Cumberland Mountains

The Allegheny highlands form a rugged part of the Appalachian chain, their forested ridges extending southwest toward the Cumberland Mountains. Streams cut through the sandstone heights and drain toward the New River and the Ohio basin. In the seventeenth century, Indigenous communities lived in the valleys beyond Virginia's eastern settlements. The English expedition of Batts and Fallam crossed into this mountain country in 1671, following a stream to the river then called Wood's River.