Carpenter Creek in

western Virginia Western Virginia is a geographic region in Virginia comprising the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia. Generally, areas in Virginia located west of, or (in many cases) within, the piedmont region are considered part of western Virginia. T ...

, now known as

Potts Creek Potts Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 24, 2011 tributary of the Jackson River in western Virginia. Via the Jackson River, it is part of the James River ...

, was shown on a map of the area drawn by

Joshua Fry Colonel Joshua Fry (1699–1754) was an English-born American adventurer who became a professor, then real estate investor and local official in the colony of Virginia. Although he served several terms in the House of Burgesses, he may be best kn ...

and

Peter Jefferson Peter Jefferson (February 29, 1708 – August 17, 1757) was a planter, cartographer and politician in colonial Virginia best known for being the father of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The "Fry-Jefferson Map", creat ...

in 1751 and printed in 1755, and so called in the text of Thomas Jefferson's "Notes on the State of Virginia" that he prepared in the 1780s. Carpenter's Creek is also shown as such on John Ballendine's map of the

James River The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 to Chesapea ...

published c1772 and Thomas Hutchins' map of the western regions of Virginia published in 1778. The creek later acquired the name Potts Creek from a settler who lived further up the valley at the headwaters of the creek on Potts Mountain. The Carpenter name persisted in occasional use through at least 1784, when in a report to George Washington it was confused with Dunlap's Creek, and a grant was identified as located on Carpenter's "River" on July 1, 1793, but the name Potts Creek was in common use by the late 1790s. Carpenter's Creek received its name from Joseph Carpenter, who on June 1, 1750, received a patent from the British Crown for of land on the south side of the Big Bend of Jackson's River ( Jackson River (Virginia)) where the creek flows into the river.''Magazine of Virginia Genealogy'', Vol. 30, No. 3 (August 1992), p. 204. Present day

is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed October 24, 2011 tributary of the Jackson River in western Virginia. Via the Jackson River, it is part of the

watershed, flowing to Chesapeake Bay. The creek rises in

Monroe County, West Virginia Monroe County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 12,376. Its county seat is Union. Monroe County was the home of Andrew Summers Rowan of Spanish–American War fame, who is immortalized in ...

, south of Waiteville, and flows northeast through Craig County and Alleghany County in Virginia, joining the Jackson River at

Covington Covington may refer to: People * Covington (surname) Places United Kingdom * Covington, Cambridgeshire * Covington, South Lanarkshire United States * Covington, Georgia * Covington, Indiana * Covington, Kentucky, the largest American cit ...

Notes and references

{{authority control Rivers of Virginia Rivers of West Virginia Tributaries of the James River Rivers of Monroe County, West Virginia Bodies of water of Craig County, Virginia Rivers of Alleghany County, Virginia

See also

Notes and references