e salt water gushed forth. William made thirty
thousand dollars a year out of his salt business and left a fortune to
his many nieces and nephews.

Roanoke is the gateway through which the visitor continues down the
famous Valley Pike, Route Eleven. From every curve in the road one sees
the beauty of nature. One learns bits of early history from the numerous
historic signs along the route--for every footstep of the brave pioneers
was bitterly contested from here on.

These first settlers were "a remarkable race of people for intelligence,
enterprise and hardy adventure." They had come partly from Botetourt,
Augusta and Frederick counties and from Maryland and Pennsylvania. They
wanted liberty and freedom to worship God as a man's conscience
dictated. They were a strong, stern people, simple in their habits of
life, God-fearing in their practices, freedom-loving and good neighbors,
yet unmerciful in their dealing with their enemies. Who were the trail
blazers for these Scotch-Irish and Germans?

Dr. Thomas Walker qualified as a surveyor of Augusta County in 1748. He
later set off with Colonel James Wood, Colonel James Patton, Colonel
John Buchanan, and Major Charles Campbell, some hunters and John Finlay
to explore southwest Virginia.

They were followed as far as New River by Thomas Ingles (or Engles) and
his three sons, a Mrs. Draper and her son George and her daughter Mary,
Adam Harman, Henry Leonard and James Burke. They were pioneers in search
of new homes in the wilderness. Lands were surveyed for all of them on
Wood's River and they made the first settlement west of the Alleghany
Divide.

Draper's Meadow

In 1748 Thomas Ingles and his three sons, Mrs. Draper, her children and
James Burke moved westward to find a new home for themselves beyond the
Blue Ridge Mountains. They chose a lovely spot on a high level plateau
in what is now Montgomery County. They called their new home, "Draper's
Meadow," and soon their new log cabins were built and their first crops
were planted and such a harvest as they reaped that first year! Other
neighbors and relatives from their old homes came to join them and for
some time all went well in the little settlement. James Burke had been
restless and had pushed on down into the southwest and settled in a
valley enclosed for almost ten miles by the huge Clinch Mountain. This
he called "Burke's Garden" and in telling others about it the old
settler said "I have indeed found