Exhibit 1
                                                                       ---------



              [LETTERHEAD OF THIRD POINT MANAGEMENT COMPANY L.L.C.]




VIA FACSIMILE & U.S. MAIL

March 11, 2003

Mr. A. James Dearlove
President & C.E.O.
Penn Virginia Corporation
One Radnor Corp Center, Suite 200
100 Matsonford Road
Radnor, PA  19087-4515

Dear Mr. Dearlove:

I am writing to express my dismay about your personal sale of 20,000 shares of
Penn Virginia Corp (the "Company") on March 3 and 4, in the two-day period
following your exercise of options struck at $17.0625 according to a Form 4
filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission dated March 5, 2003. I trust
that the option exercise and purchase was done in accordance with the newly
legislated Sarbanes-Oxley Act prohibition against companies lending money to
officers and directors.

As you have come to know me as a long-term shareholder of the Company, I have
often criticized you for your meager holdings, among your other evident
shortcomings. As of the last Company proxy statement, you held only 11,910
Company shares outright after subtracting options to purchase 121,800 shares,
5,019 shares held in your deferred compensation account and 12,525 shares held
in your ESOP account. Your holdings, other than options and those tied up in
retirement accounts, represent a value of $442,218, or a 0.1% economic interest
in the Company. By comparison, entities managed by Third Point Management
Company L.L.C., own 880,000 shares valued at over $32 million, representing an
economic interest of nearly 10% of the Company.





I firmly believe that it is essential that managers have a stake in the company
in the form of shares, not just options. In concurrence with my view is Warren
Buffett whose musing on this subject is extracted from his 2001 annual letter to
shareholders regarding the executives of a well-managed company Berkshire
Hathaway Inc. had recently acquired:

     AS THEY WOULD NOT BE IF THEY HAD OPTIONS, ALL OF THESE MANAGERS ARE TRUE
     OWNERS. THEY FACE THE DOWNSIDE OF DECISIONS AS WELL AS THE UPSIDE. THEY
     INCUR A COST OF CAPITAL. AND THEY CAN'T "REPRICE" THEIR STAKES: WHAT THEY
     PAID IS WHAT THEY LIVE WITH.

Your options position and lack of equity exposure have given you an asymmetrical
risk- reward profile and contributed to your apparently poor business judgment
marked by your "swing for the fences" wildcat gambits and risky, ill-conceived
acquisitions (Note: we invested in Penn Virginia for its undervalued assets
despite its management team.)

I was extremely curious why you would jettison some 20,000 shares representing
close to 2/3 of your liquid holdings in the company (at least for the one day
between your option exercise and your immediate sale over the subsequent two
days). According to my calculation, this transaction netted you $394,770 over
and above the exercise price of $17.06. Couple these proceeds with your cash
compensation that has exceeded over $400,000 per year for the past two years and
I figure you netted close to $800,000 over the past twelve months. Given the
Company's all but flat stock performance during a period in which natural gas
prices have increased substantially, such high cash compensation is abhorrent -
but I guess for Mr. Dearlove, there is no recession.

I was concerned that perhaps, your sales had been spurred by negative
information about the Company or the industry that you hoped to "front-run"
given the prior disregard you have demonstrated for shareholders. Indeed, my
concerns were shared by at least another shareholder, Robert L. Chapman, Jr. of
Chapman Capital Management L.L.C. He was so disgusted by the disposition of your
shares and your implied willingness to waive a symbolic red flag above the
Company's Radnor headquarters, that he unloaded his entire





position after reading of your sales. I asked Mr. Chapman what his view was of
your recent sales and he replied:

     WHEN I SEE THE CEO OF A COMPANY, WHO HAS BEEN TARGETED BY SHAREHOLDERS FOR
     HIS APPARENT DISREGARD FOR THEIR VIEWS, LIQUIDATING OPTION-ACQUIRED STOCK
     IN MASS, IT IS CLEAR TO ME THAT THIS EXECUTIVE IS NOT A BELIEVER IN A
     PROSPEROUS CORPORATE FUTURE THAT HE CLAIMS TO HAVE DESIGNED.

