After Virginia officials moved toward secession on April 17, 1861, many delegates from western Virginia withdrew and sought to form a government loyal to the Union. Following the Union victory at the Battle of Philippi on June 3, 1861, Union forces occupied northwestern Virginia, allowing a convention in Wheeling to establish the Restored Government of Virginia, which President Abraham Lincoln recognized as the state's legitimate government. Because the U.S. Constitution permitted a new state to be formed from an existing one with that state's consent, and because the Restored Government was accepted as Virginia's legal authority, West Virginia was officially created on June 20, 1863, with gradual abolition of slavery. Grafton National Cemetery was established in 1867 near existing Union burials in Maple Avenue Cemetery, and remains were reinterred there from Wheeling, Rich Mountain, elsewhere in West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. Its rugged three and a half-acre site was terraced into three levels, linked by a central path, and enclosed by a stone wall. On June 14, 1868, Union veterans, townspeople, and local and state dignitaries dedicated the cemetery, where West Virginia's first governor, Arthur Boreman, spoke. The original 1,254 interments were almost evenly divided between known and unknown dead, and the cemetery now contains more than 2,100 burials. Grafton also began hosting Memorial Day ceremonies in spring 1869, when residents joined Civil War veterans in a "flower strewing day" that grew over time. Schoolchildren still parade to the cemetery carrying flowers and American flags to place on graves, and after local Union veterans formed a Grand Army of the Republic chapter in 1882, the observance officially became Decoration Day, later Memorial Day, helping earn Grafton the name "Memorial City."