I. INTRODUCTION

Aboriginal Peoples (a,b,c)

For a century and a quarter after the English colonists landed at Jamestown in 1607, settlements (a, b, c) in Virginia did not extend beyond the Tidewater and Piedmont.

A. Beyond the Piedmont:

1. The land to the West of the Blue Ridge remained unknown. There were many theories about what was out there:

a) Treasures such as those of Mexico and Peru

b) Interior waterway to the South Seas

c) Adventure

2. For the first half of the 17th Century Indian Wars prevented serious explorations, wars that resulted largely from growing population pressures.

Examples: Massacres of 1622 and 1644

a) The 1644 massacre prompted a series of forts to be built along the falls of four rivers: James, Pamunkey, Chickahominy, Appomattox.

b) Completed in 1646, the forts guarded the main avenues to population centers.

B. The Advance to the West:

1. The Forts became the centers for expanding the fur trade

2. The fur traders were the advance guard of settlers

II. EXPLORATION BEGINS: THREE EXPEDITIONS

A. JOHN LEDERER (1670)

Lederer undertook three journeys in 1670, the last of which took him up the headwaters of the Rappahannock River, over the Blue Ridge near present day Front Royal and overlooked the Valley of Virginia (Shenandoah Valley).

B. THOMAS BATTS, THOMAS WOOD, and ROBERT FALLAM (1671)

1. Leaving from Fort Henry, the expedition traveled along the Staunton and Roanoke rivers, Wood eventually sickened and was left behind at an Indian village.

2. Traveling westward, Batts and Fallam came upon a westward flowing river they named the Wood River (the New River), which they followed to Peter's Falls, near the present West Virginia border.

3. Fallam kept a journal of the trip, but the men of the Batts-Fallam expedition were not the first white men to view present day WV because along the way they found initial carvings of other English explorers.

C. JAMES NEEDHAM and GABRIEL ARTHUR (1673)

1. Needham, a fur trader, led a party to establish relations with the Yuchi in Tennessee. The Needham expedition left behind 16 year-old Gabriel Arthur to winter with the Indians.

2. Arthur accompanied the Indians on forays against other Indian tribes. On one foray against the Shawnee in Ohio, the Indians and Arthur followed a stream that flowed into the Kanawha (at present day St. Albans), then down the Kanawha to the Ohio River.

3. Young Gabriel Arthur was probably the first white man into the area.

III. EXPLORATION INTERRUPTION AND RESUMPTION

A. Exploration-- Interruption:

1. This initial interest in western exploration was diverted by serious political developments, both colonial and imperial after 1675:

a) Bacon's Rebellion (1675)

b) Glorious Revolution (1688)

B. The Resumption of Exploration:

1. Exploration resumed after 1710 after the arrival of Governor Alexander Spotswood. By then the white population stretched to the Blue Ridge.

a) settlers and speculators were seeking new lands

b) led by Spotswood, Virginia's government supported the advance of white settlement, at least partly because "buffer" settlements on the frontier would protect Tidewater plantations from attack from the French and Indians.

2. In 1716, Spotswood, an active land speculator and expansionist led a party of fifty men to the Shenandoah Valley, as an expedition it was insignificant, although Spotswood marked the occasion by dubbing his party "The Order of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe."(a, b) . After Spotswood's expedition it became fashionable for gentlemen to "explore" the West.

3. Spotswood's journey to the Shenandoah Valley however did mark the opening of the Valley to settlement, before that only one serious attempt to settle whites in the northern end of the Valley had been made. Louis Michel of Bern, Switzerland had appealed for a grant to settle a colony of Swiss in the Valley.

a) Michel had even explored the area near what is now Harpers Ferry in 1706.

b) Michel's grant fell through after the Conestoga Indians complained in 1709 about Michel's encroachment on their territory.

