History of West Virginia: Difference between revisions

Lt. Governor [[Alexander Spotswood]] is sometimes credited with taking his 1716 "[[Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition]]" into what is now [[Pendleton County, West Virginia|Pendleton County]], although according to contemporary accounts, Spotswood's trail went no farther west than [[Harrisonburg, Virginia]]. The Treaty of Albany, 1722, designated the [[Blue Ridge Mountains]] as the western boundary of white settlement,<ref name="wvculture.org">West Virginia Division of Culture and History, West Virginia Memory Project, {{cite web |url=http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvmemory/timeline.aspx |title=West Virginia Memory Project - Timeline Search |access-date=2008-10-19 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081019230327/http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvmemory/timeline.aspx |archive-date=2008-10-19 }}</ref> and recognized [[Iroquois]] rights on the west side of the ridge, including all of West Virginia. Though the Iroquois made little effort to settle the region themselves, they made war throughout the area with their enemies, following the Great Indian Warpaths through the region and, some time between 1725-17501725–1750, contracted a large group of the Saponi-Tutelo warriors the Iroquois had living on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to fight alongside them in the region. They were adopted into the Seneca as a reward and settled in [[Randolph County, West Virginia|Randolph County]], calling themselves the Blackfoot Senecas, though a great many Saponi stayed behind and were later incorporated into the Iroquois by other means.[https://saponitown.com/38480-2/] Other tribes, notably the [[Shawnee]] and [[Cherokee]], used the resources of the region as well. Soon after this, white settlers began moving into the [[Shenandoah Valley|Greater Shenandoah-Potomac Valley]] making up the entire eastern portion of the State. They found it largely unoccupied, apart from [[Tuscarora people|Tuscarora]]s who had lately moved into the area around [[Martinsburg, WV]], some Shawnee villages in the region around [[Moorefield, WV]] and [[Winchester, VA]], and frequent passing bands of "Northern Indians" ([[Lenape]] from New Jersey) and "Southern Indians" ([[Catawba (tribe)|Catawba]] from South Carolina) who were engaged in a bitter long-distance war, using the Valley as a battleground.

In 1661, King [[Charles II of England]] had granted a company of gentlemenmen the land between the Potomac and [[Rappahannock River|Rappahannock]] rivers, known as the [[Northern Neck]]. The grant eventually came into the possession of [[Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron]] and in 1746 a [[Fairfax Stone|stone]] was erected at the source of the [[North Branch Potomac River]] to mark the western limit of the grant. A considerable part of this land was surveyed by [[George Washington]], especially the [[Potomac River#South Branch Potomac River|South Branch Potomac River]] valley between 1748 and 1751. The diary kept by Washington indicates that there were already many squatters, largely of German origin, along the South Branch. [[Christopher Gist]], a surveyor for the first [[Ohio Company]], which was composed chiefly of Virginians, explored the country along the [[Ohio River]] north of the mouth of the [[Kanawha River]] in 1751 and 1752. The company sought to have a fourteenth colony established with the name ''[[Vandalia (colony)|Vandalia]]''.