Much of the below is taken from
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/e7469af5-2f00-4139-93e3-f2fcdbbf2469/content
The author seems to be Ryan S. Mays. I am hitting the high points but the main emphasis of this blog post is to remember how to get to this information again.
1744 was the year that there is the first primary documentation that Adam Harmon had settled on the New River. And June 1744 was the time in which a meeting was held in Lancaster PA between representatives from PA and VA and Maryland as well as representatives from the six Nations and other northern Indian tribes. Note it ends with Adam Harmon's at Tom's Creek on New River
I will zero into the box above so it is clearer where Tom's Creek is
There is an excellent map of where the author of this article believes likely the location of Adam Harmon's cabin. I am not going to try to reproduce his drawing. But it is very worth visiting the site to see.
It would seem that the six nations indians gave up their rights to the land that lay in Virginia and that in return they were promised use of the road. This opened up settlement of the Virginia lands on the western waters.
The footnotes to this article are excellent if one wishes more information.
There is a great little map on the blog site
There is more good information on this blog site. The below paragraph is found on this site. The information is taken from the first book that Kegley wrote when Mary Kegley was just helping him. It is a huge book that I own. The two facts inferred in this paragraph is that in order to obtain a tract one had to settle and improve the land which kept settlers from buying for resale only and also that that this was the time period when the french and Indian War was beginning and that the Shawnee warriors were coming as far south as this area.
In fact, the Harman name appears on grants in numerous places in the area, so many places that M. B. Kegley and F. B. Kegley observe, “It is apparent that the Harmans were interested in tracts of land on Pine Run, Walker’s Creek, Bluestone, Sinking Creek, as well as the tracts on Tom’s Creek and the Horseshoe, but their large selections were more than they could ‘settle and improve’ and as a result most of their claims were forfeited.”
[21] One might also infer, given the danger from attacks on the settlements perpetrated by Shawnee warriors, which intensified with the start of the French and Indian War, that the Harman families may have abandoned their tracts for that reason as well.
22The Cohongoronto River according to wikipedia is another name for the Potomac river. Looking at the below map you can see that the road above uses the Great wagon road that is already in existence in 1740 down to what is now Roanoke Virginia. What is interesting is that the great Wagon road continues south into the Carolinas at this point. However, the Shenandoah Valley itself begins to go south west at this point and this would have been the road that our Castle family would have taken when leaving the land they had bought from Stover....and sold about 1740.
As the road came through the valley Below Harrisonburg to Lexington the men who were mentioned are Colonel James Patton, Patrick Campbell, and Patrick Hayes. The latter two are my ancestors and I know where they were living on the Beverley Manor in this time period. This would have been about halfway between Harrisonburg and Lexington right on the Great Wagon Road
Captain George Robinson settled on 191 acres on a branch of Buffalo Creek.
The next road that went from Adam Harmon's to the
