Ten Mile Creek is Renamed by Settlers
What I have written here is my journey to know the timeframe of when the settlers named Ten Mile Creek, and what the real Indian creek name was?
But there's a big "however". In the 1870 History of Washington County book by Alfred Creigh, (prominent Washington County resident born in Carlisle, Pa in 1810)there is a clip of a letter from Aeneas Maclcay, in Pittsburgh 1774, to Governor Penn (Maclcays name during that time is also spelled, Aeneas Mackay). The letter reads: "We don't know what day or hour we will be attacked by our savage and provoked enemy, the Indians, who have already massacred sixteen person to our certain knowledge, about and in the neighborhood of Tenmile Creek..." This tells us that settlers referred to the creek as Tenmile in 1774. The Indians would have had their own name for the creek, as it was common to give bodies of water names. But there is no documentation of this by them because they could not read or write, that is, in the way white settlers could read or write. Indians created their own written language from scratch, however. Since the name is not documented anywhere by the Indians themselves, we have to rely on what settlers remembered.
On another note-Ten Mile Village was named after Ten Mile creek as was the village post office named Ten Mile which was established in 1838. Later the post office name was changed to Tenmile. Anyway, nothing I have found proves Cusuthee was what the Indians called it other than the single sentence in Alfred Creigh's 1870 history book of Washington County that reads "Its Indian name is Cusuthee".
An early book "The Navigator" first published in 1801, by Zadok Cramer, contains directions for navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers. It can be read online at the Digital Library University of Missouri.
The book mentions the west side of the Ten Mile Creek channel on page 40, stating "On this creek, are iron works, grist, and sawmills, and it runs through a well-settled country of rich farmers principally from New Jersey." Zadok Cramer was a Pittsburgh printer and bookbinder publishing the best-known early river guides. He was inducted into the National Rivers Hall of Fame in 1988.
UPDATE! Finally, research pays off! I found a map online published in 1770. The creek on the map from the late William Scull has the creek marked "Cusuthas". See the map HERE. Now that I know the correct spelling, it's easy to find other articles that mention of the creek spelled "Cusuthas", such as The Ten Mile Country and its Pioneer Families, which includes the same map I mentioned above. By the way, William Scull was an officer in the Revolutionary War which began in April 1775 (because of the war, there would be a need to refer to the North branch as being ten miles from where it enters into the Mon, to Brownsville). Odds are pretty good Scull knew the name the Indians called the creek because he lived in that period.
I might add, that there are two spellings for Ten Mile Creek: Tenmile and Ten Mile. More on this later.
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)
