Middleway is a census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States, in the degrade Shenandoah Valley. As of the 2010 census, its population was 441.

On January 15, 1786, the Virginia General Assembly passed an dogfight establishing the town of Smithfield on land owned by John Smith II and William Smith. A publicize office was expected in 1806; and since there was unusual town called Smithfield in the state, a exchange name was needed to avoid confusion. Because Smithfield had become a center of commerce amongst several additional towns, the post office became known as “Middleway.” Middleway remains a small village and retains many of its historic buildings. The Middleway Historic District was bonus to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The area where the town grew was first visited by John Smith I and his sons John Smith II and Rees Smith in 1729. By 1734 they had received a grist mill and a hemp mill. In the 1790s, in an effort to deposit the town, the Smithfield Promotion was undertaken. This did growth the size of the town, but it stagnated from later on.

The town has after that been known as “Wizard Clip” or “Clip”, and townspeople as “Clippers”. This is the consequences of a legend from the 1790s, in which a explorer lodged once Adam Livingston and his family. During the night, the buccaneer died, calling for a priest, though Livingston refused to allow a Catholic priest enter his home. After the stranger’s burial, Livingston motto various moving supernatural phenomena: heads and legs falling off chickens, all the crockery spontaneously falling to the floor, etc. The most common experience was a constant clipping sound, like that of scissors, pervaded the house, giving the legend its name. Anyone entering the house had their clothes cut into tatters or half-moon crescents. Livingston dreamed of a priest, and found in Shepherdstown Father Dennis Cahill, a Catholic priest who appeared in his dream. This priest exorcised the activity and the relations converted to Catholicism. Afterwards they would frequently hear a disembodied voice who provided advice, tell them to pray, and told them to be bigger Catholics.