Frontier and Pioneer Life, Pre-Industrial Appalachia

Colonial and settlement eras, seventeenth to mid-nineteenth century history, Indian Wars

Baker, Norman L.  2013.  Braddock’s Road: Mapping the British Expedition from Alexandria to the Monongahela[1755].  Charleston, S.C.: History Press.  190 pp.  Expedition against Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh), required engineering a road over the Allegheny Mountains.

Barr, Daniel P.  2014.  A Colony Sprung from Hell: Pittsburgh and the Struggle for Authority on the Western Pennsylvania Frontier, 1744-1794.  Kent, Oh.: Kent State University Press.  334 pp.

Bingaman, Sheila M.  2013.  “The Early Bingamans in the New River Area.”  Smithfield Review 17: 27-42.  Family contributions to the development of the New River Valley region of N.C. and W. Va. during the mid-eighteenth century.

Buckley, Jay H.  2013.  “William Clark: Reflections on His Interactions with Family, Native Nations, and Landscapes” [1770-1838].  We Proceeded On 39, no. 2 (May): 25-34.
Clark, Benjamin C., Jr.  2012.  “Cherokees, Roads and Land: The Early History of the Niles Ferry.”  Tennessee Ancestors 28, no. 3 (December): 3-23.  Focuses on the unexplored earliest history of the Niles Ferry (until 1835), first controlled by the Cherokee, which crossed the Little Tennessee River where Highway 411 crosses Tellico Lake today.

Cochran, Robert.  2014.  “The Gentlemen and the Deerslayer: Contrasting Portraits of Pioneer Arkansas.”  Arkansas Historical Quarterly 73, no. 1 (Spring): 31-41.  Six journal-keeping travelers, 1804-1842.

Cranmer, Bob.  2014.  “George Washington’s Venango to Fort Le Boeuf Route, December 1753—Reexamined.”  Pennsylvania History 81, no. 1 (Winter): 106-119.  “Current beliefs about the route George Washington and Christopher Gist took in 1753 from Fort Machault at Venango—where they delivered an ultimatum to a French garrison to evacuate British territory—to Fort Le Boeuf are erroneous.”

Cubbison, Douglas.  2015.  On Campaign against Fort Duquesne: The Braddock and Forbes Expeditions, 1755-1758, through the Experiences of Quartermaster Sir John St. Clair.  Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland.  223 pp.

David, James Corbett.  2013.  Dunmore’s New World: The Extraordinary Life of a Royal Governor in Revolutionary America--with Jacobites, Counterfeiters, Land Schemes, Shipwrecks, Scalping, Indian Politics, Runaway Slaves, and Two Illegal Royal Weddings [1732-1809].  Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.  270 pp.  “...he also undertook an unauthorized Indian war in the Ohio Valley, now known as Dunmore’s War, that was instrumental in opening the Kentucky country to white settlement.”

Dietle, Lannie.  2015.  “Evaluating Indian and Packer’s Path Traditions about the Turkey Foot Road.”  Journal of the Alleghenies 51: 25-36.  History of a supply route from Cumberland, Md., to Fort Pitt initiated by George Washington in 1779.

Faulkner, Charles H.  2013.  Massacre at Cavett’s Station: Frontier Tennessee during the Cherokee Wars.  Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.  170 pp.  “Faulkner combines careful historical research with meticulous archaeological excavations conducted in the developed areas of the west Knoxville suburbs to illuminate what happened on that fateful day in 1793.”

Feeney, Alison E., and Brandon Snyder.  2013.  “Reconstructing Colonial Settlement of the Cumberland Valley: Case Study of the Hawbecker Farm in Montgomery Township, Pennsylvania.”  Pennsylvania Geographer 51, no. 2 (Fall-Winter): 51-65.

Fitzpatrick, Alan.  2014.  Place of the Skull: The Untold Story of Wheeling’s Earliest History.  Benwood, W. Va.: Fort Henry Publications.  244 pp.  Eighteenth-century, Upper Ohio Valley; “vengeance, blood, and the British flag at Wheeling,”(West) Virginia.

Floyd, John.  2013.  John Floyd: The Life and Letters of a Frontier Surveyor [Ky.; 1750-1783].  Louisville, Ky.: Butler Books.  298 pp.
Grimes, Richard S.  2013.  “We ‘Now Have Taken up the Hatchet against Them’: Braddock’s Defeat and the Martial Liberation of the Western Delawares” [1755].  Pennsylvania Magazine of History & Biography 137, no. 3 (July): 227-259.  Delaware and Shawnee tribes; balance of power.

Gutchess, Alan.  2014.  “Pittsburgh, Virginia?”  Western Pennsylvania History 97, no. 2 (Summer): 6-7.  In 1774, the corners of southwestern Pennsylvania and northwestern [West] Virginia were renamed the West Augusta District by Virginia’s Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, who also renamed Fort Pitt, “Fort Dunmore.” The region was divided into three counties: Monongalia, Ohio, and Yohogania.  In 1776, a group from the region petitioned the Continental Congress for the creation of a 14th state to be named “Westylvania.” The petition was ignored, the Revolution commenced, and in 1780 Pennsylvania regained most of its disputed lands.

Guzy, Dan.  2014.  “The 1736 Survey of the Potomac River.”  Virginia Magazine of History & Biography 122, no. 1: 2-39.   Examines the boundary dispute between former Virginia lieutenant governor William Gooch and Thomas, Lord Fairfax.

Hall, Richard.  2015.  “‘Storys, Scalping and Mohawking’.”  Journal of Early American History 5, no. 2: 158-186.  “...examines an often underappreciated factor in the defeat of General Edward Braddock’s infamous expedition against Fort Duquesne of 1755 .... the influence of the frontier tales, narratives and other stories (or the ‘rhetoric of fear’) fed to the regular British soldiery...as they marched across Western Maryland and Virginia on the long and arduous route to the Monongahela.”

Haller, Charles R.  2014.  Pushing the Indians Out: Early Movers & Shakers in Western North Carolina (and Tennessee Territory).  Charlotte, N.C.: Money Tree Imprints.  288 pp.

Hammon, Neal O., and James Russell Harris.  2014.  “Daniel Boone the Businessman: Revising the Myth of Failure.”  Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 112, no. 1: 5-50.  “...examines his sometimes-familiar exploits through a business perspective, a detailed accounting of the profits and losses Boone experienced in his decades-long search for wealth and rank.”

Hornor, Elizabeth.  2015.  “Intimate Enemies: Captivity and Colonial Fear of Indians in the Mid-Eighteenth Century Wars.”  Pennsylvania History 82, no. 2 (Spring): 162-185.

Maass, John R.  2013.  The French and Indian War in North Carolina: The Spreading Flames of War.  Charleston, S.C.: History Press.  142 pp.  Contents: The war begins | The colony fights an imperial war | Turning point: 1757 | Struggle in the wilderness | The Cherokee War.

Mays, Ryan S.  2014.  “The Draper’s Meadows Settlement (1746-1756), Part I: George Draper and Family.”  Smithfield Review 18: 25-50.  Frontier New River Valley, currently Montgomery County, Va.  Draper’s Meadows became the Smithfield Plantation.

Mays, Ryan S.  2015.  “The Draper’s Meadows Settlement (1746-1756), Part II.”  Smithfield Review 19: 1-32.   “...one of the earliest Euro-American settlements in the colonial Virginia backcountry,” and site of the 1755 Draper’s Meadows Massacre and abduction of Mary Draper Ingles.

McCleskey, Turk, and James C. Squire.  2014.  “Random Selection of Petit Jurors on the Virginia Frontier, 1746–55.”  Historical Methods 47, no. 3, (July-September): 128-137.

