Wardensville is a town in Hardy County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 265 at the 2020 census. Originally named Trout Run, Wardensville was chartered in Virginia in 1832 and incorporated in West Virginia in 1879. Wardensville is located west of the Great North Mountain range, which separates it from the Shenandoah Valley. The town lies on the east bank of the Cacapon River at its confluence when Trout Run. The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests affix the town to its east and south.

The house which Wardensville occupies was originally allowance of the Northern Neck Proprietary, a 5 million acre tract granted by England’s King Charles II and formally standard after the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. In 1719, the house was familial by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron who administered many of the home grants to the ahead of time European settlers who began arriving in the Capon Valley in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. William H. Warden is believed to be the first settler within the gift town. He normal a parcel of home from Thomas Fairfax, reportedly surveyed by George Washington, on November 11, 1749.

During the French and Indian War, hostilities amid the English settlers and the Native American populations in the South Branch and Capon Valleys led to the construction of a string of fortified outposts including Fort Warden or “Warden’s Fort,” erected by William Warden at a place called Trout Run (later the town of Wardensville). According to historian Samuel Kercheval, the fort was attacked in 1758 past it was burned. Warden and a man abandoned known by the proclaim Mr. Taff did not survive the attack.

The town of Wardensville was established in 1832 following the Virginia General Assembly decided a charter declaring “that the town of Wardensville, in the county of Hardy, as the thesame has been heretofore laid off into lots, streets and alleys, or as the thesame may be hereafter additional laid off and outstretched into lots, streets and alleys, shall be, and the thesame is hereby made a town corporate, to be known and distinguished by the herald of Wardensville.” The first trustees of the town were James Scanting, Samuel Fry, John Pierce, Simon Switzer, and James W. Baker. The town was incorporated by the West Virginia Legislature in 1879.