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History.—That part of Virginia beyond the Alleghany mountains was a favourite haunt of the Indians before the first coming of the whiles, and there are many Indian mounds, indicative of an early and high cultural development, within the present limits of the state, and especially in the neighbourhood of (q.v.). The western part of Virginia was not explored until long after considerable settlements had been made in the east. In 1671 General Abram Wood, at the direction of Governor William Berkeley (c. 1610-1677), sent a party which discovered Kanawha Falls, and in 1716, Governor Alexander Spottswood with about thirty horsemen made an excursion into what is now Pendleton county. John Van Metre, an Indian trader, penetrated into the northern portion in 1725, and Morgan ap Morgan, a Welshman, built a cabin in the present Berkeley county in 1727. The same year German settlers from Pennsylvania founded New Mecklenburg, the present Shepherdstown, on the Potomac, and others soon followed. Charles II. of England, in 1661, granted to a company of gentlemen the land between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers, commonly known as the “Northern Neck.” The grant finally came into the possession of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, and in 1746 a stone was erected at the source of the north branch of the Potomac to mark the western limit of the grant. A considerable part of this land was surveyed by George Washington between 1748 and 1751. The diary kept by the young surveyor indicates that there were already many squatters, largely of German origin, along the South Branch of