Two Cockayne brothers, Carter and Samuel, entered the Upper Ohio Valley circa 1795. The brothers arrived from Maryland, and Samuel purchased a tract of land north of Moundsville one mile square from a Revolutionary War soldier. Samuel built his house in 1798 along present day Route 2 and engaged in farming. He also kept an ordinary, or hotel, at his home known as the Andrew Jackson Inn. At Samuel's death, he had accumulated 539 acres of land, which was divided between two of his five sons, Vincent and Bennett. Vincent took the original homeplace and called it “Valley Farm.” Bennett inherited the northern tract, including the house he had built in 1850 along Route 2....the house directly across from John Marshall High School.

     Bennett (1805-1875) served as postmaster at Moundsville and kept a general store in Elizabethtown. His first son, Alexander, graduated from law school in Virginia and reportedly taught the first school in Glen Dale from the Bennett Cockayne house.

     Bennett’s son, Samuel A. J. Cockayne (1841-1904) was the next Cockayne to inherit the house. Samuel A. J. married Hannah Jane Alexander in 1863. According to a Cockayne family genealogy provided by John Cockayne and printed in the History of Marshall County, W. Va. published by the Marshall County Historical Society in 1984, Hannah gave the name “Glendale Farm” to the homestead, and this is the derivation of the name of the town of Glen Dale. While he owned the farm, Samuel A. J. raised purebred, fine-wooled American merino sheep and took first prize at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 for an American Merino ram’s fleece.

     Of the next generation, Samuel A. (1874-1953) inherited the homestead and most of the farm upon his mother’s death in 1917. Samuel A. was a member of the Washington District Board of Education in the early 1930's and Postmaster of Glen Dale from 1935 to 1950. The family continued to buy wool from rural farmers during this period.

     Upon Samuel’s death, the home then passed to Samuel A. J. Cockayne (1921-2001), who never married. This Samuel served as a Sargent in the Signal Corps in the US Army in the Pacific Theatre from 1942 to 1945 and farmed until 1965 when a large portion of the land was purchased to build John Marshall High School.