Archaeological artifacts, such as
Clovis points and later projectiles, indicate
prehistoric indigenous peoples living in the area from the 12,500 BC era. Peoples of later cultures continued to live along the valley and heights. Those of the
Adena culture built at least 50
earthwork mounds and 10
enclosures in the area between
Charleston and
Dunbar, as identified by an 1882 to 1884 survey by the
Bureau of Ethnology (later part of the
Smithsonian Institution). Three of their mounds survive in the valley, including
Criel Mound at present-day
South Charleston, West Virginia. Evidence has been found of the
Fort Ancient culture peoples, who had villages that survived to the time of European contact, such as
Buffalo and
Marmet. They were driven out by
Iroquois from present-day
New York. According to
French missionary reports, by the late 16th century, several thousand
Huron, originally of the
Great Lakes region, lived in central West Virginia. They were partially exterminated and their remnant driven out in the 17th century by the
Iroquois' invading from western present-day New York. Other accounts note that the tribe known as
Conois,
Conoy, Canawesee, or Kanawha were conquered or driven out by the large
Seneca tribe, one of the
Iroquois Confederacy, as the Seneca boasted to
Virginia colonial officials in 1744. The Iroquois and other tribes, such as the
Shawnee and
Delaware, maintained central West Virginia as a hunting ground. It was essentially unpopulated when the
English and
Europeans began to move into the area. The first white person to travel through Virginia all the way to the Ohio River (other than as a prisoner of the natives) was
Matthew Arbuckle, Sr., who traversed the length of the Kanawha River valley arriving at (what would later be called) Point Pleasant around 1764. In April 1774, Captain Hanson was one of an expedition: "18th. We surveyed of Land for Col. Washington, bordered by Coal River & the Canawagh..." This area is the lower area of today's
St. Albans, West Virginia. After the
Treaty of Fort Stanwix, "The Kanawhas had gone from the upper tributaries of the river which bears their name, to join their kinsmen, the Iroquois in New York; the Shawnee had abandoned the Indian Old Fields of the valley of the South Branch of the Potomac; the Delaware were gone from the Monongahela; the Cherokee who claimed all the region between the Great Kanawha and Big Sandy, had never occupied it." quoting
Virgil A. Lewis (1887), corresponding member of the Virginia Historical Society. The river's name changes to the Kanawha River at the
Kanawha Falls. The
Treaty of Big Tree between the
Seneca nation and the
United States established ten reservations. This formal treaty was signed on September 15, 1797. Lewis was granted a large tract of land near the mouth of the Great Kanawha River in the late 18th century. The
Little Kanawha and the Great Kanawha rivers, the two largest in the state, were named for the
Native American tribe that lived in the area prior to European settlement in the 18th century. Under pressure from the Iroquois, most of the Conoy/Kanawha had migrated to present-day Virginia by 1634, where they had settled on the west side of the
Chesapeake Bay and below the
Potomac River. They were also known to the colonists there as the
Piscataway. They later migrated north to
Pennsylvania, to submit and seek protection with the
Susquehannock and Iroquois. The spelling of the tribe varied at the time, from
Conoys to
Conois to
Kanawha. The latter spelling was used and has gained acceptance over time. ==Crossings==