McCleskey, Turk, and James C. Squire.  2014.  Pennsylvania Credit in the Virginia Backcountry, 1746–1755.  Pennsylvania History 81, no. 2 (Spring): 207-225.    “...investigates economic connections between Virginia frontier [Augusta County] settlements and Pennsylvania”

McCullogh, James.  2015.  James McCullogh’s Book: A Glimpse into Life on the Colonial Frontier [Pa.; diaries; 1740-1781].  Edited by John Stauffer and Calvin Bricker.  Mercersburg, Pa.: Conococheague Institute.  141 pp.

Moffett, Myra DeLapp.  2014.  “Backcountry Bartleby: The Account Books of James L.
Smith, 1836-1898” [Davidson Co., formerly Rowan Co., N.C.].  Journal of Backcountry Studies 9, no. 1 (Spring): 9-18.

Morris, Michael P.  2015.  George Galphin and the Transformation of the Georgia-South Carolina Backcountry.  Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.  193 pp.  Eighteenth-century Ulster-Scot deerskin trader (1709-1780); Creek Indian diplomacy; Patriot cause; Scots-Irish immigrants.

Nash, Robert T.  2014.  “From Germantown and Valley Forge to Middle Tennessee: A Research Note on Land Grants and Paying for the North Carolina Continental Line.”  Tennessee Historical Quarterly 73, no. 4 (Winter): 312-331.

Oliphant, John.  2015.  John Forbes: Scotland, Flanders and the Seven Years’ War, 1707-1759.  London: Bloomsbury Academic.  173 pp.  Biography of the British general with an emphasis on his 1758 march over the Allegheny Mountains to take Fort Duquesne from the French.

Owens, Robert M.  2015.  Red Dreams, White Nightmares: Pan-Indian Alliances in the Anglo-American Mind, 1763-1815.  Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.  304 pp.

Preston, David L.  2015.  Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution.  New York: Oxford University Press.  460 pp.  March against Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) in 1755.

Ray, Kristofer, ed.  2014.  Before the Volunteer State: New Thoughts on Early Tennessee, 1540-1800 [nine essays].  Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.  230 pp.  Contents: The European invasion and the transformation of the Indians of Tennessee, 1540-1715 / Robbie Ethridge -- Cherokees, empire, and the Tennessee corridor in the British imagination, 1670-1730 / Kristofer Ray -- “It seems like coming into our houses”: challenges to Cherokee hunting grounds, 1750-1775 / Tyler Boulware -- Shawnee geography and the Tennessee corridor in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries / John P. Bowes -- Tennessee in the American Revolution: a reconsideration / Richard Gildrie -- Military families: kinship in the American Revolution / Natalie Inman -- The state of Franklin: separatism, competition, and the legacy of Tennessee’s first state, 1783-1789 / Kevin Barksdale -- John Montgomery and the perils of American identity in the Mero District, 1780-1795 / David Britton -- Afterword: searching for John Sevier: myth, memory, and the history of early Tennessee history / Kevin Barksdale and Kristofer Ray.

Ray, Kristofer.  2014.  “Cherokees and Franco-British Confrontation in the Tennessee Corridor, 1730–1760.”  Native South 7, no. 1 (2014): 33-67.   “...Cherokee agency between 1730 and 1760 had a significant consequence: it helped push Britain from an imaginary western empire toward an actual presence in the trans-Appalachian South. In so doing it laid the foundation for the struggles that would come to define the area in the Revolutionary era.”

Rice, William H.  2013.  Colonial Records of the Upper Potomac, Volume Three: 1748-1750, Settlement Expansion.  Parsons, W. Va.: McClain Printing.  218 pp.

Rice, William H.  2014.  Colonial Records of the Upper Potomac, Volume Four: Surveys and Land Claims Before 1757.  Parsons, W. Va.: McClain Printing.  232 pp.  Includes over 500 surveys covering Allegany and Washington counties, Md.; Morgan, Hampshire, Mineral, Tucker, Hardy, Grant, and Pendleton counties, (West) Virginia; and Highland County, Virginia.

