Welcome to Marlinton, West Virginia.

What might you ask would have me writing about a small town in rural West Virginia? Well, the truth of it is I have once again been updating my Ancestry.com files. This town is named after my 7th Great Grandfather, Jacob Marlin.

Marlinton is a town in and the county seat of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 998 at the 2020 census. Located along the Greenbrier River, it is known for its scenery.

Marlinton is named for Jacob Marlin, who, along with Stephen Sewell, became the first non-native settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains, in the Greenbrier Valley in 1749. They were discovered living there by surveyors John Lewis and his son, Andrew, in 1751. New Englanders Marlin and Sewell built a cabin in what would become Marlinton, but after various religious disputes, Sewell moved into a nearby hollowed-out sycamore tree. Sewell eventually settled on the eastern side of what is now called Sewell Mountain, near present-day Rainelle.

Jacob Marlin was born in April 1689 in Talbot County, Maryland. He married Sarah Armstrong in 1710. His daughter Susan, who is my 6th Great-Grandmother was the first of his children, followed by a son named Archibald and, later, another daughter named Eleanor. Those children were well spaced out, for he was gone for long stretches of time in exploration.

Greenbrier Pioneers and Their Homes by Ruth Woods Dayton tells us,

Marlin and Sewell were the first white settlers to reach the upper part of the valley. The year was 1749. Later, Sewell struck out on his own, moving farther west. He was killed by Indians, apparently at the cabin site and probably in 1756 during the French and Indian War. Marlin, who returned to the East, survived the Indian wars.

As a result of its rural location and proximity to the facilities of the United States National Radio Quiet Zone, the town has been a late adopter of broadband Internet. A 2018 article in Motherboard explains that the nearby Snowshoe Mountain ski resort has been able to provide fast internet, WiFi, and cell phone coverage by having a custom system built which is specially designed so as not to interfere with radio telescopes.

It is my understanding that the men had strong disagreements about religion, one being a Protestant and the other a Catholic.

Luke Bauserman in an article entitled “Giant Trees of Appalachia and the People Who Lived in Them,” tells us: “According to the Encyclopedia of West Virginia, the largest trees ever documented in the eastern states were three sycamores documented by George Washington in 1771 on the Three Brothers Islands in the Ohio River. [Google Books] Washington was amazed at the size of these trees and estimated in his diary that one of them was 61 feet in circumference at its base!
It turns out that my brother and I weren’t the first settlers to take up residence in a hollow tree either, not by a long shot:
• In 1750, explorers Jacob Marlin and Stephen Sewell headed westward across the Allegheny range and found there way to where the mouth of Knapps Creek empties into the Greenbrier River in what is now Pocahontas County, WV. The two men decided to settle in the area. They built a cabin for themselves, but ended up having a falling-out. Their quarrel eventually reached a point where they were not speaking to each other. So Sewell moved to a large hollow sycamore tree which stood a short distance from the cabin and lived there for a period of time.
• The following year, when surveyors for the Greenbrier Land Company entered the area, they found Marlin and Sewell living quite happily in their separate dwelling places. It was also reported that each morning the two men greeted each other with pleasant salutations. After Sewell moved on farther west where he was later killed by Indians, his former sycamore tree house served as a temporary dwelling place for many others who passed that way in subsequent years and remained as a landmark until 1930.”

“Marlin and Sewell.” e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 08 February 2024. Web. Accessed: 07 April 2025.