C. INCENTIVE TO WESTWARD EXPANSION CAME FROM THE MODIFICATION OF VIRGINIA'S LAND LAWS IN 1730.

1. Earlier attempts to attract settlers to Virginia's frontier included the following plan from 1701.

a) 1701 Settlement Plan-- Virginia made available 10-30 thousand acres of land to groups of not less than 20 armed men, who would be required to reside on the land and build a palisaded fort. According to the plan, each man would a 25-acre "town" lot and 200 acres of farm land, tax exempt for 20 years. The plan sparked little interest and most western land grants went to individuals.

2. With the change in 1730 land speculation and settlement took a dramatic upswing.

a) After 1730-- Grants of 10-100 thousand acres were granted to individuals regardless of their residence. The only major grant requirements were that the grant recipients settle at least one family per thousand acres, and the families coming from outside Virginia had two years to locate to the granted land. Speculators dominated the Valley's settlement. They and their descendants formed the background of new "aristocracy" of the Valley.

3.The westernmost land grants under this system stretched into West Virginia.

IV. WESTERN SETTLEMENTS

A. SETTLEMENT OF THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA:

1. The settlers enticed to the Valley consisted of Scotch-Irish and German immigrants from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Scotch-Irish were primarily former indentured servants seeking their own land, while the Germans were the vanguard of a new wave of immigration.

2. Speculators charged the settlers 3 pounds per acre, six times the Government's price, but also provided services: credit, legal services, and no interference in religious practices.

3. The speculator's settlement of the Valley faced serious opposition from Lord Fairfax, a British peer who hoped to establish a feudal barony on his enormous land grant. Fairfax's claim to five million acres covered most of Virginia's Northern Neck (as far west as today Tucker County). In 1745 settlement of the disputed land claims left Fairfax in control of his eastern properties.

4. By the time of the French and Indian War in the 1750s, the population level of the Shenandoah Valley approached the saturation point; about 5 thousand people lived in the extreme eastern panhandle of West Virginia.

B. Other Settlements:

1. Greenbrier Valley (1740s)

Not long before the French and Indian War settlers began to occupy the Greenbrier Valley.

a) According to tradition, the Greenbrier Valley was discovered by an unidentified lunatic who wandered into the Valley during a bout of madness in 1749. In reality, land speculators had already claimed the land and the first settlers were Scotch-Irish migrants from the overpopulated Shenandoah Valley.

b) Among the settlers enticed by the Greenbrier Company was the Lewis': Robert, John, William, Charles, and Andrew who by 1754 had surveyed 50 thousand acres along the Greenbrier.

c) By 1753 about 50 families lived along the creek tributaries in the Greenbrier Valley.

2. Dunkard Bottom on Cheat River (1751)

a) One of the most interesting early settlement attempts was undertaken by the Eckerlin Brothers: Israel, Gabriel, and Samuel. Prior to their emigration to North America, the brothers had joined the Dunkard Sect, (known for its pacifism) Their desire for solitude and an ascetic life led them from their home in Germantown, then Ephrata, Pennsylvania, over the Alleghenies.

b) While some speculate that the Eckerlin brothers intended to found a monastic retreat, and others that they were land speculators, it is known that they established an extensive hunting and agri-business.

c) Under misplaced suspicion because of their pacifism during the French and Indian War, the brothers disappeared after the settlement they founded was wiped out by an Indian attack.

3. Tygart Valley River (1753)

The Pringles , Robert Files, David Tygart and their families settled near Beverly, and Files Creek and Tygart Valley River. Files's family died in an Indian attack but one of his sons escaped warning Tygart's family who survived.

4. Decker's Creek (1758)

Tobias Decker, his family and 48 others from Pennsylvania established a colony on a creek in what would become Monongalia county in 1758. In a 1759 Indian attack, Decker, his wife and 6 others were killed. The colony was abandoned and settlement did resume until the late 1760s and early 1770s.




C. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR:

1. Most of the settlements in, or west of the Alleghenies prior to the French and Indian War lay in West Virginia.

2. However, a few attempts were made: one in Pennsylvania, near Mt. Braddock, and one at Connellsville, but they were abandoned in 1754 when Washington was defeated at Ft. Necessity.