Rice, William H.  2014.  Colonial Records of the Upper Potomac, Volume Five:1750-1755, A Path to Destruction.  Parsons, W. Va.: McClain Printing.  272 pp.  Includes copies of 70 documents.

Russell, Richard.  2013.  Robert Henry: A Western Carolina Patriot [1767-1863].  Charleston, S.C.: History Press.  “Robert Henry is a character more suited for fiction than nonfiction. While just a boy, he fought with the Overmountain Men at Kings Mountain and battled British troops along the Catawba River. As a surveyor, he helped mark the boundary line between Tennessee and North Carolina. He had a long career as a prominent attorney and owned the famous Sulphur Springs resort.”

Sachs, Honor.  2015.  Home Rule: Households, Manhood, and National Expansion on the Eighteenth-Century Kentucky Frontier.  Lamar Series in Western History.  New Haven: Yale University Press.  193 pp.

Saunt, Claudio.  2014.  “Western Speculation: Henderson’s Transylvania Colony.”  Prologue in West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, by C. Saunt, 17-28.  New York: Norton.  “Three days after buying twenty-two million acres of land from the Cherokees, Richard Henderson .... had grandiose plans for the immense purchase, which...extended over most of Kentucky and part of Tennessee.  He dreamed of establishing a fourteenth colony.”

Sen, Tinni, Turk McCleskey, and Atin Basuchoudhary.  2015.  “When Good Little Debts Went Bad: Civil Litigation on the Virginia Frontier, 1745-1755.”  Journal of Interdisciplinary History 46, no. 1 (Summer): 60-89.  “...dataset of 1,376 small-claims lawsuits in colonial Augusta County, Virginia...finds no evidence of prejudice in the legal system .... Virginia’s frontier judicial system  was sufficiently impartial to encourage creditors to draw up efficient contracts even for small debts.”
Simpson, Wilma Hicks.  2013.  Greater than the Mountains Was He: The True Story of Johann Jacob Shook of Haywood County, North Carolina [1749-1839].  Mustang, Okla.: Tate Publishing.  180 pp.  Genealogy: Jacob Shook is the author’s third great-grandfather.

Steele, Ian K.  2013.  “A Miller’s Tale of Captivity, Ransom, and Remembrance, 1758-1811” [Delaware Indians].  Pennsylvania Magazine of History & Biography 137, no. 4 (October): 431-443.

Steele, Ian Kenneth.  2013.  Setting All the Captives Free: Capture, Adjustment, and Recollection in Allegheny Country [Pa., N.Y.].  McGill-Queen’s Native and Northern Series, no. 71.  Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.  688 pp.  Contents: Taken along warriors’ paths | Taking traders, 1745-54 | Colonial soldiers take captives, 1754 | Taken in raids, 1754-59 | Taken in sieges and surrenders, 1756-58 | Taken in battles, 1755-59 | Indian War with traders and soldiers, 1763-65 | Indian War with white settlers, 1763-65 | Trails into captivity | Allegheny white Indians | Escaped | The bereft | Diplomacy of gift exchange, 1756-62 | Redeemed and exchanged, 1745-62 | Forced return of captives | Imperial moment, 1765 | Restoring and revising identities | Captivating accounts, 1755-1826.  A 112-page appendix lists every named captive taken in the Alleghenies, 1745-1765.

Thompson, Robert.  2013.  A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier: Phebe Tucker Cunningham[biography; 1761-1845].  Charleston, S.C.: History Press.  158 pp.  Three-year Wyandot Indian captivity; rescued by Simon Girty and Alexander McKee.

Watkins, Sharon B.  2014.  “Political Passions in the Backcountry of Tennessee and Kentucky in 1797.”  Smithfield Review 18: 1-23.  References the travel diary of the Duke of Orleans, future French King, and the impact of the whiskey excise tax on farmers.

White, Jessi.  2014.  “Rice Duncan’s Long Rifle: A Study of the East Tennessee Long Rifle Tradition.”  Journal of Backcountry Studies 9, no. 1 (Spring): 1-8.