Kanawha River

Point Pleasant in the mid-1960s was one of those river towns caught somewhere between a prosperous industrial past and a very uncertain future.

It sits right where the Kanawha River crashes into the Ohio River.

It's a town with heavy historical baggage, but for the local teenagers in 1966, the most interesting piece of local real estate wasn't a battlefield.

It was a sprawling, rotting wasteland about seven miles north of town known as the TNT area.

And now we have the story of the Mothman.

In 1966, Point Pleasant was a small town with just a few thousand residents located at the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers.

In November of that year, the town experienced a disturbance caused by an unidentified being.

Gravediggers at a cemetery in Clendenin, West Virginia, about 80 miles from Point Pleasant, claimed to have seen a man with wings flying over their heads and taking off from a nearby tree.

Captina Creek, 108 miles, is not far down on the Ohio bank, and beside it the little hamlet of Bohatten Point, with the West Virginia hills thereabout exceptionally high and steep, and wooded to the very top.

Washington, who knew the Ohio well, down to the great Kanawha, wrote of this creek in 1770, quote, a pretty large creek on the west side, called by Nicholson, his interpreter, Fox Grapevine, by others Captina Creek, on which, eight miles up, is the town called Grapevine Town, unquote.

Captina Village is its white successor, but there were also Indians at the mouth of the creek, for when George Rogers Clark and his missionary companion Jones, two years later camped opposite on the Virginia shore, they went over to make a morning call on the natives, who repaid it in the evening, doubtless each time receiving freely from the white men's bounty.

The next day was Sunday, and the travelers remained in camp, Jones recording in his journal that he, quote, instructed what Indians came over, unquote.

Chapter 11 of A Floot on the Ohio An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff From Redstone to Cairo This is a LibriVox recording.

All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Bill Moseley A Floot on the Ohio By Reuben Gold Thwaites Chapter 11 Battle of Point Pleasant The Story of Gallipolis Rosebud Huntington The Genesis of a Houseboater Near Glenwood, West Virginia, Thursday, May 17th By eight o'clock this morning we were in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, at the mouth of the Great Kanawha River, 263 miles.

Sailoron was here the 18th of August, 1749, and on the east bank of the river, the site of the present village, buried at the foot of an elm one of his leaden plates asserting the claim of France to the Ohio Basin.

And now we have the story of the Mothman.

In 1966, Point Pleasant was a small town with just a few thousand residents located at the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers.

In November of that year, the town experienced a disturbance caused by an unidentified being.

Gravediggers at a cemetery in Clendenin, West Virginia, about 80 miles from Point Pleasant, claimed to have seen a man with wings flying over their heads and taking off from a nearby tree.

And now we have the story of the Mothman.

In 1966, Point Pleasant was a small town with just a few thousand residents located at the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers.

In November of that year, the town experienced a disturbance caused by an unidentified being.

Gravediggers at a cemetery in Clendenin, West Virginia, about 80 miles from Point Pleasant, claimed to have seen a man with wings flying over their heads and taking off from a nearby tree.

Now we have the story of the Mothman.

In 1966, Point Pleasant was a small town with just a few thousand residents located at the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers.

In November of that year, the town experienced a disturbance caused by an unidentified being.

Grave diggers at a cemetery in Clendenin, West Virginia, about 80 miles from Point Pleasant, claimed to have seen a man with wings flying over their heads and taking off from a nearby tree.

You do not drink it.

And children are literally starting school this year without sufficient clothing because we spent a million dollars on an America 250 celebration down by the Kanawha River.

And all the money dried up for the clothing voucher program.

So that poor kids wouldn't have to go to school looking like poor kids.

But I like to think that I have had a share in changing conditions for them and for their children.

The United Mine Workers had tried to organize Kelly Creek on the Kanawha River, but without results.

Mr. Burke and Tom Lewis, members of the board of the United Mine Workers, decided to go look the field over for themselves.

They took the train one night for Kelly Creek.

When I heard of the coal company's efforts to kill the union officers, I decided myself to go to Kelly Creek and rouse those slaves.

I took a 19-year-old boy, Ben Davis, with me.

We walked on the east bank of the Kanawha River on which Kelly Creek is situated.

Before daylight one morning, at a point opposite Kelly Creek, we forded the river.