Elizabeth grew from the settlement founded by William Beauchamp, the first settler in the area, who in 1796 purchased 1400 acres near the Little Kanawha River at Tucker's Riffle and built a cabin and mill. In 1803 his son David built a water grist mill at the end of Court Street, and the expanding settlement became known as Beauchamp's Mill. William Beauchamp, born in 1743 and dead in 1808, was a farmer, minister, and Navy soldier during the American Revolution, and he is buried in the family cemetery near Tucker's Creek. His sons David and Manlove helped turn the settlement into a town, with David buying five acres beside the mill site from Manlove, including the log cabin Manlove built in 1800, later called the Kanawha Hotel and considered the oldest building in the area. David laid out the land into lots and sold them, and in 1822 the General Assembly of Virginia incorporated the town and named it Elizabeth for David's wife. The Beauchamp Cemetery on Route 14 north of town was named for William Beauchamp and contains the graves of Beauchamp family members including William, Alfred Beauchamp, Elizabeth Burns Beauchamp, and Elizabeth Woodyard Beauchamp, for whom Elizabeth was named, along with many other early pioneer settlers, and the Elizabeth Beauchamp Chapter Daughters of American Pioneers maintains it. Elizabeth also preserves several important historic buildings: the McClung-Morgan House on Court Square, an early home built by Dr. Park Walker McClung and Kate Nuzum McClung with notable woodwork and pre-Civil War craftsmanship; the Kanawha Hotel, within whose walls part of Manlove Beauchamp's 1800 log structure remains visible and which once served riverboat passengers, salesmen, and travelers with dining, lodging, a sample room, a livery stable, gas lights, and a boardwalk from the river; and the Beauchamp-Newman Museum, long known as the Old Rad Brick, the oldest brick building in Elizabeth, built by Alfred Beauchamp in 1835-40. After Wirt County was created from Wood and Jackson Counties in January 1848 and Elizabeth was chosen as the county seat, the first circuit court and county court met in Alfred Beauchamp's home, where the first Wirt County Bar was instituted and Arthur I. Boreman received permission to practice. After Alfred Beauchamp's death the building was sold to Alexander Lowther in 1872 and later served as a store, post office, and other purposes before the Elizabeth Beauchamp Chapter Daughters of American Pioneers bought it in 1953 and established the museum in 1955. Wirt County itself, created by the General Assembly of Virginia on January 19, 1848, was named for William Wirt, and its first courthouse, built on land conveyed by Colonel Thomas Tavenner in May 1848, served until fire destroyed it on May 15, 1910. The present Wirt County Courthouse, designed in Classical Revival style and built by Smith Fireproof Construction of Washington, DC, was begun with a cornerstone laid on May 30, 1911, and the courthouse and jail were completed and furnished for about $45,000.