Contentment

After the Civil War, George W. Imboden lived here with his wife, Mary Tyree, daughter of William Tyree of Tyree Tavern. When the war began, he enlisted in the Staunton Artillery in Augusta County, Virginia, where he then resided, and he later became colonel of the 18th Virginia Cavalry when it was organized in December 1862. The regiment was assigned to the brigade of his better-known brother, Gen. John D. Imboden, and served in West Virginia, on the Gettysburg Campaign, and in the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaigns. After Mary died, George Imboden married Angia M. Dickinson, and they added one room to the house and extended the front porch; Angia Imboden named the place Contentment. During the Civil War, an elderly couple named Woolwine occupied the house, which was built about 1830 with six rooms; an attached kitchen burned and was not rebuilt. The Imboden brothers later promoted the industrial development of both Virginias, with George serving as director of the Gauley Mountain Coal Company and John traveling to England to secure investments in area coal mining. Between 1870 and his death in 1922, George Imboden served in the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1876, as president of the Fayette County Commission from 1881 to 1885, as first mayor of Ansted from 1891 to 1892, also laying out the streets, as town recorder from 1891 to 1907, and as president of the National Bank of Ansted. When he died, he was buried in Westlake Cemetery in his Confederate uniform.

Ansted, West Virginia · United States