A HISTORY OF THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA

Winchester: Samuel H. Davis, 1833., 1833. First edition. First edition. 12mo. Original calf, leather spine label with titles stamped in gilt, xlvi - 486 pp., introduction, appendix, six pages of subscribers' names. Provides important primary information on the earliest white settlements of the Shenandoah Valley and South Branch Potomac River and their encounters with local Indians. Kercheval was assiduous in interviewing the old timers and has assembled a large body of fact and tradition, as well as frontier life during the Indian wars and the Revolution. Much on Indian captivities and massacres, as well as pioneer hardships. "Over half the book is a reprint, with full credit, of parts two and three (in reverse order) of "Doddridge's Notes, 1824," concerning frontier warfare and the daily life of pioneers; together John Jeremiah Jacob’s his account of Dunmore’s War and with Charles James Faulkner’s account of the boundary dispute between Maryland and Virginia. Howes K 102 says "One of the best collections on early border wars; as it should be, being largely pirated from Doddridge." Foxed throughout with light wear to the spine ends, corners and extremities, else a good plus to very good copy.