3. At the outbreak of war between the English and the French in 1754, the only settlements deep in the Alleghenies were in the Greenbrier Valley. Early in the war even these were snuffed out by Indian allies of the French.

4. Migration into the lands west of the Alleghenies had peaked, and remained stagnant for the next 15 years.

D. Postwar Western Settlements

1. Kanawha Valley (1773)

In 1773, Walter Kelley settled a few miles east of what is now Charleston, West Virginia, establishing the first settlement in the Kanawha Valley.

2. Zackwill Morgan (1779)

Traditionally cited as "the first settler in the vicinity of Morgantown," Morgan built a block house, called "Morgan's Fort," on a rise above Decker's Creek, but evidence suggests that whites had settled in the area long before.

FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR (1754-1763)

(Great War for Empire)

Significance-- stopped settlements on frontier. At the beginning of the war, the Greenbrier settlements were the only ones left, and they were soon snuffed out.

A. Basis of the Conflict:

Conflict over territory resulted from conflicting claims in the back country, both English and French had established trade (fur) and settlements, French in Illinois, English along the Monongahela and Greenbrier rivers

1. British claims were based on the 1670 Batts-Fallam expedition.

2. French claims were based on LaSalle's 1669 expedition.

3. Virginia (British colony) claimed the Trans-Allegheny territory through its 1609 charter and 1744 Treaty of Lancaster (Indian treaty).

Virginia Claims:

a) Between 1745-1754 Virginia granted 2.5 million acres, most of which was west of the Alleghenies.

b) Most of the land came under the control of speculators-land companies:

1. The Greenbrier Company, 100,000 acres

 

2. The Loyal Company, 800,000 acres in New River Valley (settled a few families)

3. The Ohio Company (1747), whose stockholders included many prominent Virginians, including George Washington (200,000 acres).

c) After a personal petition by Gov. Gooch, the Board of Trade approved the Ohio Company's grant, but only offered 200 thousand instead of the requested 500 thousand, until 100 families a year, for 7 years, were settled and a fort was built on the land.

d) At the time of the grant, the Ohio Company's land was the most strategically located of the British western claims: on the north side of the Ohio River which matched South side between Romanette's and Buffalo's Creek.

e) Tens of thousands of acres along the Kanawha and Ohio rivers were never developed because they were 200 miles from settlements, and easily destroyed by hostile Indians.

B. Origins of the Conflict: Opposition to trade and settlements sponsored by the Ohio Company.

1. New York and Pennsylvania traders were hostile

2. The Six Nations did not agree that the 1744 treaty constituted a cession of Trans-Allegheny territory.

3. The Shawnee allied with the French, and Indians in the region became increasingly belligerent even though a treaty, (The Treaty of Logstown, 1752) resulted in a reluctant Indian acknowledgment of Virginia's claims south of the Ohio.

4. Other speculators' claims conflicted with the Ohio Company's claims.

Significance of British settlement in West Virginia and along the Ohio.

While not numerically significant (in terms of population), the activities of the Ohio Company and the other English speculators unquestionably sparked counter moves by the French.

C. French Countermove:

1. In 1749, Captain Celoron de Blainville was despatched on an expedition down the Ohio to bury plates (plaques), asserting French claims to the Ohio Valley. One such plate was embedded at the confluence of the Kanawha and the Ohio Rivers.

2. By 1753, using persuasion, presents, and intimidation, the French lured away the Ohio tribes from the Iroquois.

3. Also by 1753, the French had stopped all English trading, north of the Ohio River.

4. To prevent English expansion into the upper Ohio valley, the French built a series of forts:

Fort Presqu'isle, Erie, Pa.

Fort Le Boeuf, mouth of French Creek (near Meadville)

Fort Venango, Franklin, Pa.

D. Virginia's Reaction:

1. Gov. Robert Dinwiddie in 1753 sent young George Washington to Fort Le Boeuf to inform the commander that the French were trespassing on English territory. The French commander informed Washington that the French were there to stay.

