Berkeley County is located in the Shenandoah Valley in the eastern panhandle region of West Virginia in the United States.

Most historians believe the county was named for Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt (1718–1770), Colonial Governor of Virginia from 1768 to 1770.

[citation needed] West Virginia's Blue Book, for example, indicates Berkeley County was named in his honor.

[citation needed] He served as a colonel in England's North Gloucestershire militia in 1761, and represented that division of the county in Parliament until he was made a peer in 1764.

[8] Having incurred heavy gambling debts, he solicited a government appointment and in July 1768 was made Governor of Virginia.

In 1769, he reluctantly dissolved the House of Burgesses after it adopted resolutions that opposed Parliament's replacement of requisitions with parliamentary taxes as a means of generating revenue and a requirement for accused American criminals to be sent to England for trial.

Despite his differences with the House of Burgesses, Berkeley was well respected by the colonists, especially after he sent Parliament letters encouraging them to repeal the taxes.

According to missionary reports, several thousand Hurons occupied present-day West Virginia, including the eastern panhandle region, during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

During the 17th century, the Iroquois Confederacy (then consisting of the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, and Seneca tribes) drove the Hurons from the state.

[citation needed] During the early 18th century, West Virginia's eastern panhandle region was inhabited by the Tuscarora.

Following the French and Indian War, the Mingo retreated to their homes along the banks of the Ohio River and were rarely seen in the eastern panhandle region.

In the summer of 1763, Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, led raids on key British forts in the Great Lakes region.

In 1777, a party of 350 Wyandots, Shawnees, and Mingos, armed by the British, attacked Fort Henry, near present-day Wheeling.

For the remainder of the war, smaller raiding parties of Mingo, Shawnee, and other Indian tribes repelled settlers throughout northern and eastern West Virginia.

As a result, European settlement throughout present-day West Virginia, including the eastern panhandle, came to a virtual standstill until the war's conclusion.

John Howard and his son also passed through present-day Berkeley County a few years later, and discovered the valley of the South Branch Potomac River at Green Spring.

The state of West Virginia erected a monument in Bunker Hill commemorating the event, and placed a marker at Morgan's grave, which is located in a cemetery near the park.

In 1730, John Van Meter, with his brother Isaac (1692–1757),[9] secured a patent for 40,000 acres (160 km2) at the South Branch Potomac River, much of it in present-day Berkeley County, from Virginia's Colonial Lieutenant Governor William Gooch.

[citation needed] About 75% of Berkeley County's residents were loyal to the South during the American Civil War.

I regret to say that in Berkeley things are growing worse, and that the threats from Union men are calculated to curb the expression of Southern feeling.

"[13] A member of the Stonewall Brigade also wrote, "We left Winchester the first of this week [in June, 1861] and came to Berkeley County, the meanest Abolition hole on the face of the earth, Martinsburg especially.

Berkeley County was also the home of Maria Isabella "Belle" Boyd, a famous spy for the Confederacy.

[citation needed] Many voters absent in the Confederate Army when the vote was taken refused to acknowledge the transfer upon their return.

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

[17] Berkeley County was divided into seven districts: Arden, Falling Waters, Gerrardstown, Hedgesville, Martinsburg, Mill Creek, and Opequon.

Between 1990 and 2000, Berkeley County was redivided into six magisterial districts: Adam Stephens, Norborne, Potomac, Shenandoah, Tuscarora, and Valley.

A third service organization with an independent agency Board of Directors which includes an elected member of the county commission.

However, likely due to its exurban DC status, it has not swung to the right as much as West Virginia as a whole, and has voted increasingly more Democratic than the state beginning in 2008.