SETTLEMENT OF WHEELING.
In this year, too, the foundation of "Virginia's Metropolis of the West"
was laid. The Zanes made the first settlement on the banks of "La
Belle Riviere" (Ohio) below Fort Pitt, at the mouth of Wheeling creek,
and Joseph Tomlinson made the second at the mouth of Grave creek
shortly after. They were soon joined by Bonnett, Wetzel, Messer,
George Leffler, Benjamin Biggs, Joshua Baker, Zachariah Sprigg,
Andrew Swearengen, David Shepherd, the McCollochs, Mitchells, Van
Meters, Millers, Kellers, etc., etc. These were the men who founded
Wheeling, and whose means and determined bravery went far towards
breaking the power of the savage and thus opening the country to civilization.
In 1772, settlements were made on Elk river, and in the vicinity of
Clarksburg, and at other points in South-western Virginia. Among
these pioneers were the Hickmans, the Powers, Andersons, Webbs,
Nutters, Collrials, Beards, Davisons, and a host of others prominent in
pioneer history.
These were the principal settlements made in Western Virginia prior
to the year 1773; but tidings of this fertile land had already reached
the far east, and hundreds prepared to find homes in the exhaustless
domain that stretched out before them.
But through all these years a jealous eye was watching the march of
the Anglo-Saxon in his conquest of the wilderness. It was the Indian
who saw in it all the extinction of his own race; his immediate ancestors
had been forced to leave the shores of the Chesapeake, and the banks of
the James and Potomac, and to take refuge west of the mountains, in
the very country which he now saw passing into the possession of his
enemies. He resolved to defend it against the encroachments of his
conquerors east of the mountains, and only awaited an opportunity to
commence his favorite work of murder. That opportunity, through the
indiscretion of the English, soon presented itself.
