Shenandoah

The Shenandoah Valley lies between the Blue Ridge and the ridges of the Appalachians to the west. Its river runs northward to the Potomac, and Massanutten Mountain divides the valley into two branches. Indigenous peoples used the valley as a hunting ground and travel corridor; the Shawnee lived around the northern end, while paths carried people between the Potomac and the southern interior.

In 1716 Governor Alexander Spotswood crossed the Blue Ridge at Swift Run Gap and reached the Shenandoah. Quaker, Mennonite, German and Scots-Irish settlers moved into the valley in the following decades, many travelling south from Pennsylvania. Haudenosaunee leaders objected to settlement west of the Blue Ridge; their remaining claim to the valley was addressed in the Treaty of Lancaster in 1744.