Ten Mile Creek is Renamed by Settlers
Ten Mile Creek: Tracing Its Earliest Name
For years, I set out to answer two questions: when did settlers begin calling it Ten Mile Creek—and what name did Native people give it before that?
The earliest known map I have found dates to 1770, created by William Scull. On it, the creek is labeled “Cusuthas.” This appears to be the first recorded attempt to capture its earlier name in written form. Later maps show similar variations, including “Cusuthee,” suggesting not different names, but different spellings of the same spoken word recorded by different mapmakers over time.
In early mapping, Native place names were often written phonetically, based on how they were heard by English-speaking surveyors and cartographers. Because of that, spelling was inconsistent and fluid, and names could shift slightly from one map to another without necessarily changing their meaning.
By 1774, however, settlers were already using a different name entirely. In History of Washington County (1870), Alfred Creigh includes a letter from Aeneas Mackay (also spelled Maclcay) written in Pittsburgh to Governor Penn, stating: “We don’t know what day or hour we will be attacked… about and in the neighborhood of Tenmile Creek…” This confirms that the English name was already in use by the earliest period of settlement.
Ten Mile Creek was a descriptive name, referring to its distance from the mouth of the Monongahela River, a common naming practice used by settlers throughout the region.
The name carried into the surrounding community. Ten Mile Village and its post office, established in 1838 as “Ten Mile” and later changed to “Tenmile,” both reflect that usage.
Native communities would have had their own name for the creek, and the appearance of “Cusuthas” on the 1770 Scull map suggests at least one recorded attempt to preserve it. What remains is not a single fixed spelling, but a fragment of how that name was heard, written, and passed forward through early mapping.
One final note: both “Ten Mile” and “Tenmile” appear in historical records. The variation reflects changing usage over time—something that continues to shape how the name is written today.
1805 map section showing Ten Mile Creek as Ten Mile Run.
1817 map section showing the name as Ten Mile Creek.
Now that this is all cleared up, here are names of the creek on old maps. There are no maps I have come across that have the spelling "Cusuthee", but the name "Cusuthee" is mentioned 100 years after the Indians called it Cusuthas Creek. Perhaps this was a version of the white man's name for the creek, taken from the Indian name?:
1770-Cusuthas Creek
1805-Ten Mile Run
1817-Ten Mile Creek
1901-Tenmile Creek
1954-Ten Mile Creek
2013-Tenmile Creek
The North fork of Ten Mile Creek runs through Marianna. Ten Mile Creek begins in South Franklin Township and flows east approximately 12 miles where it empties into Hufford run in West Bethlehem Township. Several streams flow into the North fork of Ten Mile Creek: Horn, Hufford, Daniels, Barr, Patterson, and Brush Runs. Eventually, the North Fork of Ten Mile Creek joins with the South Fork of Ten Mile Creek(which originates in Center Township, Greene County), in Clarksville, and from there the South Fork empties into the Monongahela River. Ten Mile Creek is one of the largest tributaries of the Monongahela River.
Source:
The flouring mill was propelled by water. A plat of land shows the mill's location in 1785. The year it was built, however, is unknown.
*Boyd Crumrine, "History of Washington County, Pennsylvania with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men" (Philadelphia: L. H. Leverts & Co., 1882).
Commemorative Record of Washington County 1893
Folklore
This tidbit was given to me by someone who had saved a written note from her ancestor that was tucked inside some old documents that "Jacob Tenmile, who came to Northern WV in 1769, settled on the North Branch of Tingoogua Creek (Ten Mile Creek). Upon his death, the creek was changed in his honor by the 1st commissioners of Washington County. Jacob was born in Maryland. He died in 1793."
~Mention Tingoogua HERE.
~History of Washington County-by Alfred Creigh 1870
~Ohio History 1710-1780 (mention of Tenmile)
~Indian warfare, household competency, and the settlement of the western Virginia frontier, 1749 to 1794. (mention of Tenmile)