Given that you sold your shares almost 10% below the $40.00 level bid by B.P.
Capital approximately one year ago, how could you have claimed that the bid by
Mr. Pickens group was inadequate, when you are selling stock so far below a bid
made a year ago when natural gas prices were substantially lower? Since your
actions demonstrate so little confidence in the Company, how can you expect
shareholders to hold onto their shares when you are so quick to unload your
newly issued shares as if they were a hot potato?

It was with these concerns and as a fiduciary I called you at approximately 8:57
A.M. on March 6. When I called you, I politely addressed you as "Mr. Dearlove"
and identified myself as Daniel Loeb from Third Point who you know as one of
your largest shareholders. I enquired why you sold the 20,000 shares of stock
recorded in the abovementioned Form 4. You stated, "I did not sell stock, I
exercised options."

Since your response indicated to me a lack of even a rudimentary understanding
of finance and securities, I explained to you that you actually exercised the
options on March 3 but you sold those shares on the subsequent two days. The
exercise of the options and the sale of the shares were separate events. The
choice to sell the shares that you exercised was yours and entirely voluntary.
After providing you with this basic education, you grew flustered and shouted at
me, "What I do with my shares is my own damn business" a reply that stunned me,
as a 10% shareholder.





I then asked you why you had cursed me with the word "damn," and this time you
denied using such expletive. Since I had caught you in a lie, I then asked you
how you would feel if I told you that I had called you on a recorded trading
line. I informed you that such calls are legal when originated in the State of
New York (According to a list compiled by the National Association of
Investigative Specialists, New York is a state in which only one party must
consent to a recorded conversation; unfortunately for you, Pennsylvania is a
state requiring two party consent.) at which point you grew increasingly
inarticulate, hostile and agitated. Given your combative tone and apparently
disturbed emotional state, I determined that it would be in our mutual interest
if I unilaterally terminated the conversation.

Although I am personally the largest investor in Third Point Management Company
funds, I too am a fiduciary for many outside investors who frequently call me to
ask me various questions about the fund and our current strategies. Admittedly,
I sometimes find the questions annoying, yet I have never in my long career
spoken to one of my investors in such a manner as you spoke to me; if one of my
employees did so they would be fired on the spot, a matter that should be
considered by the Company's Board. Indeed, the last C.E.O. of a company in which
we invested who showed me similar disrespect was Richard Gardner, the former
Chief Executive Officer of BindView Development.

This was not the first occurrence of your unusual emotional behavior since we
established our position. On the last two conference calls, you displayed a
series of outbursts that have baffled members of the investment community.
Indeed, in the last Company conference call of February 13th, I pointed out that
Penn Virginia shares have languished during a period that natural gas prices
have been extremely robust. Since June 30, 2002 Natural Gas prices have gone up
77% while the price of the Company's shares have declined 5%. You claimed that
your peer group has declined; however when I pointed out that the shares of
Patina Oil and Gas, a company that uses some of its free cash flow to repurchase
shares, has appreciated 21% over the same period you grew angry and cut me off.
The appearance that I "called you out" on your underperformance and provided
specific examples to disprove certain of your statements caused you to launch
into such a tirade that even you found it necessary to apologize at the
conclusion





of the conference call. I am beginning to wonder if you would benefit from anger
management counseling or more specifically, if you are fit to run a company on
behalf of public shareholders.

It seems that you have a problem with people who disagree with your point of
view or force you to defend your often ill-conceived positions. This could
explain why you have selected directors that live in the shadow of their own
failed business endeavors such as Jarrell Gibbs, the former head of the U.K.
division of TXU whose disastrous acquisition strategy for which he was
apparently responsible led to billions of dollars of write-offs for that firm
and the early "retirement" of Mr. Gibbs from TXU.

Or, Marsha Perelman, who serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of
Cot'nWash Corporation, a "mom and pop" operation with sales of only $360,000
(According to Dun and Bradstreet). Cot'nWash has had to resort to distribution
primarily via faxed orders received in response to a laughably primitive website
(http://www.cotnwash.com/) or telephone orders to 1-800-355-WASH. According to
Cot'nWash employee Lynn Belber, retailers Target, J.C. Penney and Sears have all
dropped the Cot'nWash product, although she said that she is hopeful that they
will "resume orders some time in the future." On the most recent conference call
I questioned once again how the expertise of a small-time detergent executive
could serve the interests of Penn Virginia shareholders. In defense of Ms.
Perelman, you claimed that she has "over 20 years of experience as a consultant"
to the oil and gas industry and was an executive at O'Brien Energy.

