By 1840, illiteracy was on the rise everywhere in Virginia. At a key 1841 meeting in Clarksburg, Henry Ruffner called for free schools that served both rich and poor. Tensions grew between eastern and western counties—westerners criticized the University of Virginia as a school for the rich and often sent their children to colleges in other states. This deepened the divide and was a factor in West Virginia eventually becoming its own state.

In 1846, a new law allowed local taxes to help fund schools for poor children. Before the Civil War, only a few counties in what is now West Virginia—Kanawha, Ohio, Monroe, and Jefferson—had working public schools. By 1850, the region had about 1,300 basic primary schools teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic.