Waterways of West Virginia - First European Settlements and Ferries

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. 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.

Further information: List of rivers of West Virginia