2. Acting on Washington's recommendation, Dinwiddie ordered the construction of a fort at the Forks of the Ohio River. In January, 1754, a 37 man work party under Captain William Trent were dispatched to build what became Fort Pitt.

3. In April, 1754 Washington and 150 men were sent to garrison the fort. En route he met the returning work party-- they had been overwhelmed by a superior French force that captured the incomplete fort. The French finished the fort and named it Fort Dusquesne.

4. Rather than return with the work party, Washington decided to go on to the fort. On the way, near present day Uniontown, Pa., Washington's force encountered a small French contingent under Coulon de Jumonville, who was killed in the skirmish.

5. Washington's men hastily constructed a small defense that he called Fort Necessity. On July 3, 1754, the French attacked. In heavy rain and mud with little and wet ammunition, and no food, Washington was forced to surrender. As a condition of the surrender, Washington was compelled to agree that he would build no forts in the Ohio Valley for one year.

6. An outraged Governor Dinwiddie requested a force of English regular soldiers (redcoats) to help secure the Trans-Allegheny frontier.

a) There were rumors that France was planning fortifying south of the Ohio in W.V.

b) General Braddock and a force of 1,400 were sent. Braddock's troops were supplemented by 450 Virginia militia men led by George Washington. The combined forces set out for the forks of the Ohio via Ft. Cumberland and the Nemacolin Trail.

7. The French and their Indian allies ambushed Braddock about 10 miles from Ft. Dusquesne and cut the English to pieces. With Braddock mortally wounded, Washington led the tattered army home in rags.

E. Bradock's Defeat:

Braddock's defeat precipitated a campaign of terror for the English settlements in West Virginia. In the summer of 1755, the French, Shawnee, Delawares and Mingos moved through the back country.

1. Greenbrier. In late August 1755, a fort with 59 settlers was attacked. Over the course of three days, Indians killed 12 who were in the fort, 13 in nearby cabins, captured 2 girls, burned 11 houses, and slaughtered or stole 500 cattle and horses. The surviving settlers fled east for safety, and the valley remained depopulated until 1761.

2. Upper Potomac. Settlers around Ft. Cumberland were murdered and their property destroyed.

3. Fearing that Indians might frighten off all the frontier settlers and expose the routes to the more populous east coast settlements, the commander of the Virginia militia, George Washington made a personal tour of sites where Indians had attacked, and he observed mutilated bodies and survivors subsisting on "temporary farms."

F. Seeking Indian Allies

Seeking allies of their own Virginia made overtures to the Cherokee, who were traditional enemies of the Shawnee. The attempts at alliance were overshadowed by a string of Shawnee attacks in 1755.

The Cherokees were not interested in Virginia's top priority of helping protect the English frontier buffer zone.

One of the most memorable tales from this period is the captivity and escape of Mary Ingles.

1. In 1748, Draper's Meadows was founded at the headwaters of the Roanoke River in southwestern Virginia. In either 1749 or 1750, Mary Draper married William Ingles, by 1755 they had two sons-- Thomas 4, and George 2.

2. On July 8, 1755, while the men were harvesting wheat, Indians attacked killing several settlers. The men were unarmed; William Ingles survived by hiding in the woods. Mary Ingles, her sons, and her mother Mrs. Draper were taken captive. Three nights into captivity, Mary gave birth to a daughter. The very next day the captives were marched westward.

3. The route taken by Mrs. Ingles' captors passed across Flat Top Mountain, down the Bluestone River, the New River, and the Kanawha River to Ohio. After a one-month journey, the party reached Shawnee territory in Ohio. Mary was separated from her children, who were sent to live in separate towns. She never saw her two youngest children again, George and the baby girl died early in their captivity.

4. Mary accompanied her Indian captors on a salt expedition to Kentucky. Along with an old Dutch woman, Mary asked to go pick berries. With no food and each armed only with a tomahawk and knife, Mary and the old woman made a break for freedom. They walked up the Ohio River, up the Big Sandy and back down, up the Ohio to the Kanawha, up the Kanawha and New Rivers to the headwaters near her home. The journey took several weeks and was especially rough because the old woman went insane and tried to kill Mary.