It is my view that unless someone is employed by a major consulting firm such as
Boston Consulting Group or McKinsey and Co., the term "consultant" is a usually
a euphemism used by someone who is unemployed. I would very much like to see a
list of Ms. Perelman's consulting clients and would like to know how much she
earned in consulting fees for each of the past 20 years you purport that she has
been engaged in such activity. As for O'Brien Energy, which you conceded has
"hit on hard times", the company, which went pubic via an Initial Public
Offering in 1986 via defunct investment bank, Drexel Burnham Lambert, appears to
have gone out of business and has been de-listed according to information
provided by Bloomberg L.P. Even in its





supposed heyday, O'Brien was a questionable company. According to a Forbes
article dated April 25, 1988,

     IN ONE OF THE MORE NOVEL GARBAGE-TO-ENERGY SCHEMES, PHILADELPHIA-BASED
     O'BRIEN ENERGY SYSTEMS EXTRACTS METHANE (NATURAL GAS) FROM LANDFILLS BY
     STICKING PIPES INTO THE LANDFILLS

Notwithstanding O'Brien Energy's ultimate ruination, we are still interested to
learn of Ms. Perelman's role at that company since our investigation has not
turned up any such managerial or ownership role or other association that you
represented on the conference call. Could you please, once and for all, provide
me with Marsha Perelman's qualifications and experience running a company in the
energy business? I am not interested in her associations with shell companies
such as "Woodforde Management" or supposed "consulting" assignments unless you
can specify the clients and nature and complexity of her assignment.
Incidentally, I still await the response from Ms. Perelman, in her capacity as
Chairwoman of the Company's nominating committee with regard to my application
to serve on the Company's Board of Directors.

While we have discussed our views of some of your weakest directors in prior
correspondence, we have not yet questioned you on what sort of expertise is
brought to bear by Joe Rye who was brought in several years ago to lead the turn
around of Universal Seismic Corp. So successful were Mr. Rye's efforts that he
is now over-seeing the Chapter 7 liquidation of now bankrupt Universal Seismic.
I can only pray we are not forced to draw upon Mr. Rye's expertise in the
bankruptcy process as a result of your efforts.

It is unfortunate that we do not have a stronger Board of Directors to offer
oversight of the wildly illogical acquisitions that you have made over the past
several years.

On December 19th, 2002, Penn Virginia Resource Partners LP announced the
acquisition of coal reserves from Peabody Energy. One might ask how Penn
Virginia came across such a transaction. Upon further investigation, we found
that over 40% of Peabody's equity is held by an entity controlled by Lehman
Brothers. Coincidently, Lehman Brothers also provides investment banking
services to Penn Virginia. This relationship in itself suggests a severe





conflict of interest between buyer and seller. One could surmise, or suspect in
our case, that Lehman brothers had found a patsy, once again, in one A. James
Dearlove. Given the paltry 9.6% projected cash on cash return for this
transaction - that is not a difficult conclusion to reach. It took us several
iterations and generous assumptions to come remotely close to that 9.6% number
that you represented for the return on capital of the transaction. Several
analysts who we conversed with came to a number lower than the 9.6% you provided
on the call. When I told you that our model of the transaction provided us with
a lower number and I offered to send you our model so that you could point out
any flaw in our methodology you snapped smugly, "we're not in the model checking
business." Fortunately for your shareholders, your CFO Frank Pici is well
mannered and subsequently answered our questions in great detail. What he would
not answer is the size of the fee paid to Lehman Brothers for their investment
banking "services."

In an effort to paper over the apparently substantial conflict of interest of
Lehman Brothers serving as your supposedly unbiased advisor in selling the
Company an asset which they also control, the Company retained the services of
RBC Capital Markets to provide a "fairness opinion." What was not "fair" about
this "fairness opinion" was your unwillingness to share the opinion and its
analytical methods with your shareholders. Instead, this opinion was "provided
solely for purposes of the Board of Directors in their evaluation of the recent
transaction," as stated by RBC Director Kolja Rockov in a letter responding to
Third Point's inquiry dated January 2nd, 2003.

