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In 1771, during a time of growing conflict between Indians and settlers, Harmon Greathouse arrived in what is now Hancock County, and in 1776, John Holliday ran a trading post at Hollidays Cove. Greathouse's son Daniel led a deadly raid on Indians at Yellow Creek in 1774 that started a major frontier conflict known as Dunmore's War.
Though Virginia was a slave state, very few slaves lived in Hancock County—only three in 1850 and two in 1860, out of a population of 4,445. In 1861, the county strongly voted against Virginia’s decision to secede and later supported the creation of West Virginia.
In the late 1800s, Hancock County's economy was mostly based on farming, with some improvements in transportation and a few factories and mines. The first railroad was chartered in 1860, and clay deposits led to brick and pottery production. New Cumberland was known as the brick capital of the U.S. from 1840 to 1910. In 1862, a natural gas well was drilled, and by 1864, it was used to make carbon black for ink. The county’s economy began to change with industrial growth in the early 1900s.
