The first non-native settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains, in the Greenbrier Valley in 1749

 

Jacob Marlin was a pioneer who, along with Stephen Sewell, became the first non-native settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains, in the Greenbrier Valley in 1749.

Marlin and Sewell were both from New England. They traveled to Virginia in the 1740s in search of new land and economic opportunities. In 1749, they decided to explore the western side of the Allegheny Mountains, which was then a largely uncharted territory.

Marlin and Sewell crossed the Alleghenies and followed a mountain stream through the pass north of Beaverlick Mountain to the mouth of Knapps Creek on the Greenbrier River. There, they built a cabin and became the first official white settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains, across the Continental Divide, to the “western waters” where rivers drained west to the Mississippi, as opposed to east to the Atlantic Ocean.