01/12/2026
Forming of Wise County Virginia
On July 28, 1856, the village of Big Glades, now the town of Wise, staged its first celebration. Long before daybreak people began assembling at the two-story log dwelling of Daniel Ramey, known as the "Monarch" of the Big Glades. On this day the first court of the newly formed Wise County was to be organized. The county had been formed from Russell, Scott and Lee Counties by an act of the Virginia Legislature on February 16, 1856, and named Wise in honor of the governor, Henry A. Wise.
And by that act the village was to drop the name Big Glades and assume the name Gladeville. The Legislature had decreed that the county-seat would be situated on the land belonging to the Monarch.
BOUGHT 708 ACRES
And this was the very site on which the Monarch's home stood. The Monarch, who hail-ed from Scott County, Virginia, had come into possession of this land by buying tract No. 13, 708 acres of the vast estate which the Frenchman Francis Pierre de Tubeuf had acquired before being murder-ed by Indians at his home on Clinch River. So, now being the big landholder of the Big Glades, he felt it his duty to play host to the vast crowd of people. As the day progressed, William Richmond, the first pre-siding justice of the court was elected. Morgan T. Lipps, who had been elected in the spring, vas sworn in as the first clerk of the court.
Although the court had been organized and the name of the village changed from Big - Glades to Gladeville, there was no courthouse or jail. And a jail was needed even before the "Big Day" ended for a man by the name of Beverly Dickenson was arrested and held by the sheriff at the Monarch's home for the mur-der of one Alexander Carico. Because of the lack of a jail Dickenson was taken to the Russell County jail. Although needed, a jail was not built until after the close of the Civil War.
USED CHURCH
This It was necessary to hold court monthly, yet there was no available house other than an old log church house, which was also used as a school-house in the fall and winter. But by November of the year 1856 a log courthouse, size 30 feet by 45 feet was built on the courthouse square near the Monarch's home. It had two fireplaces. house, however, was reduced to ashes during the Civil War.
The village of Gladeville stood on an old Indian trail which crossed the mountains from Kentucky to the Clinch and Holston Rivers. When the Civil War broke out this old path became a warrior's road with both sides traveling it. In the meantime Gladeville was seized by Federal troops three times.
The first attack came June 1, 1862, when Federal troops captured some of the citizens, notably Morgan T. Lipps, clerk of the court, and Alexander Smith, the commonwealth attorney. Smith was immediately released but Lipps was spirited away to Pikeville and later to Louisiana where he was for some time kept in prison.
On July 7, 1863, a contingent of Northern troops under McLaughlin of Ohio, came through Kentucky and made a surprise attack on the Confederates stationed at Gladeville.
Some of the defenders of the town barricaded themselves in the log courthouse but when the attackers threatened to
burn it, the defenders surrendered. They captured 123 Confederates, 20 of whom were officers, and returned to Kentucky with them.
The third skirmish took place in Gladeville between August 23 and October 25, 1864. Colonel Dills of the Union forces led the attack. There were no Confederate troops in the village at the time; only a few members of the Home Guard stood in defense.
COURT SHIFTED
After the burning of the log courthouse, the court was shifted from dwelling to dwelling and stabilized at the home the Monarch until 1876 when the present courthouse was - completed-all save the annex - on the western end, which was built in 1920.
For years prior to this time people in other parts of the county contended that the court should be either at Tacoma or Norton, because of their accessibility by railroad. In order to help check this complaint the Paddock-Dixon Lumber Company in 1899 built a railroad from Ramsey, on the N&W Railroad, to Wise. But this still did not satisfy the complainers.
The fight went on until 1911 when a bond issue was passed to authorize the expenditure of money to construct hard top-ped roads into Wise. Then the objections to the situation of the court stopped.
During the history of the court and the town, three jails have stood on the court square. The first, a log structure, was built in 1868; the second, a stone building, replaced the log one in 1886. It was this one which was held as prisoners Talt Hall and Dr. M. B. Taylor, the notorious murderer, while the county police Guard, organized under the leadership of Josh Bullitt of Big Stone Gap, drilled daily out-side in preparation to fend off allies of Hall who threatened to come over from Kentucky and take him from jail.
Around the turn of the cen-tury the present jail was built.
