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10-PRESTON COUNTY JOURNAL-Wednesday, August 24, 2011-Kingwood WV
INDIAN NAMES
for Streams in
Western Virginia
Part I
~,~ by
,~ Clyde Cale Jr.
The red man
still lives in WV-
I not in monuments
or descendants,
but in words.
The "pale face"
has long been in possession of
the hunting grounds of the noble
red man. but the mountains and
rivers of WV still are known by
Indian names.
The Indians do not, like the
whites, give every town and vil-
lage a name, but they are known
by the names of the place, the
locality, head chief, etc. They
preferred to describe a man or
river or a town by some qual-
ity or remarkable feature rather
than designate the object by
name. Indian place names are,
for the most part, descriptive.
The rivers and mountains of
this state are named from spe-
cial peculiarities that impressed
the different tribes that lived in
this section.
The Indians were often poetic
in naming natural objects, and
there-in lies the interest and
value of the names. Also, the
realization that the Indian of-
ten appreciated natural objects
and named them for this reason.
from a purely artistic point of
vies.
The tree-mantled mountains of
our native land, and the many
clear, swift flowing streams.
are mentioned by us day after
day and yet we do not know the
meanings of all the names.
The history and origin of In-
dian names is often obscure. In-
dians described places, but did
not name them in the sense of
designating them by the use of
a proper noun. Differences in
sound for the same meaning is
due to the language differences
Of the tribal groups. The Indian
was somewhat nomadic, and as
a result, the name might have its
roots in one linguistic group or'
another; which, might be uncer-
tain.
To the Europeans, a name was
definitive and substantive, the
Indian had no such restraint in
his manner of speech. The pro-
nunciation, history and mean-
ing of Indian names has been
lost in time. Many of todays
pronunciations of Indian names
were passed down to us from
early traders and trappers, who
often misspelled and translated
the words to their own way of
, thinking.
Early spellings have often
been changed, either for style or
to make them more euphonic.
Map makers also have contrib-
uted to chan~in~ the snellin~ il
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many Indian words.
Indians lived close to nature.
and their movements over the
land were guided mostly by its
streams and waterways; and
in some cases white explorers
may have named a stream after
and Indian tribe or village they
found along its banks. It is for
these reasons that so many of
the Indian place names which
have survived are those which
apply tobodies of water.
Indian names, being descrip-
tive, supplied their own generic
expression like mountain, bay
or river. To add river to Cheat
or bay to Chesapeake is, in the
Indian sense, useless.
So in the end we are left with
uncertainty as to where some
of the Indian names originated.
The Indians left us with few re-
cords of their own. So, in the
usual sense of the words, there
are no original sources.
The aboriginal stream names
of the earliest maps, mentioned
earlier are the most depend-
able tokens of Indian migration.
Their most characteristic spell-
ing is found on charts ranging
from Mayo 1738 to Carey's
American Pocket Atlas of 1805.
Many tribes used western Vir-
ginia as a hunting ground, and
in doing so their names stuck
on the landscapes and rivers.
Tribes such as the Conoy or
Piscataway, Potomac, Totelo.
Shawnee, Delaware, Seneca,
Mingo, Mohawk. Mohican,
Tuscarora Catawba and several
others were frequent visitors
to western Virginia on hunting,
fishing and raiding trips.
It is very unfortunate that the
Indians had no written lan-
guage to pass on from gen-
eration to generation. Many of
their places names have been
lost forever, while others have
been mispronounced and mis-
spelled to the point where we
are not sure what is correct and
what isn't. The following list of
Indian names for rivers, creeks
and runs in WV is compiled
from many differenct sources
and hopefully covers the origin
of the known meanings in our
state.
I left out our own Cheat River,
mainly because I'm working on
a long history of this river and
when finished it will appear in
future editions of the Journal.
