common corner of Tucker, Preston, and Grant counties, West Virginia, and Garrett County, Maryland.

3. The Settlers.-The people who first occupied the South Branch region came chiefly from the Shenandoah Valley. The prevailing element among the earliest of the colonists, particularly in what is now Hardy and Hampshire counties, was Holland Dutch, and many of the names of the first pioneers are still found in the region, among them being Strader, Bowman, Blue, Van Meter, Keuykendall, and Haight or Hite. There were many Germans also, and among the names still borne by their descendants are Minear, Stump, Snyder, Woolford, and Brake. Irish and Scotch were there likewise, and their names were Ashby, Pearsoll, Cunningham, Wilson, and Ruddell. Of the pure English, there were the Jackson and Parsons fami

Romney was founded by Pearsoll, who built a fort there, which was of much importance during the French and Indian war. Pendleton County was settled very early, largely by Germans from the Shenandoah Valley.

4. Washington's Journey to the South Branch.--One of the earliest written accounts of the country and people along the South Branch, and also in the present county of Mineral, is contained in the diary of George Washington, written when he was sixteen years of age. He had been sent to survey the lands of Lord Fairfax in that region, in the year 1748. Even at that time settlements were scattered from the source to the mouth of the South Branch. The people are described as unable, or unwilling, to speak English; and Washington says they followed the surveying party through the woods and furnished amusement by their antics. It may be inferred from the small amount of surveying done on that occasion that Lord Fairfax had rented but little land in that vicinity, and that very few of the people had any claim to the land which they occupied. The county records at Romney, where nearly all of Lord Fairfax's land transactions in the South Branch Valley are recorded, strengthen the belief that the

first settlers in that region were nearly all squatters upon the land. The number of leases, particularly in the earlier years, were few in comparison with the number of people there at that time.

5. The Fafax Land Confiscated.-During the Revolutionary war Lord Fairfax, then very old, remained a firm friend of England, although he continued to reside in Virginia, and the long-existing friendship between him and General Washington was not interrupted. His neighbors treated him with great respect because of Washington's known friendship for him. When he heard of the surrender of Cornwallis, which he knew would end the war, he went to bed and soon died. At the close of the Revolution his lands were confiscated and became the property of Virginia. They were thrown open to settlement in the same manner as other state lands, and in time became the property of thousands of farmers. It is not for the best interest of any country that very large tracts of land should belong to any one person who either lets them lie idle or occupies them with tenants, as Lord Fairfax wished to do. Such tracts of land should be sold in small parcels at fair prices.

6. Proposed Manors.-Lord Fairfax had set apart a manor of 40,000 acres on the South Branch and another of 9,000 acres on Patterson's Creek, intending to convert them into estates occupied by the lord and his retainers, as was the custom in England. But the confiscation of his lands fortunately put an end to all projects of that kind.

CHAPTER III.

WILDERNESS HIGHWAYS.

I. The Mountain Barrier.-The Alleghany Mountains were a barrier not easily passed by the emigrant seeking a home in the West. For a quarter of a century after the tide of migration reached the eastern base of that range, none crossed it. The country beyond was little known, and the paths by which it could be reached were few and difficult. The bleak series of summits was a divide between the known and the unknown, until explorers and adventurers began to penetrate the region beyond. Even then, the homeseeker was slow to follow.

2. Attempts Successful and Unsuccessful.-As early as 1670 and 1671 Henry Batts reached the valley of New River. A period of forty-five years followed before another attempt at exploration was recorded. In 1716 Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, led a party of explorers over the Blue Ridge, across the Shenandoah River, and to the eastern base of the Alleghanies; but he did not reach the present territory of West Virginia. Within nine years after that time the Potomac River, above its passage through the Blue Ridge, had been explored; and twenty years after Governor Spotswood's expedition, William Mayo ascended to the very source of the Potomac, passed the summit of the Alleghanies, and discovered tributaries of Cheat River, in the present county of Tucker. There is reason to believe that the Kanawha Valley, as far west as Charleston, had been visited before that time. In 1745 surveyors for Lord Fairfax were sufficiently acquainted with the eastern slope of the Alleghanies to make a fairly accurate map of por

tions of Grant and Mineral counties, and of the adjacent region of Maryland. Four years later, surveyors were locating lands on the Greenbrier River, and in the same year the white man's cabin was to be found within the present county of Pocahontas.

3. Explorations by Traders.-Adventurers who traded with Indians were the real discoverers of routes by which the Alleghanies could be crossed At a time when there were only two settlers' cabins in West Virginia, west of the mountains, traders by scores were passing between the eastern cities and the Ohio River. As early as 1747 no fewer than three hundred traders reached the Ohio; and the next year one caravan of seventy horses, loaded with furs, made the journey from the Scioto River to Philadelphia. These traders followed two general trails westward from Winchester: the one passing by the site of Cumberland to Pittsburg; the other ascending the Potomac to its source and crossing to the Greenbrier and thence to the Kanawha.

4. The Nemacolin Trail.-In the year 1750 the Ohio Company, an association of speculators and merchants, trading with the Indians, employed Colonel Thomas Cresap to discover and mark out the best route for a path from the site of Cumberland to the site of Pittsburg. Colonel Cresap lived fifteen miles east of Cumberland and was well acquainted with the region, having been engaged in the survey of Lord Fairfax's estate. He knew many Indians, and he employed one named Nemacolin to mark the best route to the Ohio. The Indian performed the service well and was suitably rewarded for it. The path became known as Nemacolin's Trail. It played an important part afterwards in the westward movement. Four (years later George Washington widened the path while leading an army on the ill-fated expedition which ended at Fort Necessity. He conducted over the road, as far as the Monongahela, the first wagons that ever crossed from the Atlantic slope into the Mississippi Valley. The next year General

Braddock improved the road and extended it nearly to Pittsburg. In the years which followed, it was the chief highway between the East and the West. But it had only an indirect influence on West Virginia's history. Other lines of travel, although they were mere paths, were of more importance to our State.

The McCullough Trail.-There were a number of paths crossing the Alleghanies within what is now West Virginia. Over them the pioneers made their way from the settlements in the East. Nearly all of these paths, if not all of them, were trails which had been used by Indians long before. And it is not improbable that the Indians did not make the paths, but that they were the beaten trails of buffaloes in their periodical migrations in search of food. The first path south of Nemacolin's was McCullough's, so called from a trader of that name who traveled by that route between the Shenandoah Valley and the Ohio. This trail left the South Branch near the site of Moorefield, in Hardy County, crossed the Alleghanies near Mount Storm, reached the head of the Little Youghiogheny River in Maryland, and continued through Preston County where it was called the "Eastern Trail." Thence it continued to the Ohio. General Washington followed that trail from the South Branch to the Youghiogheny in his journey to the West in 1784.

6. The Horseshoe Trail. -About twenty miles southwest of the McCullough Trail, another path crossed the mountains. It was known as the Horseshoe Trail because it crossed Cheat River at a place known as the "Horseshoe." This path branched from the McCullough Trail near where the town of Gorman, in Grant County, now stands. Not far from the Fairfax Stone it crossed the dividing ridge which separates the Potomac waters from the tributaries of the Monongahela; and, descending Horseshoe Run, it crossed Cheat River, passed over Laurel Hill to the Valley River, two miles below Philippi, and continued to the Ohio. The first settlers in Tucker, Bar