There is no record—except for isolated artifacts—of Indian inhabitants in Shenandoah National Park. The Shawnee and the Moneton, Saponi, and Manahoac were reported in the valleys during the 17th century, but they wandered into the mountains only occasionally to hunt.

It is not surprising, then, that John Lederer found only deer, bears, and wolves when he arrived in the present area of Big Meadows with his Indian guides. Virginia’s Governor, Sir William Berkeley, had sent him, in 1669, to explore the unknown mountains. Lederer is the first known white man to venture into the uncharted Blue Ridge.

In 1716, Gov. Alexander Spotswood, also seeking westward expansion for Virginia, led 50 men on horseback through Swift Run Gap and down the western slope to see the Shenandoah Valley, where they camped by the river they called “Euphrates.” After their return home Spotswood proclaimed them “Knights of the Golden Horseshoe,” and presented each a tiny gold horseshoe.

Shortly afterward, English, German, and Scotch-Irish pioneers began to settle in the valleys. They gradually moved up into the coves and hollows of the Blue Ridge. By 1760, roads were being built, and grist mills, sawmills, cider presses, and tanneries were common sights. The first toll turnpike, in 1785, crossed the mountains at Thornton Gap (Panorama). It was named for Francis Thornton, who settled there in 1733. Other important roads crossed at Swift Run and Browns Gap, in the southern section of the park.

In the early years, the settlers of the Blue Ridge coves and hollows wrested a comfortable living from their farms and domestic industries. They sold lumber products and tanbark to the lowland settlers for cash and thus could buy things they could not produce.

For some 20 years before the Civil War, there was iron and copper mining in the Blue Ridge. The mountain people were not much affected by this short-lived industry and by the time the war came, the ores had been worked out. You can see remnants of the old copper mines on the Stony Man Nature Trail.

During the Civil War, both the Piedmont and the Shenandoah Valley became battlegrounds; Browns Gap was used by Jackson as an important thoroughfare in the Campaign of 1862, and Signal Knob became a major communications point. You can see Signal Knob from the Shenandoah Valley Overlook.

When the railroad came to the Shenandoah Valley, heavy machinery and larger, more efficient industry came with it. Many mills and tanyards that served small communities through the skill and energy of one man or family became quiet, then decayed into the landscape. Demand for the mountaineers’ crafts decreased. They had little cash income left except from moonshining and chestnuts. By 1915, the fungus chestnut blight had destroyed most of the chestnut trees.