The Settlement of Southwestern Virginia

Extracts from authorities have been quoted in the hope that through their means would be recalled most readily that portion of the sources of the Ohio which lies in the extreme southwestern corner of the present State of Virginia, and the extreme northeastern corner of Tennessee contiguous.  This section had been known to the white, and a path marked out by travel certainly fifteen years prior to the earliest date that has been mentioned.  It also appears that there was an established traffic over this district between the whites of the eastern settlements and the Cherokees as early as 1740. 

One of the difficulties of determining accurately the dates and circumstances of the first settlement of any of these regions is that frequently a whole district in which a community established itself would be entirely depopulated by an incursion of the Indians, those of the settlers who were not killed, abandoning their improvements, which were then relocated by those who came in after the Indians had retired.  It was characteristic of the people that after each Indian attack, not only fresh adventurers came and occupied the land, but in larger numbers than before.  

Lyman Chalkley

paper, 26 pp.

ISBN: 9780788480003

101E-VA0739