Waterways in West Virginia find their highest sources in the highland watersheds of the Allegheny Mountains. These watersheds supply drainage to the creeks often passing through deep and narrow hollows. From the hollows, rushing highland streams collect in bottom land brooks and rivers. People have lived along and boated on the waterways of what is now the Mountain State from the time of antiquity.
First European settlements and ferries
On July 13, 1709, Louis Michel, George Ritter, and Baron Christoph de Graffenried petitioned the King of England for a land grant in the Harpers Ferry and Shepherdstown area in what is now Jefferson County, in order to establish a Swiss colony. Neither the land grant nor the Swiss colony ever materialized. However, the early British fur trade outpost, Fort Conolloways (today Tonolloways) with the "Canallaway", "Cawnoyes" and "Conestogoes" tribes appeared near the mouth of the Conococheague on the Potomac River after 1695. The Treaty of Albany (1720) designated the Blue Ridge Mountains as the western boundary of white settlement.West Virginia Division of Culture and History, West Virginia Memory Project, http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvmemory/timeline.aspx Orange County, Virginia, was formed in 1734. It included all areas west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, constituting all of present West Virginia. By 1739, Thomas Shepherd had constructed a flour mill powered by water from the Town Run or the Falling Springs Branch of the Potomac River. Shepherd, along with Isaac Garrison and John Welton, established the present town of Shepherdstown in today's Jefferson County. In October 1748 the Virginia General Assembly passed an act establishing a ferry across the Potomac River from the landing of Evan Watkin near the mouth of Conococheague Creek in present-day Berkeley County to the property of Edmund Wade in Maryland. Robert Harper obtained a permit to operate a ferry across the Shenandoah River at present-day Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County in March 1761. Thus, these two ferry crossings became the earliest locations of government-authorized civilian commercial crafts on what would become West Virginia waterways.
Early river traffic
For nearly 15 years, missionaries and "coureurs de bois" confused ideas of a "beautiful River, large, wide, deep, and worthy of comparison . . . with our great river St. Lawrence" that in 1660 and 1662 they were able to describe a river below the Great Lakes to France. In 1670, Jesuit Dablon was able to write a good description of this river. Sulpician missionaries Dollier de Casson and Bréhant de Galinée, using their contacts with the natives, reported in 1671 the aboriginal names of the Ohio or Mississippi ("Ohio", in the Iroquois language, and "Mississippi", in the Ottawa language, both mean "beautiful river"—belle rivière).The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press The French Canadian Sulpicians had replaced the Jesuit Fathers, who had replaced the original Récollets. Confused European cartographers' ideas about the Ohio Country continued somewhat beyond the first decade of the 18th century.
In 1691–92 the British sent an envoy to the Shawnoe, who were called the "further Indians" (Broshar, 1920:232) by some at this time. Dutchman Arnoult Vielle commanded this float down the Ohio River to as far as the "Falls of Ohio". Captain Arent Schuyler returned to New York from the Minisink Indians of New Jersey in February, 1694. He was told by them that, "six days agoe three Christians and two Shanwans Indians who went about fifteen months agoe with Arnout Vielle into the Shanwans Country were passed by the Minnissinek going for Albany to fech powder for Arnout and his Company.""Documents relative to the colonial history of New York" (O'Callaghan, ed.), 4: 98. On September 11, 1694, Henri de Tonti made his report to France saying, "We have even been advised that one named Annas (Arias?), of the English nation, accompanied by the LoupBrasser (1974) wrote that "Adriaen Block (1614) and later colonial authorities usually referred to the tribe as 'Mahicans,' 'Mahikanders,' and similar names..." "By 1662 the name 'Loups' began to lose its specificity and was used to refer to several tribes in New England and New York State."-First Nations savages has had some speech with the Miami in order to draw them to them, which will give them a strong foothold for the success of their enterprise, if he corrupts them."Découvertes et établissements des Français dans l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amérique septentrionale, 1614–1754, mémoires et documents originaux, edited by Pierre Margry (Paris, 1881), 4: 4. With the help of a large number of Shawnee, and some from seven other "nations", portering beaver furs with Arnoult Vielle, they arrived in Albany, New York, at the end of a very lucrative two-year hunt in the Ohio River Valley. "A band of Shawnee left their hunting grounds on the Cumberland (River, Ky) to follow Viele east to the Delaware River where they established a settlement."More correctly between the Cumberland and Ohio rivers. "The First Push Westward of the Albany Traders." Citation: Mississippi Valley Historical Review 7 (Dec. 1920): 228–41. Helen Broshar, Urbana, Illinois In August 1699, Iberville reported to France saying, "some men, twelve in number, and some Maheingans who are savages whom we call Loups started seven years ago from New York in order to go up the river Andaste which is in the province of Pennsylvania, as far as the River Ohio which is said to join the Wabash, flowing together into the Mississippi.""The wilderness trail, or the ventures and adventures of the Pennsylvania traders on the Allegheny path, with some new annals of the old west, and the records of some strong men and some bad ones" (New York, 1911) Charles A. Hanna Perhaps not the first white man to go boating on the Ohio River, but, Arnoult Vielle was the first well documented as such.
