Kanawha River

       
Photo Credit:  https://wvtourism.com/company/kanawha-falls/
Researched and compiled by Carrie Birdsong

State: West Virginia
Counties: Fayette, Kanawha, Putnam, Mason
Source: New River
     1.     Location: Ashe, County, NC.
     2.     Elevation: 2,546 ft. (776 m).
2nd Source: Gauley River.
     1.     Location: Three Forks of Gauley,
             Pocahontas County, WV.
     2.     Elevation: 2,917 ft. (889 m).
Source Confluence:
     1,     Location: Gauley Bridge, WV.
     2.     Elevation: 653 ft. (199 m).
Mouth: Ohio River
     1.     Location: Point Pleasant, WV.
     2.     Elevation: 538 ft. (164 m).
     3.     Length: 97 miles (156 m).
     4.     Basin Size: 12,236 sq mi (31,690 km2).
Discharge:
     1.     Location: Charleston, 56.8 mi (91.4 km)
                              from the mouth.
     2.     Average: 15,240 cu ft/s (432 m3/s)
     3.     Minimum: 1,100 cu ft/s (31 m3/s)
     4.     Maximum: 216,000 cu ft/s (6,100 m3/s)
Progression: Kanawha River à Ohio River à
                     Mississippi River à Gulf of Mexico.
Tributaries:
     1.     Left: Ferry Branch, Coal River
     2.     Right: Elk River, Pocatalico River

The Kanawha River is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 miles long, in West Virginia, and is the largest inland waterway in West Virginia. Its watershed has been a significant industrial region of the state since the 19th century.

The name derives from the region's Iroquoian dialects meaning “water way” or “canoe way” implying the metaphor “transport way”, in the local language.

Archaeological artifacts, such as Clovis points and later projectiles, indicate prehistoric indigenous peoples living in the area from the 12,500 BC era. People of later cultures continued to live along the valley and heights. Those of the Adena culture built at least 50 earthwork mounds and 10 enclosures in the area between Charleston and Dunbar, as identified by an 1882 to 1884 survey by the Bureau of Ethnology (later part of the Smithsonian Institution). Three of their mounds survive in the valley, including Criel Mound at present-day South Charleston, West Virginia. Evidence has been found of the Fort Ancient culture peoples, who had villages that survived to the time of European contact, such as Buffalo and Marmet. They were driven out by the Iroquois from present-day New York.

According to French missionary reports, by the late 16th century, several thousand Huron, originally of the Great Lakes region, lived in central West Virginia. They were partially exterminated and their remnant was driven out in the 17th century by the Iroquois’ invading from western present-day New York. Other accounts note that the tribe known as Conois, Conoy, Canawesee, or Kanawha were conquered or driven out by the large Seneca tribe, one of the Iroquois Confederacy, as the Seneca boasted to Virginia officials in 1744. The Iroquois and other tribes, such as the Shawnee and Delaware, maintained central West Virginia as a hunting ground. It was essentially unpopulated when the English and Europeans began to move into the area. This area is the lower area of today’s St. Albans, West Virginia. After the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, “The Kanawha’s had gone from upper tributaries of the river which bears their name, to join their kinsmen, the Iroquois in New York; the Shawnee had abandoned the Indian Oil Fields of the valley of the South Branch of the Potomac; Delaware was gone from the Monongahela; the Cherokee who claimed all the region between the Great Kanawha and Big Sandy had never occupied it.”, quoting Virgil A. Lewis (1887), corresponding member of the Virginia Historical Society. The river’s name changes to the Kanawha River at the Kanawha Falls. The Treaty of Big Tree between the Seneca Nation and the United States established ten reservations. This formal treaty was signed on September 15, 1797. Lewis was granted a large tract of land near the mouth of the Great Kanawha River in the late 18th century.

The Little Kanawha and the Great Kanawha rivers, the two largest in the state, were named for the American Indian tribe that lived in the area before European settlement in the 18th century. Under pressure from the Iroquois, most of the Conoy/Kanawha had migrated to present-day Virginia by 1634, where they had settled on the west side of Chesapeake Bay below the Potomac River. They were also known as colonists there as the Piscataway. They later migrated north to Pennsylvania, to submit and seek protection with the Susquehannock and Iroquois. The spelling of the Indian tribe varied at the time, from Conoys to Conois to Kanawha. The latter spelling was used and has gained acceptance over time.