The Shawnee Trail was the white settlers' name for an American Indian trail in what is now eastern

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

, USA. It was a segment (or branch) of the much larger Indian trail network known as the

Great Indian Warpath The Great Indian Warpath (GIW)—also known as the Great Indian War and Trading Path, or the Seneca Trail—was that part of the network of trails in eastern North America developed and used by Native Americans which ran through the Great Appala ...

, which stretched from

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

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. The GIW was referred to from this point north as the "Seneca Trail". Thus, in pioneer days, the segment known as the Shawnee Trail was often also referred to as the Seneca Trail.

Route

The Shawnee Trail began on the

South Branch Potomac River The South Branch Potomac River has its headwaters in northwestern Highland County, Virginia near Hightown along the eastern edge of the Allegheny Front. After a river distance of ,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolu ...

somewhere below what is now

Moorefield, West Virginia Moorefield is a town and the county seat of Hardy County, West Virginia, United States. It is located at the confluence of the South Branch Potomac River and the South Fork South Branch Potomac River. Moorefield was originally chartered in 1777; ...

and proceeded up that river to its confluence with the

North Fork South Branch Potomac River The South Branch Potomac River has its headwaters in northwestern Highland County, Virginia near Hightown along the eastern edge of the Allegheny Front. After a river distance of ,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolu ...

. It continued up that Fork and up Seneca Creek (passing

Seneca Rocks Seneca Rocks is a large crag and local landmark in Pendleton County in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, United States. The south peak is one of a small number of peaks inaccessible except by technical rock climbing techniques on the East ...

) and crossed the crests of the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

(and in so doing, the upper tributaries of the

Cheat River The Cheat River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in eastern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the Uni ...

) above the mouth of Horse Camp Creek. This segment passed near the future sites of Harman and

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. The trail entered the Tygart River Valley near Elkins and proceeded up the Tygart past Beverly to Huttonsville.

Traffic

The Shawnee Trail was long used by the

Algonquians The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. Historically, the peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. T ...

(including the

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

Tuscarora Tuscarora may refer to the following: First nations and Native American people and culture * Tuscarora people **''Federal Power Commission v. Tuscarora Indian Nation'' (1960) * Tuscarora language, an Iroquoian language of the Tuscarora people * ...

, and

Seneca nation The Seneca Nation of Indians is a federally recognized Seneca tribe based in western New York. They are one of three federally recognized Seneca entities in the United States, the others being the Tonawanda Band of Seneca (also in western New Y ...

s to transit this part of the Alleghenies for purposes of trade and war. The name "Shawnee Trail" was applied after Native Americans of that tribe followed the trail out of the region after burning

Fort Seybert Fort Seybert was an 18th-century frontier fort in the Allegheny Mountains in what is now Pendleton County, West Virginia, United States. In a 1758 surprise raid occasioned by the French and Indian War (1754–63), most of the 30 white settlers sh ...

(1758) in

Pendleton County, West Virginia Pendleton County is a county located in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,143, making it the second-least populous county in West Virginia. Its county seat is Franklin. The county was created by the V ...

. A local historian described the use of the Trail in white pioneer days, and later, as follows:

he Shawnee Trailwas much used by early settlers and became important for a century as the chief highway between the South Branch and Tygart's valley. Over it, travelled hundreds of pack horses loaded with salt, iron, and other merchandise, and many droves of cattle fattened for the eastern market. In the
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
it furnished an avenue of escape for a detachment of Confederates cut off from General Garnett's army at the
battle of Rich mountain The Battle of Rich Mountain took place on July 11, 1861, in Randolph County, Virginia (now West Virginia) as part of the Operations in Western Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War. Background Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan assumed com ...
, five miles west of Beverly, in 1861, and it was used by Imboden and
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in driving eastward the horses and cattle captured in their great raid of 1863.Callahan, ''Op. cit.''

Route

Traffic

References

See also