Buffalo skin canoes
There have been hints in the old tellings within circles about skin-covered canoes in the Kanawha region. In mixed company, these were met with scoff. Trapper James (Jacob) Le Tort Sr. moved his Penn permit (1720s~30s) trading house near Letart Falls (namesake at the Jackson and Mason county line) from the Allegheny's Beaver Creek area fur trade by 1740, where his son married a Shawnee maiden. Along with them, much of his trade was coming from Little Kanawha River tributaries and Mill Creek, which reaches into Roane County to the Elk River watershed. Western Virginia "Cherokee" were reported at Cherokee FallsQuoting Wonderful West Virginia article Sept. 1973, Pp.30, "Valley Falls Of Old", Walter Balderson, "The Cherokee who lived here, called it the "Evil Spirit Falls," as they found it difficult to possess it. Later, white explorers called it the "Hard Around Falls," which is obvious to the visitor. Later, it became the "Falls of the Big Muddy" or Monongahelia and finally it took the name of David Tygart, a pioneer settler of the stream in Randolph County (1753) above Elkins. The head spring is about away at an elevation of some 4000 feet (near Mingo Flats)...Who was the first white man to visit Valley Falls? Frankly, we don't know for certain. In 1704, Thomas Leggit (ten years of age) went up the Tygart past Valley Falls with his parents to settle Phillipi, it was recorded. In 1731, Charles Poke, a noted Indian trader, had a trading post with the Indians at the then Cherokee Falls. Around 1740 Jean Dupratz, a French- man, is reported to have explored here. From 1746 through 1772, various traders, trappers, and explorers visited the Valley Falls area." (today's Valley Falls) in 1705 and continued the many Kanawhan old fields. Soon, these evolved into a fireside cabin culture with the pioneer, too.Quoting from C. Gist journal 1753, November, "Thursday 15.—We set out, and at night encamped at George's Creek, about eight miles [13 km], where a messenger came with letters from my son, who was just returned from his people at the Cherokees, and lay sick at the mouth of Conegocheague (next major stream below Col Cresap's Fort Cumberland, Potomack River, Allegany Mountains.)--Christopher Gist's Journals with Historical, Geographical and Ethnological Notes and Biographies of His Contemporaries by William M. Darlington [1815–1889] Pittsburgh, J. R. Weldin & Co., 1893.-- Gist mentions Muskingum as though it was the name of the town. He should have written "a town of the Wyandots at the Muskingum," the latter being an Algonquin or Delaware word. The Indians do not, like the whites, give every town or village a name, but they are known by the name of the place, the locality, head chief, etc. "They preferred to describe a man or a river or town, by some quality or remarkable feature rather than designate the object by a name. ("Transactions of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio," Vol. I, p. 235.) Thus Chillicothe towns in Ohio—Upper, Lower and Old—simply meant towns of the Chillicothe tribe of the Shawnese. (John Johnson, in Butler's "Kentucky," last page, Appendix.) Soh-kon, outlet (a village) at the outlet. Shannopin, from the head chief, Kittanning. Kittan, great, ung-on, or at the great river. (See Trumbull on "Indian Geographical Names," Connecticut Historical Society, Vol. II, p. 43, etc.) The Wyandots, or Hurons, were ancient occupants of Central and Eastern Ohio and Northwestern Pennsylvania, to which region they retreated from Canada, to escape the fury of the conquering Iroquois, or Five Nations, in the middle of the seventeenth century. ("American Antiquarian Society Transactions," Vol. I, p. 271-2; id. Vol. II, p. 72. Charlevoix's "History of New France.") The Wyandots are called Tiononaties, Petuns or Petuneuae, Tobacco Indians, from their industrious habit of cultivating that plant. Petun (obsolete French for tobacco derived from the Brazilian) being a nickname given to them by the French traders. ("Historical Magazine," Vol. V, O. S., 1861, p. 263.) In the Mohawk dialect of the Iroquois the name for tobacco is O-ye-aug-wa. (Gallatin's "Synopsis American Aboriginal Archives," Vol. II, p. 484.) In the Huron of La Hontan, Vol. II, p. 103, Oyngowa; and in Campinus "History of New Sweden," in the Mingo.-- William M. Darlington [1815–1889] They had not been quite like Keetoowah, seldom called to counsel by the Ahniyvwiya. Some migrated north of Daniel Boone's Kentucky settlement before he arrived, but not all for the assimilation with local Virginia colonizers. There were several different historical tribes in the Kanawhan region during the 18th century, including the Bulltown Delaware. A Mingo Indian statue commemorates the first inhabitants of the tributaries of the Monongahela, Potomac, Greenbrier, Elk, Tygart, and Gauley highland watershed's divide, near the village of Mingo Flats."Nakiska Chalet Bed & Breakfast" October 1999 V.63, N.10 Wonderful West Wirginia. http://www.wonderfulwv.com/archives/oct99/fea2.cfm Simply, none were villaging at that particular year on any Old Fields on the Kanawha River during Salling's expedition, nor did he report any people on the lower Ohio, only describing the "Ohio Falls" area as a "Spanish Manor".