Although a minor action, it is generally considered the first land engagement of the American Civil War.

For 114 years (1909-2023), Barbour County was home to Alderson-Broaddus College (later Alderson Broaddus University), an American Baptist institution.

The first white settlement in present-day Barbour County was established in 1780 by Richard Talbott – along with his brother Cotteral and sister Charity – about three miles (4.8 km) downriver from the future site of Philippi.

The region had had no permanent Indian settlements and so conflicts with Native Americans were relatively infrequent in the early days.

Congressman from Virginia, Speaker of the House, and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.)

The settlement of Philippi – formerly "Anglin's Ford" and "Booth's Ferry" – was platted, named, and made the county seat in the same year; it was chartered in 1844.

By the 1850s, when a major covered bridge was constructed at Philippi to service travellers on the Beverly-Fairmont Turnpike, the county's population was approaching 10,000 people.

The first newspaper in the county was the Barbour Jeffersonian, published starting in August 1857 and running only to about June 1861.

The delegates from Barbour County for the first convention were Spencer Dayton, John H. Shuttleworth, and E.H. Manafee.

The battle was later lampooned as the "Philippi Races" because of the hurried retreat by the Confederate troops encamped in the town.

At daylight on June 3, two columns of Union forces under the command of Col. Benjamin Franklin Kelley and Col. Ebenezer Dumont, with perhaps 3,000 men, arrived from Grafton and attacked about 800 poorly armed Confederate recruits under the command of Col. George A. Porterfield.

The Union troops had marched all night through a heavy rain storm to arrive just before daylight.

After firing a few shots at the advancing Union troops, the Southerners broke lines and began running frantically to the south, some still in their bed clothes.

On 11 June, the second Wheeling Convention met in that city and Barbour County was again represented by Dayton and Shuttleworth, who were this time joined by N.H. Taft.

The Convention nullified the Virginia Ordinance of Secession and named Francis H. Pierpont governor.

[13] In 2023, Barbour County lost its major employer when Alderson-Broaddus University's board of trustees voted to close the institution some 152 years after its founding.

Most of the county is drained by the Tygart Valley River which traverses it from south to north and on which its three largest settlements – Philippi, Belington, and Junior – are sited.

A portion of the County in the west drains into the Middle Fork River, principally through Elk Creek.

Barbour County was generally split for most of the twentieth century, though it tended to vote more for Democrats rather than Republicans.

This is due to the county's split position in the American Civil War between Unionists and Secessionists.

In 1863, West Virginia's counties were divided into civil townships, with the intention of encouraging local government.

This proved impractical in the heavily rural state, and in 1872 the townships were converted into magisterial districts.

[28] Barbour County's original magisterial districts were Barker, Cove, Elk, Glade, Philippi, Pleasant, and Union.