Canoe the New!

The New River runs through Allegheny county as well as Ashe county and its like Disney on steroids if this is the first time you seen a "real" river. It is SO beautiful and doable.  I have canoed there several times. My husband's family grew up in canoes and on the river.   Fishing, kayaking, bird-watching, a few little rapids but not too much to discourage a novice, the New River is the second oldest in the world behind the Nile and it flows North too. It is an American Heritage River full of surprises.

I am speaking of it because I forgot to link it yesterday and I am trying to connect Allegheny to the Revolution. The connections must be in the Pension statements or in Martin Gamble's ride. The three NW counties were part of Wilkes in 1780. So, reading about the time period, you may forget where you were. 

The most interesting thing may be that out of the influence of Col. Benjamin Cleveland, and like most counties, they had a large number of Tory families still committed to King George, III. The stories of the revolution there may need to be uncovered.  

Indeed, the New River was also the area of Long Hunters, many of whom married into Native American Clans. They can connect River and the all kinds of interesting "other" stories I'm sure.  Capt. Enoch Osborne who supplied Martin Gamble with his plow horse after the first one died from exhaustion was a long hunter, a trader and fur-trapper.

It would be wrong to leave out the tales of the "other" side. Draper doesn't have too much good to say about Tories, but they obviously had their convictions too. 

The Revolution in NC was in fact as much a Civil War as anything else.  Gen. Greene   "wrote on the 23d of May, 1781, more than five months after he had assumed command of the Southern Department:

The animosity between the Whigs and Tories of this State renders their situation truly deplorable. There is not a day passes but there are more or less who fall a sacrifice to this savage disposition. The Whigs seem determined to extirpate the Tories and the Tories the Whigs. Some thousands have fallen in this way in this quarter, and the evil rages with more violence than ever. If a stop can not be put to these massacres, the country will be depopulated in a few months more, as neither Whig nor Tory can live.So, I don't know Allegheny. Find something. Embrace the long hunters, the Cherokee, the Tories or the Whigs. They were all there I'm sure.