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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
Tu-Endie-Wei is apparently a Wyandot Indian term meaning ‘‘place between two waters’’ or ‘‘where two waters meet.’’ It has long referred to the point of land overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Great Kanawha rivers at Point Pleasant, although it is uncertain whether the term was applied by the Indians or later whites. This is now the site of Tu-Endie-Wei State Park.
Celoron de Blainville, claiming the Ohio Valley for Louis XV of France, buried a lead plate there in 1749. On October 10, 1774, Virginia militia commanded by Andrew Lewis and Shawnees under Chief Cornstalk fought a daylong battle, the principal event of Lord Dunmore’s War. In 1796, Walter Newman built a tavern that served travelers along the Ohio and Kanawha. Known today as the Mansion House, it is the oldest log structure in the Kanawha Valley. It now houses a museum.
Livia Poffenbarger and the Col. Charles Lewis chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution campaigned for recognition of the Battle of Point Pleasant as the first battle of the Revolutionary War, a claim generally disputed by historians. An act of Congress in 1908 provided for a monument to be erected. The small state park is dominated by an 84-foot granite obelisk with a statue of a frontiersman. There are also monuments to Charles Lewis (who died in the battle), ‘‘Mad Anne’’ Bailey, and Cornstalk, who was murdered there at Fort Randolph in 1777.
Battle Days, an annual festival in October, features encampments with historical reenactments and craft demonstrations.
Written by Arline R. Thorn
Comstock, Jim, ed. West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia vols. 10 & 11. Richwood: Jim Comstock, 1974.
West Virginia Writers' Project. West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State. New York: Oxford University Press, 1941.
Anderson, Colleen. The New West Virginia One-Day Trip Book. McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1998.