A History of the Valley of Virginia by Kercheval, Samuel - 2007

Heritage Books. New. 2007. Paperback. 411 pages. If you’d like to know more about the history of Native Americans and early American settlers, this book is for you. Written not long after the Revolutionary War, the author was himself a young eyewitness to the life and times described, and the weight of this book is given to personal accounts and descriptive recollections of bloody encounters between settlers and Native Americans over the course of several decades (based on the testimony of locals who witnessed or remembered house-burnings, kidnappings and massacres.) The first settlements in 1732; Quakers, Menonists, Lutherans and Calvinists; social habits, medicine, morals, witchcraft, and more are discussed. The author documents the beginnings of Martinsburg, Staunton, Moorefield, Abingdon and Morgantown. Some of the earliest family names include Vanmeter, Hite, Burwell, Fry, Newell, Glass Carter, and Blackburn. A lengthy appendix includes natural curiosities like The Devil’s Garden. .