5. Mary had been held captive for 5 and half months. Mrs. Draper was released after 7 years, and Mary's oldest son Thomas after 13 years. Mary Draper Ingles died in 1815, aged 83.

6. About 2,000 similar capture episodes were recorded in this period.

7. William Ingles had tried to convince the Virginia government to launch expeditions against the Shawnee, but the attack at Draper's Meadows occurred the day after Braddock's defeat, and Braddock's defeat left the entire English frontier exposed to attack.

8. Acting as Dinwiddie's courier, William Ingles went to the Cherokee and helped forge an alliance to attack Shawnee settlements. It was hoped that the English-Cherokee expeditions would bolster the frontiersmen's morale and undermine the French influence with the Indians.

9. By the time the proposed expedition known as the Sandy Creek Voyage or Expedition was organized, Mary Ingles had returned and brought the disquieting news that the Shawnee intended to wipe out all the English frontier settlements.

G. Sandy Creek Expedition (February-March 1756)

1. In February 1756, 365 men including 130 Cherokee warriors under Usteneeba set for the Shawnee's Ohio settlements. The expedition proceeded to the Dry Fork of the Tug River. They traveled down the flood-swollen Dry Fork for 15 miles, crossing 66 times.

2. In early March, scouts spotted smoke from enemy fires. The expedition quickly ran into trouble:

     a) Poor planning, organization, and leadership led to ruin.

i. Major Lewis whipped the Cherokee for swearing.

ii. The weather was cold and wet and game was scarce.

3. On March 5, the Sandy Creek force reached the Tug River, at that time an unnamed fork of Great Sandy Creek (Big Sandy River). The men built canoes, but because of the flooding, the expedition had to stick to traveling the high ground. Ten days later and another 65 miles down the Tug, Major Lewis gave the order to turn back.

4. The failure of the Sandy Creek expedition opened the West Virginia frontier to further attack. The fall of settlements and small forts as far east as Frederick, Maryland opened the entire Valley of Virginia to attack.

5. By the Spring of 1756, with settlers and militia disappearing defenses crumbling, Virginia's General Assembly put Washington in charge of constructing a string of forts on the frontier beginning on the Cacapon River in Hampshire County.

6. Washington constructed 22 forts, aimed at providing a line defense from the Potomac headwaters southward along Patterson's Creek, across the ridges to the South Branch and its headwaters in Pendleton County. From there the fort line followed the current West Virginia-Virginia border and continued along the western edge of the Valley of Virginia.

7. Invasion was most feared in the Potomac highlands, along Patterson's Creek and the South Branch.

a) Washington had 9 of the 22 forts constructed in that area.

b) Stationed 1,045 out 2,000 soldiers, or over half his force in those 9 forts.

8. Although Washington personally oversaw the forts' construction, they did not have the desired effect of stabilizing the English frontier population or deterrence against further attack. In fact, the forts seemed to aggravate French and Indian aggression. Indian attacks became bolder than ever.

H. The Conclusion of the War

1. After the war between France and English became a global war for Empire, the tide turned in North America, starting in 1758.

2. With sufficient British troops now in the colonies, English commanders launched renewed attacks on the French.

     a) Of primary significance to the West Virginia frontier, an English army of 6,000 under            General John Forbes was sent to capture Ft. Dusquesne.

     b) While the English were cutting a road before them, the French blew up the fort,
         and withdrew from the forks.

3. With English occupation of the forks, and construction of Fort Pitt, the remaining Ohio Indian tribes abandoned the French and joined the English.

4. Settlers began to return to West Virginia, prematurely as it turned out.

5. With the capture of Quebec in 1759, and Montreal in 1760, the war ended. The Treaty of Paris 1863 finally settled the question: Trans-Allegheny Virginia was English.