GREENBRIER RIVER .

 

This is one of the prettiest mountain rivers in America . It has its source on the highlands in the northern part of Pocahontas County flows through it and Greenbrier into Summers , where , at Hinton , it unites with the New River . 

The Miami Indians knew it as the Weotowe and the Delawares called it Onepake . Whence comes the present name, that of Greenbrier ?  

The French knew the stream as the Ronceverte , ( Roncer brier, or bramble , and verte, or verd , green or verdant ), the greenbrier .  

This the Virginians Saxonized and called the stream Greenbrier River . The old French name is preserved in that of the progressive town of Ronceverte, on its banks, in Greenbrier County . 

There has long been a tradition reciting that when in 1750 , John Lewis , the father of General Andrew Lewis , came to the valley of this river to survey lands for the Greenbrier Land Company , he , on one occasion , became entangled in the greenbriers growing on its banks and he declared that henceforth he should call it Greenbrier River .  

This cannot be true , for the company for which he came to make the surveys bore the name of the Greenbrier Land Company , and in its grant of one hundred thousand acres from the Governor and Coun cil in 1749, it was provided that these lands should be located in the valley of Greenbrier River . 

Thus it was that the name of this stream was well known before John Lewis came to make surveys thereon , and at which time he is said to have given the name to this river .