labor leader Cecil Edward Roberts Jr. was born in Cabin Creek, Kanawha County. Sixth-generation coal miner and fiery orator, Roberts has served as president of the United Mine Workers of America since 1995.

November 1, 1688: Morgan Morgan was born in Wales. Morgan is traditionally considered to be West Virginia’s first white settler. He settled in the Bunker Hill area in 1731, building a log house that still stands.

November 1, 1848: Israel Charles White was born in Monongalia County. White was the first geologist in the state of West Virginia, appointed in 1897 and in office until his death in 1927, working without pay for all but two of those years.

November 1, 1961: West Virginia’s first non-commercial radio station, Marshall University’s WMUL-FM, began broadcasting.

November 2, 1859: John Brown is tried for murder, treason and insurrection at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Charles Town. Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry galvanized the nation, further alienating North and South and dramatically reducing any possible common ground for compromise.

November 2, 1952: Tri-State Airport in Wayne County opened, with the first official landing made at 11 a.m. by Piedmont Airlines.

e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia is a project of the West Virginia Humanities Council. For more information, contact the West Virginia Humanities Council, 1310 Kanawha Blvd. E., Charleston, WV 25301; 304-346-8500; or visit e-WV at www.wvencyclopedia.org.