Let us not forget that this is a Board who maintains an insignificant equity
ownership. Our view on corporate governance suggests that Boards are solely
representatives of the shareholders - and despite what you may think - not
management. As one of your largest shareholders, we would like to clearly state
that we do not trust the qualifications of this Board to make financial
evaluations given their limited success in doing so in the past and their
diminutive equity ownership.





On January 22nd, 2003, you announced the acquisition of interests in South Texas
oil and gas properties. While the cash-on-cash returns here were slightly better
than the meager returns offered by the Peabody transaction at around 11.5%, that
is still far below the minimum hurdle rate required by other seasoned and more
successful C.E.O.s in the small to mid-cap oil and gas exploration and
production industry. One such executive that we interviewed stated that he would
dismiss any transaction that has a cash-on-cash return lower than 14%. What
bothers us most in this transaction is that you agreed to acquire a 25%
non-operated working interest where you effectively have no control over your
partner's wildcatting activities: 67% of the reserves on these properties are
undeveloped. Furthermore, while you have modeled lifting costs at around
$0.60/Mcfe, certain analysts we have spoken with suggest that these costs could
exceed $1.00 / Mcfe depending on the complexity of these drilling operations.

In some circles, when an investor bets on a management team in a non-control
investment such as this, it is known as venture capital. However, you are a
management team of an oil and gas company - not a venture capitalist. Most
venture capitalists command returns far in excess of 11.5% to justify the risk
of the project. Since you do not control this investment, and we do not know who
your partner is because you will not disclose it, we would much rather have you
repurchase your stock.

We insist that you stop engaging in low return on capital acquisitions simply
for what you perceive to be a strategic benefit. You even conceded that the
Peabody deal wasn't that lucrative but were somehow mesmerized by getting into
bed with a company of such stature as Peabody Coal. I can imagine the Lehman
Brothers bankers pitching you on the "long term benefits" of such a transaction
even though it made little economic sense. I could also imagine these same
bankers toasting themselves over a bottle of 1982 Petrus for their clever work
in raising needed capital for Peabody with the help of their favorite "stuff
account."





Once again, we urge that, given our opinion that you are unable to execute
intelligent acquisitions (a view shared by many of your shareholders, members of
the analytical community and industry), you listen to your largest equity
holders, who are also finance professionals, and repurchase your shares instead.
We implore you to stop entering into conflicted and non-control financial
transactions struck at abysmally low cash-on-cash returns. After all, unlike
you, we have faith and conviction in the underlying asset value and prospects of
Penn Virginia...just not its C.E.O.

As has been fully discussed in this and previous letters:

     o    Your record on corporate governance is abysmal.

     o    You have surrounded yourself with a Board of Directors whose approval
          of your missteps and acquisition blunders leads us to believe that
          they are cronies and yes-men to your various corporate follies.

     o    You have pursued a series of acquisitions that have been privately
          ridiculed by analysts and industry participants and have made you a
          laughingstock.

     o    Your emotional and angry responses on recent conference calls and
          private conversations leads us to question your suitability to run a
          public company

     o    You have failed to deploy your capital to repurchase shares, despite
          the demands of your largest shareholders who are much more
          sophisticated financially than you. You have hidden behind an obscure
          University of Northern Illinois graduate paper on the subject of share
          repurchases by small companies to defend your obstinate view.

Accordingly, and in the spirit of Warren Buffett's most recent letter to
investors where he states

     GETTING RID OF MEDIOCRE CEOS AND ELIMINATING OVERREACHING BY THE ABLE ONES
     REQUIRES ACTION BY OWNERS - BIG OWNERS....





AS A "BIG OWNER" OF THE COMPANY WE STRONGLY URGE YOU TO RESIGN FROM MANAGEMENT
OF THE COMPANY. Based on conversations with Company Chief Financial Officer,
Frank A. Pici, we believe that he would be a willing and able chief executive
and, at least on an interim basis, would be an outstanding candidate to steer
the Company through a process to maximize value to shareholders. We urge you to
hand the reins over to Mr. Pici and to pursue a life where you are not
accountable to, and do not face confrontations with, persnickety public
shareholders.

Very truly yours,

/s/ Daniel S. Loeb

Daniel S. Loeb



CC:  Frank A. Pici