Virginia and the Valley

Jim Small 2003

The Shenandoah Valley in the very early 1700's was populated mostly by hunters and trappers who came over the Blue Ridge from the tidewater area of Virginia, but this area was soon opened up for settlement much the same as Pennsylvania by William Penn. It was given as large grants by the king of England, who feared encroachment by the French from the early settlements along the Mississippi, and as a buffer to attack by the French, and he wished to have an early warning from settlers to the west. The Quakers William Borden and William Beverly were given huge tracts of land, granted if they would settle this fertile valley with immigrants.

Settlement of the Valley was not made so much by the Quakers, but was made primarily by the Scotch, Irish and Germans who migrated from Pennsylvania and Maryland into the rugged valley, which they found much like their homeland. There was a large migration from England, Ireland and Scotland after much publicity was made there to encourage others to populate the area with the promise of fertile land, and space to raise a family. This area, reminiscent of the Scottish highlands, was settled by these people, and there remains today this rich tradition of the Scotch and Irish, and even today in the lower valley, there are festivals held every year to commemorate this rich heritage.

Early immigration in the 1730' and 1740's by way of the large grants of land, they cleared and worked farms, and found slavery, which was permitted in the tidewater area much to their displeasure as morally objectionable and unsuited to their needs in this area. Small farms were the order of the day in this area, versus the large tobacco plantations of the areas east of the Blue Ridge.

The Scotch-Irish were permitted to worship as Presbyterians, for the Act of Union which linked England and Scotland, and designated the Church of Scotland as the established Church in this area. Early churches, the Old Stone Church, (Ft. Defiance) and Tinkling Springs of Augusta County were well established by the early 1740's with large but spread out congregations. The early ministers, such as the Reverend John Craig of Tinkling Spring rode a circuit between the various meeting houses ministering to the small congregations, and providing the only meager records that exist of the early pioneers

By 1749 the Virginia frontier had moved upward from the fall line of its river to the crest of the Blue Ridge and thence across the valley to the crest line of the Alleghenies. Since it was easier to follow streams than to penetrate forests, the areas which saw the first settlers were those who were able to navigate the streams and settle along their banks; then later, more settlers would move into the interior farther from the streams and rivers to settle higher up the foothills, until families had settled even to the ridge-tops. Those who settled along the rivers often would place dams across the river for mills. In the early days this prohibited the flow of tobacco down river for export to England, and this caused more than a few skirmishes between landowners.

Any spring or fresh water source found several families settled around them, and the most rapid settlement was around this all important resource. The fertile valley had abundant amounts of these small springs, and welcomed many families to settle at their sources. Early pioneers used streams to set up milling operations, and although the settlers used the James, Roanoke, Potomac and , and the movement peopled the area with Scotch-Irish, Germans and Huguenots, it also restricted river travel to the major streams, and the dams created by the mills impeded later commerce in moving goods to the tidewater markets. But the tide of settlers now confronted the vast Indian area of Virginia which lay to the southwest, the territory which was to become Kentucky and West Virginia.

Boone and other early explorers forged footpaths and trails into rough roads, and settlers were on their heels all the way. The Wilderness Road opened up the Indian lands of Tennessee and Kentucky very quickly after the Revolution and by 1790 hundreds of thousands of veterans and their families were spilling into the Cumberland plateau, settling their bounty lands, as more immigrants settled into the area by way of land grants in the areas not reserved for the veterans. Westward expansion was rapid, and distance was not a major hurdle, even if transportation of the time was primitive. The Valley saw the most rapid movement of settlers of any area of the Colonies in their early history..