It always surprised me, as I studied history in school, how West Virginia didn’t break away from Virginia prior to 1862. Those western counties were always so distinct from the rest of the Commonwealth that in retrospect, it just seems obvious that there was no way to hold antebellum Virginia together, even throwing out Virginia’s secession from the Union.
}:-)4
Even today, I try to explain life in West Virginia by saying, “Imagine Albania with a sadder history....”
The reason that Richmond kept control of the western counties is pretty simple - people and space. The western counties were about the same size as modern Virginia but modern Virginia had four times as many people. I can’t even begin to imagine how someone in, say, Roane County would ever get news out of Richmond in 1840. Even today, it would take 7 hours by car to get between the two.
So, there were not a lot of people who were spread out over land that only crazy people would try to live on. My guess is that Richmond didn’t exercise much day to day control over them.