Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia Good Shepherd in Parkersburg in 1891. In 1899, Peterkin found visitations increasingly difficult and asked for a bishop coadjutor, the diocesan convention elected Rev. William Loyall Gravatt of Zion Episcopal Church in Charles Town, West Virginia. Upon Rt.Rev. Peterkin's death in 1916, Rt. Rev. Gravatt moved the diocesan headquarters to Charleston, West Virginia, the state capital, where they are again today, although moved to Wheeling under the episcopate of his successor, Robert E.L. Strider. The diocese is headquartered on Virginia Street in Charleston, a few blocks from the West Virginia State Capitol, in a house known as Diocesan Center. It
Wheeling, West Virginia Government of Virginia from 1861 to 1863, and became the first capital of West Virginia after it seceded from Virginia and was admitted to the Union in its own right in 1863. The growing German population, which included immigrants after the 1848 Revolutions, was firmly anti-slavery. The Germans of Wheeling organized the "First West Virginia Artillery" to oppose the Confederacy and played a role in the initial movement to separate from Virginia. The Germans' culture influenced the city, such as their "German Singing Societies," the first of which began in 1855. Although Wheeling lost its position as state capital in