a fair portion became a source of conflict with the new state of West Virginia, which was broken off in 1863. Prior to 1861, the State had purchased a total of $48,000,000 worth of stock in transportation improvements, many of which were heavily damaged or destroyed during the Civil War. For several decades after the War, the two states disputed the new state's share of the Virginia government's debt. The issue was finally settled in 1915, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that West Virginia owed Virginia $12,393,929.50. The final installment of this sum was paid off in 1939. However, immediately after the War, both states wanted to encourage completion of the Covington and Ohio line. To do without government funding, the state legislatures of both Virginia and West Virginia authorized incorporation of the Covington and Ohio Railroad in 1866 and again in 1867. However, with no state funds were available to subsidize the project, the offer found no takers. Instead, under a plan offered by the Virginia General Assembly, in 1868, the existing project was merged with the extant Virginia Central Railroad to form a new enterprise to be known as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O). Forming the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The head of the Virginia Central Railroad was former Confederate General Williams Carter Wickham. After failing to find southern or British financing, he went to New York City. There, he successfully attracted both industrialist Collis P. Huntington and new financing. The final spike ceremony for the 428-mile-long line from Richmond to the Ohio River was held on January 29, 1873, at Hawk's Nest railroad bridge in the New River Valley, near the town of Ansted in Fayette County, West Virginia. Coal to Newport News Huntington was also aware of the potential to ship eastbound coal from West Virginia's untapped natural resources with the completion of the new railroad. His agents began acquiring property in Warwick County in Eastern Virginia. In the 1880s, he oversaw extension of the C&O's new Peninsula Subdivision, which extended from the Church Hill Tunnel in Richmond southeast down the peninsula through Williamsburg to Newport News, where the company developed coal piers on the harbor of Hampton Roads, to extend the C&O to what would become new coal piers at Newport News. Modern use In modern times, portions of the former Covington and Ohio Railroad are in use by CSX Transportation. See