Big Sandy River
The principal northern branch
of this river forms the boundary
line between WV and KY. The
Indians knew it as the To-te-ry,
To-ter-a, To-ter-as or To-ter-
oy and it was often spelled by
the whites as Tateroy, Chateroi
and Chatarrawa. When Captain
Thomas Batts and party were on
theft western exploring expedi-
tion in September of 1671. they
were hospitably entertained at a
town of the To-te-ra or To-ter-a
tribe of Indians situated near Pe-
ter's Mountain. A questions aris-
es from this "Did these Indians
receive their tribal name from
that of the Big Sandy River. or
did the stream receive its Indian
name from them?" If the latter
is true. then the statement that
the name signifies river of sand
bars, is incorrect. The Delaware
Indians called it Si-ke-a, mean-
ing "River of Salt". The Miamis
knew it as the we-pe-pe-co-ne
which may have meant "river of
Sand Bars."
Bluestone River
This stream begins in Tazewell
County, VA and flows across
the state line into WV, passing
through Mercer into Summers
County, where it unites with the
New River. The Miami Indi-
ans called it mec-cen-ne-ke-ke,
while the Delaware's knew it as
mon-on-cas-en-se-ka. Today,
the name Bluestone is derived
from the vast masses of bluish
stone along its course, and one
of these Indian names may have
signified this. The stones give
the water a bluish tint or color.
Buckhannon River
This large stream is a left hand
branch of the Tygarts Vally Riv-
er in Upshur. Barbour and Ran-
dolph counties. There are three
theories of the origin of this
name. One is that it was named
for the Indian Chief Buckonga-
helas of the I~laware ~ri~e ~h~
had a village at the mouth of this
river. The name was corrupted
to Buck-on-go-ha-non by the
early settlers. This idea has been
adopted by the WV Historic and
Scenic Markers Commission as
the correct theory. The Dela-
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ware called themselves Lenape
or Lenni Lenape, which means
real people. Others believe it
comes from the surname of
an early Scotch pioneer by the
name of John Buchannon, a
Richmond missionary who in
1785 'discovered this river and
named it for himself, the first
explorer.
The third version states that
one of George Washington's
friends in England, the Earl of
Buchan, was a member of Brit-
ish nobility. If one takes Lord
Buchan's name and adds on the
suffix "on," you have the word
Buchannon. The "K" and "N,"
can be explained by someone
making an error and adding the
extra letters. One source states
that Buckhannon is an Indian
word meaning "brick river."
Cacapon River
This stream flows through
Hardy, Hampshire and Morgan
counties and empties into the
Potomac. The upper part of the
river is known as the Lost River.
Once it emerges again from un-
derground it becomes known as
the Capon or Cacapon River.
The Shawnees knew it as
the Cape-Cape-pe-hon River,
meaning "The medicine wa-
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ter," or "healing waters". An-
other meaning is "fierce running
stream". It's spelled on some old
maps as "Ka-ka-po."
The Indians referred to the
Lost River as the river that "ap-
pears, rises to view and then is
found again". There are around
ten or more spellings of this riv-
er. but the one mentioned above
is most frequently used.
A smaller stream that also be-
gins in Hampshire County and
empties into the Potomac River
about 25 miles above the for-
mer, is called by a way of dis-
tinction. "Little Cacapon river".
Early map spellings, "Kakapo",
"Ca-ca-pe-hon" and Co-co-pe-
ron."
Campbell's Creek
This creek is a northern tribu-
tary of the Great Kanawha Riv-
er. It flows iron the Kanawha
five miles, above Charleston,
WV. One Indian nation called
it Nip-pi-pin-mah. which means
"Salt Creek". At one time this
area was the center of a great
salt producing region of the
Great Kanawha Valley.
Coal River
The largest southern tribu-
tary of the Great Kanawha.
its source begins in Raleigh
County and then flows through
Boone and into Kanawha Coun-
ty, where it unites with that river
12 miles below Charleston. the
state capital.
The Miami Indians called it
"wal-en-de-co-ni" and the Dela-
wares knew it as the "wal-hon-
de", signifying "the Hill Creek".
Coal River was first offi-
cially called the "Lousia", for
the Dutchess of Cumberland,
then the name was changed to
Cole. for Samuel Cole, an early
settler. With the discovery of
bituminous, the name was cor-
rupted to coal.
(To be continued next week)
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